Again this year CVARC has initiated an incentive program for young hams (or ham wannabes), 18 years of age and under.  Whenever a young person attends a CVARC meeting, they will receive a ticket for a drawing to be held at the end of the year.  At the annual CVARC holiday gathering, one lucky youngster will win a brand new transceiver!

The more meetings attended, the better the chance of winning.  The giveaway is also open to non-licensed youngsters, on the condition that they become licensed before being eligible to win the transceiver.

Club President Rory Eikland emphasized that this a way for CVARC to tell young hams that we are interested in helping them along and telling them how much we value their energies and participation in CVARC.

Dave Bell, W6AQ and Don Lisle K6IPV will show us that “far away places” are within our reach with their lively and picturesque presentation entitled “Casual DXpeditioning” at the April 8 CVARC meeting.

Dave is world famous for many achievements. He’s a Hollywood producer, having been recognized with both Emmy and Peabody awards for his films and TV shows. He produced last year’s “Amateur radio Today” video for the ARRL with Walter Cronkite KB2GSD contributing his talents.

Dave has been recognized as “Ham of the Year” at the Dayton Hamvention, “DXer of the Year” and he’s the very first recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award by the ARRL. He’s been a frequent MC of various ham banquets and conventions and served as the first chairman of the ARRL’s Public Relations Committee. Each year Dave faces the difficult decision of attending the Dayton Hamvention or the Cannes Film Festival in France!

W6AQ is an active DXer, contester and enjoys weak signal VHF and UHF operations. He has also taken an interest in DF contests and has produced a video entitled THE HAM RADIO OLYMPICS about Radio Sport.

Together with Don Lisle K6IPV, Dave recently made a trip to East Malaysia where they made thousand of contacts during the ARRL CW DX contest.

Plan to join us, (and bring your ham friends, the spouse and kids) for a very special and entertaining evening with one of ham radio’s brightest stars!

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 $12 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.

Wally Foster N6CDJ has been a huge contributor to ham radio in Southern California. A sometime-visitor to CVARC meetings, Wally has been responsible for thousands of hours dedicated to installing the region’s packet radio system, introducing others to packet and APRS and volunteering his time with emergency service, fundraising, climbing towers and doing a first-rate job with repeater and station installations.

Wally’s in a tough battle right now. Please drop him a QSL with a “get well Wally” message and help keep his spirits up during a trying time. Wally’s always “been there” for ham radio; it would be nice for hams to now “be there” for him.

Bring your QSL to the April meeting or send it to:

N6CDJ, 1025 N. Fairview, Burbank CA 91505

Cruisin the Conejo is the big event for the Conejo Valley Cyclists (CVC).  This year is the 20^th edition of the bike ride.  For bike enthusiasts, this is one of the premier bike rides in Southern California.  Last year, we had a record 1023 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 keep tabs on the cyclists.

We would like to have about 6 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.  With a ham radio operator stationed at each of these places, we can get help there much quicker if need be.  One rider who crashed on Westlake/Decker sent me his picture from the hospital.  Trust me, this is something we want to prevent this year.

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 8:00.  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)

805-493-5714 (evenings)

ARES/RACES Area 2 has been working with the Thousand Oaks DART (Disaster Assistance Response Team) for the past several months to develop an effective DART - ARES/RACES communications plan.

During the early stages of a large disaster, professional emergency responders, including the county fire department, sheriffs department, emergency medical system, Office of Emergency Services, and others, will most likely be consumed dealing with mass causality sites.  For an earthquake these will probably include severely damaged shopping centers and office buildings, collapsed apartment buildings, distorted freeway bridges and over passes, as well as damage to the community infrastructure including broke water and gas mains, downed power lines, potentially damaged water reservoirs and dams, and disrupted telephone and cell phone service. This means that residential neighborhoods and individual home owners will be necessarily ignored by the professionals.  Neighborhoods will be on their own to deal with the disaster as best that they can.  It could easily be 12 or more hours before professional help arrives in a stricken neighborhood.

