Friday Opening at Pacificon

Kathi and I Started our day early here at Pacificon. The registration desk opened at 7:00 AM, the hotel cafe opened at 6:00, rise and shine, had a nice breakfast buffet, scurry over to registration and collect our conference ID’s and other passes/raffle tickets etc. The Volunteers at registration said they were having trouble with organization but from our side of the desk it wasn’t apparent. This Fest seems well organized, on track and everything started on time. I personally was very impressed with our Bay Area hosts.

Friday’s single seminar was a day long antenna seminar presented by 7 speakers covering many aspects of arguably the most important subject in Amateur radio. We sat in a room of about 400 Hams focused on each speaker, 50 minutes at a time, with ten minute breaks between. I wasn’t sure I could focus on a single subject that long but with varied topics and different speaking styles the only thing I nodded out slightly on was “Antenna Modeling”.

During a lunch break we got to view the Special Event station, connected to the antenna array from the photo in the last post. This station sports a collection of Band pass filters and multiplexers sharing three antennas on a single tower with at least six stations from 80 through 10 meters on multiple modes from CW through digital. These folks know how to put on a field operation along with their skills as Hamfest hosts.

The “Vendor Hall” opened at 3:00 PM and Kathi was excited to meet some old friends and hopefully some new ones? She got her chance in a hallway outside Vendor Hall when she bumped into David Brackett KE6OPK our friend from TCARA and the Covina parade work. Gordon West WB6NOA Kathi’s buddy from Quartzfest and YUMA. A new friend was hanging out in the HRO booth with Gordo was Bob Heil, of course everyone is charmed by our hard working GOTAhams secretary so I got photos of Kathi with her freinds.

Enjoy these photos and I will try to keep everyone up to date on our exploits at Pacificon ’73 Ken KC6WOK

Pacificon 2019, We are Here!

Kathi KD6CAF and I are up early to drive to “Pacificon”! We want to get an early check-in and hopefully attend the Friday antenna seminar. We’ve already met a few Hams and got eyes on some interesting fixtures (Antenna Tower) supporting a multiband Beam and two dipoles that will feed their “Special Event” station. I got a nice photo of Kathi standing next to their portable tower trailer.

We wish you could all be here with us, but we will do our best to represent GOTAhams and get some photos with more of our “Honorary” Goats! I will do my best to keep you posted on our adventure! ’73 Ken KC6WOK

GOTAhams makes a strong showing at San Diego Hamfest

I couldn’t be prouder of the GOTAhams members that helped support Lakeside Amateur Radio Club. We were apparently the largest Club group represented at the San Diego event, at least by a showing of Club badges! other than the sponsoring club.

Our officers and members were not only attendees but represented in Vendor booths also. Scott KG6ABF was working with our friend Bob Brehm of Palomar Engineers, our other Friend Kevin of Bioenno Power was manning that booth, Myself and our Secretary Kathi KD6CAF, Mark KM6AHY and our Hospitality officer Vilma attended as did our Treasurer Jack KM6UNQ and our membership committee Chris KI6AMK and Karen Argueta.

Several of us attended seminars on subject from RFI generated by our Neighbors Solar installations to how easy it is to get started in satellite operations (a general meeting topic?) along with some of us supporting the vendors indoors and outside at the Swap meet, I personally bought a new Palomar Bullet 80 antenna, Mark added to his portable power system with a folding Solar charger and charge controller from Bioennopower and Jack got himself a Heil microphone (looks new) from the swap meet.

We have few Amateur radio “events” in southern California, when these rare events happen it is best that we try to support them. I personally would like GOTAhams to find a Venue that would allow us to host an event like this and partner with other local clubs to assemble a simple one day event like Lakeside did Saturday. (Thinking out loud again)

Kathi and I will attend “Pacificon”, a three day event in San Ramon this month trying to expand our Amateur horizons, learn more about “Elmering” and meeting up with some of the “Famous Hams” that we have met in the past and that have been so supportive in us Beginning this Journey we call GOTAhams.

“Now go out and GOTA” ’73 Ken KC6WOK

Tuesday Oct. 8th GOTAhams general membership meeting

We Meet @ https://gotahams.com/events/gotahams-meeting-location/

Our presenter this month is Chris Argueta KI6AMK on antennas, Chris is an Amateur Extra, GROL, and a Senior Communications Electrician for the City of Los Angeles Fire Department. He is well versed in commercial and Aamateur Radio antenna installation, can explain the theory, mathematics and practical application of Radio antennas. Chris has titled the presentation “Antenna Basics” based on the ninth chapter of ARRLs Amateur extra study guide.

