Author: Admin

 

I did it. Daren did it. Don did it. 
You should do it too! 
Free money for our club! Read on...

I successfully switched my charity on Amazon today to SPARK.
This means that every purchase I make on Amazon donates .5% of my purchase prices to the club. Doesn’t sound like much but when enough people do it, it could be significant. Get your family, friends and everyone at work to do it and the club could get a couple hundred dollars a year of free money with almost no effort!

Instead of shopping at www.amazon.com, log in to smile.amazon.com. Once you set your charity to Sedalia Pettis Amateur Radio Klub,  all purchases that you make donate directly to SPARK. Takes all of 30 seconds to set up.

The smile website is identical to the www one, including prices.

 

"Dear AmazonSmile customer,

Thanks for visiting AmazonSmile! 
Per your request, we have successfully changed the 
AmazonSmile charity you are supporting to Sedalia 
Pettis Amateur Radio Klub.

Remember, if you want AmazonSmile to donate to 
Sedalia Pettis Amateur Radio Klub, you need to 
start each shopping session at the URL 
smile.amazon.com or with AmazonSmile turned ON 
in the Amazon Shopping app, and we will donate 
0.5% of the price of your eligible purchases.

Visit Your AmazonSmile Impact to see donation 
information and learn more about your charity.

AmazonSmile: You shop. Amazon gives.
smile.amazon.com"

 

This was overheard on the 147.03 repeater Saturday evening. The recording is from 6:42 – 7:12pm (silent periods are removed).

I don’t know if this is legitimate repeater use or not, I don’t speak Spanish, but at times I heard numbers which I guess could be part of a call sign. However, I also heard curse words which leads me to think this was unauthorized use.

If any of you speak Spanish well enough to translate, or know someone who can, give it a listen and email admin@wa0sdo.org and I will post your findings.

There are more times this was heard on Saturday afternoon. Anyone with a premium Broadcastify account can search the archives and listen to more of it.

Continue reading “Mystery Comms”

SPARK now has a link to pay online with Paypal!

In the right-hand column at the bottom of our homepage is a link to our club’s PayPal account. Pay your membership dues or make a donation easily!

 

[pdf-embedder url=”https://wa0sdo.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/hamfest.pdf”]

There was some discussion today during the club meeting about interference on the 6m repeater that sounds like an idling diesel engine and I investigated. I found the problem to possibly be from a pager transmitter that could be in the same building, or possibly even on the same antenna as the 6 meter repeater or somewhere nearby.

Anyone wanting to help me confirm this can tune to 152.03 MHz to see if this is the same sound they are hearing.

Anyone wanting to discuss this, email me, my call at gmail dot com.

73, Chris – KC0TKS

Several people at the club meeting Saturday asked me about the $55 antenna analyzer (Vector Network Analyzer) I mentioned. Here are the details for all interested.

Go to Amazon.com and search for Nano VNA.

Chris – KC0TKS

Steve Semon, KEØCYW was presented with a plaque and a lifetime membership to the Sedalia Pettis Amateur Radio Klub  during the club meeting on August 29, 2020 .

The inscription on the plaque reads  “In recognition of the many years of service,  generous contributions and dedication to amateur radio in the Sedalia- Pettis County area”

Thank you Steve and congratulations!

Also, at the same meeting, Steve De Moss, WAØWUY was awarded a lifetime membership for his many decades of participation and contributions to the club including the equipment for the repeater streaming project.

Congratulations to you also!

Phase two of the repeater streaming project is currently in operation. Phase two is the addition of the WBØLRX 224.44 repeater to our stream. Thanks to Jeff for letting us do that. It and the 2 meter repeater share stream number one, using the radio that Steve, WAØWUY donated, the tri-band Baofeng, that will simultaneously monitor 2m and 220.

Phase three will be forthcoming, placing the 6 meter repeater on a second stream using a radio donated by John, NØEE. This will take me some additional time since it involves fairly complex configuration of the Raspberry Pi to stream two audio sources at the same time, as well as adding to the tangled mess of wires and antennas.

Listen to the live streams on Broadcastify.com or use the Broadcastify app on your phone.

I will post photos of the completed setup after phase 3 is complete.

73,
Chris – KCØTKS

The SPARK 2 meter repeater is now up for a live streaming test. It will only be up for a short time. The streamer at this point is nothing but a tangled mess of wires on the workbench, but it appears to work.

In the next few days, it will be cleaned up into its final configuration.
Things to remember:
1. This is only a preliminary test. The feed may be up and down sporadically for several days.
2. The feed is delayed from live by 15 seconds to as much as 2 minutes.

Give a listen at broadcastify.com on your computer, or install the official broadcastify app on your cell phone. Search for Missouri | Pettis County.

73, Chris – KC0TKS