Greetings, All,

By popular demand, the Santa Cruz County Amateur Radio Club will host one more outdoor SWAP MEET.  Mark your calendars for: Sunday, October 31 8am-1pm.

Parking lot next to the Club Repeater Station in Upper DeLaveaga Park, near Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

• Fox Hunt at 10am
• Complimentary Continental Breakfast and BBQ lunch, donations accepted to benefit CZU Fire Radio Operators

Free Admission Vendor space is free but bring your own table or tarp to display your goods, and shade canopy if desired. Open to all.
Rain cancels the event.
Questions?Call Becky (831) 685-2915 and leave a message.

73, Becky KI6TKB

This month’s WVARA meeting will be at 7pm on Wednesday, October 13, via Zoom.

Our Oct 13 presentation will be Summits On The Air with Rex Vokey, KE6MT.  Rex is will cover the basics of SOTA as well as some tips and tricks for those operating either at home or in the field.  He’ll also give a short report on his recent first-activation of a backcountry summit called Parker Peak.

Rex is the California (W6) Association Manager for Summits on the Air and has been a ham since 2015.  He gets out to do summits big and small whenever he can, operating both QRP and portable QRO (100 watts) from mountaintops.

This month’s WVARA meeting will be at 7pm on Wednesday, Sept 8, via Zoom.

Our speaker will be Dean Wood, N6DE, who will update us on the latest changes to the California QSO Party. This very fun event occurs the first weekend in October. Dean will likewise cover the various ways that WVARA members can have fun participating in this great contest. 

When not contesting, Dean 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.
-Jim, K6EI

When: 11am – 1pm, Saturday, Aug 21

Where: Sunnyvale’s Baylands Park, Pickleweed Place #1(When you get to Baylands Park, turn right after going through the main gate.)

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 and maybe something to share.

And regarding COVID/Delta — even though we’ll be outdoors, some of our members may be immunocompromised so please bring a mask and practice social distancing as appropriate.

– Jim, K6EI

When:  11am – 12:30pm, Saturday, Aug 21, 2021

Where:  Sunnyvale’s Baylands Park, Pickleweed Place

When:  11am – 12:30pm, Saturday, Aug 21, 2021

(When you get to Baylands Park, turn right after going through the main gate.)

There won’t be an evening WVARA meetings in July or 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 

Just came across a very enjoyable article in the Boston Globe about the adventures of a newly-licensed ham.   Check it out:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/22/opinion/connecting-with-strangers-over-ham-radio-tuned-my-husband-back-into-our-little-family/

Jim Peterson

Great article on SOTA from a non HAM source

Excellent article
https://www.outsideonline.com/2421479/ham-radio-hobby-summit

It’s official.  Sunnyvale has opened their picnic facilities for summer reservations, and we’ve been approved for Baylands Park Pickleweed Picnic Area.  So mark your calendar for WVARA’s Annual BBQ on August 21 starting at 11am.  This coincides with the North America QSO Party / SSB, so we’ll be making contacts during our BBQ via a portable station.  (More details to follow.)

Our monthly meeting will be next week on Wednesday, March 10, at 7:00pm via Zoom.  Zoom instructions will be emailed.

 
This month’s topic is one of interest to all hams.  Jim Aspinwall, NO1PC, will unlock the secrets of “Elmering in the Age of Devices” — how we can each get more involved in mentoring (i.e. elmering) — helping younger folks get excited about the magic of ham radio.  Jim points out that since “shop class” is a thing of the past, and Maker events are mostly focused on Arduino, robots and i-devices, there are few places for the average person to learn and really practice electronics except amateur radio.  Mentoring by those of us in the ham community is the key!   

Bio:  Jim was originally licensed as WN9GVF in 1970 and eventually upgraded to Extra in 2005.  In addition to a full career in the tech world, Jim served for 8 years as a volunteer firefighter/engineer, eventually transitioning that experience into working with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services as a telecommunications deployment specialist.  Jim has created and moderates a fantastic amateur radio Elmer forum on Facebook devoted to Amateur Radio Elmers (https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmateurRadioElmers) and maintains a web-site devoted to ham radio reference information for newcomers at http://www.No1PC.org.