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Posted on June 4, 2021 by Rich

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Coming Events:

Field Day is coming–June 26 & 27. Seattle ACS, with whom we are collaborating for Field Day (along with West Seattle ARC), are hosting a Field Day Prep Session on Tuesday, June 22nd, at 19:00. The Zoom link is Field Day Prep Session. For those who can’t attend, the slides are available here: ACS Field Day slides.

Rain or Shine Net–June 27 at 9 am. Details below.

The PSRG QSO Party–beginning on June 1st, 0000 PDT, and ending on June 30th, 2359 PDT.  Details below.

July Educational Meeting–July 10 at 1:30 PM. Details to follow.

PSRG Summer Picnic 2021!  Sunday July 25th at Magnolia Park. Details below.

August Board Meeting–August 14 at 1:30 PM. Details have yet to be determined.

This Website’s Menu is undergoing some reorganization. Temporarily, you may have a harder time finding items, but the revisions should be complete soon.

Board Policy on Site Accessibility–We can use your help! Although we are currently reviewing the site to make it as accessible as possible, it is difficult for those without a particular limitation to anticipate all of the possible problems users might have in accessing parts of the site. You will see some changes over the coming weeks aimed at ensuring that all our users can access the content, but if you notice something that could be an obstacle, please let us know. Contact webmaster@psrg.org.

Board Policy on Gatherings: In light of the uncertainty about when large group gatherings will be safe again, it is not a good use of volunteer time to plan for our normal events. Board Meetings and Educational Meetings will be held online until further notice.

Educational Programs Materials–The website has a new page (and menu item at the top of this home page) for educational material. Links to recordings of presentations or slide sets will be available.

Got photos of PSRG events? Contact K7RCH@PSRG.ORG.

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Rain or Shine Net, Season 3 Episode # 5 is Sunday June 27th!

Posted on June 21, 2021 by Rich

Jack (KI7RMU) will be transmitting from Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill starting at 9 AM. Drop on by for a doughnut, coffee, lively conversation with fellow hams and of course CHECK INTO THE NET! Kami (KJ7RAB) will be doing the Noon Net from the park too. (It’s also Field Day so we’ll be operating an HF station.)

Installing Isamu Noguchi’s Black Sun, 1969

Look for Jack in the open field to the right of the Black Sun sculpture.

 

 

 

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PSRG Summer Picnic 2021!

Posted on May 31, 2021 by Rich

The annual picnic is back and we’re so excited to be able to host this fantastic event again. Save the date, Sunday July 25th at Magnolia Park. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you in person. Standby for more details as they develop.

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PSRG QSO Party!

Posted on May 10, 2021 by Rich

Coming soon to a frequency near you!

The PSRG QSO Party is a month-long event to encourage contact between members of the Puget Sound Repeater Group outside of nets and without the use of the repeater, thereby practicing and promoting the radio art and building our community.

The PSRG QSO Party will begin on June 1st, 0000 PDT, and end on June 30th, 2359 PDT. 

The top five stations will each receive a gift card, courtesy of the PSRG ! Keep an eye on the contest website for a leaderboard.

Details and rules can be found here: PSRG QSO Party This event is meant to be fun, but please read the rules carefully and contact Quentin, K7DRQ if you have any questions.

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Send Us Your Photos!

Posted on April 14, 2021 by Rich

We have added a Photo Gallery page to the website. We are seeking photos of PSRG events beginning with 2018 Field Day, especially the Annual Dinner, Annual Meeting and 2018 Picnic. If you have photos to submit, email them K7RAG@psrg.org. (Note, if you have trouble sending them, email Rich for help.)

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Comm Academy

Posted on April 12, 2021 by Rich

Comm Academy, An emergency communications & amateur radio conference was held on April 10-11, 2021. Presentations are available in their archives. Information is available at the updated  website Comm Academy.

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PSRG January Educational Meeting: Wireless sensing at insect-scale

Posted on December 20, 2020 by Rich

Updated: The next PSRG Educational Meeting is scheduled for Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 1:30 PM. The meeting will be on Zoom.

This should be fascinating! The speaker will be Vikram Iyer, a final year PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington. Vikram builds end-to-end wireless systems that push the boundaries of what is possible with particular focus on power, size, and weight. Enabling mobility for small wireless devices is challenging, but this is an area where nature excels. While man-made robots at these sizes are fundamentally limited by battery energy density, small insects like bees can fly for hours. This talk presents his recent work on bio-integrative systems that seek to piggyback on the capabilities of live insects for mobility. This includes Living IoT, a first of its kind platform to include sensing, computation, backscatter communication, and localization in a package small enough to fly on the back of a live bumblebee. He will also discuss how we (meaning people smarter than the average ham) can design more complex sensing systems like wireless cameras that are still small enough to be carried by a live beetle, and how these technologies can be adapted to track invasive “murder” hornets.

Vikram has worked closely with the Washington Department of Agriculture to help track and eradicate Asian giant hornets. Vikram’s work has been recognized by a Microsoft Research Fellowship, best paper awards, and a Marconi Society Young Scholar award.

This meeting was recording and can be viewed here: January 2021 Educational Meeting.

 

 

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Volunteers Wanted for 6m Repeater

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Rich

PSRG is adding a 6m repeater to the stable! Are you interested in helping out with some technical projects ? This is a call for volunteers looking to get into some repeater building work! We provide parts and mentoring.

  1. We need an air-cooling system for the new 6m repeater, that will trigger when the transmitter’s PTT is pushed and stops maybe 30s after the PTT is dropped. Great project for an Arduino or similar.
  2. The 6m repeater will be set up much like our 2m system, so we need someone interested in setting up the Raspberry Pis that will act as the Allstar nodes.
  3. Finally, we need to be able to remotely control the repeater — power cycling, shutting down the transmitter, etc.. This is also an RPi project.

If you’re interested in helping out and learning a little about repeater systems, contact Quenton Caudron and he’ll connect you to the right person.

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PSRG November Educational Meeting: Repeaters, WWARA and the Future

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Rich

The November PSRG Educational Meeting, Repeaters, WWARA and the Future was recorded and is now available: November 2020 Educational Meeting.

The amateur repeater landscape is currently undergoing a significant change and it has been happening for the last 10 years. The WWARA is the repeater coordination body for western Washington and has identified trends, which mirror what happened in the commercial space, with a slow transition from traditional ‘wide band’ analog FM repeaters to digital and narrow band repeaters. This talk will provide some background on the how and why repeater coordination happens, the role the WWARA plays and provide some insight into the coming narrowband transition. The goal is to educate the repeater users and owners in western Washington and collect some feedback on how hams would like to shape this transition.

The speaker was Kenny Richards, KU7M. Kenny is the Secretary of WWARA, the frequency coordination body for Western Washington.

 

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PSRG September Educational Meeting: Build that rig!

Posted on August 26, 2020 by Rich

Update: The September PSRG Educational Meeting, Build that rig ! An exploration of home-built radios through the ages, with speakers Tim, WT1IM, and Quentin, K7DRQ was recorded. The session can be viewed here: September Educational Meeting

 

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