Updated October 1, 2008


CVARC monthly club general meetings start at 7:30 P.M. the third Thursday of each month and are held at:

East County Sheriff's Station (ECSS)
2101 East Olsen Road
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360

See the CVARC calendar at the bottom of the page for a complete list of dates.


September Club Meeting Speaker

"Coast Guard Auxiliary"

Glen Kinney, KD6HJR, will be speaking on the Coast Guard Auxiliary. He will be including information about the history and the opportunities for people interested in communications to contribute to society. Glen will present a short video and slide presentation.

Glen, KD6HJR (Happy Junior Ranger) is a honest-to-goodness park ranger and frequents the Grissom (K6AER) repeater. Glen is a technician + and was initially licensed in 1992. He has been a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary since 2001 and is currently the Division Communications Services Office for D7. He is also Vice Flotilla Commander elect for Flotilla 77.



4:1 Balun Construction Project

Hugh Bosma AE6YC

There was a surprising amount of interest in the 4:1 Balun construction project. We will keep the signups open until the first of September for those who weren't at the meeting. The signup sheet was passed around at the meeting. If you would like to participate, please email AE6YC at Hrbcrb@aol.com with your name, call sign, and whether you are a club member or not. THe cost is $10.00 for members, $15.00 for non-members.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the next meeting.



Results of the June 8, 2008 CVARC VE Session

Jeff Reinhardt AA6JR - CVARC Exam Coordinator

The CVARC VE session of June 8 served eleven candidates. Among those who passed elements were:

Exam Participants
Name Callsign New License Class
Robert Boles KI6RKQ Technician
Gary Epstein KC6ZTR General
Tina Hoogenakker KI6RKJ Technician
Gary Hubler KE6FSQ Extra
Thomas Levinson KI6RKI Technician
Karen Dittman KI6RKF Technician
Jan Tadlock KI6RKG Technician
Robert Thompson KI6RKH Technician
Andrew Walker KI6PGQ Extra
David Wing KI6RKE Technician

Thanks to the VEs who gave their time to make this CVARC session possible, George Tamayo WD6EJO; Hugh Bosma AE6YC and we were assisted by Peter Grace KB1CVH.

The next session is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Sunday, August 13, 2008 at the East Valley station.



Parking At East County Sheriff's Station

We have filled up the Visitor's Parking area at the East County Sheriff's Station (ECSS) during our last couple of CVARC General Meetings due to the excellent turnouts that we have had. If the Visitor's Parking area is filled when you arrive for a CVARC meeting, you can park in the Employee's Only parking area which is to the immediate right of the Visitor's Parking area as you drive into the sheriff's station. There may be people coming to the sheriff's station during our club meeting looking for police department assistance. For that reason we should not park in the Visitor's Parking area "15 Minute Only" parking spaces.

Ken Larson
CVARC Operations Chairman



Technician License Classes for 2008
Compiled By Karl Moody, AE6TO

The Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club, (CVARC ) sponsors amateur radio license classes throughout the year. The Technician Class license, which is the entry level license for amateur radio is presented five times a year and each class lasts for eight weeks Classes are held on Tuesday evenings from 7:00 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. and are free. The only cost related to this class is the cost for the Ham Radio License Manual which is $25.00 plus tax. Students who wish to purchase this manual through the CVARC class may do so at the time of class registration. This book is a course manual presented by the Amateur Radio Relay League. The new manual covers the new FCC test requirements for all Technician exams.

Classes are taught in Thousand Oaks in classroom facilities provided as a community service by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The current classes are held at 3645 Moorpark Road, in Thousand Oaks. This is on Moorpark Road, one block North of Olsen Road.

Classes are open to all ages, and CVARC is proud to report that our graduates include 7 year old children and 84 year old adults. There are no age limits imposed by the FCC on the Amateur Radio license, and both men and women participate in the magic of radio.

Whether you are interested in radio communications with other amateur operators around the world, or just want to have your radio license for emergency preparedness, the Technician Class license is your entry to amateur radio. If you are interested, or want to know more about amateur radio, call Karl Moody at (805) 523-0622 for information regarding the next class.

Class Schedule for 2008
Start Date End Date Date of FCC Exam following class
February 19, 2008 April 8, 2008 April 13, 2008
April 15, 2008 June 3, 2008 June 8, 2008
June 17, 2008 August 5, 2008 August 10, 2008
August 19, 2008 October 7, 2008 October 12, 2008
October 21, 2008 December 9, 2008 December 14, 2008


Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club
2008 FCC Exam Schedule

By Jeff Reinhardt, AA6JR

The Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club (CVARC) has scheduled examinations for FCC Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) licenses six times during 2008.

