Author Archives: AI6VX

Pres Says Aug 2025 A Month of ‘Power’  Power – Earthquake!  This past week there was an 8.8M quake in Russia and Tsunami warnings were issued. My seismometer, sitting in my living room 4000 miles away from the epicenter, first picked up the quake approximately 11 minutes after it happened.  P-waves, vs S-waves, are the fastest traveling waves from an earthquake.  The difference in time between the arrival of P and S waves is how scientists determine how far an earthquake is. By using data from several stations, they can determine the epicenter and magnitude. As you can see from my seismograph plot above, the Earth was ringing from this quake for over 4 hours (each line is 1 hour).  It took that long for the trace to drop to the background noise level for the day. Wow!  Also, remember I mentioned it took 11 minutes for the quake to… Continue reading →

Prez Says April 2025 March was a full month for the club, starting with the monthly meeting on the 14th where Ed Fong WB6IQN gave us a talk on his antennas.  Many of us are already happy owners of one or more of them, but at the meeting we got to hear about the time and research he spent on their design. Ed concluded his presentation by offering us a group discount on his antennas and within a few days I’ll be placing the order. I own his DBJ-2 roll-up antenna, which I ‘every-day-carry’ (EDC) in my backpack.  I may never need to use it, but if I do, it’s ready for quick deployment. March 22nd we held a VE session which resulted in 7 new hams and 2 upgrades!  Congratulations to everyone that tested and also a big thanks to the VE’s that volunteered their time.  Without volunteer examiners… Continue reading →

Thanks to everyone that came out to the picnic and also set up radios to play with! Unfortunately the bands were not good, but the company and camaraderie were most excellent! Great to have so many of the folks that took their ham test that same morning stick around to ask questions and hang with us!

Pres Says March 2025 Welcome to March! Can you believe that it is almost time to change our clocks again?  The above screenshot was taken from timeanddate.com shows the hours of daylight each day for the whole year – the stepped offset is where the time changes and the white vertical bars shows our current date.  On March 9 we will set our clocks forward 1 hour. I’ll be happy to have more light in the evenings, and I think this time change will help our 40M net on Wednesday, though 40m conditions have been pretty good this past month. In February we had a very interesting talk from Paul Strauss WD6EBY on his work implementing a simulcast repeater system.  For those that missed it, when complete, Paul’s system will allow you to communicate on one frequency seamlessly anywhere in Ventura County.  You would no longer have to switch between… Continue reading →