GOTAhams Amateur Radio Club

License Testing at Brackett Field
2026-11-28 13:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Brackett Field, 1615 McKinley Avenue, La Verne, CA, 91750, United States
VE testing at Brackett Field

GOTAhams is delighted to be sponsoring Frank Westphal’s team of ARRL-VEC examiners operating monthly in-person testing. Tests will be held on the LAST Saturday of each month (EXCEPT DECEMBER) at 1PM in the Pilots Lounge of the Brackett Field airport in La Verne (map below). Walk-ins are allowed, but you are strongly encouraged to contact Frank at 909-257-7205 in advance. Please leave a message with your contact information and indicate which license level(s) you are pursuing. Please bring $15.00 for the A.R.R.L. VEC exam fee. ($5 if under 18). Payment must be cash or check – no credit cards or electronic payment methods. Also, please review the ‘preparation’ link below to ensure that you have completed the other required preparations for a successful test. You MUST bring an FCC FRN number to the test event – contact us if you need help with creating this on the FCC website. Successful candidates will be contacted by the FCC for payment of any additional fees due before issuance of the license. There is no test at the end of December due to the holiday season.
GOTAhams is grateful to Frank and his team for their commitment to continue this long-standing
volunteer effort, having conducted hundreds of prior exam sessions.
Contact: Mr. Frank C. Westphal at 909-257-7205 or K6FW@ARRL.NET
Time: Last Saturday Every Month, 1PM
Preparation: Please review this page: http://www.arrl.org/what-to-bring-to-an-exam-session
Exam Fee (collected at test): $15.00 ($5.00 if under 18).
Information on FCC License Fees (NOT collected at test): https://www.arrl.org/fcc-application-fee
Map and Directions:
The pilot’s lounge is located in the terminal building also housing Norms Hanger Coffee Shop. Enter the front entrance and turn to the left just after the gift shop. The meeting room where the exams are held are one door down on the left.
Brackett field la Verne Click for directions

Covina Christmas Parade
2026-12-05
Volunteers needed to help at the parade. More information to come. Watch the weekly emails.

Simplex net
2026-12-23 18:15 - 19:00
The Simplex net will be on 146.580MHz starting at 6:15pm.
A great way to explore the reach of your 2 meter equipment without benefit of repeater, both receiving and transmitting.
Bring a pad of paper and record signal reports for all you hear. We will collect and collate these.
Use this scale for your reports:
1=Nothing at all heard, not even noise or hiss suggesting a specific signal is present.
2=It was apparent that a signal was present but communication is impossible even with reasonable re-tries.
3=Communication possible with noise and possibly some re-tries to cover drop outs.
4=Good communication though with some noise or other artifacts, but generally solid copy.
5=Solid copy, little or no noise, full or nearly full quieting.
Be patient during silences as there will probably be participants you cannot hear and net control is likely communicating with those stations during silences.

Christmas
2026-12-25
We will have the nightly net as usual.

POTA Activation
2027-01-02 08:00 - 17:00
We will be doing a POTA activation. Everyone is welcome to come to the park or participate from home.
Come to the park at [LOCATION TBA]. Setup your own a station, help with other stations, or just come to watch.
To participate from home (Hunters) all you have to do is check the POTA website here: https://pota.app/#/ and look for WG6OTA or look for [LOCATION TBA] Listen to the frequency the Club POTA group is using. Then make a contact. That is it. Signing up for your own account or logging your contacts at the POTA website is not required but optional if you want to keep track of your POTA contacts..
You can find more information about POTA here: parksontheair.com
For more information contact Marco, KN6SJQ@gmail.com
