WVARA does not hold evening meetings in July or August.

Instead, we will have our annual summer BBQ at the Pickleweed Picnic Area in Sunnyvale’s Baylands Park on August 8 beginning at 11am.

West Valley Amateur Radio will set up
Field Day activities in Mora Hill.

All details are available at the following link:

2026 WVARA Field Day

Looking forward to seeing you there !

As I write this, I’m far from San Jose but very much still connected to WVARA and Amateur Radio.  I’ll be traveling across the Nordic countries—Norway, Sweden, and Denmark—through most of April, but rest assured, I’ve packed my KX2 and several antennas and I’ve already done a few POTA activations in Norway as LA/KK6IK, and I invite you to listen for me on 20 meters CW and FT8 from the island of Svalbard as JW/KK6IK on April 8, between 08:00 and 17:00 UTC. If band conditions cooperate, I hope to catch some familiar callsigns!

Meanwhile, there’s plenty happening stateside with WVARA this month. Our club continues to grow in energy, participation, and community, thanks to all of you who show up—on the air, at meetings, and for the informal get-togethers.

What’s Happening in April

• April 8 General Meeting: Dave, WR6Z, will be leading a hands-on discussion and demonstration on AllStar. This will be a great opportunity to learn how to connect and configure your equipment so more members can connect on the W6PIY repeater system.
• April  20 “Coffee Take Down”: at Peet’s Coffee (144 W. El Camino Real, Sunnyvale, CA) in Sunnyvale — always a relaxed, enjoyable time to meet fellow hams, swap ideas, and maybe plan that next activation.
• WVARA Spring POTA Event – April 25. We’ll close out the month with a group Parks on the Air activation at a location to be announced soon. Bring your rig, batteries,  antennas and enthusiasm—let’s make this one a big turnout!

Looking Back at a Busy March

March was full of momentum. Our March 11 general meeting had excellent attendance, as Eric, W6HS, guided attendees through MeshCore configuration and duse. We also held our second “Coffee Take Down” on March 23 at Blue Bottle at Santana Row along with a fun mini-POTA activation at Martial Cottle Park in San Jose after coffee.

Importantly, the club membership passed two major votes shaping the club’s future:

• Adoption of the new WVARA Bylaws, paving the way for a more inclusive and modern club framework for now and into the future.
• Approval of a new, larger, more central meeting location, beginning in September 2026 at the West Valley San Jose Public Library, Community Room (1243 San Tomas Aquino Road, San Jose).

Until our summer break, we’ll continue to meet at the Santa Clara Valley Red Cross Building, as usual.

Behind the scenes, your Board has been hard at work, too. We’ve started to reconfigure the W6PIY repeaters to enable for AllStar-linked operations while keeping the ability to have a local communication capability (as well as working to fix the 1.2 GHz machine), centralized club assets in a new storage unit, and created a private WVARA MeshCore channel for members.

Looking Ahead

Mark your calendars: Saturday, May 9, 2026 is our biggest annual fundraiser, the WVARA benefit at the ASVARO Electronics Flea Market. It’s always a fun day and an important support event for the club.

Whether you’re chasing DX, chatting on our repeaters, or hanging out at local WVARA gatherings, thank you for continuing to keep WVARA active, welcoming, and innovative. I may be operating from across the globe this month, but I’ll be thinking of you all on the airwaves.  I’ll see you all at the April 25 POTA!

73,
Scott, KK6IK
President, West Valley Amateur Radio Association

San Jose, California

Winter Field Day is a great opportunity to get outdoors, gain experience assembling equipment in the rough, and operate a station under potentially-challenging winter conditions. This year the West Valley Amateur Radio Assoc (WVARA) operated QRP in the 7-transmitter Outdoor category from the campground at Sunset Beach State Park near Watsonville. The weather this year was cool with highs in the 60s and nighttime lows in the 40s and no rain.

We used callsign N6N and had two HF CW stations operated by Scott (KK6IK), Jim (K6EI) and Bert (W6MSD); three HF SSB stations operated by Max (W6BG), Curt (W6RQ) and Kevin (KK6VF); one HF digital station operated by Vince (KB6NTW), and one VHF/UHF station run by Tim KN6FGH. In addition, Mark (W6IA) netted us two satellite contacts.

In contrast to summer Field Day where we often put up wild-n-crazy antennas, the focus at our Winter Field Day site was simple, basic antennas that could be quickly assembled in an emergency, including several verticals and end-fed wire antennas. Unlike summer Field Day
where the bands are packed throughout the night, action during Winter Field Day tended to dwindle in the evening. As a result, our team took a break and went to a local Japanese restaurant for dinner and some great social time.

QSO totals:

Band	CW	Phone	Digital
40	2	11	4
20	46	38	9
15	13	17	2
10	6	18	4
2		3
440		2
Satellite		2

WVARA’s WFD Planning Team (L-R): Curt (W6RQ), Jim (WU0I), Jim (K6EI), Tim (KN6FGH), Clay (N5YJZ), and Scott (KK6IK)

WVARA will be participating in Winter Field Day this upcoming weekend (Jan 24-25) from the campground at Sunset Beach State Park.  This event runs from 8am Saturday until 2pm Sunday.  You can learn more about Winter Field Day at: https://winterfieldday.org/

.We plan to have between six and eight stations in operation.  We’ll be using callsign N6N and will be running QRP with basic antennas — nothing fancy.  Since Sunset Beach is a State Park, our contacts will also count as a POTA activation (US-3574)

Feel free to drop by and say hi.  Sunset Beach is a very nice place to relax, have a picnic lunch and enjoy the day. And if you’d like, you can probably help operate a station and get POTA credit while you’re at it.  Just be aware that there is a $10 park admission fee, $9 for seniors, for each vehicle.