Exams are conducted by accredited Volunteer Examiners and sessions are sponsored by CVARC. Exams are conducted for all FCC Amateur Radio license classes under the supervision of the ARRL VEC. No pre-registration is necessary, walk-ins are welcome. The Exams listed below will be conducted at the Ventura County Sheriff's East County Station at 2101 E. Olsen Road between Hwy 23 and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library at 8:30 a.m.

Candidates need to bring:

  1. A form of government-issued photo I.D. (eg: Driver's License, Passport or School District ID).
  2. Social Security Number or Taxpayer ID or FRN.
  3. The original and a photocopy of any existing FCC license or CSCE notice of passing an exam element.
  4. $14 Exam fee (exact change preferred).
  5. Pens, pencils, calculator. Calculator memory must be cleared prior to exam

2008 Exam Schedule:

Should there be questions not addressed above, please contact Jeff Reinhardt AA6JR at aa6jr@sbcglobal.net or phone 818-706-3853.



CVARC Web Site Performance

The club has been successful in acheiving a reliable and high performance web site for the benefit of our members. Looking at the web site's performance over time shows that we have made dramatic improvements in the site's response time and availability. I'd like to thank each one of you that helped me in these efforts and let me know about outages as early as possible so that I could work on them promptly. Your efforts have made a difference.

For those that noticed the little jump in February, it was a result of extremely high net activity at the site I measure the latency from. The CVARC site was fine. My site was heavily loaded while I was copying all of the files for another site up to the hosting provider. That copying phase is over so the spike it caused shouldn't happen again.

last ten days of web performance last 400 days of web performance

Graph of web site access latency - lower is better

Thanks,

Neil Waybright, webmaster



Event Calendar 2008
Date Event Comments
January 17 CVARC Club Meeting See website or newsletter for meeting topic
January 26 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
February 10 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30AM at East County Sheriff Station
February 19 First Technician License Class Begins Classes held weekly through April
February 21 CVARC Club Meeting See website or newsletter for meeting topic
February 23 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
February 23 Amgen Tour of California Stage 6 Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita RACES support
March 9 CROP Walk Annual CVARC/ARES support T.O. CROP Walk (afternoon)
March 20 CVARC Club Meeting General CVARC Meeting
March 21 - 23 Coyote 2 Moons 3 day Cross Country Race in Ojai & Santa Monica Mts.
March 29 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
April 8 First Technician License Class Ends Five days to study for VE exam!
April 13 Westlake Village Street Fair CVARC radio support for Westlake Rotary (morning)
April 13 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30AM at East County Sheriff Station
April 15 Second Technician License Class Begins Classes held weekly through June
April 17 CVARC Club Meeting Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
April 19 Arbor Day CVARC/ARES radio demo at N. Conejo Creek Park
April 26 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
May 3 Malibu Endurance Ride Early morning horse ride event
May 10 Cruisin Conejo Bike Ride Major yearly CVARC field activity
May 15 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. See web site for details
May 16 - 18 Dayton Hamvention Dayton Ham Convention. See http://www.hamvention.org site for details
May 31 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
June 3 Second Technician License Class Ends Five days to study for VE exam!
June 8 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30 am at East County Sheriff's Station
June 17 Third Technicain License Class Begins Classes held weekly through August
June 19 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. See web site for details
June 28-29 Field Day CVARC annual field day event, you don't want to miss it!
June 28 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
July 3 Moorpark Fireworks Support for Moorpark's 3rd of July Fireworks
July 17 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. See web site for details
July 26 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
August 5 Third Technician Class Ends Five days to study before VE sesison!
August 10 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30 am at East County Sheriff's Station
August 19 Fourth Technician License Class Begins Classes held weekly through October
August 21 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. See web site for details
August 23 (tentative) CVARC Summer Picnic Family and visitors welcome. See web site for details
August 30 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
September 18 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. See web site for details
September 27 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
September 12 - 14 ARRL SW Division Convention Mesa, AZ
October 7 Technicain License Class Complete Five days to study before VE session!
October 12 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30 am at East County Sheriff's Station
October 16 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. See web site for details
October 18-19 Boy Scouts Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) http://home.tiscali.nl/worldscout/
October 21 Fifth Technicain License Class Begins Classes held weekly through first week of December
October 25 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
November 20 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. See web site for details
November 29 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
December 6 (tentative) CVARC Holiday Party CVARC party at the Cameron Center
December 9 Fifth Technician Class Completes Five days to study before VE sesison!
December 14 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30 am at East County Sheriff's Station
December 27 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the Christmas party if you are interested in car pooling



Correpondence should be directed to

CVARC
P.O.Box 2093
Thousand Oaks, CA 91358-2093

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