Time change, cooler weather, shorter days, nuisance amounts of rain, 2 elections, VE session, and Thanksgiving. Whew! November was full, and here we are racing through December.
Decemberfest is right around the corner! Instead of our regular club meeting at Grace Lutheran Church, in December we will be having a Decemberfest dinner and celebration at Black Bear Diner in Ventura. Cost for club members in good standing (paid up for club year 2025), plus up to 1 guest is $20 per person. Non club members, or attendees above the member+1 guest, will be charged $39. We currently have 55 people signed up, doors open at 6:30pm and food will be served by 7pm. There will be trivia, a slide show of the year’s activities, a gift exchange, and the Monday Night Net raffle drawing! It will be a fun way to end the year. If you haven’t yet let us know that you are coming, please do so by sending an email to info@vcarc.club with your information.
We have new hams! 5 folks took their technician’s test at our November 9th VE session and all passed! Two other folks upgraded their license too. I do have to say that this was one of the more worrisome sessions to complete because of how long it took the mail to be delivered to the ARRL. In total, 3 calendar weeks passed before the last few folks were processed. Beginning with the next testing session in 2025 we will be using a new feature the ARRL VEC offers – electronic acceptance of test results. For folks testing, nothing changes – you will still test in-person using paper and pencil. What changes on our side is all the material will get scanned and emailed to the ARRL, and also still sent via USPS mail. The benefit is that the ARRL will process the digitally sent material within a few days of receipt, and we will have a digital copy of your paperwork. No more worrying if the mail gets lost, and folks should see their upgrades and new licenses in less than a week!
Have you been getting on HF? There has been a number of DXpeditions in November that have been reachable using a modest antenna and only 100 watts. Also the club has 2 HF nets during the week, a 40M net on Wednesdays and a 10M net on Sundays. See the website for details.
Big thanks to the departing club officers for your hard work and dedication running our club in 2024, and welcome new and returning officers for 2025! Also, thank you club members for participating in our November elections! Here are the VCARC officers you elected for 2025, and will be installed at our Decemberfest dinner.
- Board member – Burt KA6BJA
- Board member – Jeremy KN6JMD
- Board member – Jacques KN6VQ
- Secretary – Valerie KO6EVC
- Treasurer – John W6JPG
- Vice President – Robert KM6RSS
- President – Dave AI6VX
Lastly, today we had a 7.0 earthquake off the coast of Northern California. How I found out about it was I checked my seismograph and was shocked at what I saw. A HUGE excursion (big quake), low frequency trace (not local), and ringing for a very long time (over 2 hours). I then checked Caltech and saw it was a 7.0M in the Juan de Fuca/Cascadia subduction zone. If you are not familiar with this fault line, you might want to read up on it. It is estimated to be able to cause quakes as high as 9.0, higher than the San Andreas. Thankfully I haven’t heard of any damage from today’s quake, and though there was a tsunami warning, one did not materialize. Still today’s quake is a reminder that folks should have critical supplies on hand, local repeaters programmed into your radios, and an emergency plan shared with your loved ones.
Dave AI6VX
