Category Archives: Activity

Activity, Field Day

WVARA is returning to Mora Hill for Field Day 2022

This year’s Field Day operation (June 24-26) will be at the top of Mora Hill located in the San Antonio Open Space Reserve. We will likely be running HF/SSB, HF/CW, HF/Digital, as well as VHF/UHF stations at 5 watts output in the Battery category.   There will also be a Get On The Air (GOTA) station for rusty hams.  As a COVID precaution, we will not be providing a GOTA coach this year, and will be encouraging social distancing at all our stations.

We will operate for the entire 24-hour period (11am Saturday to 11am Sunday). This means we will need operators throughout the event. Your involvement is welcome during set-up, tear-down, and throughout the 24-hour on-the-air period! You can see a description of our previous 2019 Mora Hill Field Day operation at: http://www.arrl.org/soapbox/view/9899

In preparation for Field Day, we want to get an idea of who is likely to be around to assist with set-up, tear-down, and operating. If you are planning to participate at Mora Hill, please complete the following on-line survey.  We want to ensure that everyone who has a desire to operate gets an opportunity:   https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7HWZMDB

Jim Peterson, K6EI

WVARA Field Day Coordinator

Activity, Meeting, Meeting Speaker

April Membership Meeting

Our April 14 speaker will be Brian Tanner, AG6GX, who will talk about “The Art of Voice Communications: Techniques for Technician & HF-class licensees”.  Brian will cover voice operating practices, including how best to format and communicate information for accuracy and precision via phone nets.  While this presentation will be especially useful for newer hams, even old timers may learn something new.

Bio:  Brian started by getting his Tech license in 1995.  After several years of activity on the VHF and UHF bands, Brian upgraded and became radioactive on the HF bands in 2013.  He participates in the Cupertino ARES group (CARES) as well as the city ARES net Cupertino_Net.  Brian also enjoys tinkering with hardware and recently built a 100W HF solid state power amplifier. 

Activity, Meeting Speaker, Virtual Meeting

September Virtual Meeting

Meeting Topic:  WVARA and the California QSO Party (CQP) • WVARA’s history in CQP
• Five ways that WVARA members can have fun in CQP 2020
• Suggested WVARA game plan for CQP 2020 — which occurs the first weekend of October.  
Dean Wood (N6DE) works as a hardware design engineer for networking companies in Silicon Valley.  Dean’s involvement with WVARA spans two decades, with responsibilities including past WVARA President, Vice President, Secretary, Board Member, Field Day Coordinator, Flea Market helper, meeting presenter, and other things I’ve forgotten.  Dean’s involvement with CQP includes:

Participated in his first CQP in 1995 as a college student

Current member of CQP organizing team and CQP County Coordinator

Current holder of 15 CQP records: 12 county records and 3 overall CA records (Top CA S/O Expedition, Top CA S/O-Assisted Low Power, Top CA School)

Been on 14 county expeditions to 10 different counties

Long time active helper behind the scenes in CQP, including log checker, publicity coordinator and several other things

Time: Sept 9, 2020 19:00 PDT 

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Activity, News

Annual bBQ Cancelled

I have been notified by Sunnyvale’s management that all city park reservations for the month of August have been cancelled due to Covid-19.  As a result, we will not be holding our annual BBQ in Sunnyvale’s Bayland Park on August 15. 

Jim Peterson

Activity, Meeting, News

May 13 Virtual Meeting

This month’s WVARA meeting will be held via Zoom at 7pm on Wednesday, May 13.  George Zafiropoulos (KJ6VU) will give a virtual presentation on PackTennas — lightweight, compact, portable HF antenna systems ideal for a simple, solo Field Day.  George will tell us the story of these antennas, explain their design, and give tips on how to get the most from them.

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 862 9232 4465
Password: 505589

Activity, Field Day, Meeting

Annual FD Brainstorm Lunch

Our annual Field Day Brainstorm Lunch will be 12:30pm this Sunday, Feb 23.  We’ll meet at Burger King (W. Trimble Road just north of Hwy 101 in Santa Clara).  Bring your thoughts on what you liked last year, what could be improved, and any ideas that you’d like us to consider for 2020.

Activity

Calling All WVARA Members!



March 14th, 2020, is WVARA’s turn to host the Silicon Valley Electronics Flea Market!  This will be the first Electronics Flea Market of the year, so attendance should be really good. We need volunteers for a number of key jobs.