Most homeowners are not prepared and do not possess the skills to deal with such a catastrophe. However, they can not just sit and wait for the professionals to arrive, professionals who may not be coming.  They have to do something to rescue family and friends from collapsed or severely damaged structures.  Without the proper training and tools, would be rescuers can easily become trapped, injured, or even killed, adding to the disaster and confusion.

The Thousand Oaks DART organization was formed over 10 years ago to solve this problem.  The more than 60 Thousand Oaks DART members have the training and the equipment to:

·       Set up medical triage,

·       Perform first aid and CPR,

·       Provide disaster psychology help,

·       Coordinate fire suppression efforts, and

·       Identifying hazardous situations.

During a natural disaster DART teams will be deployed by the Thousand Oaks Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to first survey the extent of damage in Conejo Valley residential areas and then to provide assistance in the hardest hit areas. This work requires extensive communications between the deployed teams, with the EOC, medical personnel, Red Cross, and other disaster recovery organizations.  Amateur radio, working through the Thousand Oaks ARES/RACES emergency nets, is the most effective means of providing DART with the communications connectivity that they need.  For this reason, DART and ARES/RACES are developing a strong working relationship.  In addition, 16 Thousand Oaks DART members currently have amateur radio licenses and many of these have also become Thousand Oaks ARES/RACES members.

In addition to community wide communications, DART also has a significant “on site” communications need.  Each DART team has a team leader who’s responsibility is to coordinate the team’s recovery efforts.  The team leader also has responsibility for the safety of all team members at the site including knowing at all time where each team member is located and his/her status. Without constant on site communications, team members could enter a damaged home in search for victims, become trapped or injured themselves, and in all of the confusions of the disaster remain lost for hours before someone noticed that they were missing. 

On site communications is implemented using FRS/GMRS handheld radios.  These radios operate in the 460 MHz frequency range and provide similar performance to simplex ham 440 MHz handhelds without the requirement for an amateur radio license.  Every DART member has a FRS/GMRS radio.  These radios allow the team leader to remain in constant contact with all members of the team, coordinating the recovery effort as well as ensuring the safety of all members.  If  two team members enter a damaged home looking for injured residents, the team leader knows exactly who entered the home and when.  The team members are required to report back to the team leader periodically with their findings.  This constant communications not only guarantees a well coordinated recover effort, it also ensures that the team leader knows at all times the location of the team members and their status.

On site communications is conducted similar to a directed net with the team leader serving as net control.  All communications from team members are directed to the team leader.  If  it is necessary for two sets of members to directly communicate with each other, they are given permission to do so by the team leader and directed to move to a secondary FRS/GMRS frequency. At the conclusion of their joint mission, the two sets of members announce that they have rejoined the primary net by checking in with the team leader.  The team leader may monitor the secondary frequencies, or assign someone this duty, so that he/she is constantly aware of all activity at the site and the status of all team members.

Without connectivity into the community ARES/RACES nets, the valiant efforts of a DART team could be all for nothing.  A DART team could do all that they have been trained to do, successfully rescue injured people from their homes, perform triage, administer first aid, and then watch those that they rescued die because the team had no way to call for medical help.  To succeed in its mission, DART teams must be connected into the ARES/RACES emergency communication nets so that the EOC, the emergency medical system, and other disaster relief organization are aware of the DART needs and can respond to those needs.  Community wide communications is a two way street.  To successfully direct operations at a site, the DART team leader must be aware of the big picture.  He/she must understand what the extent of the damage is throughout the community, what recovery efforts are occurring and where, and the demands being placed on critical disaster recover resources.  In addition, safety of the DART teams critically depends on connectivity into the ARES/RACES nets.  Information coming through the emergency nets could be the only warning that a DART team has of danger heading their way.  For all of these reasons, each DART team needs to continuously monitor the community ARES/RACES nets.  

