June is Amateur Radio Month in Ventura County

Rob Hanson-W6RH received the proclamation from Board Chair Matt LaVere.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors proclaimed June 2023 as Amateur Radio Month in Ventura County. The June 20th presentation was held in the supervisors’ hearing room in the Hall of Administration at the County Government Center in Ventura. The event was well attended by ACS volunteers, CVARC and other ham radio club members, and amateurs from throughout the county.

July Club Meeting

The next regular club meeting will be held on Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 7:30 P.M. at the East County Sheriff’s Station.

Topic: Go Kits Return – Last year’s hit program returns! The newest approaches to mobile operation – go-kits -will be set up and displayed and the advantages of each will be discussed.

Special note: if you can’t attend the meeting at the Sheriff’s station you can still participate via ZOOM, details below.

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June Club Meeting

The next regular club meeting will be held on Thursday, June 15, 2023 at 7:30 P.M. at the East County Sheriff’s Station.

Orv Beach-W6BI

Topic: Mesh Networks – Orv Beach-W6BI will discuss ham radio networking or “mesh” networking, one of the fastest growing activities in amateur radio. The Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) Mesh Network Project is a very large, long-range WiFi-type network system for licensed amateur radio operators and can operate on amateur radio frequencies.

Special note: if you can’t attend the meeting at the Sheriff’s station you can still participate via ZOOM, details below.

Continue reading “June Club Meeting”

President’s Message

Hello CVARC members, families, and guests!

Ed Zimmermann-N6XEW

June is here and another very busy month is ahead for amateur radio in Ventura County. We had the Love Run this past Sunday. Coming up is the CVARC VE session on the 11th. And let’s not forget that Field Day preparations are well under way. Field Day setup starts on Friday June 23rd at noon. Field Day operating hours begin on Saturday June 24th at 11 A.M. and continue to Sunday June 25th at 11 A.M. After that, we break everything down, pack up, and clean up the field.

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My Best SOTA DX                                                       

VP8TAA’s icy view from his SOTA activation on Mount Challenger in the Falkland Islands.

by Ron Topolinski K6CPR

Early last August a group of Southern California SOTA operators were camping in the Big Bear Mountains. The objective of the camp-out is to spend some face-to-face QSO time, and then they split up and go to different SOTA summits and they gain a lot of S2S (Summit-to-Summit) bonus contacts, most of those happening on 2 meters.

Continue reading “My Best SOTA DX                                                       “

CVARC J-Pole Build a Success

CVARC members went home with several dual band j-pole antennas after a build was held Saturday, May 20th at the East County Sheriff’s Station. Keith Elliott-W6KME gave a great “this is how it works” talk and most importantly all involved had fun! Thanks to Tom, Audrey, Linda, and April for the photos.

CVARC 2023 Field Day Interference Checklist

Bill Willcox-KF6JQO has revised his very useful Field Day Interference Checklist for 2023. The list offers a number of tips and best practices for minimizing interference with your Field Day setup. Of course, these suggestions can be very helpful for your own shack if you are having RF problems. You can view the checklist here or on this website at Links/Technical Articles/Anti-Interference Checklist.

General License Class Set for July 2023

Starting July 8th, and then on the 15th, 22nd and 29th, CVARC will be holding a General License class at the East County Sheriff Station, 2101 E. Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks  from 8:00 A.M. to noon. The General License gives hams access to the HF bands and opens the door to worldwide communications.  

The class will be taught by Keith Elliott-W6KME and will use the NEW edition of the ARRL General Class License Manual, 10th edition. A new pool of questions takes effect for the FCC test on July 1, and the new manual covers many more modern features of HF operation than before, including FT8 and other digital modes. The is no charge for the class, but a copy of the manual is required.

To reserve a spot in the class, contact Keith-W6KME at W6KME@CVARC.org.

Click for source for required manual.