The Holidays are coming, and as always they seem to arrive before we’re ready.  Where did the year go?  To get into the Holiday Spirit, at least in the secular sense of that term, The Aarons (K6ABJ and W1ATB) have been sitting down with Santa and the Elves to create the ultimate 2026 Holiday Gift Guide for Hams.  Over the past year, manufacturers and software companies have brought a number of new products to market, joining an already broad array of must-haves.  Some will fit nicely in a stocking, some on the work bench, some swing from a wrist strap, and some sit on a tower.  The choices seem endless.  Hopefully their guidance can be of some help in your Holiday shopping!

In addition, Jim WA8MPA will be hosting another of his legendary “Show and Tell” tables, with a number of select “Stocking Stuffers” in the $10 to $200 range.  Come to the meeting and get started early!

For the October meeting presentation, Scott KM6RFB will share his personal journey along the path to becoming an AUX-C — a certified Auxiliary Communicator. For those of us in amateur radio, we know how powerful our hobby can be, but this certification takes that passion and transforms it into a vital, formal asset for emergency management. This training is the on-ramp for Amateur Radio Emergency Communicators to become recognized by Public Safety agencies by having achieved this level of credentialing. This is done through classroom training and PTB Position Task Books and peer review.

Winlink E-Mail over MERCURY – Welcome to Free/Open OFDM Modes!

Coming up at the September meeting, Craig KM6LYW will be joining us to talk about Mercury, a new way to do high-speed digital communication via radio.

The guys at Rhizomatica just made a better VARA than VARA. Unlike VARA, it’s free, open-source, runs on Linux and Raspberry Pi. While not directly compatible with the proprietary VARA audio encoding, it does use the same API so existing VARA-HF clients (Pat, Winlink Express) can immediately leverage this exiting new HF radio transport!

Both VARA and MERCURY leverage “Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing” which is the foundation for modern/commercial RF transports, including WIFI. That’s how we get our speed and reliability. MERCURY includes “gear shifting” dynamically adapting to conditions and fading SNR.

Craig will discuss some of the interesting aspects of this new mode and hopefully send an email via Nevada using an experimental MERCURY Winlink email station (KO0OOO).

For the August 2026 General Meeting, Mark W6MWK and Smitty WB1G will be giving a wrap-up presentation on last month’s ARRL Field Day event. By all reports the event was a lot of fun, but how’d we do?

Following the Field Day presentation, Smitty WB1G will give an interactive talk about eSSB, an experimental voice mode that is actually NOT illegal! (Good news, right?)

Finally, a reminder that anyone who worked any stations during Field Day from a location other than the club’s FD event can submit their score and include their points in the club’s aggregate score. Just go to https://field-day.arrl.org/fdentry.php and follow the instructions. Be sure to designate “Sierra Foothills ARC” in the “Club or Group Name” field. Even a single contact helps the bottom line! (And, no this is not a solicitation if you’re already doing the same for another club.) Entries are due by 7/28!