Tom:
FYI
Walt
From: Darryl Widman Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2016 1:25 AM To: Darryl Widman Subject: Program for the SBARC June 17, 2016 Club Meeting
Program for the SBARC June 17, 2016 Club Meeting
Folks, this is Mike Bales, KI6VBK, Co-Founder of Santa Barbara Hackerspace
Mike Bales, KI6VBK, is the CEO and co-founder of the Santa Barbara Hackerspace, which was founded 6 years ago in his garage. Mike moved from San Diego to Santa Barbara to attend Santa Barbara City College to get a start on a degree in Electronic Engineering. He was frustrated with the limited access to the labs there and couldn’t afford the equipment that was required for an electronics project he was working on.
His life changed when he attended the Bay Area Maker Faire in San Mateo that year and discovered the concept of hackerspace. He thought that there must be others in a similar situation in need of space and equipment for personal and school projects given Santa Barbara’s many schools so he decided to try and start a hackerspace. Hackerspaces are community-operated physical places, where people share their interest in tinkering with technology, meet and work on their projects and learn from each other.
SB Hackerspace started small, about a half dozen people meeting in Mike’s apartment / garage for the first 6 months or so. Once they built up a small core group they rented their first space on Aero Camino in Goleta and quickly grew and acquired more members.
Mike has a day job as a systems administrator for a small IT company which manages networks and equipment for 30 clients in the Santa Barbara area, in addition to running the hackerspace, and developing open source weather balloon trackers and other neat projects.
Two other active members of the group are Garrett Holmstrom, AG6RQ, and Mike Kapuscik. Garrett is fairly active and is getting involved in some of the SBARC mesh networking projects. He is known as the network wizard at the hackerspace as he maintains their computer network infrastructure. He has been instrumental in building a ground crew on a number of their weather balloon launches.
Mike Kapuscik is a City College student who works for a startup in town developing IoT (Internet of Things) equipment. He is well versed in electronics and embedded programming / development. He has been the lead on the Scanning Electron Microscope restoration project and Mike Bales says that they would never have gotten it working without his time, knowledge and diligence in pouring over the schematics and documentation.
If you would like to know more about this young, exciting group of people and what they are doing, you are invited to drop by and pay them a visit. The Santa Barbara Hackerspace is a fun and friendly setting for makers and hackers to build, experiment and learn together. They welcome all participants, no matter their level of skill or experience. Their general meetings are on Saturdays from 2 pm until late, and there are usually people there during the evenings on most weeknights. So, you can drop by their location on Saturday after you leave the SBARC Club Station, which closes around noon, and while you are there you can also join their mailing list for updates!
Also, at this SBARC meeting, you will hear from President Brian Milburn, K6BPM, about the latest progress being made on our Mesh Network and how you can get involved with the project. He will also let us know more about how the Club Station is evolving. Levi Maaia, K6LCM, would like to tell us about our newly-formed Telecommunications group and what they are doing. At this meeting we will raffle off the latest Wouxun Model 8D dual-band duplex cross-band repeat HT. We should sell enough tickets at this meeting to pay for the very neat radio!
We still have our monthly Club Meetings at the Goleta Union School District at 401 No. Fairview Ave. in Goleta, right across the street from the Goleta Library. The meeting begins at 7:30 PM but come early and look at all the Free-to-Good-Home stuff your friends have brought for you to see and take home with you. Be sure to bring yours for them! Before the meeting begins is a good time to shake a few hands and bring in those cookies and cakes you brought along because you are such a neat person! And we all do thank you for that.
The Satellite Amateur Radio Club Swapfest and Barbecue is an annual event always held on a Saturday, the day before Fathers Day, so it is the day right after our Club meeting. This fun event is looked forward to by hams all over the South Coast. For many years, SBARC has supported their event with our presence and by purchasing tickets to win their great prizes. I have won my share of them. In turn, members of the Satellite ARC have supported our events. This is the kind of event where folks can bring their excess junque and spread it out on the picnic tables and, with a tear in their eye, part with it for the right price! So many bargains. Those who walked away with their hands in their pockets and then, after some serious thought, returned to go ahead and buy it only to find that someone beat them to it can be seen moping around. How funny. It is also traditional to have a challenging Transmitter Hunt. This year there will be several of them. Yours truly will be hiding one and searching for the others. Bring your 2-meter sniffer with you. Some of us caravan up there and have breakfast at Ellen’s Danish Pancake house in Buellton. Come along with us.
You said that your YL loves to bake cookies? Would she let you bring some to our Club meeting?
