The Placer County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) consists of licensed amateurs who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment for communications duty in the public service when disaster strikes.
The Placer County ARES net is on the 3rd Sunday of the month, starting at 1930 (7:30 PM) PT on the W6EK 2M Repeater.
Everyone is invited to check-in. You do not need to be an SFARC member to participate.
On the fifth Wednesday night in April (4/30/2025 @ 7:30 PM), Craig (KM6LYW) will give the club an update on the DigiPi, an operating system for the Raspberry Pi that makes amateur radio digital modes easily accessible through a web browser. Rather than carry a separate computer to operate modes such as FT8, RTTY, APRS, and WinLink, DigiPi allows you to do all that and more through your phone.
Craig will give a brief introduction to the platform and demonstrate the many useful features it provides to your digital ham radio operations. He will also go into further details like what it takes to build your own device and how it can be interfaced to various models of amateur transceiver equipment.
Welcome to April! What’s coming up next is no joke, because Hot RF Nights, our annual ham radio themed car show, will take place in May! That’s right, on May 17 amateur radio operators and emergency communications personnel from all over the area will spend an afternoon checking out each others’ setups, exchanging ideas, learning a thing or two, all while enjoying great food and social time. Whether it’s you car, truck, van, or RV, bring it by so we can all admire your work and get inspired to take radio out into the field. No mobile install? No problem, because go kits big or small have stories to tell! Whatever it is you’ve got, come show it off and be a part of the action. Need something to get you in gear? SFARC will be there to strut our newest rigs, just in time for Field Day in June!
Closer than all that is the club VE session on the 7th, a club meeting on the 11th, and our monthly breakfast and radio direction finding exercise on the 26th. We’re not quite through with events after that, because this month we’ve got a special special session on the evening of the 30th with Craig (KM6LYW), developer of the DigiPi, a complete ham radio digital interface built around the Raspberry Pi. Operate APRS, WinLink, FT8, RTTY, and a whole lot more with one ultraportable device that integrates neatly into your existing station. This is one event you won’t want to miss, and even if you’re a seasoned DigiPi user there’s always an opportunity to learn about how others are using theirs and show all the cool things you’ve done with yours!
Hope to see you around, whether it’s in person on online!
Jim Zheng (W6JCZ)
SFARC Vice President
Website: www.w6ek.org
Groups.io: groupsio.w6ek.org
Social:
facebook.w6ek.or
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73,
The Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club (W6EK)
(530) 492-0920
Website: www.w6ek.org
Group.io: groupsio.w6ek.org
Social:
facebook.w6ek.org
twitter.w6ek.org
linkedIn.w6ek.org
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youtube.w6ek.org
River City ARC has invited SFARC to their encore series of mentoring sessions on HF operation.
The sessions are scheduled for:
Location: Congregation Beth Shalom, 4746 El Camino Ave, Carmichael, CA 95608
hotrfnights_04122025_presentation.pdf