A Report from Quartzfest
Just so you know what you missed. Several RATS headed over the Colorado River and over the hill to Quartzite for the big annual QuartzFest. It’s a week-long event held out on the BLM land and 10s of thousands of RVers converge on the place. Amongst them were about a thousand Ham Radio operators.
What a hoot!. About every size of RV that you could imagine was there, from those big monsters to a few die-hards tent camping. And antennas! Hexbeams, long wires, Yagis, verticals of all sizes, mobile Screwdriver antennas on trucks to Hondas. It was worth the price of admission just to wonder around and look at how creative folks get with putting up an antenna. By the way, it was free to get in, especially over the government shut-down.
About every 2 hours, at 3 different venues around the campground were talks on all areas of Ham Radio. There were pot lucks and a competition called an antenna shoot out where remote listeners rate who (and with what antenna) had the best signal.
It’s not that far away, it’s easy to find off of Highway 95 from the 10 Freeway. You can’t miss all of the antennas. You can see them from the road. Give it a shot next year.