Please view the online sign-up sheet and sign up for jobs here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0444AEAC292-electronics1
–Load the van on Friday–Mark vendor stalls, help set up barriers, check vendor tickets (with ASVARO coordinators) early Saturday morning–Set up the snack tent Saturday morning–Sell Donuts and Coffee Saturday morning–Tear down the snack tent Saturday afternoon–Help participants clean up after themselves Saturday afternoon–Remove chalk marks in the parking lot, and make sure the parking lot is in better shape than we found it–Haul cardboard to a recycling center–Unload the vans and trucks on Saturday afternoon
Best of all, if you have items to sell, please bring them with you, we will set up WVARA sellers tables, free to WVARA members.

Questions? Please send a note to Greg, N6GD, at g.desbrisay@ieee.

73

Greg, N6GD
_._,_._,_

Activity, News

Silicon Valley Electronics Flea Market

Calling All WVARA Members!

March 14th, 2020, is WVARA’s turn to host the Silicon Valley Electronics Flea Market!  This will be the first Electronics Flea Market of the year, so attendance should be really good. We need volunteers for a number of key jobs.

Please view the online sign-up sheet and sign up for jobs here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0444AEAC292-electronics1
–Load the van on Friday–Mark vendor stalls, help set up barriers, check vendor tickets (with ASVARO coordinators)–Set up the snack tent Saturday morning–Sell Donuts and Coffee Saturday morning–Tear down the snack tent Saturday afternoon–Help participants clean up after themselves Saturday afternoon–Remove chalk marks in the parking lot, and make sure the parking lot is in better shape than we found it–Haul cardboard to a recycling center–Unload the vans and trucks on Saturday afternoon
Best of all, if you have items to sell, please bring them with you, we will set up WVARA sellers tables, free to WVARA members.

Questions? Please send a note to Greg, N6GD, at g.desbrisay@ieee.

73

Greg, N6GD
_._,_._,_

Activity, Meeting, Meeting Speaker, News

Troubleshooting Electronic Circuits at WVARA’s Feb 12 meeting

The next WVARA meeting will be 7pm on Wednesday, February 12.  This will be at our usual meeting place: the Red Cross Building on 2731 N. First Street (Meeting Room #5) in San Jose.  Entry is via the side door on the west side of the building — look for the red WVARA sign.   Visitors are welcome, and of course there will be chocolate chip cookies.  If you haven’t been to the Red Cross, “talk-in” is usually available on the Association’s repeaters. Best choice would be 2m/220.  

At this month’s meeting Ron Quan, KI6AZB, will give a presentation based on his latest book, “Troubleshooting Electronic Circuits: A Guide to Learning Analog Electronics”.  Ron’s presentation will cover selected topics from the book, including electronic components, LEDs, and ham radio circuits such as oscillators, Software Defined Radio mixers and audio amplifiers.  Ron will discuss how to debug circuit problems and fix via re-design.

Ron Quan, KI6AZB

Ron built his first crystal radio in the mid 1960s. Since then he has repaired radios, Hi Fi stereos, TVs, oscilloscopes, signal generators, lab power supplies, and broadcast equipment.  Before passing his Extra Class License, he was a broadcast engineer in the 1970s for radio stations KALX FM and KNEW AM. He received his engineering degree that led to working at Ampex, Sony, and finally Macrovision where he was a Principal Engineer.  Ron has written three electronics books and has taught at the university level on analog RF communications systems, signals, and circuits.

 Looking forward to seeing you at next Wednesday’s meeting!  BTW, several of us meet for dinner near the Red Cross around 5:45pm prior to the meeting at Disn-N-Dash (2551 N. 1st St. San Jose):  https://dishdash.com/  Feel free to drop by and join us for dinner!    WVARA members also dine at Panera Bread at Coleman Avenue at Autumn Parkway, at the San Jose Market Center at 6 p.m. 

Jim, K6EI
WVARA Vice President

Activity, Field Day

Winter Field Day team at Henry Coe State Park

Many, many warm thanks to Steve Sergeant, KC6ZKT, and his lovely wife Jean for the excellent job they did organizing and feeding our Winter Field Day team at Henry Coe State Park this past weekend.  

Saturday night’s chili was especially fantastic, the weather was near perfect except for a little overnight rain, and we all had a really great time.  I also learned a whole bunch about debugging quirky antenna/radio/laptop issues that never occur when I’m sitting at my home station.    

I’m already looking forward to WFD-2021.- Jim, K6EI

Here are a few photos from WFD. Wayne N6BTU