Current Events
The March meeting featured Allen, W6WN presenting about communication issues during the Camp Fire and the recovery that has taken place. A great presentation that has started several conversations about alternate communication tools.
Dave, K6TQ also warned us about possibly needing a plan B location for Field Day
The board also approved four new membership applications. The meeting was well attended, and some lucky attendees went home with some raffle prizes.
At the February meeting our featured speaker was Steve Dyer, W1SRD who was a 2018 Ducie Island DX Expedition team member. Steve showed many pictures of the operation and explanied the difficulties involved. He also showed us some examples of bad DX pileup operating. There were quite a few questions and everone enjoyed the lecture. Steve said he is ready for the next DX Expedition.
Jordan, W6CJ showed off his dummy load project (sorry the picutre did not come out)
Phill, KK6YYD showed of his personal shelter used for SOTA operations when the weather gets bad
Colton, WD6CWM showed us his new portable antenna from MFJ that needed a few adjustmets.
The El Dorado County ARC helped the Marshal Gold Discovery State Park celebrate the 171th anniversary of the discovery of gold in California. The club operated in the ARES trailer in the parking lot next to Sutter’s Saw Mill both Saturday and Sunday. We got the station on the air shortly after 9:00am on Saturday and worked pileups almost the entire weekend. We worked mostly on 40m and 20m phone and the band conditions weren’t too bad. We logged 657 contacts for the event and approximately 173 Winter Field Day contacts. Saturday was the actual anniversary of the gold discovery and the park had many visitors. Many of the visitors stopped by to see our operation and were interested in Ham Radio. Sunday was little quieter, but we still had several visitors stop by. The weather was perfect the entire weekend.
Roger and Dave W6TQ working the pileup.
Jordan, WC6J and Roger woking the stations
A couple of picutres of our 70 foot mast and rotatable dipole.
There was a good turnout for the first meeting of the year. Jay, KE6GLA discussed final plans for the Coloma Special Event Station this weekend. Dave, K6TQ gave a report of our Field Day results. Not too bad 3rd out of 10 in class 8A.
Jordan, WC6J showed off his latest project the QRP-Labs QCX CW Transceiver kit. The kit has built-in diagnostic functions and a great build manual.
Our guest speaker for the evening was Ian, W6TCP. Ian displayed how he used WSPR to test different antennas and how he compared the results.
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