MARCH MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
THURSDAY, MARCH 9^TH 7:00 PM
STOCKTON SAILING CLUB
4980 BUCKLEY COVE
STOCKTON, CA  

QST QST QST… The March meeting of the Stockton-Delta Amateur Radio Club will

be held at the Stockton Sailing Club Auditorium, 4980 Buckley Cove Rd in Stockton. The Sailing Club is located at the west end of March Lane, west of Interstate

5 on the left-hand side of the road just before you enter Buckley Cove Park.

All members are strongly encouraged to attend. This is our last meeting before STEAMFest at Lincoln High School on Saturday, March 25^th.  It's important that we are ready to present Amateur Radio to these kids.  

STEAMFest is all about Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. Our club has been a presenter since the first one in 2018. We are planning 4 or 5 exhibits - Hi Altitude Balloons, Amateur Television, WinLink Messages, Morse Code and HF/VHF Operating. 

See more about STEAMFest here and in the club newsletter. 

The meeting training program will be on POTAs or Parks On The Air and how you can get involved in this HF fun! This is being presented by Jim K7LTZ who is coming to the meeting while traveling and activating POTAs

So… grab your spouse, significant other or just that friend tand we'll see you at the meeting! 

ALSO AVAILABLE ON ZOOM IF YOU CANNOT ATTEND IN PERSON

Zoom Meeting Information:

Topic: W6SF MONTHLY CLUB MEETING ON ZOOM

Time: March 9^th, 2023 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8715741939?pwd=alRiTFhydFNtMlBQZXAwOUd2YTN1UT09

Meeting ID: 871 574 1939

Passcode: 147165

One tap mobile

+16699009128,,8715741939#,,,,*147165# US

This year’s Expo will take place on the campus of Lincoln High School on March 25, 2023 from 10:00 am-2:00 pm. Our students are collaborating with their school district, which has 12 schools under the Lincoln Unified School District umbrella with over 9100 students.

The Stockton-Delta Amateur Radio Club has been invited back to this event every year. Kids still think radio is cool so let's get ready to wow some into getting their Amateur Radio License. 

We will be in the gym again this year with access to the back parking lot to facilitate setting up antennas and for access from the MDARC TV Truck. We are looking to demonstrate APRS with Dave WB6TOU's Hi Altitude Balloon launch, Morse Code with Bob K6DGQ, SDRs with Mark W6SXA, WinLink, HF and VHF Operating with Bob N6TCE, John NZ6Q, Annie N6ACL, Joyce K6QBQ. And let's not forget our youth ambassadors Colin K6CMM and Shane K5SML. 

This event will focus on all things Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math related to bring awareness to students, schools, parents and the 40,000+ citizens that live within the school district  boundaries.

All donations will help sponsor the event, pay for utility usage, marketing and promotional activities, such as t-shirts, prizes and giveaways. Donations will also help fund concierge services for exhibitors and volunteers, including food and beverages, lanyards and name tags.

Donors' names will be proudly displayed on our programs which will be distributed to each participant who attends the event and will be printed on our banners as well. These banners will be prominently displayed at the entrance of our event. 

If you would like to donate, you can contact World of Steam through their Facebook page. 

BRONZE LEVEL:        $100 and up

SILVER LEVEL:           $250 and up

GOLD LEVEL:              $500 and up

PLATINUM LEVEL:      $1000 and up 

Set aside SATURDAY MARCH 25th from 8AM (for set-up) to 2PM all day, 1 hour, 2 hours or more and let's give the kids and parents something to talk about and motivate them to get on board with ham radio! 

Check the Event Signup page for a registration form.  Come out and help us make this a success!

JAN 1 – DEC 31, 2023

2023 will be celebrated by ARRL as “The Year of the Volunteer.” More information will be available throughout the year as the details are confirmed. However, the first adventure has been announced as a project called “Volunteers On The Air (VOTA).” Here we get ‘points’ for each contact made with another ARRL volunteer. So, if two ARRL members contact each other, they will each receive a point for that QSO. No special codes, sequence numbers, or section information needs to be passed. Make contact with a fellow ARRL member, and you each receive a point. Each of you must upload the contact to the Logbook of The World (LoTW), and your points are calculated when the QSO is matched. This could be an FT8 contact, a CW contact, a simplex 2M FM contact, an RTTY contact, or an SSB rag-chew.

To add more interest to the year-long operating event and help demonstrate the ARRL volunteers’ value, each level of volunteer activity has been assigned a point level, shown in the table at http://vota.arrl.org For example, if you make a contact with John NZ6Q, the San Joaquin Valley Section Manager, you’ll get 175 points for that one contact. So, I’ll need to up my HF game to handle all the pile-ups coming my way in 2023. Maybe I need that 160M inverted L and another HF rig ! I’m hoping you will be able to get some certificates, or wallpaper, for your efforts.

