The Salt Lake County ARES has published their new "Standard Load" of radio frequencies. This is a standardized set of frequencies assigned to specific radio memory locations with the intention of reducing confusion when operating in support of a SLCo ARES incident.
The Standard Load includes a section for local club use, and MARC has identified a set of frequencies that are typically used in our club. This modified Standard Load (including MARC frequencies) is now available. SLCo ARES Standard Load Mar 2021_MARC
The Standard Load also includes a section for individual frequencies.... You should create your own files of frequencies to load into your radios that include your own preferred frequencies in this section.
As they become available, versions of the Standard Load for Chirp, RT Systems, and a DMR Codeplug will be posted as well.
On our Monthly Meeting Zoom for February, we checked out WebSDR and particularly the Utah SDR site. You can check out where the site is located on Google Maps.
Main Antenna at Utah SDR site. (Picture from Google Street Maps)
WebSDR is a Software Defined Radio receiver hooked up to a web server so that anyone can access it over the Internet. We talked a little about the history of the Utah SDR site and then checked out some of the receivers on the site and tried listening in to some transmissions on various bands.
We tuned in to the .62 repeater and experimented with making a few test transmissions to hear what the received audio sounded like.
Finally, we looked at a couple of other sites, including the one at Half Moon Bay in California and did some comparisons between received signals in California vs. Utah.
The general consensus was that the WebSDR systems were great resources to experiment with HF listening and getting familiar with what HF sounds like, as well as to test and evaluate our own transmissions, reception, and propagation. They can also be used as an auxiliary receiver in the shack to help us out when wanting to monitor multiple frequencies at the same time.
This evening we tuned in to the Ham Radio 2.0 presentation from the Hurst Amateur Radio Club as they started their General Class License Course. Due to the recent FCC announcement that they will be charging $35 for all license modifications, renewals, upgrades, and vanity allocations, I am recommending that people interested in upgrading to General Class from Technician get their upgrade as soon as possible. We have had several sessions in our club around the General Class test and license requirements.
Jason (KC5HWB) at Ham Radio 2.0 has broken the course up into nine sessions, which are available at the following playlist:
While we probably will NOT be watching additional sessions as part of our normal club meetings, I highly recommend following along with this series to prepare for taking the General Class exam.
In conjunction with following this series, remember to take advantage of https://hamstudy.org/, which is run by a local (well, semi-local, he lives in Utah County... but we won't hold that against him) ham, Richard (KD7BBC). This amazing (and free) resource offers free practice exams and uses a learning algorithm to help you review questions you have been having trouble with. Richard also owns and operates Signal Stuff, and produces excellent whip antennas for HTs (I have a couple of them myself).
HamStudy also has links and information for where and when to test. There are still groups doing on-site/in person testing (including our neighbors, the Taylorsville Amateur Radio Club), even in the time of covid, and if you are nervous about that you can take advantage of options for fully remote testing (note that there are significant requirements for this, including having TWO web cams to record not only your face/head and shoulders, but also your desk area, hands, keyboard, mouse, any scratch paper you are using, etc.).
In our first Thursday Basic Topics meeting for February, we watched the Ham Radio University's presentation entitled The Art of Operating Amateur Satellites with an HT.
Here are the links that were mentioned during the presentation:
