WVARA’s 2025 Beach Party POTA will be Saturday, September 20, from 9:30 am to about 3:30 pm.

Manresa Main State Beach, day use picnic area

POTA: US-3469

1445 San Andreas Rd, Watsonville 95076 (Admission fee of $10 or CA state park pass needed)

The West Valley Amateur Radio Association (WVARA) is having a Beach Party POTA!  It is a chance to get outside, have fun and play radio with old and new friends. We always welcome and enjoy seeing members and non-members, meeting new hams, and showing off and explaining our hobby with interested non-hams.

If you’re recently licensed, stop by and make some new friends. Perhaps you can get a little help with a cantankerous HT, some antenna advice, or check out different gear and operating modes.

If you don’t have a license and are interested in what amateur radio is about, come by and ask questions, see some of what we do and try getting on the air.

If you are a ham and interested in POTA (Parks on the Air), but not sure about what to do or not yet registered, we can help you with that. It is easy, fun and free!

Bring any gear you’d like to operate. We’ll likely all be QRP, but higher power is fine if you want: just bring your own power and antenna. We’ll work out interference if needed.

We’ll have QRP-sufficient 12 volt power, and power distribution strips with PowerPoles. Bring your own PowerPole-equipped power cables. 

If you have antennas you want to try, bring them. We’ll have two or three push-up fiberglass masts to use. If your antennas need support beyond a push-up, you’ll need to bring that too.

To add some excitement, we’ll have a drawing for some nice door prizes! Just pick up a drawing ticket from Tim or Clay when you arrive.

Day of the event we’ll monitor 146.52 (2M call) and 446.00 (440 call).

Any questions?  Contact Tim KN6FGH (tim.stehle@gmail.com) or Clay N5YJZ (claycoug@gmail.com).

Field Day 2025

Many thanks to those of you who put so much effort into making this year’s Field Day event a success. This has always been a major team effort, and this year that was particularly true. I really appreciate how everybody chips in. I was especially struck by the hams in our club who helped out with set-up and teardown even though they couldn’t be around to make contacts. That includes Brian Davis (NT6F) who used his truck to tow the solar trailer to/from our site, and Tim Stehle (KN6FGH) who made a special trip to bring us pizza Saturday evening.

And a special thanks to Clay (N5YJZ) and Nick (KZ2V) for towing the WVARA tower trailer and the porta-potty trailer, Bobby (K0XI) for his van, and Kevin (KK6VF) who went out of his way to make numerous things come together – most notably our site’s AC power distribution and the solar array.

Changes in 2025:  Back in 2023 and 2024, our Mora Hill operation was 12 Alpha Battery: three CW, three SSB, three digital and three VHF/UHF stations along with a “free” GOTA, satellite, and VHF station. Setting up all those stations and associated antennas was a real project. This year we worked to simplify the set-up process and reduce the amount of work required. Part of this change was scaling back to the 7 Alpha Battery category with three CW, two SSB and two digital stations plus the usual free VHF and satellite stations. In terms of HF antennas, we still had WVARA’s 4-band yagi on the club’s 45-foot tower trailer, but instead of last year’s three 2-element quads for 10, 15 and 20 meters, we opted for a 10/15/20 tribander up 30-foot on a push-up mast. This went up in half the time of last year’s quads. And Bobby’s van with its suite of antennas for the digital stations also went up quickly thanks to Dave Koberstien (N9DK). Installation of all of our site’s antennas and stations was completed by mid-afternoon!

As expected, going from 12A to 7A resulted in a drop in our total QSO count (down about 22 per cent: from 2316 QSOs in 2024 to 1807 QSOs this year). Our final score of 19,710 (17,705 QSO points plus 2,005 bonus point) is still quite respectable and will likely put us among the top ten scores nationwide – not bad considering there are more than 3,000 participating entries each year.

GOTA:  This year we gave our youth-focused GOTA station a higher priority and made our second SSB station (and the SSB team’s triband yagi) available during Saturday’s daylight hours to our GOTA team. While that meant that we made fewer SSB QSOs, it also meant that the kids that visited our site had a much easier time making their first radio contacts. Chuck Kamas (AD6CL) and Kevin Smith (KK6VF) did a magnificent job of coaching a steady stream of youngsters. And our VHF station captain, Vince Bafetti (KB6NTW), helped with the visitor overflow by getting several kids on the air via his VHF station.

