I think our friend Chuck said it best….

Bryon Baird ( KI6HQY ) – RIP fellow HAM, rest easy.

On Friday Nov 18 at approximately 2048 hrs in Perris, CA, Jonny and I were successful in catching the Driver. In summary, we negotiated a truce where the Driver agreed to stop jamming and we won’t release any personally identifiable information about him. As a result, The Driver will cease and desist. He will no longer jam ANY repeaters. Operation Cock Block completed without incident.

Any monies or equipment received from Henry’s Driver bounty will be used for the benefit of the repeater. We request that any details of the operation and methodologies only be shared in person and those details be left off the air.

I’d like to personally thank EVERYONE who provided me with some sort of telemetry or assistance over the last year even if it was just once. A special thank you to all the SPARC repeater owners for all your support. To everyone that helped, your willingness to take a moment to contribute made all the difference.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Blah Blah Blah

Hiya Hammies!

Finally got around to uploading some pics from the SPARCStock event.  You can view them here:  SPARCStock Pics

Plus you can always find them in the menu on the left hand side under “Pictures”.

Also, please feel free to shoot me an email KK6MJO if you’d like to have your pics taken down or if you’d like me to add any of your own that you might have from the event.

❤MJO

*** Bring a new toy or two and have lunch with us. ***

REMEMBER IT’S FOR THE KIDS!

The 2016 “Hams for Tots” event will be on Sunday December 11th. Our toys will be donated to CHOC (http://www.choc.org/). This year will be a gathering of the 435 and SPARC (446.640 MHz) repeater groups. Newbies and groupies welcome.

Update:   CHOC has a toy wish list posted here:
http://www.choc.org/programs-services/child-life/wish-list/#main-content

Sunday December 11th, 2016
11:00am – 1:00pm
Fronk’s restaurant
16922 Bellflower Blvd. Bellflower, CA 90706
http://www.fronksrestaurant.com/
Bring a new toy or two.

We’ve reserved the patio at Fronk’s. Brunch is available from 10am-2pm and there is a full lunch menu. There will be a standard 18% large group tip and they request 3+ people per tab.

Roger Denny W6ARK will take our collected toys to CHOC as he has done in the past.

PLEASE RSVP here or on our Facebook page so we can keep track of head count. If you prefer to donate cash or drop off a gift please let us know.

SPARCstock is almost here!

Come on out with us for our first official event “SPARCstock” at ROCstock in Lucerne Dry Lake Valley!  This event takes place over the weekend of November 12-13 2016. Along with tons of rocket launching ROCstock hosts free camping, free spectating and event toilet facilities!

Whether you camp with us or you’re swinging by for the day, join us for dinner on Saturday night where a few of the system owners, Dan AD6DL, Jonny KF6PHX and Rick N6POP will be preparing and grilling up a taco feast for all!  We will also be hosting quite a few very exciting raffles at SPARCstock, including a brand new in the box V71, A PHX Antenna, and many other high dollar / highly collectible items. 😛

** Announcement ** We will be giving out a FREE door prize for one lucky winner!  You must show up to SPARCstock and be at our camp to receive your FREE ticket to win one – brand new – in the box,  BTECH UV-5X3 Tri-band Radio !!

Please keep checking back as we will be updating this post with more details on the raffles within the next few days so that our out of state listeners can join in on the fun and get a chance to win as well!

Hope to see you all there!

KJ6YJR…COMING TO YOU LIVE FROM IRAQ VIA ECHOLINK!! ANDREW CHECKS IN REGULARLY AND WERE GLAD TO HAVE HIM IN THE SPARC GROUP. LOOK FORWARD TO WHEN YOU GET BACK DUDE!

A HUGE Congratulations goes to Bryan K6BRY and Rick N6POP for winning 1st place in last weekends Smoketember rib competition!

Come on down for some good food, good conversation, and friendly competition in the park

Join us, along with the K9KAO repeater system, at the 2nd ANNUAL Smoketember BBQ Smoke Out

 
Saturday September 10th

San Dimas Canyon Community Regional Park
1628 Sycamore Canyon Road
San Dimas, CA 91773

Do you have the best ribs in town? You can join the competition for $20.00 and show us what you’ve got! You’ll get two full racks of St. Louis style ribs to work your magic on, deadline for competition sign ups is September 3rd.

If you’re not into the whole smoking thing and just want to chow down on some amazing food, $10.00 will get you a plate where you’ll be able to taste the contestants ribs and indulge in some sides. Please feel free to bring your own favorite side dish for all to share!

Or you can just come hang out, meet your fellow hams, drink some beer and shoot the shit, we’d love to see you there!

8/14/16

7:30 am

Jon PHX, BB, Hart UCN, and Greg IUJ spoke with Chris KE6IZL who made contact with Santiago Peak from Lower Potosi Mountain in Nevada!!!

Equipment: Kenwood TMV71A @ 50 watts, 30 Amp Switching Power Supply, 17 element home brew PHX beam, 4′ tripod and 5′ metal mast, and 25′ of LMR400

Click pic to enlarge

Bryan BRY, BB, Jon PHX, and Hart UCN made contact with Don W6KLE on Santa Rosa Island

Skunk Point

Mark IRK, Gary HXK, and Dave HDX made contact with Richard N6DXN in Tejon Pass

Click pic to enlarge

The SPARC backup repeater on Box Springs Mountain is up and ready to go on standby!

Rick and Jonny ran up the hill on Friday to get it set up in what they thought would be a half a days work, but just like anything else in radio, there were quite a few unforseen issues that needed to be handled.  This project took nearly 2 days to finish.  Luckily, unlike the FLG….these guys know shit about building repeaters!

Here is the RTCM

Currently being setup and tested. This will help us be able to deploy micro repeaters in the future.

Just a quick heads up that I was able to get an Allstar node up and operational last night on my Kenwood TMV71a. It’s in local repeat mode to demonstrate its full duplex capability. It’s an R-Pi2 with a URIx and the interfacing is via the 6 pin DATA port on the back of the Kenwood. I’m running the older ACID distro that was ported for R-Pi2.  Next iteration will be on DIAL which has native Pi 2/3 support.  I still have to enable the port forwarding on my home router so that other Allstar nodes can connect. Setting the deviation levels were a piece of cake with the IFR 1200 service monitor and Allstar’s “e-pot” digital interface. Apparently Allstar accepts discriminator audio so it’s managing the audio levels and decoding the PL so you don’t have to worry about the volume or squelch levels on the radio. Freaking rad!  Shout out to Jim Dixon, WB6NIL, for the assist.  Nothing like having the guy that created Allstar as a friend to help out.  More later…

1. Don’t be stupid
2. Don’t attack one another
3. If you feel like breaking the rules take it off the air and talk it out like civil adults

So for those who care, this repeater is mixed-mode P25 phase 1 capable (C4FM/FDMA/IMBE). It’s not the primary use case but we encourage non-primetime digital use. If you have the wherewithal to figure out the encode NAC (hint: same as decode) then you’re welcome to come and talk to us!

Please use a unique Astro ID and set the premable to 80.  5Khz deviation.

-bb

N6POP made contact with KI6UCN in Chiriaco Summit, Californa

Click pic to enlarge

KF6PHX made contact with Gary, KE6HXK in Gorman, Californa

Click pic to enlarge

Almost done with the backup for Box Springs Mountain.  Rick and Jonny plan on going up by the end of next week for the install.

If fire breathing dragons break loose on Santiago peak you can rest assure that all your communications on this freq will remain.