Updated June 12th, 2009


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.

To contact the members of the Board of Directors, use this list:

CVARC Board

June Meeting Speaker

Rob Hanson, "Field Day"

Rob and the field day commitee members will discuss preparations and details for Field Day.


Bozo Repeater

Hugh Bosma, AE6YC

You may have noticed the 147.885 repeater on Rasnow ridge is sounding much better these days. Like many of us, old age and a few component failures had Bozo gasping for fresh electrons. Dave Norman, N6JMI has a full plate and has turned the reins over to KQ6K. Eddy's team has been hard at work. The repeater has been replaced with a dual mode Motorola Quantar. They also identified and replaced a bad feed line jumper at the antenna, and have the duplexer performing to factory specifications. Things are a bit spread out at the repeater site but the coverage is vastly improved. The team is busy getting the system packaged and fine tuning. Please give Bozo a try and let us know how well we are doing. Eddy or one of the team is usually monitoring. If you miss us on the air please drop Eddy a note at KQ6K@pacbell.net.


Wednesday Night UHF Net

Brad Ormsby, WA6GLE

QST, QST, QST

Beginning in 2009 we are starting a Net on Wednesday nights at 7pm on the Bozo Repeater, 147.885- p/l 127.3.

The purpose of the Net is to have fun and maybe learn or re-learn the hidden secrets of Amateur Radio. The net is for all Amateurs to enjoy that can access the repeater. This would include the young and old, new to Amateur Radio and old to Amateur Radio, Women, YL's, XYL's and Old Men, OM.

Please check in, ask questions, tell stories, share Amateur Radio, and get to know one another. There is allot of talent, knowledge and expertise in our local area and these people are more than willing to share information and help others.

Remember the Bozo Repeater and other repeaters are on 24/7. So when you are in range, get on the repeater, give your call, you might just have a great QSO with a new or old friend.

I think it was GTE that said: Call often and talk long!

See you on the Net.


ARRL Field Day is Coming!

Neil Waybright, AF6CD

Field Day 2009 is fast approaching. We need all of the club members to start their preparations for Field Day activities. We will be recruiting members for various activities and to fill out the activity commitees needed to make our Field Day a success. If you are interested, please contact Rob Hanson, W6RH and express your interests! Click here to see the ARRL Field Day Public Service Announcement

ARRL Field Day

ARRL Field Day

June 27-28, 2009

Always The Fourth Full Weekend In June
Field Day T-shirts, participation pins and other items available for delivery soon!




The Park Service is allowing us to set up our Field Day stations in the upper parking lot (where the buses are located), the lower parking lot (where the cars are parked in this picture), and the grassy aread in front of the lower parking lot. The Oaks Mall can be seen in the upper part of this picture. The T.O. Park and Recreation buildings and the National Parks Service facility extend off the right side of the picture. The top of the Civic Center Driive is shown to the immediate right of the grassy area.

The Field Day site is at the end of Civic Center Drive. From the Ventura Fwy, exit north on Lynn Road. Turn right of west Hillcrest Drive to McCloud Ave. Turn oeft on McCloud and go a few hundred feet to Civic Center Drive. Turn right on Civic Center and follow it up the hill until it ends in the Hillcrest Government Center parking lot.



ARRL Exam Fee Increases to $15 January 1st, 2009

Jeff Reinhardt, AA6JR

The ARRL has announced FCC Exam Fees for all Amateur Radio license classes will increase to $15 in 2009. CVARC has been affiliated with the ARRL VEC since the inception of the Volunteer Examination program.. The ARRL provides CVARC and other examination groups with exam booklets, FCC license applications, standardized answer sheets and Certificates of Successful Completion for candidates. The League also pays for shipping exam materials to and from its Connecticut headquarters. Following an exam, ARRL personnel process each exam package and electronically post the results to the FCC database.


Operation Golden Gaurdian/The Great Southern California Shakeout

Neil Waybright, AF6CD

The organization chart in the article Ken wrote for the October issue of the newsletter came out so small that it was difficult to read. That was due to the two column format of the newsletter. Here the article is in a single column format where the chart is easier to make out.

The article is here as a PDF so it is easier to read.


