December 6, 2024 5:30 PM

Annual Holiday Party!

This year's Holiday dinner was again held at Mimi's Café 17231 17th St., Tustin, CA 92780, Phone: (714) 544-5522.

Gathering time: 5:30 PM - Happy Hour time: 6:00 PM; - Meal time 7:00 PM.

Click here for the menu.

Another successful OCARC Holiday Party. Good Food, Good Prizes, Good Fun! The winner of the portable Bioenno Power system (Solar panel / LiFePo battery / Charge controller & accessories) was Ken, - W6KOS.

November 15th, 2024

Club Elections !!

Election of the 2025 board was held at the November meeting. Here are the results:

            President:         KI6X   Dan Violette
            Vice President:    N6GP   Tim Goeppinger
            Secretary:         KN6UKJ Joyce Rodman
            Treasurer:         N6TMT  Tim Millard
            Activities:        KE6YHX Corey Miller
            Membership:        W6WG   Ron Mudry
            Public Relations:  W6OTO  AJ Ricci 
            Technical:         KM6SVV Joe Rodman
            Director at Large: AF6CF  Nicholas Haban
            Director at Large: KL7MF  Janet Margelli
		

November 15th, 2024

“The Evolution of Morse Code”

Our November guest speaker was Ken Miller - K6CTW (on the right). Ken presented an excellent program on the history of Morse, Continental and International code, and how they work and how they've evolved. Ken, an operator very proficient in these codes demonstrated equipment.

Ken is also the ham who received the CW message from Chip Margelli (on the left) at the infamous "SMS v.s. CW" contest held on the Jay Leno show. The video was shown at the meeting.

October 18, 2024 6:00 PM

Club Ham Radio & Electronics Auction

At this meeting the club held its annual auction. It was held at the Red Cross in our usual room. This was an in-person only meeting; no Zoom©. The doors opened at 6:00 PM.

Click here for auction rules

Saturday October 5th, 2024 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM

October Pot Luck

Our Publicity Chairman is hosting a Pot Luck at his home in Orange. For details see Page 10 of the September RF Newsletter.

September 20, 2024

“Marine and Amateur Communications at a time of Need”

Our guest speaker for September was Bill Scholz- W1HIJ. Bill is a longtime avid fan of amateur radio and a serious CW op. He is also the US Coast Guard Auxiliary Manager of the USCG PACAREA Contingency Communications Net. His presentation meshed how amateur radio emergency comms and marine comms come together.

August 16th, 2024

“All About RFI”

Bob Brehm, AK6R, of Palomar Engineers, talked on RFI interference and what you can do to remedy it.

July 19th, 2024

“Twelve Volt Power Batteries and Accessories”

WD6DIH Kevin Karamanos (12 Volt Power) and KI6DHQ Kevin Zanjani (Bioenno) gave a joint presentation on batteries, power sources, connections, and portable accessories to make POTA and SOTA operations easier and more fun.

June 21 thru 23, 2024
(Friday thru Sunday)

2024 ARRL Field Day Event

The OCARC once again participated in the annual ARRL Field Day. We operated from the Huntington Beach Spring View Middle School grounds (16662 Trudy Lane, Huntington Beach, CA 92647). Details are on our Field Day webpage

• Setup: Friday (June 21) starting at noon, and Saturday morning, 8 AM.
• Operations: Saturday (June 22) 11 AM to Sunday (June 23) 11 AM PDT (1800 to 1800 hrs UTC)
• Teardown & Group Photo: Sunday 11:01 AM till done.

June 14, 2024 (Special Date)

General Meeting

Due to Field Day occurring on the same 3-day weekend as our normal meeting date, our June meeting was held a week early on Friday June 14th.

Our guest speaker for June, Sean Kutzko, KX9X was unable to give his presentation due to our change in meeting date. However, he did provide the slides for the presentation and prepared our VP Janet - KL7MF to do the presentation. Field Day preparation was the theme of the talk and helped us prepare for the event that was just a week away.

May 17th, 2024

“A Visit to the Sun and the Ionosphere”

Our guest speaker for May was Ron Wilcox, KF7ZN. Ron gave a Zoom presentation from Utah where, after many years with Mountain Bell, Ron left and went back to school to get an RN. Active in ham radio since 1984, Ron gave a nontechnical presentation about how the sun and ionosphere affect ham radio, including explanation of the terms we hear bandied about in our hobby (like sunspots, K-index, solar flux, F layer), and the effects of CMEs (coronal mass ejections).

April 19, 2024

ARRL Update

Our guest speaker for April was be Dick Norton - N6AA, ARRL Southwestern Division Director. Dick is a very strong supporter of ARRL transparency and updated us on the latest happenings from ARRL, FCC, and the latest on the Congressional Bills H.R.4006 and S.3670, which reflect ARRL’s campaign to eliminate HOA land use restrictions on antennas. Dick has been an active ham for almost 70 years, participating in the CQ WW DX Contests from all 40 zones, and is a member of the CQ Contest Hall of Fame.

April 12 thru 14, 2024
(Friday thru Sunday)

DX-Convention Visalia, CA

The 75th International DX Convention was held at the Visalia Convention Center. Details at: http://www.dxconvention.org.

March 15, 2024

“Frequency Reuse Over Terrain”

N. Michael Scofield (for years the assistant emergency coordinator for the OC Hospital Emergency Comms Group), presented "Frequency Reuse Over Terrain"; using a specified range of frequencies more than once in the same radio system so that the total capacity of the system is increased without increasing its allocated bandwidth. Using the aircraft comm. and nav. VHF frequencies, as well as air traffic control radar frequencies and the AM broadcast band, Michael showed how frequencies could be reused when terrain and distance allow isolation.

February 16th, 2024

“High Power RF: transmitters, antennas, amplifiers.”

Bodo Fritsche - DF8DX was our special guest speaker for February. He was in the US for a short time and agreed to talk at our meeting. Bodo works for Ampegon AG in Switzerland, and showed us how various commercial, industrial, and scientific applications require a lot of RF power (like megawatts in the GHz range).

January 26 - 28, 2024

“Winter Field Day”

Setup began at noon on Friday Jan. 26th

Contest period ran from Saturday 1900 UTC to Sunday 1900 UTC (11:00 AM PST)

Location: the Ocean View School District Offices, 17200 Pinehurst Lane, Huntington Beach, CA 92647 (Same location as the past few years).

Click HERE for a map of the site.

January 19th, 2024

Swains Island DX-pedition - NH8S (2012)

Charlie Spetnagel - W6KK presented a program on the 2012 Swains Island DX-pedition.

Monthly in 2024:

Saturday Club Board Meetings and Breakfasts [2024]

Board meeting(s) were held:

Dec 2nd⁴, Nov 9th^{1, 3}, Oct 5th¹, Sep 7th^1,, Aug 3th^1,, Jul 6th¹, Jun 1st¹, May 11th^{1, 2}, Apr 6th¹, Mar 2nd¹, Feb 3rd¹, and Jan 6th¹.

¹ This breakfast board meeting was held at the Streamliner Restaurant 186 N Atchinson St., Orange, CA
² Due to the Orange May Day parade on May 4th, the meeting was rescheduled for May 11th at 8:15 AM.
³ Due to conflicting obligations the meeting was rescheduled for Nov. 9th .
⁴ The December Breakfast and Board Meeting was cancelled.