It is that Time again, GOTAhams monthly outing, “Radio in the Park”!
Our usual Location, San Dimas Canyon park, east end of the parking lot 1628 Sycamore Canyon Rd, San Dimas, CA 91773
we plan on some regular HF SSB work, Some HF digital work and adding some reverse beacon monitoring with PSKreporter.
As usual we will have Snacks and Hydrating fluids. All hams and non-Hams interested in Amateur Radio and/or Emergency Communications are welcome.
Bob Brehm of Palomar-Engineers adds his past presentations to their website. GOTAhams has it’s place of prestige proudly displayed on that site! check it out @
Speaker Presentations
Check “Tech Support” and click “Speaker Presentations” while you’re there look around at some of their useful and helpful products, do some studying on RFI suppression.
If you want really useful information, download a copy of Kurt Speaks Out, a free book graciously offered to all interested parties by Palomar Engineers.
On Behalf of GOTAhams.com I would like to Thank Bob Brehm for Presenting some really great information at our August general meeting and helping our members with their RFI (QRN/QRM) problems. We invite Bob to be a Honorary GOTAham and Club Mentor. Thank You Bob for all you do for the Amateur Radio community.
Our GOTAhams August meeting, Tuesday August 13 at Casa Jimenez Mexican Restaurant 921 W Foothill Blvd Claremont, CA 91711
Our FIRST live guest is Bob Brehm, Our member/elmer Scott KG6ABF Sent a quick note to remind us of Bob’s visit, Here is his quoted Email:
“Looking forward to seeing and hear Bob AK6R at the next meeting
As many know, Bob is the Chief Engineer at Palomar Engineering and he is very fun to listen to
His presentations at past Ham Conventions are always packed.
Please encourage everyone to make this meeting.
Scott
KG6ABF”
I couldn’t have said it better Scott! and I will add, I have attended Bob’s well attended and at times very crowded presentations at the 2017 Hamcon in Torrance and recently in Yuma. Bob is well spoken, extremely knowledgable, Loves questions and likes to add humor to keep things light. Look Bob up on QRZ.com, it’s a great read!
As I recall Bob also created the not so sought after but reluctantly welcomed “Worked All Neighbors” award! (I have Mine (c; ).
This is truly a NOT TO BE MISSED General meeting, There have been some inquiries and Kathi has been promoting Us (always) so Bring anyone interested in meeting Bob Brehm.
I’m looking forward to not having to bore everyone and I can let Bob do the talking this time. Thanks Scott for getting us a GREAT Guest speaker.
You can RSVP to Kathi @ kd6caf@gmail.com, Please do, so we can let our host restaurant know how many to expect.
August 6th is the Annual “National Night Out”, find the location in your City by doing a simple web search of “(Your City) National Night Out”
You can find a list of California Cities @ http://www.seecalifornia.com/events/california-night-out.html
in my city it is http://covina.org/event/national-night-out/
Learn more about it @ https://natw.org/
Myself and Kathi KD6CAF are local Community Emergency Responce Team (CERT) members, previously trained in the City of Los Angeles and use/share our Amateur Radio skills in CERT service. We will be representing Covina CERT at Heritage park (Citrus and Badillo, Covina) along with other CERT members and our local first responders and City Service representatives.
So, Get out, meet your neighbors, local Community first responders and find out what is going on in your City.
If you would like to be of Service to your community consider becoming a CERT team member or at least take tthe free CERT training, You will learn what to do in an emergency, use your Amateur radio skills and maybe help train others in communications?
I am looking forward to hearing from all of the Club members that make it to “National Night Out” and sharing your stories at our next General Meeting on the 13th of August, see Ya’ll there! ’73 Ken KC6WOK
Vic, as usual, working very hard to post our monthly newsletter has posted the August issue, just download the PDF and read or print it and enjoy.
Our secretary Kathi KD6CAF has been working feverishly since Field Day to compile all the logs and bonus point information for submission to the ARRL for our final score. OK yes I know “it’s not a contest” and we seem to revel in the contact not the amount of contacts. Personally I love to see how far we “got out”, who we contacted and most importantly getting new hams and non-hams “On The Air”. as far as distance we did make a Florida contact, many in the Midwest (before their storms hit) Minnesota, Illinois etc., we even did a couple Canadian contacts late Saturday evening. The GOTA station made a Texas contact! I am quite proud of everyone involved in our Field Day and especially Vilma Arlotti for feeding everyone and finding time to “Get On The Air” calling CQ, making some of those 40 meter contacts and impressing her Extra Husband (and our Club Call sign trustee) Great Job Vilma!