Results of the April 19, 2009 CVARC VE Session

Jeff Reinhardt AA6JR, CVARC VE Session Coordinator

The CVARC VE session of April 19 served 28 candidates. Among those who passed elements were:

Name Callsign New License Class
Iran Ausley KI6YVN Technician
Gunther Mowes KI6YVM Technician
Judith Clarke KI6YVL Technician
Richard Clarke KI6YVK Technician
Ian Mann KI6YVO General
John Reed KI6YVJ Technician
Timothy Heaps AF6PP Extra
David Singer KI6YVI Technician
John Love K6ARA Extra
Stephen R. Stratton KI6STA General
Keith Metz KI6YVH Technician
John Ferguson KI6YVG Technician
Kevin Sheldon KI6YVF Technician
Jim Allday KI6YVE Technician
Marc Alabanza KI6YVD Technician
Craig May KI6YVC Technician
Ron Wood KI6YVB Technician
Daryl Clark KI6YVA Technician
Bryan Moeller KI6YUZ Technician
Cheryl Baumgart KI6YUY Technician
Ron Kalist KI6YUX Technician
Lana Lewis KI6YUW Technician
Joseph Beaulieu KI6YUV Technician
Paul Weingarten KI6YVP General
Robert Ockey KI6YUU Technician
Charles Schrum AF6PQ Extra
Robert Frey KI6YUT Technician

Thanks to the two full teams of VEs who gave their time to make this CVARC session possible,; Noel Van Slyke K6NVS, Rob Hanson W6RH, Andy Ludlum KI6NON, Neil Waybright AF6CD, Hugh Bosma, AE6YC and Ken Larson KJ6RZ. We had extra clerical assistance from Melissa Reinhardt, KD6BIT

The next session is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Sunday, June 14, 2009 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


Technician License Classes for 2009
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. 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 at the LDS church at 3645 Moorpark Road, just East or North of Olsen Road on the left side of the road. Class is from 7:00 pm to 8:45 pm.

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.

Start Date End Date Date of FCC Exam following class
February 9, 2009 March 30, 2009 April 19, 2009
April 13, 2009 June 1, 2009 June 14, 2009
June 16, 2009 August 4, 2009 August 9, 2009
August 18, 2009 October 6, 2009 October 11, 2009
October 20, 2009 December 8, 2009 December 13, 2009

Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club
2009 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 2009.

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. $15 Exam fee (exact change preferred).
  5. Pens, pencils, calculator. Calculator memory must be cleared prior to exam

2009 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.

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 2009

Date Event Comments
January 15 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
January 31 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
February 8 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30AM at East County Sheriff Station
February 9 First Technician License Class Begins Classes held weekly through April
February 19 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
February 28 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
March 8 CROP Walk Annual CVARC/ARES support T.O. CROP Walk (afternoon)
March 13 - 15 Coyote 2 Moons 3 day Cross Country Race in Ojai & Santa Monica Mts.
March 19 CVARC Club Meeting Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
March 28 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
March 30 First Technician License Class Ends Several weeks to study for VE exam!
April 5 Westlake Village Street Fair CVARC radio support for Westlake Rotary (morning)
April 13 Second Technician License Class Begins Classes held weekly through June
April 16 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
April 19 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30AM at East County Sheriff Station
April 25 Arbor Day CVARC/ARES radio demo at N. Conejo Creek Park
April 25 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
May 9 Cruisin Conejo Bike Ride Major yearly CVARC field activity
May 16 Sea-to-Summit Bike Ride Ocean to mountain peak
May 14 - 16 Dayton Hamvention Dayton Ham Convention. See http://www.hamvention.org site for details
May 21 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
May 30 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
June 1 Second Technician License Class Ends Five days to study for VE exam!
June 14 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30 am at East County Sheriff's Station
June 16 Third Technician License Class Begins Classes held weekly through August
June 18 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
June 27 - 28 Field Day CVARC annual field day event, you don't want to miss it!
June 27 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 16 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
July 25 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
August __ Third Technician Class Ends Five days to study before VE session!
August 9 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30 am at East County Sheriff's Station
August 14 - 16 SB Section Hamfest Santa Barbara
August __ Fourth Technician License Class Begins Classes held weekly through October
August 20 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
August __ (tentative) CVARC Summer Picnic Family and visitors welcome. See web site for details
August 29 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
September 17 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
September 26 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
No official date yet ARRL SW Division Convention Inland Impire
October __ Technician License Class Complete Five days to study before VE session!
October 11 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30 am at East County Sheriff's Station
October 15 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
October 16 - 18 Boy Scouts Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) http://home.tiscali.nl/worldscout/
October __ Fifth Technician License Class Begins Classes held weekly through first week of December
October 31 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
Nov 14 Malibu Endurance Ride Early morning horse ride event
November 19 CVARC Club Meeting Visitors welcome. Begins at 7:30pm at East County Sheriff Station
November 28 TRW Swap Meet Mention at the club meeting if you are interested in car pooling
December 5 (tentative) CVARC Holiday Party CVARC party at the Cameron Center
December __ Fifth Technician Class Completes Five days to study before VE session!
December 13 FCC License Exam Begins at 8:30 am at East County Sheriff's Station
December 26 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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