Category Archives: Announcements

It is with deep sadness that the Ventura County Amateur Radio Club announces the passing of our longtime Treasurer, John Gartman, W6JPG. This morning, John returned home with honors. As his wife, Peggy, lovingly shared: “My wonderful husband John returned home with honors this morning.Thank you to all who’ve been with us during this horrible time.He loved us well and will always be with us.” John served our club faithfully for many years, quietly and reliably handling the treasurer’s duties with care and dedication. He was a valued member of our ham radio community and a man who loved his family deeply. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife and all his family. Our club and the airwaves will be a little quieter without him. Rest easy, John.73, old friend — you are now Silent Key.

At the February 8th board meeting, the attendees were Secretary Alan AK6MF, Treasurer John W6JPG, At-large Board members Clement KM6OKZ, Jeremy KN6JMD and Robert KM6RSS. Also attending were Dave AI6VX and Burt KA6BJA. At our January club meeting, Clement indicated that he would like to volunteer to become our club President, so at last night’s meeting, he resigned his board position and was unanimously voted as our interim President. Since Clement’s board position was open, the directors asked for nominees and voted unanimously for Burt to become an interim at-large board member. At this time, the only unfilled director’s position is Vice President. If you are interested in being nominated to this office, you must be a licensed ham radio operator and a club member in good standing. The VP role is to “assume the duties of the President during any absence of the President. The Vice President shall be… Continue reading →

Welcome to December! Today is December 5th.  Thanksgiving was just last week, and next week Friday December 12th is our Club’s Decemberfest celebration.  The weekend after that is the last weekend before Christmas, and 1 week later is Jan 1st, 2026 !  Crazy how time flies, but this is how it goes for me every year.  Does time go too fast for you too?  I’ve read that our brains mark the passage of time based on new things we do or encounter.  Change nothing and do the same thing over and over again, and time will whiz on by.  Change things up, do new stuff, experience new things – when you look back, it will feel like time didn’t go by so fast.  Based on my current perception of time, I need to change things up. Something new I am building is the same portable vertical antenna that Ben K6QV… Continue reading →

Welcome to November! Hopefully by now everyone has changed their clocks back 1 hour.  I sure enjoyed the extra hour of sleep Sunday.  Weather is trending cooler, thankfully.  The heat wave we had last week was amazing.  It was 80 degrees outside at my house at 11pm!  Ham radio wise, we had a few contests last month – CA QSO Party early in October and CQ World Wide SSB late in the month.  I hope everyone got a chance to participate in at least one of them, if not both.  You’ve heard me say it before, it’s a great way for folks with ‘mic fright’ to make contact with folks without needing to think of what to say.  The exchange is short, formal, and you don’t even need to worry about uploading your logs if you don’t want to.  You also don’t need to call out CQ – just cruise… Continue reading →

Making Things Last We bought our refrigerator around 28 years ago, a no frills, top freezer, mechanical thermostat Admiral.  A simple fridge, with no ice maker or water dispenser, it did its job well, day after day without complaint.  Spacious inside, no matter how much we stuffed it, it was rare that the door wouldn’t close. We liked our fridge.  But in the past few years some issues were showing up – it seemed to run a lot, ice would build up on the ceiling in the fridge and then melt and drip on items, and the freezer temperature control was stuck.  Fixing it would require accessing the evaporator section, and that was a big job.  Was it time to replace it?  Thanks to the internet, I’ve known for many years that modern/new refrigerators do not last very long.  5-10 years is about all they’re good for if you’re lucky. … Continue reading →

Hello Ventura County Hams, I really don’t want to risk angering the propagation gods, but… are HF conditions starting toslowly get better? This weekend the MUF over North America was above 30 MHz for asubstantial amount of time, and I actually made a handful of CW contacts on 10m! It really feltlike foreign territory after so many months of not venturing up that high. My signal was gettinginto Europe on 20m multiple times during the day and night, and 15m seemed strong too. I’mkeeping my fingers and toes crossed that this is a sustained trend and not a one-off. This month’s club presentation is by Cory Gibson, W3JL, on near vertical incidence skywave(NVIS) propagation. NVIS is important for short-distance HF communications, which is vital forARES/ACS operations during potential emergencies. Which reminds me: there is a new SantaBarbara Section net on 80m every Tuesday night at 20:00 local time (3.987 MHz… Continue reading →