The two tier DART communications model is implemented by setting up a command post at each site.  A command post may consist of one of the DART mobile command post trailers, a DART vehicle, or simply a command post table set up out in the open.  The DART team leader directs all site operations from the command post.  Each command post contains one or more FRS/GMRS radios for on site communications along with a ham radio, often a dual band 2 meter / 440 MHz radio.  An amateur radio operator is assigned to the command post to handle ARES/RACES communications.  This operator may be one of the DART amateur radio operators or a non-DART ARES/RACES person assigned to the DART team.  In addition to monitoring the ARES/RACES frequencies, the amateur radio operator may be requested to monitor the on site secondary FRS/GMRS radio frequencies for the team leader.  The team leader will usually directly handle communications on the site’s primary FRS/GMRS frequency.  This communications model was tested during a recent DART exercise at a deserted Amgen Corp. building scheduled to be torn down.  The communications model worked very well. 

The close cooperation between DART and ARES/RACES is proving to be very beneficial to both organizations.  DART has extensive training in evaluating and avoiding the potential dangers that may exist at a site so that DART members do not become injured and add to the overall disaster and confusion.  This training is being passed on to ARES/RACES members to help them stay out of harms way when deployed to a site.  In return, ARES/RACES is providing DART with training in communication procedures and in radio equipment selection, set up, and operations.

In a large natural disaster, there will not be enough professionals, DART, or ARES/RACES personnel to cover all of the potential disaster sites.  As much as we try to prepare, there will be some that will have to fend for themselves, at least for awhile.  There is an excellent 7 week Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training program offered free of charge several times a year by DART in conjunction with the Ventura County Fire Department. This program covers the essentials of what you and your family need to know to survive a natural disaster.  I highly recommend the course and will be happy to provide additional information on the program.   

Here is a list of successful candidates from the CVARC VE Session held
March 23 in Thousand Oaks:

Name New License Class
======= ================

Mark S. Madrid Technician
Matt K. Marzec Technician
John M. Marzec Technician
David E. Miller Technician
James H. Christensen Technician
John A. Elias Technician
Dan K. Houston Technician
James T. Summers Technician

VISALIA INTERNATIONAL DX CONVENTION - The 55th Annual DX Convention is
being held April 23-25, 2004 at the Holiday Inn in Visalia, CA. For all
the details, visit: http://www.scdxc.org/visalia/

The International DX Convention is the world's premier DX convention -
if you're a DXer or interested in any aspect of Ham radio you need to be
at Visalia. Top DX operators from around the world will be there. Meet
the big guns from the US, Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania. Meet the
people on the other side of the mic or key, shake hands with the person
you have had a sched with for the past 10 years but never met. Don't
forget the YL's we will have something special for them as well.

In an idle moment, I did a Google search for my own old callsign (G3PSP) and came up with this surprising item.  Someone is selling (for 25 bucks) a QSL card that I sent from Rochester NY to Costa Rica in 1989.  Apparently the postage stamps that I put on the QSL card, a 15 cent Cody Great Americans and a 25 cent  Grosbeak,  now have some value to collectors.  It is amazing what you find when you search the internet.  

73, Alan, K6PSP / G3PSP.

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:

The Net Controller’s script for the Area 2 weekly RACES check-in net is on the CVARC website, in printable form. Every member is encouraged to periodically serve as net controller. RACES members should remember that their RACES card is issued for only two years. When your card is due to expire call Jackie at the Office of Emergency Services in Ventura for an appointment to renew your card. Call (805) 654-2551 or toll free from the east half of the county at (800) 660-5474. For packet, call coordinator Dan Dicke KE6NYT (805) 983-1401. To register for Red Cross Disaster Services Classes, call (805) 339-2234 ext 0 Ventura County ARES/RACES web site: http://home1.gte.net/res19999/

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.