 Murphy’s Law:  Of course, Murphy paid us a visit. Saturday evening we had RFI issues with 80CW hammering 40SSB. After an hour of debugging, Bobby (K0XI) and Bill Fehring (W9KKN) identified the problem and provided a solution (voltage sag on the K3 mitigated with a voltage booster device from Bill). Major kudos to Bobby and Bill!

The International Space Station:  Mark Sayer (W6IA) accomplished his satellite magic Sunday morning (eight satellite QSOs) and in addition achieved a two-way QSO with Astronaut Nichole Ayers (KJ5GWI) on the International Space Station — totally awesome!

There won’t be an evening WVARA meeting in August. Instead, we are having our annual WVARA BBQ on Saturday, August 9, from 11am to 2pm. 

Our location (Bay Breeze Picnic Area #2, next to our traditional Pickleweed site) is inside Sunnyvale’s Baylands Park and includes multiple tables, grill, an AC outlet, and a covered awning for shade. There is an entry fee per car at Baylands Park, so you may prefer to carpool. We’ll have hot charcoal and condiments; feel free to bring something to share and maybe some protein to grill.

This year, our BBQ doesn’t coincide with the SSB portion of the North American QSO Party (NAQP) which means that the contesters in our club don’t have to choose between attending our BBQ and racking up a big score in the contest.  But feel free to bring a rig and make some contacts if you’d like.  

Our next WVARA meeting will be held in-person on Wednesday, June 11th, in Meeting Room 3 at the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, 2731 N. First Street at Plumeria Drive (southwest corner) in San Jose.  Social time begins around 6:45pm, with the meeting commencing at 7pm.  If you haven’t been to the Red Cross in a while, “talk-in” is usually available on the Association’s repeaters. Best choice would be 2m/220.  

This month’s presenter is Clay Couger, N5YJZ.  

He will update us on the various ways he has reduced RFI in his shack by using common mode suppression techniques on his antenna’s feed line and on his power supply cable.     

We will also be talking about the upcoming Field Day that WVARA will set up, as usual, on Mora Hill between June 27 and June 29.

You can read about Field Day at the ARRL web site or witness our set up from 2024 at this link

BTW, several of us meet nearby for dinner prior to the meeting at 5:30pm at Disn-N-Dash (2551 N. 1st St. San Jose):  https://dishdash.com. Feel free to join us.

Three things to remember:
• Since the west side entrance to the Red Cross Building is always locked, we recommend entering the Red Cross Building through the main entrance situated on the north side of the building.
• The Red Cross locks the main entrance at 7pm sharp, so please come early in order to get access to the building.  
• Since Meeting Room 3 is about 100 feet from any entrance, any late comers who knock on an outside door won’t be heard from our meeting room.  So please try to arrive early!  

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Date	Speaker	Topic
June 11	Clay Couger, N5YJZ	Common Mode Suppression
June 27-29		FIELD DAY AT MORA HILL
July/August		No evening Meetings in July or August
August 9		Annual BBQ at Baylands Park
September 10	Dave Brown, WR6Z	All Things 900 Mhz
October 8	Vince Bafetti, KB6NTW	Loop on Ground Receiving Antennas

In preparation for Field Day, we are going to have our annual antenna party on Saturday, May 10, at 10am in the parking lot of Pinecone Lumber — 895 E Evelyn Ave in Sunnyvale — https://goo.gl/maps/zmXCCxp7tRNsTp1b7   

This is our opportunity to assemble and test our HF yagi on its tower,   Hope to see you there!

BTW, we are also looking for someone with a truck who might be available to tow the WVARA tower trailer between my QTH and the antenna party site.

We’re making plans for WVARA’s Field Day operation on Mora Hill June 27-29. Feel free to fill out our on-line participant survey so that we can include you.

Here’s the URL: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PN83HTN

And if you need further encouragement, here is a little appetizer to join us: 2024 WVARA Field Day

Sunday April 13th 2025

This event is a fundraising activity for local amateur (HAM) radio groups in the South San Francisco Bay area. This month the event is hosted by the West Valley Amateur Radio Association (WVARA).

The Electronics Flea Market is located in parking lot 3 at West Valley College in Saratoga. Visit electronicsfleamarket.com for more details.

This event runs from 6:00AM until Noon 

We have dozens of vendors selling mostly electronic goods, both used and new. Items frequently found include: electronics components, laptop computers, desktop computers, cellphones, chargers, cables, usb devices, radios, amateur radio gear, network devices, network cables, manuals, books, software, etc.

Coffee, water, soft drinks, and doughnuts are on available for purchase from the hosting group.

Spots for vendors are sold upon entry and start at $40/day.
Buyers enter free, but must have a valid college parking permit ($3/day).