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
Winter Field Day, the event is held in late January (the next one is 1/25 – 1/26). The emphasis is on a contest that can prepare operators for emergency communications deployments in harsh environments.
The San Francisco Radio Club has announced its 5th annual 2 meter FM QSO Party on August 24th.https://www.sfarc.org/2019-2m-fm-qso-party.html This is a fun event — hams head to the hills in SF and try to contact as many zip codes all around SF and in the Bay Area as they can. One end of the QSO has to be in San Francisco but there are plenty of zip code “mults” out there both inside and outside of SF. 73, Mark W6IA
Where: Sunnyvale’s Baylands Park, Pickleweed Place #1
(When you get to Baylands Park, turn right after going through the main gate.)
There won’t be an evening WVARA meeting in August. Instead, we are having our annual WVARA BBQ. Our location (see map below, the reservation is under “WVARA”) 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 — please bring your own meat to grill.
Our BBQ coincides with the SSB portion of the North American QSO Party (NAQP) which means this is an ideal opportunity for a really fun portable radio operation. (NAQP Contest rules are at: http://www.ncjweb.com/NAQP-Rules.pdf). We can’t put up any big Field Day-style antennas at Baylands, but we can still string up an NVIS dipole and/or put an HF whip on top of the metal awning and have some fun in the contest. Let me know if you are interested in volunteering to be in charge of either of the following two tasks:
Setting up an HF SSB station.
Setting up a VHF station for event coordination through the WVARA repeater
The 70th International DX Convention in Visalia is coming up soon: April 12-14, 2019. Online pre-registration closes this Saturday, March 30th at 5:00 PM PDT. If you register before the deadline, we’ll have your nice registration packet waiting for you in Visalia and you’ll be eligible for a special pre-registration prize. Currently 558 avid DXers (and contesters) have pre-registered for IDXC, including 40 DX visitors and 79 first-time attendees. http://www.dxconvention.com/pages/attendees.html Why do folks attend IDXC? • Learn something new • See the latest ham radio gear • Get QSL cards checked • Meet a famous DXpeditoner • Take home a nice raffle prize • Operate the special event station • Experience the latest hotel cuisine : >) • Eyeball QSOs: just happy to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones Raffle prizes ? Check out this awesome list — pure Eye Candy.http://www.dxconvention.com/pages/prizes-major.html Go for it. Pre-Register now: http://www.dxconvention.com/pages/registration.html Hope to CU there ! 73, John Miller, K6MM Rich Seifert, KE1B Co-Chairs, IDXC 2019
I want to alert all of you that the Electronics Flea Market season is starting very soon.
We have received an agreement from Fry’s Electronics to hold the flea market at their Sunnyvale location again for 2019.
We have looked at the costs for 2019 and determined that the fee for this season will be $600 per event. You should use this number for planning and budgeting purposes. We will begin sending out the official invoices to the first groups early next week once the ASVARO board has approved it.
The following is the planned schedule for the flea market in 2019:
2019 Schedule – Electronics Flea Market
Saturday
Mar. 9
Flea Market – Hosted by Palo Alto Amateur Radio Association.
Saturday
Apr. 13
Flea Market – Hosted by South Peninsula Amateur Radio Klub.
Saturday
May 11
Flea Market – Hosted by Santa Clara County Amateur Radio Association.
Saturday
June 8
Flea Market – Hosted by Southern Peninsula Emergency Communications System.
Saturday
July 13
Flea Market – Hosted by Foothills Amateur Radio Society.
Saturday
Aug. 10
Flea Market – Hosted by Silicon Valley Emergency Communications System.
Saturday
Sep. 14
Flea Market – Hosted by West Valley Amateur Radio Association.
We all spend the year getting on the air in new ways, in new places, with new modulation modes, with new toys, and with new friends. This meeting is centered on this last item: friends. There will be no guest speaker, but there will be food, prizes, and (hopefully) many stories of good times on the air as part of our annual free-form holiday party.
The meeting place is the same as always (San Jose Red Cross). The meeting time is the same as always (7pm), though anyone coming to help setup is invited to join us at 6pm.
There is no planned pre-meeting for food, since, well, this meeting has lots of it there.
This particular question will be answered by our very own Bill Fehring, who will take us through space weather and how it affects terrestrial propagation. In the end, the question we all consider when turning on a rig is “How will the bands be today?” Bill will take us through some online resources that work to predict band performance based not on beacon networks, but on the solar activity of our little corner of the universe. He will help us understand how to interpret the data they present in order to answer that question, what metrics are used, and hopefully allow us some better experiences during this low period of sunspot activity.
As well, this Wednesday evening will be your chance to participate in some home grown democracy while you vote for next year’s WVARA officers.
Mission 29 is scheduled to take place October 21, 2017 in Conjunction with PACIFICON, ARRL’s Pacific Division Convention. Make a contact with a skydiver and receive a one of a kind QSL card.
The mission will take place at Bay Area Skydiving in Byron, CA. http://bayareaskydiving.com/. Come on by and visit us.
If you are attending PACIFICON come by our table and say hi.
We hope to have our first jump soon after 10:00 A.M.
FM QSO: 146.430 MHz
HF QSO: 14.250 MHz
D-Star: TBD
APRS: Track the individual skydivers by call sign; AF6IM, KC6TYD, W7BIG
Streaming video: Several point of views will be available including air-to-ground. Log into: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mfwright
Parachute Mobile will be acting as Net Control atop Mt Diablo. ETJs (estimated time of jump) will be announced periodically as will as other mission specific information. Updates will also be made on the W6CX repeater at 147.060 +100. Not in repeater range? No problem. Updates will be made here on the website and on our Facebook page.
We make every effort to record your QSO. To ensure that you receive your QSL card please email KC6TYD@gmail.com indicating which jumper, the jump number, and the time you made your contact.
For updates go to parachutemobile.org.
As always, we do not have control over Drop Zone, aircraft, and the weather, so this event is subject to delay or cancellation.
Bill Frantz
