Category Archives: Articles / Keyer

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 →

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 →