When the club recently renewed its “Special Service Club” status with the ARRL, we had to tell them about the extensive work that CVARC performs in supporting the community and Amateur Radio in order to qualify for “Special Service Club” status. The areas that the ARRL asked us to document were: New Ham Development and Training, Public Relations, Emergency Communications, Technical Advancement, Operating Activities, and Miscellaneous Activities.

It is no coincidence that the ARRL lists “New Ham Development and Training” first. It is a very important function – a service to the community which our club would be hard pressed to offer without the contributions from some special people. This month I would like to highlight the work of our Education Coordinator and of our Volunteer Examiners.

Karl Moody (KE6WVZ) is our Education Coordinator, and runs the CVARC Amateur Radio License Classes. He has been doing this for some time. It is no small commitment, and Karl has given up many of his Tuesday evenings for several years now. He is very popular with his students, and he has helped countless people to get their licenses.

Karl gets people ready – but then they need to take the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Amateur Radio exam somewhere. The FCC examination is administered by teams of Volunteer Examiners (VEs). On any particular weekend you can find somewhere in Southern California to take the license exam. However, you might have to drive fifty or a hundred miles to do so. In some cases you have to pre-register to take the test.

Every other month, and sometimes in between, VE sessions are held locally by CVARC in association with ARES. On these dates, prospective hams don’t have to go any further than our local Sheriff’s Station. Our team of VEs is led by Jeff Reinhardt (AA6JR). The team includes CVARC members Rob Hanson (W6RH), Eddie Pierce (WB6DFW), Noel Van Slyke (K6NVS), Ken Larson (KJ6RZ), Greg Lane (K7SDW) and Steven Reinhardt (K6SJR). Frank Sain (KA6BPA) and Rick Leyton (WB6WFH) also participate. Occasionally there will be only two or three prospective hams taking the exam – but usually there is a whole crowd. Either way, the VE team members give up many of their Sunday mornings to make the exam sessions possible. In addition they have attended training sessions to qualify as VEs in the first place.

So why would anyone volunteer to be a VE? The job requires familiarity with many rules, policies and procedures and it carries with it the potential for FCC scrutiny. Almost all VEs will tell you that they do it because they want to give something back to the hobby.

As a club, we believe that it is important to provide these programs. Karl's classes are free, we just ask that students pay for the course-book if they are able to. Technically, we are allowed to retain part of the VE exam fee to offset costs, but CVARC has chosen to forward all fees to the ARRL in an effort to help them defray the massive expenses incurred operating the VE program. The incidental costs of running the CVARC programs have been borne by the club, by Karl, and the individual VEs.

Once a new ham gets a license, there are lots of people in the club who can help them get on the air and with things such as antennas, operating techniques, interference problems, and so on. Over the coming months, the CVARC Board will be looking at the best way to match up new hams with "Elmers" who can help them to get to know the many facets of this great hobby.

From a practical point of view, it isn’t possible for everybody to be as actively involved as Karl and our VE team – but by supporting CVARC you are supporting these and other programs. I want to thank Karl and our VE team for their very substantial direct contributions, but also to thank YOU for supporting CVARC. By doing so, you too are giving something back to the hobby. Thanks!

Steve champion, AE6NX

The CVARC Board Members thought it would be a good idea to have a construction project as the program for one of our meetings. So for this month’s program we will set up tables outside, weather permitting, and help you build an excellent 2 meter copper pipe J-pole antenna. If you do not need a 2 meter J-pole, then you can team up with someone who does and help them build their antenna. Two people working together on an antenna is a lot easier than one person trying to build it alone. We have bought material to build 20 J-pole antennas. The J-pole design will be for 2 meters using one 10 foot piece of ½ inch copper pipe, two end caps, one elbow, and one Tee section.

The J-pole antenna is broadband enough to cover the entire 2 meter band, but you might as well build the antenna for the exact frequency that you use most. To help you do that, we will have the CVARC antenna analyzer available so that you can tune your antenna to be “dead on” your desired “center frequency of transmission.” Yes, that’s right, set up your antenna for the best SWR on the frequency that you use most.

CVARC will furnish the materials to you at cost. The worktables, pipe cutters, propane torchs, solder, bucket of water, rags, etc. all used to solder the pipe material together will be set up outside so we don’t burn the place down. This should be a lot of fun!

CVARC hosts FCC License Examinations at 8:30 AM on the second Sunday of even numbered months at the Ventura East County Sheriff Station on Olsen Rd. (near the Reagan Library). CVARC conducts exams for all license classes . Exam candidates must bring a form of government issued photo I.D., the original AND a photocopy of any existing license or Certificate of Exam Element Completion, a Social Security (or government issued Taxpayer I.D.) number, and $14 ARRL VE Exam fee (cash is preferred). No advance reservation is necessary, walk-ins are welcome. Advance notice is needed for special circumstances, such as reading the exam to sight-impaired candidates. If you have any questions, contact CVARC VE Coordinator Jeff Reinhardt at 818-706-3853.