We will also be Hosting Bruce Bolton AG6YS, Committee member from the Covina Christmas Parade. He is seeking Volunteer communicators to work at this years parade on Saturday December 7th. Kathi KD6CAF and Myself have served for the last two years as operators, it has been a great experience and has helped us become better communicators. We are looking forward to seeing everyone there. Members and all guests are welcome, Mark your calendars!

Happy GOTAhams at Septembers General Membership meeting

October is a busy month with Hamfests, the San Dimas Rodeo, Pacificon, Radio in the Park but we have one Saturday at the end of October for Something Completely different! Antenna building in the park anyone?

Our tentative plans are for the construction of some foxhunting and dual band hand held satellite antennas, with prior notice we can order some Foxhunting attenuator kits and HT adapter cables. with the completed antennas we can do some transmitter hunting and Show you how to build a T-hunt “Fox” with an MP3 player and that Baofeng that doesn’t really work as a transmitter hunting tool. To use a dual Boom Dual band satellite antenna you will need two radios or a full duplex dual band HT? two HT’s require two radio to antenna adapter cables, the full duplex radio will need a diplexer and supporting cables.

If you would like to try some other antenna builds, bring those Ideas to Tuesday’s meeting and let us know!

Our “Antenna Farmers” Fall Planting Season?

Scott KG6ABF and Chris KI6AMK Have been doing what they do best, Getting our Editor Vic KM6RWB On The Air with the loan of an Icom IC-725 and a Palomar Bullet 80 End Fed Half Wave antenna, an afternoon of fighting the concrete at Vic’s house while installing a ground rod. I’m sure they will share their experience at the general membership meeting on October 8th.

Vic is now putting his General privileges to work on the HF bands and learning that HF work is a little different than simple repeater contacts and radios without spectrum scopes and waterfall displays make the operator tune around the band to listen for traffic. Vic, this is the way I operated when I was first licensed, it makes me appreciate the SDR based radios but I also understand how the simpler radios work which will make us better operators when we only have a “Go-Kit” and it really counts. Good Luck and have fun with it. My best advice is Listen, Listen, Listen, it will train you to be a better communicator when you key that microphone.

Extra, Extra !! Congratulations Chris Argueta on passing Element 4 and gaining your “Extra” Privileges!

The GOTAhams would all like to say Congratulations on you passing your exam! and gaining your Extra ticket. Those of us that attended the upgrade class that you did know how hard you worked and the knowledge you shred in those sessions. It is well deserved and we couldn’t be prouder of you, next step? VE of course!

GOTAhams first weekly “Net” !

Thank You Jack Sklar for leading our First weekly “Net” (Roundtable), It was well attended by several Club members and Officers. Yep there were glitches but we had a great time, handled some Club business and did some old fashioned rag chewing. On Johnstone Peak repeater WA6WFZH.

Attendees: Jack Sklar KM6UNQ, Net Control (Moderator)

Vic KM6RWB

James W6FRQ

Ken KC6WOK

Kathi KD6CAF

Mark KM6AHY

and Listening (sorry your radio wasn’t set to this repeater) Bruce KM6WBI

Thanks go to the Repeater owner for hosting our weekly net of this Fledgling Club.

and thanks to all that attended! ’73 Ken KC6WOK

Roundtable Ham Net Weekly, Tuesday evenings at 7:00pm

WA6FZH 446.40000 repeater, located on Johnstone Peak, San Dimas, CA

Round Table Ham Net page

GOTAhams are a fairly new, quickly growing and trying to keep up with activities that interest our members. This is one of those major steps that our treasurer Jack KM6UNQ has been working diligently to get launched. There have been discussions about format and the consensus is to offer a roundtable format. This follows open discussion about all/anything radio related (mostly), open to all licensed Amateurs (and their “third party” guests). We will keep a “Log” of all callsigns on the net and may request our “Listeners” to identify just for the log. If anything in the conversation interests you or you have a comment, feel free to jump in at any break. We look forward to hearing from all of you, lets see how long we can keep the conversation going!