CVARC meetings have been held at the Elks Club for a long time now, so it is with mixed feelings that I announce that the Board is considering a change of location. Our relationship with The Elks has been good and the rent is very reasonable. Occasionally their activities become a bit rowdy and drown out our speaker, but that is the exception rather than the rule. However, we think that the new location will, in many ways, be better suited to our needs and the rent is even better.

The new location being considered is the Community Meeting Room at the East Valley Sheriffs Station, where CVARC/ARES Licensing Examinations have been held for years. The room is immediately adjacent to the ARES/RACES Radio Room, and although that is not the same as having a full-time club shack, there will be the possibility of operating from that location on club nights should the need arise.

A disadvantage of this move would be the need to move our meeting to the Third Thursday of the month instead of the present Second Thursday. However, our current date conflicts with the Simi Settlers so the change would allow their members to visit our meetings and ours to visit theirs.

Clearly the location will be a longer drive for some of our members, but for those in Moorpark, Simi Valley, and Northern Thousand Oaks it will be closer.

If you have any questions or comments about the move, please send me an email at steve@stevechampion.com or call me on (805) 493-2564.

The move is yet to be finalized, so until there is an official announcement please continue to come to the usual location. I'm very much looking forward to seeing Steve Jensen's talk this month and I hope to see you all there.

73 de AE6NX

Our speaker for March will be Steve Jensen. He will show how radio got its start in spark gap transmitters and receivers, showing his grandfather's spark transmitter and some history related to it. He has partially restored the spark rig to the point that he can operate the spark exciter (very noisy). Spark transmitters were a crucial step in the hobby and were amazing devices. Steve will help us understand and appreciate some of that history as only someone who grew up around it can. Here is a photo of the transmitter we will be looking at: This photo was taken in approximately 1918 at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln Nebraska.

The gentleman seated in the middle of the photo is Steven's grandfather, John C. Jensen. His call was 9YD. The piece sitting on the table and the telegraph key that he is holding is the part that Steve has up and running again.

Please join us in what is sure to be an interesting and informative presentation.

It's the fastest growing form of ham radio competition! It combines ham radio technology with good exercise outdoors. It's suitable for anyone of any age, with or without a ham radio license. We call it "foxhunting," but it's also known as "radio-orienteering" and ARDF. It's popular in two dozen countries around the world and there are national and international championships every year.

You can try foxhunting for yourself in Topanga State Park on Saturday, March 18. Bring the whole family, because there's no age limit. There will be some easy hidden transmitters to get you started, plus an international-rules course where you can find out whether you're a potential champion. If you're a runner -- great! If not, don't worry. There will be plenty of walking and trotting on the course.

There is no charge for the beginner course. Experts will be on hand to teach you the basic techniques of on-foot direction-finding. A limited amount of radio direction finding gear will be available for loan. If you have receivers, scanners, directional antennas, attenuators, or other equipment suitable for on-foot RDF, be sure to bring it.

Foxhunting begins at 10 AM. You may start out at any time up until 12 noon. Courses close at 3 PM.

Topanga State Park is in the Santa Monica Mountains. From Highway 101 in Woodland Hills, go south on Topanga Canyon Boulevard Highway 27) about 8 miles. From Pacific Coast Highway, go north on Topanga Canyon Boulevard to just past Old Topanga Canyon Road. Either way, watch for a "Topanga State Park" sign and turn east onto Entrada Road. (This is a dangerous corner.) Go about a mile, bearing left at the fork. We will gather at the end of the parking lot in the shaded picnic area. Look for the orange and white orienteering flag.

Talk-in on 146.97 MHz simplex. Vehicular entrance and parking costs $5 per vehicle.

On the Web, you'll find ideas for equipment, the international rules, and more news of foxhunting events, including the USA ARDF Championships coming in April and the World ARDF Championships in September. Go to www.homingin.com to get started.

The Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina was released a couple of weeks ago (http://katrina.house.gov/full_katrina_report.htm or http://www.gpoaccess.gov/katrinareport/mainreport.pdf). The White House released its review of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, which, "identifies the systemic problems in Federal emergency preparedness and response revealed by Hurricane Katrina - and the best solutions to address them."

The President released his staff's report (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060223.html). His report included 17 lessons the Executive Branch learned after reviewing and analyzing the response to Katrina; made 125 specific recommendations to the President, and identified 11 critical actions to be completed before the first day of the 2006 hurricane season.

The report also included a section titled, "What Went Right" in the Katrina response, which singled out amateur radio operators for particular praise: "Other organizations worked tirelessly to assist emergency responders that, due to the storm, did not have the equipment and means to effectively carry out their duties. Amateur Radio Operators from both the Amateur Radio Emergency Service and the American Radio Relay League, monitored distress calls and rerouted emergency requests for assistance throughout the U.S. until messages were received by emergency response personnel. A distress call made from a cell phone on a rooftop in New Orleans to Baton Rouge was relayed, via ham radio, from Louisiana to Oregon, then Utah, and finally back to emergency personnel in Louisiana, who rescued the 15 stranded victims. Ham radio operators voluntarily manned the amateur radio stations at sites such as the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Watch Net, Waterway Net, Skywarn and the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network."

A quote from the bipartisan reports was "FEMA dispatched Amateur Radio operators to hospitals, evacuation centers, and county Emergency Operations Centers to send emergency messaging 24 hours per day." This sounds familiar to many of us because we participate with ARES and RACES in local hospital drills and in the actual evacuations that have occurred in local fires and floods.

The bipartisan Katrina report however, notes that "Contributions by charitable organizations assisted many in need, but the American Red Cross and others faced challenges due to the size of the mission, inadequate logistics capacity, and a disorganized shelter process". This represents an area that we as emergency response providers need to look at and think hard about. I am sure this report is being thoughtfully considered at many levels inside disaster response organizations everywhere, and we hams should join them in looking at how we would scale up our responses to meet the needs of these large scale disasters. At the time of Katrina, experts pointed out that there are credible scenarios of a very large earthquake in Southern California that would be even more difficult to respond to than Katrina was.

I highly recommend you download the full pdf version of both reports I mention at the beginning of the article and search for the words "amateur radio" and read all of the sections that match. It is very informative and will help you justify to yourself all of the efforts you put into community service and disaster preparation.

By this point, I am sure everyone has noticed that the CVARC web site is back up and running after an unfortunately long downtime. This outage was frustrating for me, for the board, as well as for our regular users. The good news is that we learned some important lessons and will soon have the ability to recover much faster, and we intend to stay in practice on how to do it.

In the mean time, we are sprucing things up and going through a lot of housecleaning efforts, pruning dead links, finding relocated ones and such. If you happen to find a dead link, please bring it to my attention (KG6QEL@yahoo.net) and I'll try to get it fixed promptly. I have fixed quite a few and have automated tools to help me with the task. The tools aren't good about finding where the new site is when a site relocates. Your help could help a lot.

We have also added a section of links to young ladies sites to encourage more female members and potential members to become active in the club and our efforts. If you have any female radio amateurs in your family or social circles invite them to visit our 'YL" links on the "links" page.

Another big change is that this newsletter is available not only in HTML, but as a PDF file you can download as well. That can make it easier to make a copy for a relative or friend. Please let me know what you think at a club meeting, or by email.

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.