Technician Class is now scheduled to begin on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 3645 Moorpark Road, Thousand Oaks, California.   Classes will run for eight weeks, ending on June 7th and will go from 7:00 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. each Tuesday evening.   Anyone interested in the class let me know so that I can make sure I have all of the materials needed for the class.   Walk-ins of course will be welcome and I always try to have a few extra textbooks and notebooks for those who could not pre-register.   

As usual, the cost for the class is $20.00 if the student needs the text book, otherwise the class is free.  The $20.00 pays for the text book, class notebook and all handout materials.   Students will need only a pen or pencil to complete the student registration form the first night of classes.

  Any questions, please call Karl Moody KE6WVZ at (805) 523-0622

Cruisin the Conejo is the big event for the Conejo Valley Cyclists (CVC). This year is the 21th edition of the bike ride. For bike enthusiasts, this is one of the premier bike rides in Southern California. Last year, we had over a thousand bicyclists on the ride! The routes have a good variety of challenges for both the cyclist and the ham operator. And the support is very good. From the Boy Scouts manning the rest stops to you the ham radio volunteers helping to coordinate the SAG wagons and keeping tabs on the cyclists.

We would like to have about 8 SAG support vehicles on the course this year, each with a ham radio volunteer providing communications back to the CVC coordinators at the start finish line. If you like to drive, you can even be a SAG driver. (CVC will reimburse for gas if you drive a SAG wagon.). If you would like to be at a critical place along the route, we can use you to help warn the cyclists as they approach the steep sections on Westlake/Decker Canyon and on Potrero Canyon. These places do have accidents each year. We positioned ham radio operator at each of these places last year and significantly reduced the number of accidents, in fact, we had no serious accidents.

Another location where we can use some help is net control at the start finish line. In the past, one person has served as net control for the entire event, which is quite a burden. This year I would like to have a couple of net control operators so that they can work in shifts.

One open question that we can discuss is the use of APRS on Cruisin.  In the past, we have had so-so performance.  Recently there have been some major changes in how the local digis work and it has actually improved the ability of low power APRS beacons to reach a digi. So placing APRS units in the SAG vehicles to track their locations may be a possibility. 

I'm also looking into the possibility of passing some video traffic back and forth.  The Amgen amateur radio club has some Kenwood video "commanders" that provide an HT with SSTV capability.  I'm checking into that.  If you know some hams that are involved in ATV, it might be interesting to run a live video link from the main rest stop (Westlake and Potrero) to start/finish.

If you would like to help out, send me an e-mail and tell me what you would like to do and when you can help. The ride hours are from 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The first of the SAG wagons will get on the road by 7:30 AM. I would like to have two waves of SAG support, so if you have a preference for morning or afternoon, let me know.

Hope to see you at Cruisin!

Mike Bass, N7WLC
n7wlc@vcars.org
805-447-1812 (days)
804-493-5714 (evenings)

On Monday, 04 April 2005, Pete, N6ZE/7, at his Clinton, WA location (Grid CN87) participated in the Two Meter (144 MHz) Sprint Test sponsored by the East TN DX Assoc. (www.etdxa.org/vhf.htm). Utilizing a Yaesu FT-817 2 watt rig and a dipole (6 feet above the ground and 480 ft above Puget Sound in Washington), N6ZE/7 worked 12 stations in CN87, CN88, CN97, including VE7DXG on Vancouver Island. Stations in CN85 and CN84 were also heard both on Tropo and Aurora propagation modes. bt73 Pete, N6ZE

March is a busy time for amateur radio community service events as civic groups rush to the out of doors to take advantage of the beautiful spring weather. This year was no exception. CVARC members supported the Westlake Rotary Club Street Fair and the California Lutheran University (CLU) CROP walk. In addition, our local ARES/RACES group taught two radio training classes for City of Thousand Oaks employees.

Westlake Street Fair

The Westlake Street Fair is held each March on Lakeview Canyon Road, near the old Westlake Hospital. This year the fair was held on Sunday March 13th. The fair is actually a challenging event for us. Our job at the fair is to coordinate the arrival of the street fair vendors. This duty begins at 6:30 AM.

Lakeview Canyon Road would become instantly grid locked if all the vendors converged on the street at the same time to set up their booths. The job of our CVARC radio operators is to control the flow of vendors onto the street in an orderly manner over a period of about 3 hours. This work must be completed before the 10 AM opening time of the fair. To do this, we stage vendors in a parking behind the medical and office buildings along Agoura Road, about a block from the street fair. Small groups of vendors are released from this holding area as space for them to set up their booths becomes available on Lakeview Canyon. Once booths are set up, vendors must park their vehicles in the parking area behind the office buildings.

