page_potluckpicnic

Fall Picnic in the Park (Page)

The Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club invites you to our annual Fall Potluck in the Park, where the only thing better than a clear signal is good food and even better company. Bring a dish to share, pull up a chair, and swap your best stories from the airwaves. Maybe it’s that impossible DX contact, the antenna project that almost worked, or the field day that turned into legend. It’s a chance to put faces to callsigns, catch up with old radio friends, and make a few new ones under the crisp early-October sky with no propagation forecast required. Just show up, dig in, and enjoy an afternoon of fellowship, laughter, and the kind of ragchewing that never needs a repeater. 73 and good eats await.

CHECK OUT WHAT OTHERS ARE BRINGING AND SCROLL DOWN TO TELL US WHAT YOU’RE BRINGING!

Fall Potluck In The Park

📅 10-10-2026 4:00 PM
📍 Auburn Recreation Park, 123 Recreation Dr, Auburn, CA 95603

Fall Potluck

Open

7 signed up

NameCallsignHow many in your party are attending?What dish do you plan to bring to the potluck?
ThetaWA6EWF2Carrot Cake
KenNB6S2Chinese chicken salad
Brian & LinAI6US2Potato Salad
Ed GibsonKB6ED2Green Bean Casserole
JIM JUPINWA8MPA1Fruit Salad
Scott ReadKM6RFB1Pie (Apple)
Mark KoehlerW2MWK1Korean spicy pork BBQ 데 지 불 고 기 (dadji bulgogin)

Sign Up

WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN THE 2026 EVENT?

page_hotrfnights

Hot RF Nights (Page)

WHAT IS HOT RF NIGHTS?

Hot RF Nights is an annual SFARC event that promotes the use of Amateur Radio on the go and in emergencies. It’s a chance to show off mobile rig installs and go-kits, and to build fellowship among Northern California amateur radio operators and groups.

WHAT HAPPENED TO HOT RF NIGHTS?

SFARC decided this year to take a hard look at future Hot RF Nights (HRFN) events. Based on feedback from both the organizers and the participants last year, it was decided that the event had strayed far from its original objective, was not serving well the emergency services groups who attended, and had become, frankly, very volunteer-intensive and costly to plan and implement.

We took on the task of creating a new vision for Hot RF Nights and presented it to the SFARC Board earlier this month. I am pleased to announce that the Board accepted and embraced the new vision for HRFN. The Board also discussed whether there was time, under this new vision, to squeeze in an HRFN 2026 within the very busy remaining SFARC 2026 Calendar of Events. It was decided that there was not a viable opportunity to schedule, plan, and host HRFN 2026. Therefore, we are taking a break from HRFN this year, but it will be back in 2027.

So, what does this new vision for HRFN include?

  • Get back to the roots (original purpose) of HRFN.
  • Keep HRFN simple and solely focused on Amateur Radio.
  • The main participant focus for HRFN will be SFARC membership, but we will invite and welcome our neighboring amateur radio clubs.
  • HRFN is a celebration of ham mobile and field-based equipment creativity, design, and implementation.
  • HRFN will be scheduled in conjunction with a regularly scheduled SFARC second-Friday-of-the-month General Membership meeting, at the regular General Membership meeting location.
  • HRFN should be simple to plan and implement at a minimal cost, and exciting and fun to attend and participate in.
  • HRFN should be a no-cost event for participants to attend and participate in.

The next step is to get Hot RF Nights 2027 on the SFARC calendar for 2027. I am looking forward to it, and I have agreed to head up this event for the Club next year. There will not be a large need for volunteers, as in the past, but there will be a need for a few. If you are interested in joining the HRFN 2027 Team, please drop me a note. Your service will be most valued and appreciated.

73,
Greydon (KC6SLE)
Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club

page_pota

Parks on the Air (Page)

WHAT IS A POTA?

Parks on the Air® (POTA) started in early 2017 when the ARRL’s National Parks on the Air special event ended. A group of volunteers wanted to continue the fun beyond the one-year event, and thus, POTA was born.

The golden rules of POTA are to have fun and keep it simple.

General information about the program is available at parksontheair.com, so we highly recommend checking out the information there. You may also want to join the POTA Slack Channel or the POTA Facebook group, where you can easily interact with the POTA community online. POTA also maintains accounts on Twitter and Mastodon if you prefer to interact on those social media platforms.

Got an idea of a cool park we should consider?
Chime In and let us know!

More information about Parks on the Air can be found @ https://parksontheair.com/. While you’re there, create an account (It’s free) and get started.

page_campout_firerestrictions

Tahoe National Forest Fire Restrictions

Stage 2 fire restrictionsIn effect since August 14, 2026 | Forest Order #17-26-17 through 20 | Fire danger: High Eastside, Moderate WestsideCampfire allowedOnly in a fire ring or charcoal grill at a designated recreation site. Fires elsewhere, including dispersed camping, are prohibited. 25 sites are named in the order.DetailsStage 2

Checked 12 hours ago

page_lookingforward, widget_nextmeeting

September 2026 Presentation

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).

widget_wattsup

Watts Up This Week

We’ve got a few reminders this week and a notification about an upcoming special session.

BREAKFAST AND FOX HUNT: This Weekend (08/29/2026)
Breakfast is at Wings again this month. Bret (KB6LUV) will be leading our monthly Fox Hunt. The pre-meeting for the Fox Hunt will be in the Wings parking lot starting at 9:00 AM. In conversations with Bret, this promises to be an interesting and challenging Fox Hunt set up so don’t miss it!
Photo from July 2026 @ Wings

REMINDER: Campout Update
While the Bug and Hawk fire in Northern Nevada continue to be of concern, the campout is not in jeopardy at this time and is proceeding as normal. There is still a few weeks left before we lockdown RSVP’s so it’s not too late to join us. Check out campout.w6ek.org for more information.

REMINDER: 5th Wednesday Fun Is Back / SEPTEMBER 30TH FROM 6–8 PM!
Dust off your favorite QSL stories and join your fellow radio buddies for an evening of cold brews and good company at:
Knee Deep LogoKNEE DEEP BREWING COMPANY
13395 NEW AIRPORT ROAD,
SUITE H IN AUBURN (NEXT TO WINGS)
Banzito’s Tacos will have their food truck onsite for the perfect pairing!!!


SPECIAL MEETING: SFARC Budget Review Session / September 2nd, 6PM – 8PM
If you’d like to provide feedback about the SFARC 2027 operational budget, please join us on Zoom.

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 | instagram.w6ek.org | youtube.w6ek.org

0 Item | $0.00
View Cart
MENU