More details on this are at http://vota.arrl.org and in the January 2023 issue of QST. So, get your gear running, make sure your LoTW connection is working, and see you on the air!!!

VOTA Program Rules

I’m sure these rules may be extended or revised, so please check http://vota.arrl.org for updates.

• This starts January 1, 2023, at 0000Z.
• This ends December 31, 2023, at 2359Z.
• You must be an ARRL member. You can join or renew at https://arrl.org/join/
• All QSOs must be uploaded to the ARRL QSO matching system, Logbook of The World (LoTW).
• No repeater contacts are allowed.
• Contacts can be made on any band (except 12 M, 17 M, and 30 M).
• Contacts can be made on any legal mode of operation.
• You receive ‘points’ based on the volunteer level of the ARRL member you contact. Points range from 1 point for an ARRL member to 300 points for Rick Roderick K5UR.
• The point levels are listed at http://vota.arrl.org (Your favorite Section Managers are worth 175 points.)
• Each QSO will get only one point value. For example, someone who is a member, a life member, and an Assistant Section Manager will be worth the value of the highest role, 35 points for the ASM role.

Logbook of The World (LoTW)

All the reporting for this VOTA effort will be handled automatically by the ARRL Logbook of The World (LoTD) QSO matching system. If you already log your QSOs from your favorite logging software and it uploads them to LoTW, you will automatically be enrolled in the project. Your QSOs will be verified normally, and the callsigns of the people you work will be searched to find the appropriate points (table shown at http://vota.arrl.org ) that you receive for each QSO.

But, if you aren’t set up to use LoTW, now is the time to set it up. The LoTW quick-start page is a great place to start, and the “What is LoTW Document” explains the whole process. You must authenticate yourself with the system by receiving a postcard mailed to your FCC-registered address. You’ll run a program called TSQL that is used by your logging program, N3FJP, N1MM, DX Lab Suite, or something else to authenticate and upload to LoTW. You can start the setup process now, and you’ll be ready in a few days. Hold your logs until you get LoTW set up, and you can upload them when you get it all sorted.

If you need help setting up your LoTW account, watch some YouTube videos, contact your Elmer, or local club. If that fails, email me at nz6q@arrl.org, and I’ll find someone to help you.

W1AW Remote Operations

As a part of the Year of the Volunteer celebration, the mystical callsign W1AW will be traveling to the corners of ARRL-land. ARRL members in each state/territory will be asked to operate their stations for two different weeks using the callsign W1AW/x where x is one of the local regions: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, KL, KH0, KH2, KH6, KH7, KH8, KP2, KP3, or KP4. For example, California’s first week starts Feb 15 2023, at 0000z and will run through January 31, 2023, at 2359z, using the callsign W1AW/6. Each state will coordinate the time/band/mode slots throughout the week and hams will be able to operate their

Each state W1AW coordinator will make a schedule to optimize the on-air time for those interested in running the callsign. Contact John NZ6Q if you would like to be W1AW/6 between February 15^th and the 21^st nz6q@arrl.net

This is a great opportunity to get on the air and have some fun, maybe earn a W1AW Worked-All-States Certificate, talk to the President of the ARRL (I did during the Centennial QSO Party in 2014), meet a bunch of new people and learn more about the hobby while you’re doing it.

  HAM UNIVERSITY - "HAM-U SESSION 2"
NEW HAM - EXPERIENCED HAM 
TRAINING CLASS

WE ARE LOOKING TO BRING BACK HAM-U IN APRIL 2023

This is a FREE program that every ham – from beginner to Extra Class can benefit.  

The term "Elmer" means someone who provides personal guidance and assistance to would-be hams. The term first appeared in QST in a March 1971 "How's DX" column by Rod Newkirk, W9BRD (now also VA3ZBB). Newkirk called them "the unsung fathers of Amateur Radio."

Stockton-Delta Amateur Radio Club, the Manteca Amateur Radio Club and the Lodi Amateur Radio Club have come together to help teach new hams how to get started and offer this "personal guidance". 

These sessions are an opportunity for the new ham to learn and discover some of the many opportunities there are in Amateur Radio to "find your world" and give any ham just the chance to ask questions and get on the air. 

The session 2 class is structured with more content and more hands-on presentations.  There will be six 50-minute "classroom" sessions in the morning running in 2 tracks; lunch for an hour with "mini presentations", then two 50-minute break-out sessions in the afternoon. Classroom sessions include: Setting up and operating an HF station, How to Learn CW - Morse Code, digital modes - FT8, DMR, Packet and WinLink; your Radio Club Membership, Programming and using your programmable radios, Anderson Power poles, building simple antennas, Radiosport (contesting & chasing DX), Satellite operations - and opportunities to ask questions of experienced ham operators in an open forum.    

SIGN UP FOR ELMERING SESSIONS HERE. 

CHECK OUT OUR OWN BOB KM6ONS AND KYLE K6KDD ON GOOD DAY SACRAMENTO

AUGUST 28, 2018