Directing cars into the parking area is another critical job for our CVARC members. Parking is complicated by people arriving for services at a near by church. The church parking lot is not large enough to hold all of its members, so church goers need to park in the same area as the fair participants. The Rotary Club has made arrangements with the church to allow church goers to have access to parking places closest to the church. As it turns out, these are also the parking spaces that are close to the fair. So fair participants must be directed to use the parking lots which are further away. If this were not already complicated enough, the urgent care facility (in the old Westlake Hospital) is located in the middle of the traffic pattern between the holding area, parking lots, and the street fair.

Vendors have paid money to participate in the fair and can become impatient as they are made to sit in the holding area waiting their turn to enter the fair location and set up their booths. Church goes often are annoyed with the added hassle of getting to church and finding a parking place. In addition, there are always a couple of cars arrive that need to get to the urgent care facility quickly. And, of course, no one wants to park in the further out parking lots. It can be an emotionally charged situation. But each year the fair set up has gone smoothly thanks to the radio communications and vehicle traffic handling provide by our CVARC members. This is a real public service event!

Thousand Oaks – CLU CROP Walk

Our CVARC members provide radio communication support each year for this charity CROP walk. In fact, the walk organizers must arrange for our CVARC “public safety emergency communications support” before the City of Thousand Oaks will issue them a permit to stage the event. Each January or February we get an urgent plea from the CROP walk people requesting our CVARC support, which we of course are happy to provide.

We set up our CVARC command post at the walk start finish line in front of Nygreen Hall on the CLU campus. We also have radio operators at the two rest stops along the course. In addition, two mobile units patrol the course taking supplies to the rest stops as needed and looking for any participants that are having difficulties. Each year the mobile units pick up two or three people who are having trouble making it around the course and give them a ride back to the finish line. One of the most important duties of the mobile units is to track the last participants in the walk to ensure that everyone has returned to the finish line prior to closing down the walk. It is critical that no one be left out on the course at the end of the event.

An additional service that we provided this year was to count the number of walkers passing each of the rest stops. Our radio operators at the rest stops called in this information every 15 minutes to the Nygreen Hall command post. With this information, event organizers were able to monitor the flow of walkers around the course and to know where the main body of walkers were at any given time.

This year about 350 walkers participated in the event.

City of Thousand Oaks Radio Training Class

On March 23rd and 24th our ARES/RACES Area 2 team provided radio training classes for Thousand Oaks city employees. This is the second year that we have provided the classes. The program is sets up and organized by the City of Thousand Oaks Emergency Manager Mr. Grahame Watts. Each class is approximately an hour and a half long and held at the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks. This year we taught two classes each with 25 students.

Doug Hardie, WA6VVV is the class instructor. Doug teaches the city employees how to use their city hand held radios, how to talk into the radios, the difference between simplex (talk around) and repeater operation, and the conditions that dictate each mode of operation. Doug also spends a significant amount of time discussing proper emergency communications protocol.

A hands on exercise follows the class room instruction. The exercise this year recreated the events that occurred during the night of January 10th, at the peak of the county flood emergency. We divided the class up into five teams of 5 people each and positioned them at various locations around the Civic Arts Plaza. An ARES/RACES person was assigned to each team to help them with using their radios and applying the lessons that they learned during the class room instruction. The teams represented the Piru, Fillmore, and Fair Grounds Red Cross shelters, plus Red Cross Chapter House, and the County Emergency Operations Center (EOC). One of our ARES/RACES members served as net control. Using a prepared script, the teams reenacted the emergency radio traffic that took place that night. The students quickly picked up on the directed net control procedures and did an excellent job handling traffic.

A short discussion period followed the exercise to give the students a chance to comment on the exercise and to ask questions. From their comments, it was apparent that the students learned a lot from the class and found the exercise to be very interesting, since it gave them insight into events that actually occurred as well as providing an opportunity to practice what they had learned.

Ventura County Area 2 R.A.C.E.S. members are encouraged to check in every Tuesday night at 7:00 pm on the Area 2 Check-in Net. Specific ARES/RACES times and frequencies are as follows:

Net Control operations for the weekly ARES/RACES Area 2 check-in is run from the ARES/RACES communications center at East County Cheriff Station on Olsen Road each Tuesday at 7:00 PM. Visitors are welcome and have the opportunity to operate the station equipment. Contact Jerry Goldman KC6SO ( 805) 241-9187 if you plan to attend. RACES members, should remember that their RACES card is issued for only two years. When your card is due to expire call Jackie ( 805) 646-2551 at the Office of Emergency Services in Ventura to renew your card. For questions concerning ARES/RACES call Area 2 Emergency Coordinator Ken Larson KJ6RZ ( 805) 495-9435 or go to the ARES/RACES secion of the CVARC website at http://www.cvarc.org.

The Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club is an ARRL affiliated Special Service Club. Meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month, unless otherwise noted. Meeting location is at the Elks Lodge, 158 Conejo School Rd., Thousand Oaks, CA. Meetings start at 7:30 pm. with a pre-meeting social and technical assistance session, for those who are interested at 7:15 pm. Meetings are open to the public, and members are encouraged to bring their friends.