Pres Says May 2025
AI6VX Weather Station Temperature History for April 2025
Welcome to the month of May! Okay, I’m late – we’re already 1 week into the new month. From my weather station, barely 10 of the days in April were solidly in the 70’s, but it is refreshing that the sun is finally out. We’ve got VERY warm temperatures on tap for the weekend and then back to mid 60’s next week. As usual the year is zipping by, though looking back, the club events in April feel like they were so long ago. How is it that time goes by quickly and slowly for the same period?
AI6VX FT8 Log on a Particularly Good Evening
Just like above where I perceived time to move both quickly and slowly, my personal ham radio activities in April seem few, but now that I’m really thinking about it, the month was pretty full! HF has been amazing! Our 40M nets have been really good these past 3 weeks. Folks were coming in strong, and everybody was hearing each other. A few weeks ago after our Monday 2M net, I got on to do some FT8 and was surprised to hear stations in Europe. (Europe is normally difficult for me). After answering a few CQ’s, I was surprised to see many stations trying to call ME specifically! For a solid 30+ minutes I was answering folks one right after the other. I even picked up a few new countries!
Warren KN6ZZI Shack and Antenna
If you were at our K6MEP Field Day 2023 event you likely remember Warren KN6ZZI. Warren drove down from Santa Barbara to see what our K6MEP Field Day was all about. Not only did he have a wonderful time, but he got hooked on HF communications. Since that visit Warren got into DX contesting, picked up his amateur extra, built a nice ham shack, and put a Steppir antenna on his roof. This month he traveled to Cape Verde Island off the West coast of Africa to operate a station and using the callsign D44ZZI, I bet he’s having the time of his life. If you wanted to try and contact Warren there, you can ‘track’ him at Clublog.org through this link: https://clublog.org/livestream/d44zzi
Speaking of Field Day, Field Day 2025 is just over a month away! We’ll be talking about it at the May and June club meetings, and planning it over Groups.io and Zoom meetings. We also have two ‘Portable Operations’ events before FD so you can get your get some practice in before the actual FD weekend.
Here’s what we did last month:
April 11th we had our monthly meeting with a presentation on Meshtastic. I certainly had fun giving the presentation, but I hope I didn’t scare everyone away from wanting to give it a try. Thanks to Ben K6QV for donating a node for one of the raffle prizes. Those that got in on the Ed Fong group buy also received their orders, less the tri-band antennas that were distributed the following weekend at the ‘Portable Operations’ event.
Church Clean-Up Day
April 12th, a lot of you came out for the Church cleanup day! Thank you all so much for helping. Once again, Grace Lutheran was very appreciative of our help, and fed us with a hamburger and hot dog BBQ.
April 19th we had the 2nd of our regular monthly ‘Portable Radio and Help Session’ get togethers in the picnic area at Grace Lutheran Church (GLC). Attended by at least 19 people, radio contacts were made, folks helped each other, and everyone enjoyed each other’s company. We even had 2 recently licensed non-club hams show up. Thanks to everyone that came out!
What’s happening in May?
May 9th, 7:00pm at Grace Lutheran Church is our next club meeting where we’ll have 2 presentations. John Kitchens NS6X will be giving us an ARRL update and Pat Anglum N6XTM will give a talk on SDR. We will also discuss Field Day planning.
May 17th 8:30am at Grace Lutheran Church we’ll be holding our next VE session. We have a lot of spots open. If you or someone you know would like to come and take a ham radio license test, send an email to licensing@vcarc.club to reserve your spot.
May 17th 11:00am – 2:00pm at Grace Lutheran Church will be our next ‘Portable Radio and Help Session’. Again we’ll meet in the picnic area, set up and play radio. Bring what you plan on using at Field Day. I’ll bring charcoal and water in case anyone wants to bring food to cook for themselves.
Thanks everyone for coming and participating in our club activities. Get ready for Field Day! See you at the May club meeting.
Dave AI6VX
