Arizona Overlanders

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Meetup posted! I decided to go with a simple "Meet and Greet" meetup for this first event.

The meetup will happen at Sentinel Peak Park, A.K.A. "A Mountain", it just one turn off of I-10 and very easy to get to for anybody interested in coming from outside of the greater Tucson area. The event will start at 9am and go until at least noon if not later, that will give time for any Phoenix area attendees to get here without needing to wake up super duper early.

Rally Point Details: Southern Arizona Overland Bound Rigs and Coffee Meetup
Forum thread: https://www.overlandbound.com/forums/threads/southern-arizona-overland-bound-rigs-and-coffee-meetup-10-20-2018.19296/

I auto-generated event invites for anybody within 160 miles or so, but the event is open to anybody else as well.

If you are attending, please RSVP to the Rally Point so i have a good idea of how much coffee and pastries i need to provide

Planning to attend from Sierra Vista!
 
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Jim SoG

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reminder, so far about 10 confirmed, a couple maybes also:
Hello! We are planning a meet n greet for Northern Arizona on November 17 (members and non members), now looking at the map I selected a central location for all of us, and that is Seligman, which should be about an hour from you or so......

Meet at Westside Lilo's cafe in Seligman once I get done working a discount for us on food and beverages, if I can find a good one. I am figuring meet at 1 in the afternoon, not to early, not to late. Again it is about an hour away.

This will be an organizing meet as well as a meet n greet, I have an idea for a nice 2-3day (weekend) camping trip but welcome all ideas.... I also would like to move the meet n greet around the north of our state sow e can see other areas. Everything is on the table, everything can be decided by all of us. Future ideas can include some training/teaching on trail first aid, tire repair/change, recovery, you name I am open to it......

I know there are a ton of things going on but if you can squeeze out a couple hours, it would be great to meet everyone and get some ideas for future events flowing.

I will do a rally point for this so look for it, the Rally point will make a thread in the forums as well, please rsvp so I get an idea of how many.

Here is my email if you need it: sleepyjim@gmail.com

Looking forward to hearing from you and meeting you.

Jim SOG
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brien

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@AZBubs, congrats on your callsign finally coming through! Best advice I can give about now learning how to actually use radios is to hit up some local amateur radio club (ARC) meetings.

It looks like there's an ARC in Queen Creek: http://www.queencreekarc.org They don't appear to have regular meetings, but on the front page they do have a process for requesting an Elmer.
There are at least a couple of clubs in Mesa that appear to hold regular meetings:
Superstition ARC: https://superstitionarc.org/
Mesa ARC: http://www.wm7rc.org/ this club also mentions "Virtual Meetings", too, which sounds like a YouTube live-stream where you can participate via real-time chat.
http://www.wm7rc.org/
Thunderbirds ARC: http://www.w7tbc.org

Note that you will very likely be the youngest person in the room, and in my experience there will almost certainly be a noticeable percentage of really insufferable grumpy old curmudgeons, but there will always be people who stand out as the people to talk to and who are willing to take newbies under their wing. Hit up a few different clubs and stick with the one that appeals to you most. Some clubs will be focused more on organizing talks, some will be more focused more on organizing events "out in the field", and some will have a mix of both, (or neither :( ) Here in Tucson we have a number of clubs of varying styles. I'm pretty involved with at least three of them, and there are lots of familiar faces between most of the clubs here - point being, you may find yourself going to one club for the talks, one for the events they plan, one for the opportunities to elmer others, etc.

Another thing you can do to learn is to just get on the air ASAP. Look for 2m "Nets" on a local repeater and just join one. Most general nets have a spot where they ask for newcomers to come back with their call sign. throw your callsign out there and get talking. This is, imo, the most intimidating way to get started, but you will quickly get comfortable the more you participate. Many nets are just people meeting weekly to give an update about their life, almost like. Bob will chime in about how he repaired his deck last week, then Mary will talk about how her grandchildren came to visit, and Roy will talk about how he thinks he's going to need hip surgery again (they always talk about their medical conditions, get ready). If you do join a net, definitely mention how you just got your license and are looking to learn. people typically respond very well to that.
There is a fairly massive repeater network that covers the whole southeastern part of Arizona. It's called the "EARS" network (spelled EAARS - Eastern Arizona Amateur Radio Society). The EAARS system is 11 linked repeaters that cover Southeast AZ, the South half of NM, and some parts of West TX. Down here in Tucson, it's by far the most active repeater, and there's at least one net a day. The Pinal Peak repeater is probably the best signal for you, so it's probably worth seeing if you can connect. http://www.eaars.com/eaarsnetwork.html

Ok, this post has become way more long-winded than I intended, but one more useful thing is this guide on repeater etiquette: http://www.eaars.com/repeaterguidelines.pdf This is about repeaters, but generally also applies to "normal" 2m simplex communication (direct radio to radio)
 

brien

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@AZBubs do you have any plan to now upgrade to your General license? The exam has a ton of overlap with the Technician, so if you have a desire to upgrade your privileges (HF is awesome) sooner is better so you retain all the stuff you studied for Technician
 

AZBubs

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@AZBubs do you have any plan to now upgrade to your General license? The exam has a ton of overlap with the Technician, so if you have a desire to upgrade your privileges (HF is awesome) sooner is better so you retain all the stuff you studied for Technician
Probably in the next year or two. Thanks for all the info. Just saved all the links.
 

Engine_24

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Hey guys! It has been awhile since Iv been on great to see the thread is still alive. Been doing a lot of camping all over the state and in the Sierras. Any meet ups coming up any time soon? If not we should set one up. Here are a few pictures of different trips
 

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TheGrrrrr

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Heading up to East Pocket for 3 nights of camping. Plant to set up camp on the rim and do some exploring both in rig and on foot. Any trails I should check out? Anyone going to be in the area?