• Welcome to the Home of the Desert RATS

Welcome to the home of the Desert Radio Amateur Transmitting Society. We are located in the Coachella Valley in Riverside County, California and serve Amateur Radio operators in and around the Coachella Valley, including the cities of Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Coachella and Indio.

Upcoming Meetings

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, November 17th at 7:00 p.m.

It will be a Zoom meeting. Zoom details will be sent out on the Monday before the meeting. 

 FreeDV

Mooneer Salem K6AQ

FreeDV is a suite of digital voice modes for HF radio. The primary mode is the Radio Autoencoder (RADE). You can run RADE using a free GUI application for Windows, Linux and macOS that allows any SSB radio to be used for high quality digital voice.

FreeDV technology is being developed by an international team of radio amateurs working together on Machine Learning, DSP, coding, design, user interface and testing. The project is managed by a 6 person Project Leadership Team (PLT). Current development is being generously funded by an ARDC grant and our Financial Sponsor is the Software Freedom Conservancy. All software is open source, released under the (a) GNU Lesser Public License version 2.1 (GUI and legacy FreeDV modes) and two-clause BSD license (RADE).

About Mooneer:

Mooneer Salem (K6AQ) has been a ham since the early 2000s. Mooneer is a software engineer by trade specializing in medical devices, and has helped develop and maintain the FreeDV project since 2020. He has contributed code to and developed several other open source projects, including a Web based magnetic loop controller. When not developing software, Mooneer typically monitors 14.236 MHz for FreeDV traffic or other digital modes such as FT8 or JS8Call.

Upcoming Events

Training And Licensing Course Announced

You can register HERE

CERT Training Announced

Are you prepared for earthquakes, fires, power outages, terrorism, public health crises, or adverse weather? Cathedral City Fire & EMS invites the community to take part in Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training.

CERT training builds a partnership between professional emergency services and the people they serve. Emergency personnel train members of neighborhoods, community organizations, and workplaces in basic emergency response skills. CERT-trained members strengthen their area’s emergency response capability by providing valuable assistance until help arrives.

Please consider taking CERT if you have not done so already. Please share with your neighbors that may be interested. CERT stands for Community Emergency Response Team.

New Ham? CodePlugs Now Available

One of the most common requests from new Hams (and beginners in general) is how do I get started with programming my new radio? In many cases, programming a new radio is an error prone and tedious business, and codeplugs provide a ready-made database that can be directly uploaded to the radio.

We have implemented a codeplug page that has downloadable plugs for many of the most common radios (Beofeng, Icom, Yaesu). These contain many of the most common frequencies in use throughout the Coachella Valley and provide a ready-made source for getting started with a new radio.

These plugs are available to Club Members, and are available here.

Note: you must be a member and have an online account to access our CodePlug Page. If you are not a member, you can join up here. If you are a member and do not have an online account, you can get one here.

If you have additional codeplugs that you would like to contribute, please contact us here. We can support the following formats: Comma Delimited (.csv), tab delimited text (.txt), or RT Systems format.

GO-KIT Challenge Announced

We will be having a challenge to see who has the best portable Go-Kit in the Coachella Valley. The challenge will be held in association with our annual Winter Field Day observance at Lake Cahuilla Veterans Park in La Quinta on Saturday January 23rd 2027.

We are announcing it now to allow time for you to design and build your award winning entries.

All bands and all types of radios are permitted.

See our web page for more info here.

A Note on Amateur Radio License Testing

Remote Testing for amateur licensing is available from the Greater Los Angeles Amateur Radio Group (GLAARG).

GLAARG is one of the 14 FCC-recognized Volunteer-Exam Coordinators conducting amateur radio exams. GLAARG is a VEC testing organization, not a radio club. Our exam fee is $10 for remote exams and $10 for in-person exams. Exam fees are waived for minors, students with a current ID, first responders, Active Military, Veterans, and GLAARG VEs upgrading to Extra.
For more information on times for the online testing please see the GLAARG website here.

Note that GLAARG also offers in-person testing when COVID regulations permit.

Other Testing Resources

The ARRL is facilitating video supervised on-line examinations. This testing is made available by video from a number of Clubs.

For more information, the ARRL website for remote testing is available here.

Also, Marc – N9WIB has assembled a series of technician class license tutorials. There are 20 presentations covering all the topics related to getting your initial ham radio license and all are posted on YouTube. This content is free and open to all Amateur Radio Clubs to use as an educational tool. Links and further information are available on his website here.

Here is a study aid for the web and smartphones available here.

Members of the Desert RATS club try our best to live by this code at all times.

The Radio Amateur Is:

* CONSIDERATE…never knowingly operates in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

* LOYAL…offers loyalty, encouragement and support to other amateurs, local clubs, and the American Radio Relay League, through which Amateur Radio in the United States is represented nationally and internationally.

* PROGRESSIVE…with knowledge abreast of science, a well-built and efficient station and knowledge above reproach.

* FRIENDLY…slow and patient operating when requested; friendly
advise and counsel to the beginner; kindly assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the hallmarks of the amateur spirit.

* BALANCED…radio is an avocation, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community.

* PATRIOTIC…station and skill always ready for service to country
and community.