Summary
Entry received at: 2019-07-13 23:59:44 UTC
Submitted by: Katherine Mixon, KD6CAF E-mail: kd6caf@gmail.com
Call Used: WG6OTA GOTA Station Call: KM6AHY ARRL/RAC Section: LAX Class: 2A
Participants: 23 Club/Group Name: GOTAHAMS
Power Source(s): Solar
Power Multiplier: 2X
Preliminary Total Score: 1,044
Bonus Points:
Bonus Points Status
100% emergency power 200
Public location 100
Public information table 100 File [Information Table 6 22 2019.jpg] previously
uploaded
Natural power QSOs completed 100 File [Two Solar Panels on GOTAhome .jpg] previously
uploaded
Educational activity 100
Youth participation (1 x 20, max of
100)
20
Safety officer 100 Documented by mark-safetyofficer-6-22-19.jpg
Social media 100
GOTA Station 40
Entry submitted via web 50
Total bonus points 910
Score Summary – File [Dup Sht Digital FT991A
IC7300.PDF] previously uploaded
CW Digital Phone Total
Total QSOs 0 4 59
Total Points 0 8 59 67 Claimed Score = (QSO points x
power mult) = 134
Band/Mode QSO Breakdown:
CW Digital Phone
Band QSOs Pwr(W) QSOs Pwr(W) QSOs Pwr(W)
160m
80m 1 @ 100
40m 18 @ 100
20m 1 @100
15m
10m
6m 1 @ 20
2m 3 20 7 100
222
432
Other
Satellite
GOTA 32 @ 100
Total 0 4 59
GOTA Station: GOTA Coach – Double Bonus Points
Name Call QSOs Bonus Points
James Janssen W6FRQ 20 40
Vic Corella KM6RWB 9 0
James Setterlund (NONE) 1 0
Matt Wang KM6WSY 2 0
I do realize that there is a much publicized opinion that Bonnelli Bluffs (formerly East Shore RV park) has little to no propagation? I also realize that My GOTAhams believe they can get useable propagation out of any site they are assigned. This will certainly serve us well in the event of an emergency where we will HAVE to communicate from the worst of sites. Isn’t this what Amateur Radio is truly about? serving our communities when and where we are needed!
Besides Wouldn’t you rather spend Saturday night overlooking a beautiful Lake with the Los Angeles Skyline in the background? Yeah, that’s what I thought, So did we (c;
Good Luck in Your Field Day entries! ’73 Ken KC6WOK
Prior to Field Day, our secretary Kathi, KD6CAF sent some photos and GOTAhams tokens to Dave Casler wishing him a great Field Day with his local radio club. Dave responded with a typewritten letter (yep Dave is Old School) ask permission to post those photos on his page. Of course Dave!, you have been a great friend to Kathi and I since we met at Quartzfest and the best advocate we could have hoped for. Thanks for all you’ve done to promote GOTAhams and the kind words you’ve had for Kathi and I.
to visit Dave Caslers website “dcasler.com” click here and check out his YouTube channel for some in depth “Ham Radio Answers”
Sorry it has taken so long for me to post, Kathi and I were busy with Field Day follow up, and preparing for our post Field Day General meeting, getting Thank You emails to our site visitors etc.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank our members, Guests and potential new members for attending the July 9th meeting. it set a new high for attendance of 17, this made our host restaurant very happy.
We covered our Field Day operations and everyone shared their favorite Field Day stories, a few funny, some a little crazy but my favorite was shared by the Sutterland family about how this was such an enjoyable Field Day experience, John S. AC6FJ shared that he had attended past Field Days that were not inviting, and how the GOTAhams all welcomed his Family and had projects to offer his son James, offered them food and refreshments, allowed them to “Get On The Air” and basically treated them not as outside onlookers but embraced them as fellow hams. Personally I was quite touched by that story and extremely proud of what we are building in this fledgling club.
I shared a nice slide show much of which can be seen on our Field Day 2019 page. We also shared things we need to be working on for upcoming events, support of our member Charles KM6CEM that is going to serve at a boy scout event on Catalina Island, the upcoming Scouts JOTA/JOTI, Kathi and I attending Pacficon, Quartzfest 2020, Yuma 2020, Field Day 2020 and the many committees it will take to support all of this. Work never ends when you are a “Radio Active” club but we have a highly active membership always willing to step up not just when it’s the Visible work but all the small background stuff that overwhelms board members.
One of the “small” tasks is designing club QSL card, which had already been in design by two of those highly active members (c; Chis KI6AMK, and Jack KM6UNQ, Thanks guys for stepping up before I even asked (that’s my Goats!).
On a final note, we usually get home late after those parking lot socials (post meeting) and Kathi KD6CAF will sit down at her desk to make some notes and send last minute emails. After her GOTAhams meetings I have noticed that she is still smiling, bright eyed and seems re-energized, Thanks Goats for making Amateur Radio a really fun experience. We both look forward to each time we meet up or receive an email or phone call from any/all of you! ’73 Ken KC6WOK
This Morning at 10:33 AM 6.4 magnitude Ridgecrest earthquake brought us a reminder of exactly why we do our monthly “Field Ops”. Luckily we are part of a very active group of Amateur Radio enthusiasts, Preppers and CERT and medically trained members. I like to consider our GOTAhams team very prepared/trained/experienced for most of what we may be asked to assist. With monthly deployment of our mobile equipment, and being able to quickly respond in a emergency operation serves Us and our equipment well. In the Mobile Home community that Kathi KD6CAF and I live, with our GOTAhome and our experience, we have been included in the emergency response plans and even advised on its development. I am sure we can all improve and we have been planning for improvements to the GOTAhome. Stay Prepared ’73 Ken KC6WOK
Vic Corella KM6RWB in his usual timely fashion has posted our GOTAhams Newsletter “Goat Notes”, Thanks Vic for being a great Editor!
As a side note to anyone interested our GOTAhams website is growing in popularity and our number of visitors has steadily increased along with number of pages viewed. On Field Day June 22 2019 we set a new record of 30 visitors, nearly double our past daily record! Thanks to our members for keeping us updated and well posted in our “Social Media”, and helping our website grow.
