12/05/2025
St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club
The SPARC meeting program will demonstrate the most useful measurement modes including SWR, Resonance, Antenna Tuning, Coax loss and others uses. We’ll have the popular MFJ analyzer for the demo. If you have another brand that has other interesting features, bring it along.
Join us at our new meeting place, 5th Ave Baptist Church in St Pete, 7:30 PM.. See directions elsewhere on this web site.
The November meeting at SPARC’s new meeting place (Hobson Fellowship Hall at the Fifth Ave Baptist Church) was attended by over 40 members and guests. Billy, KN4LUZ captured the presentation on video and took a number of still photos. These have been posted on the Resource Page. Check out the pictures from the meeting, you will see a lot of familiar faces.
The presentation and QSO video clip has been posted on SPARC-club.org, resource page. Check the presentation file for the links that were discussed during the presentation. The sample QSO demo is also there.
Thanks to efforts by Rich AA2MF, we will again expand our collective culinary diversity at our annual After the Holidays Party. We’ll be dining Italian at the Brooklyn Pizza company located at 10785 Park Blvd in Seminole. The festivities will start at 3:00PM on Sunday, January 13, 2019. Members will order off the menu, and are responsible for their own bill. Rumor has it that Santa may stop by on his way to his timeshare on St. Pete Beach. Dress is casual. For those foodies that would like to study the menu in advance, click here for a link to the Brooklyn Pizza web site.
FT8 will be presented at the Nov 2 SPARC meeting. We’ll cover what it is, why it was created, what it’s used for and how to use/operate FT8.
The picture is an example of FT8 software, available for Free. FT8 has captured a large portion of the data/digital modes being used today on HF. There is always someone on FT8 on some band some where. FT8 is a development based on earlier generations of WSJT modes such as JT-65 and JT-9.
FT-8 is now being used for DXpeditions (VP6D, Ducie Isl. on right now) and in the future for contesting. Mark your calendars for Friday night, 7:30 PM, Nov 2 with SPARC’s new meeting place located at:
Hobson Fellowship Hall at the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. The church is located on the northwest corner of 5th Avenue North and 49th Street in St. Petersburg. Please park in the large lot at the rear of the church, which is accessible from 6th Avenue North. Enter through the doors labeled “Hobson Fellowship Hall.” SPARC will no longer be meeting at DMI Research.
Starting on November 2nd (with the exception of this December’s meeting) the SPARC monthly meetings will be held the first Friday of every month in Hobson Fellowship Hall at the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. The church is located on the northwest corner of 5th Avenue North and 49th Street in St. Petersburg. Please park in the large lot at the rear of the church, which is accessible from 6th Avenue North. Enter through the doors labeled “Hobson Fellowship Hall.”
Our thanks to Johnnie W4TSP and the leadership of the church for making this meeting space available to us. Please note that there is no smoking on church grounds and that handicap parking is enforced 24/7.
This year our “December” meeting will be held on November 30th, as the hall has been reserved for a church function the first Friday in December. Come 2019, we will again be meeting on the first Friday of the month in Hobson Hall.
Please pass this information on to all interested parties.