You all may have noticed that you cannot comment or post anything on here anymore. This is not something I did, and it's not something I want, but it appears that this policy change for Locals is permanent. I had some warning of this early last week but it wasn't clear exactly how they were going to handle existing groups like ours. Now we know. I had heard that Mike Glover was talking to Locals about a better solution but that obviously did not happen.
First, please do not 'subscribe' to this group. I don't have a payment account connected to this Locals page, I don't want money for the organizing I'm doing here, and I don't feel that the "paid community" features are really needed for a group our size. Some people have suggested that I take the money and put it towards group activities and development, but managing that money is an additional task and headache that I'm not willing to take on.
Second, we do have our own website that we are going to try to use instead: AmconTucson.com
I will post the announcements for the public events here on Locals, and on the website. The problem is that we cannot have the website be a totally open forum like Locals is, because if we do it will be completely overrun by spam. I will be setting up accounts for members that we know well but that's going to take some time. For those who want to post and aren't able to, please be patient.
For me, this just reinforces how important in-person meetings are. We will solve this online communications problem over time, but nothing compares to talking to people out in the real world.
You can email questions or comments to [email protected]
[I'm reposting this to the top because we have a number of people who still need to get their ham license!]
For anyone near Tucson who hasn't already gotten your Ham license or is interested in upgrading what you already have, here is some info based on my experience of getting my Technician and General licenses recently:
- Free testing is available monthly in Tucson. Next event is March 8th @ 7PM . https://k7rst.org/testing.html
-- There is no preregistering. You just show up, but I highly recommend being there a half hour early to get in line. I was there 15 minutes early and waited a little more than an hour before it was my turn to take the test, and then there's more waiting in between exams if you take more than one.
- There is also an online testing option available now. It generally costs ~$15 and you need fairly decent internet, a computer with a webcam, and a phone with a camera. (Thanks to @freebirdie for sending me the info on this).
-- Look here to find a session that's open: ...
I've been meaning to document this for quite awhile but things kept getting in the way. I've been writing this slowly over the past several weeks now, and am finally ready to post it!
I've created a simple automated planter for low-effort food gardening that seems to work pretty well for a a decent number of different plants. This was originally inspired by Larry Hall's "Rain Gutter Grow System", and then I fused it with the general concept of bottom-watered reservoir planters, which you can find everywhere.
Larry Hall's video should show up at the end of this post:
One implementation of a standard, non-automatic, bottom-watered reservoir planter:
https://www.amazon.com/GroBucket-Watering-sub-irrigated-Container-portable/dp/B079CT29RZ/
My goals were to keep costs relatively low, minimize water usage, and minimize the weekly time I need to put in to maintain the garden. I don't mind spending a bit more time to get something set up if that means I don't have to remember to do another ...
I've recently upgraded my VHF transceiver capability, and it has made a huge difference. We ask everyone to have a radio of some sort, and the cheapest Ham radio that works is the Baofeng UV-5R. I don't want to ask people to spend a ton of money, but from my own experience I do think upgrading is worth the extra expense. The receive electronics on the UV-5R are low-quality so they don't seem to work well with external antennas. A lot (or all) of the advantage you'd get from putting an external antenna up on your roof is lost when you plug it into the UV-5R.
The tranceiver I bought is the Yaesu FT-2980R:
https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-015771
Unfortunately they just raised the price by $20, but it's still only $150 (or closer to $170 with shipping and tax). Note that it's a VHF only radio and is very simple compared to the more expensive models, but it is a beast of a machine that can dump 80W of power if needed.
This radio works well with every external antenna I've tried, and it's well suited to ...
