Author Archives: AI6VX

Welcome to February! January was an exciting month in more ways than one.  There were many days of Santa Ana wind conditions, along with wildfires that caused unprecedented destruction.  In past years I was never very concerned with the high winds. This year was different.  The wind gusts at my house were insane.  Getting alerts via Watch Duty were concerning. I took two days off from work just in case we needed to evacuate.  We refreshed our bag of important documents and photos that were originally put together the night the Thomas Fire broke out. Cars were fueled up, the cat carrier was ready.  Thankfully we didn’t have to evacuate.  Thankfully the barranca upwind from us didn’t catch fire. We fielded phone calls, texts and email messages from friends and families in other states and countries.  They had seen the fires out here and wanted to know if we were… Continue reading →

Borrowing a line from a long running soap opera – “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives” (pictured is one of our recent gorgeous sunsets) Welcome to 2025!  Another trip around the Sun, the holidays are behind us, and wind and fire warnings seem to have replaced our rains.  As I am typing this we are on day 1 of 2 days of a “Life-Threatening & Destructive Windstorm!!!” (exclamation points from NOAA)  On the upside, the days are finally getting longer. I hope you all are safe, have power, and are not impacted by this windstorm. Decemberfest was great!  I hope you all enjoyed getting together as much as I did.  Great conversations, good food, nice gifts, fantastic decorations, and trivia!  We are already reserving the location for next year (thank you Robert) and will use the next 350+ days to address some of the… Continue reading →

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… Continue reading →

Pres Says – November 2024 Remember when Halloween was far away?  We are now almost a week past it. Remember when Thanksgiving was so far away? It’s just over 3 weeks from now.  Remember when Decemberfest was so far away?  Yeah, that’s coming up quick!  But I am getting ahead of myself. The month of November is important for our club as we hold elections for officers.  So not only do you get to vote for our next President of the US, two days later you get to vote for our club’s next president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and board members.  So far most of the nominees are familiar incumbents, but we have some new folks too running for office..   Current club members (paid up for 2025) are eligible to vote and run for office, and we have 3 ways for you to vote.  #1 – In-person at our November… Continue reading →

It’s October!  We’re in the last quarter of 2024 and we have a lot of holidays in the next 3 months ahead of us.  Weather has been pretty nice, and though I keep hearing about a heat wave coming, so far our temps have been mild.  That said, I can feel that Autumn is here. Speaking of weather, hurricane Helene has demonstrated why 2-way radio, especially ham radio, is still important and relevant. I’ve read the emails and visited links from the ACS/ARES Groups.io page about isolated people and towns, and how ham radio has been the only way for folks to get the help they need and messages sent out.  In preparation for this article, I checked to see if communication was still a problem, and sure enough it still is.  Even though cell providers have deployed mobile cellular nodes, and many workers to repair damaged fiber optic lines… Continue reading →

Hello Ventura County Hams, Summer is great: the family is all out of school, we get to go hang at the beach, travel out of town, and enjoy not having to do – or grade – homework. And while I will mourn the passing of the educational summer now that those around me are firmly established back in the classroom, it does leave slightly more time for radio related activities. So, what is on the horizon? Have you been wondering why we are at the peak of the solar cycle with record high SFI numbers, but propagation seems to be… not great? I posted a link to an article by Tomas, NW7US, to our club’s Groups.io page that explains why summertime in the Northern Hemisphere wreaks havoc on propagation. It’s not an overly technical read, and I hope you find it as informative as I did. Why Is Propagation on… Continue reading →