Looking for a local location to take your amateur radio license or upgrade exam? Sierra Foothills VE Team provides in-person exam sessions on the 1st Monday evening of the month.
Scholarships are available for new hams, who are under 21 years old and enrolled in an 
education program. The scholarship reimburses the cost of your exam and provides a study guide for the next license level.
NEXT IN-PERSON DATE: 03/04/2024 @ 7 PM
Need more information before signing up? CLICK HERE
This Saturday we’re going to do a impromptu snow run for anyone interested. We will meet at Mar-Val’s grocery in Georgetown, Saturday (February 4) at 0800. We will head east on Wentworth Springs Road and see how far Paul (W2OHV) can go and how many of us need to be pulled out.
Bring lunch and a camp chair.
The Sierra Foothills ARC offers all levels of amateur radio license upgrade classes.
Course fees include the latest version of the applicable ARRL license manual shipped to your home and hands-on lab materials. FCC exam fees are not included. All classes are held online via a Zoom classroom. The class also includes two (2) in-person labs held in the Auburn, California, area. The first lab focuses on a license-appropriate Get On The Air (GOTA) skills session. In the second lab, we will explore building your very own antennas. Labs are not required.
The next class offered by SFARC will be the Amateur Radio Technician License class. This is the entry-level first in a series of classes. Classes will start April 25th, 2023, and run 6 weeks. Each class will be held Tuesday evenings from 19:00 – 21:00 PST via Zoom.
Our 2023 Class Calendar:
Ready to enroll in either of the upcoming Tech classes?
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Want to pre-enroll in the General class starting on August 8th, reserve your spot today.
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SFARC supports various non-profit organizations and events with radio support. If your organization has a need for radio support, or you’d like to volunteer to help with radio support at one of the events listed below, use the form below and contact us.
NAME | DATES | |
 | Western States 100 Training Runs | May 25-27, 2024 |
| | Western States 100 | June 29-30, 2024 |
 | Western States Tevis Cup 100 | July 20-21, 2024 |
It’s a new year and WE NEED YOUR HELP. If you’ve been thinking about how to get more involved with SFARC, now’s your chance. We’re looking for the following positions:
Interested in learning more about the roles, CLICK HERE to send us a message.
Being the Fox Tender is almost as much fun as finding the Fox!
As the club’s RDF abilities improve the creativity in where the Fox is hidden will likely become equally creative! If you have ideas on challenging the Fox Hunters then SIGN UP!
The club (Doug – W2VX) maintains several Foxes for Fox Tenders to use. The foxes are pre-programmed and ready to go with the exception of potentially needing new batteries. The available foxes include:
Doug (W2VX) has constructed a high power fox placed in an ammo can. Given the high power output (1-5 watts) this Fox would is most appropriate for longer distance Fox Hunts.
Jon (KI6RT)’s Byonics MicroFox 15 is typically available for club fox hunts (depending on what KI6RT is testing). Others in the club also own this model micro fox.
Foxes from Byonics typically output 15 milliWatts and are useful in parks or smaller areas.
SFARC owns two Byonics MicroFox 15S transmitters.
More questions? Please contact Jon (KI6RT) or Doug (W2VX).
The popular RDF (radio direction finder) techniques used by SFARC include:
(time of arrival) that appears as a tone on the HT (handi-talkie). As illustrated on the right the tone will be null (i.e. minimum volume) when the antennas are equidistance from the hidden transmitter thereby providing a vector to/from the hidden transmitter. Once several bearings or vectors have been established and plotted on a map the location of the Fox can be estimated. Mike (K6YMM) presentation on the technique can be found here.
Growing in popularity is the Tape Measure Yagi with a variable attenuator (step attenuator or an offset attenuator). The directional nature of a Yagi enables hunters to point straight at the hidden transmitter. As the the Fox Hunter approaches the Fox, attenuation is required (otherwise the HT will be overloaded and the S-meter will not show a peak).