Here’s a map showing the location of our site:  https://maps.app.goo.gl/TYP1pZPHGdv9eA7GA

 The red circles in the map below show our campsites:

Happy New Year, valued West Valley Amateur Radio Association Members!

This is Scott, KK6IK, in San Jose, and it is a pleasure to welcome you to the 2026 ham radio year with WVARA. As many of you know, this club has a long tradition of strong technical meetings, great Field Day operations and CQP participation, and an active presence on the air across HF, VHF, and UHF.   But we are far more than our activities, we are a community.

In the past few years, many of us have enjoyed getting outside with Parks on the Air (POTA) and other portable operations, combining operating from local parks with practical antenna and station experiments. Those outings, along with our regular meetings, nets, and events, have helped bring together hams who enjoy everything from CW and SSB to FT4, FT8, and other digital modes. Looking ahead, 2026 offers plenty of chances to keep that momentum going—whether you are chasing DX, creating a new station at home, or trying portable or QRP operating for the first time or even a builder, hiker or digital radio participant.

For 2026, the club is looking to add new ways to connect and build community, including informal morning coffee meetups where members can talk radios, compare projects, or and welcome newer hams and enjoy the company in a relaxed setting. We also plan to offer some fun hands-on station- and antenna-building activities during the year so members can bring computers, parts, tools, and ideas and go home with something new on the air. Alongside these in-person gatherings, WVARA will continue to make strong use of the W6PIY repeater system, including AllStar-capable linking, so that members and friends can participate in nets and special on-air events from a wider area as well as participate in a wider variety of on-air events going forward.

The association’s monthly meetings and on-the-air activities remain a core part of our club identity, with programs ranging from antennas and RF interference mitigation to digital modes, AllStar, travel and portable operating. The Tuesday evening W6PIY repeater net continues to be an excellent way to stay connected and informed, and 2026 will also feature regular, club-organized POTA activations so members can join in, team up, and get on the air from local parks together – just show up if you want, no radio needed to participate.  If you have been thinking about giving a short talk, leading a build project, or helping organize POTA or Summits on the Air (SOTA) outings, this year is an ideal time to step forward – we want your engagement.

Most of all, this is an invitation to every WVARA member—new or long-time—to participate more fully in the club during 2026. Participation may be as simple as attending meetings, joining the weekly net, or coming to the new coffee gatherings, helping with building events, using the linked repeaters for more on-air activity, or joining club POTA activations. If you have been away from Amateur Radio for a while, consider this a friendly nudge to reconnect; if you are already active, think about one more way you can help welcome others and keep the club vibrant this year.

Wishing you good health, good propagation, and many enjoyable QSOs in the months ahead. Looking forward to hearing you on the air and seeing you at WVARA activities throughout 2026.

I look forward to meeting and chatting with each and every one of you soon.

73,

Scott, KK6IK
President, West Valley Amateur Radio Association
San Jose, California

Happy New Year!  Our next WVARA meeting will be Wednesday, January 14, 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 starts around 6:40pm, with the meeting officially 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.   

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

At this month’s meeting, WVARA member Jim DeLoach (WU0I) will share stories about his amazing Field Day operation last June from the side of a volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island.  He and his wife, Maggie, deployed a wire rhombic antenna supported by four 40′ telescoping fiberglass masts in a field about 2,000 feet above sea level that sloped gently towards the Pacific.  Wow!!!  No surprise: that rhombic totally rocked it.  In addition, they had about 30 guests show up — mostly CERT folks and their families.   

You won’t want to miss Jim’s talk.  I’m looking forward to hearing all the details.  

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.  

• We will be in Meeting Room 3 — about 100 feet from any entrance.  As a result, late comers who knock on an outside door won’t be heard from our meeting room.  If you need help getting in the door, you can call my cellphone (408-636-6172) or Tim’s (408-929-9311).
See you there!

Okay, this photo isn’t from Hawaii.  But here are Jim and Maggie feeding the WVARA Team during Winter Field Day 2024

As the year draws to a close, I want to thank every member of our club for another successful and memorable year. From our gatherings at Mora Hill for Summer Field Day to braving the rain at Mount Madonna during Winter Field Day, you once again demonstrated the skill, cooperation, and good humor that define the WVARA community.

Field Day remains a highlight of our calendar, and this year was no exception. Whether you were operating, logging, setting up antennas, or stopping by to support the effort, the event showcased our ability to work together under real-world conditions. Both Field Day’s  sharpen our emergency communications skills and remind us how much fun radio can be when shared with friends.  Oh, and remember that Field Day is not a contest.  Right Jim?

Parks on the Air was another strong theme throughout the year. Many members took advantage of POTA activations to get outside, learn their portable gear, and put creative antenna solutions to the test. It’s been great  to see the enthusiasm this style of operating continues to generate.

Our Tuesday repeater nets and regular Wednesday meetings remain the core of the club. Weekly nets keep us connected, informed, and learning and practicing good operating habits, while our meetings provide a place to learn, plan, and simply enjoy each other’s company. Thank you to the net controls, presenters, and volunteers who make these activities possible week after week.

As we enter the holiday season, I hope you take time to relax, reflect, and enjoy time with family and friends. Looking ahead to the new year, We are excited for more Field Days, more POTA activations, lively repeater nets, engaging meetings and, potentially some exciting new community events.

On behalf of the club leadership, We wish you a warm and happy holiday season and a healthy New Year. We look forward to hearing you in-person and on the air.

73,

Tim, KN6FGH and Scott, KK6IK

President & President Elect, West Valley Amateur Radio Association