About Us: Covid Statement| Club Announcements | Committees | Communicating With You | Contact Us | History of the Club | Join/Renew/Update | Officers & Chairs | Official Documents | Store | Managing Gmail | Managing Groups.io
Communicating With You
MDARC has numerous methods of communicating with our members and the ham community at large:
1. Monthly Club meetings
2. Monthly newsletter, the Carrier
3. P.O. mailbox
4. Weekly Thursday night net
5. Main Club Web Site
6. Pacificon web site
7. MDARC Facebook page
8. MDARC Linkedin page
9. Groups.io Email Forum Groups
10. Electronic Meetings via Zoom
11. Club email address
12. Club telephone number
13. www.QRZ.com
14. YouTube Channel
1. Monthly Club meetings
The Membership meeting is on the third Friday of most months, starting at 7:30 pm. We normally have a business meeting first (as short as possible), followed by a speaker. There are a few months where we do not meet.
See our Club Meetings page for details.
2. Monthly newsletter, the Carrier
The Carrier is the official newsletter of the Mount Diablo Amateur Radio Club. It is published 11 months of the year (not in December), usually about 1 week before our Club meeting.
See our Carrier Newsletter page for more information.
3. P.O. mailbox
Our P.O. mailbox receives all postal correspondence for the Club. The address is:
MDARC
P.O. Box 23222
Pleasant Hill, CA 94523
Our Contact Us page maintains this address and shows a map of our meeting location.
4. Weekly Thursday night net
The MDARC Club Net meets each Thursday evening at 7:30 PM on our W6CX repeater system.
2 meters, 220 MHz and 440 meters: 147.060 /+ (100PL); Linked to 224.780/441.325 /+ (100PL)
See our Nets on MDARC Systems page for this and other nets on our system.
5. Main Club Web Site
Since you’re seeing this page, you know about our Club web site. We have a great deal of information here. Please explore.
6. Pacificon Web Site
We have a second web site for information on the annual Pacificon convention, which we host. Please see that web site for details and attendance registration.
7. MDARC Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/mdarc.org
If you’re a Facebook user, be sure to subscribe to our page.
8. MDARC Linkedin pages
https://www.linkedin.com/companies/mdarc
https://www.linkedin.com/companies/pacificon-mdarc
If you’re a linkedin user, be sure to follow our page. If you are an Officer or Chair please add mdarc and/or pacificon-mdarc to your personal profile.
9. Groups.io Email Forum Groups
The Club maintains 9 email forum groups for communication with our members and other interested people, the Board of Directors, some of our committees and the students and elmers in our training courses. The Board and some Committee groups are restricted to those members only. But our main Club and other groups are open to anyone interested in ham radio or MDARC, Club member or not. We strongly encourage all members to join the main Club group, as it is our primary way to communicate with our membership between meetings and newsletters.
Also, be sure to review our Groups.io Guidelines, which describe some do's and don'ts to make using our forums the best experience possible.
There are two ways to join:
A.) Via the Web Site:
* Go to the group web page: https://groups.io/g/MDARC
* Click the button: "Apply For Membership in This Group
* Fill in the email address you want us to use for our correspondence
If you belong to other Groups.io groups, you may want to use the same email address as you use for those.
* Respond to the confirmation email the Groups.io system will send you.
OR
B:) Via an Email:
* Send an email to MDARC+subscribe@groups.io
Be sure to send it from the email address you want us to use for our correspondence
After you’ve joined, there are a number of settings you can adjust in your account profile if you wish; for example, receiving a single daily digest of all emails sent that day, rather than an individual email for each. To adjust those settings, go to https://groups.io/ and log in. The first time you do this, you’ll need to set a password. For Help, go to https://groups.io/static/help.
Below is a list of the Groups.io forums MDARC hosts:
* Main Club forum
Website: https://groups.io/g/MDARC
Subscribe: MDARC+subscribe@groups.io
** Open to anyone interested in amateur radio and/or the Club.
* Board of Directors forum
Website: https://groups.io/g/MDARCBoard
Restricted to Club Board members only.
* Staff forum
Website: https://groups.io/g/mdarcstaff
** Restricted to Club Board members and Committee chairs only.
* Pacificon Committee forum
Website: https://groups.io/g/Pacificon
** Restricted to those volunteering to help plan and put on the annual Pacificon convention.
Not for attendees.
* Technical Committee/RRRG forum
Website: https://groups.io/g/MDARCTech
Subscribe: MDARCTech+subscribe@groups.io
** Open to those volunteering to help with the Club's repeaters and other equipment.
* Amateur Television forum
Website: https://groups.io/g/MDARCATV
Subscribe: MDARCATV+subscribe@groups.io
** Open to anyone interested in amateur television (ATV).
* Training forum
Website: https://groups.io/g/MDARCTraining
Subscribe: MDARCTraining+subscribe@groups.io
** Restricted to the students, discussion leaders and Elmers of the Mt. Diablo Amateur Radio Club.
* W6CX D-Star forum
Website: https://groups.io/g/w6cx-dstar
Subscribe: w6cx-dstar+subscribe@groups.io
** Open to anyone interested in D-Star and the W6CX D-Star repeater,
but also digital voice issues and other DV modes in Northern California.
* Digital forum
Website: https://groups.io/g/MDARCDigital
Subscribe: MDARCDigital+subscribe@groups.io
** Open to anyone interested in amateur radio digital data systems and technologies.
10. Electronic meetings via Zoom
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic required that we cancel all in-person meetings for the duration of the emergency. In response, the Club began meeting electronically, using the Zoom system. Invitations to each publicly available meeting will be sent out via our Groups.io email reflector, making it even more important that you join that email group.
If you have not yet installed the small Zoom app, please do so before the next meeting. Though not absolutely required to attend the meetings, it makes participation much easier.
Also, be sure to review our Zoom Meeting Guidelines, which describe some do's and don'ts to help our meetings run smoothly.
11. Club Email Address
info@mdarc.org
Anyone, Club member or not, is welcome to send us an email commenting or asking a question on any ham radio-related topic. If we don’t know the answer, we’ll try to find someone who does.
12. Club Telephone Number
(925) 288-1730
Like the above email address, anyone, Club member or not, is welcome to call us with a comment or to ask a question on any ham radio-related topic. If we don’t know the answer, we’ll try to find someone who does.
13. QRZ
The Club has two call signs (W6CX and W6LGW) and maintains a QRZ page for each. These are primarily for helping the ham community at large find and communicate with us.
14. YouTube Channel
Media MDARC
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClbohqaw-VVVGmtmNkdBTVw
The MDARC YouTube channel is currently not very active, but it does exist. And more content may be added available in the future.
To access it, either click on the above link, or go to www.youtube.com and search for “Media MDARC”.