September 19, 2025

“Remote Ham Stations”

Our guest speakers were Nicholas Haban - AF6CF and Dave Ginsberg - N3BKV. They presented a discussion on their remote amateur station located near Boron, CA. Nicholas talked on the need and history, and he will explained how it operates. There was a video of the site construction, followed by a slideshow. Next, Dave explained "Node red". This was followed by a real-time demo.

August 15th, 2025

“Prepare for the Worst - Overcoming
Operating Challenges in The Gambia”

Our guest speaker for August was Marty Woll - N6VI via Zoom©. Marty was part of the 2003 C5Z DX-Pedition team, along with Art W6XD and Dick N6AA that operated from The Gambia (in west Africa) during the 2003 CW Worldwide DX Contest. Their operation was fraught with visits by Murphy that needed to be overcome. Marty explained all the problems they faced from power surges to antenna floating out to sea, and how they overcame them to have a successful DXpedition.

July 18, 2025

“Emergency Preparedness”
& “OC Fire Watch Program”

Kris Cutting, W6KJC was our July guest speaker. During the last 10 years or so, Kris has built up an impressive resumé of education and expertise, particularly in the area of Emergency Management. He attained a BS degree in Homeland Security and Emergency Management from Grand Canyon Univ. in 2020.

June 27, 28, 29, 2025

ARRL Field Day

The OCARC conducted ARRL Field Day operations at the Huntington Beach Spring View Middle School grounds at 16662 Trudy Lane, Huntington Beach, CA. Once again we turned in a 'reasonable' score, and everyone had a good time. Photos should be available in the near future.

See our Field Day page for more details.

June 20, 2025

“Field Day Preparation”

The club held a Field Day planning meeting at the general meeting.

May 23, 2025
This meeting was held on the fourth Friday
due to a conflict with the meeting room.

“The Titan Missile Museum & Discone Antenna”

“Exploring Six Meters”

Our May Speaker was longtime club member and current VP Tim Goeppinger - N6GP. He gave two 30 minutes talks:

First, Tim talked on the Titan Missile Museum outside Tucson Az. and operating the ham bands using the large HF discone antenna built by Collins Radio that is part of the former facility. The antenna is available for use by radio amateurs.

Then Tim talked on operating on the six-meter band. It is the beginning of the six-meter sporadic E propagation summer season. Six meters is becoming a very popular band.

April 25, 2025
This meeting was held on the fourth Friday
due to a conflict with the meeting room.

“Amateur Radio Astronomy”

Our guest speaker via Zoom© was Dennis Kidder, W6DQ. Dennis talked on Radio Astronomy and areas where radio hams could become involved. Here is a list of links Dennis supplied to the club:

• Visits to observatories :
  • OVRO hosts visitors - www.ovro.caltech.edu - operated by Cal Tech. located 250 miles north of Los Angeles on Hwy. 395.
  • VLA at Socorro, NM - www.nrao.edu.
  • More adventurous? Google search for Green Bank WVA.
  • PICTOR: pictortelescope.com (on-line data source, you select what you want.)
  • Radio Jove: radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov
  • Check out SARA: Society of Radio Astromers - www.radio-astronomy.org.
  • BAMBI: Bob and Mike's Big Investment - bambi.net
• Suppliers of Radio Telescope Equipment:
  • https://www.radio2space.com - Complete systems, LNAs,Feeds, receivers & downconverters.
  • https://vhfdesign.com 21cm LNAs (very good with low noise).
  • https://nooelec.com - 21 cm LNAs and SAW filters, SDRs (Software Defined Radios).
  • Don't forget eBay: LNAs, SDRs, downconverters.
  • And Amazon! - LNAs for 21 cm, SDRs, filters.

March 21, 2025

“Meshtastic”

Michael Rickey - AF6FB gave the club a very interesting presentation on "Meshtastic" mesh radio networking.

Here are the links Michael referred to during his talk:

February 21, 2025

“P.O.T.A [Parks on the Air]”

Our February Speaker was Neil Jessen - N6VHF. He presented an excellent program on the fun and ease of doing "Parks on the Air".

Here are the POTA links:

• https://pota.app/
• https://www.youtube.com/@ParksOnTheAir/videos
• https://hamrs.app/
• https://gotahams.com/pota-parks-on-the-air/
• Portable Antenna Design & Building

Jan. 25 (0800 PST) - Jan. 26 (0159 PST), 2025

“Winter Field Day”

C A N C E L E D

The Orange County Amateur Radio Club, OCARC, will host their Field Day at the Huntington Beach Spring View Middle School grounds at 16662 Trudy Lane, Huntington Beach, CA 92647. [ map ].

Setup begins at noon on Friday Jan. 24th

Contest period runs from Saturday 1600 UTC (8:00 AM PST) to Sunday 2159 UTC (1:59 PM PST) (Rule Change!) Click here for the new Winter Field Day rules (PDF). There are numerous rule changes !

Winter field Day was canceled due to inclement weather affecting our FD site.

January 17, 2025

Amateur Radio and the FCC

Riley Hollingsworth - K4ZDH, retired FCC Special Council, FCC Enforcement Bureau was our guest speaker via Zoom© from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Riley is now administrator of the new FCC/ARRL Volunteer Monitoring Program. He talked on enforcement and the need to keep our bands clean lest we lose them to commercial interests.

Monthly in 2025:

Saturday Club Board Meetings and Breakfasts [2025]

Board meeting(s) were held:

Sep 7th^1,, Aug 2nd^1,, Jul 5th¹, Jun 7th¹, May 3rd¹, Apr 5th¹, Mar 1st¹, Feb 1st¹, and Jan 4th¹.

¹ This breakfast board meeting was held at the Streamliner Restaurant 186 N Atchinson St., Orange, CA