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Desert RATS Newsletter
August 2026
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Presidents Message
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Hello and welcome to the end of our Extreme Heat Warnings hopefully? It has been a hot few weeks for sure, but the Desert RATS endure!
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Make sure you plan on joining us for our August Breakfast this coming Saturday, August 15 from 9am to 11am at the Denny’s in Thousand Palms. We will have some door prizes and enjoy each other’s company. Don’t forget to check in with our Monday Night Nets as well! I have said it before, and I will say it again: regular participation in a net is the single most helpful thing that a ham can do to prepare for an emergency. And it’s fun too! Remember that you can still check in on Mondays using Remote Hams if you are traveling or are a snowbird.
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ARES News. Looking ahead to fall, I will be scheduling a “refresher” session, either on ZOOM or in-person, for us to review our Emergency Operating Plan and using ICS (Incident Command System) on-the-air as this should be done annually. Also, the Riverside County RACES and the Riverside County Emergency Management Department have invited us to participate in a drill on Wednesday, November 4, 2026. We will participate in a simulated storm event by activating a resource and information net, passing some Winlink messages, and providing some damage assessment. More details to follow. We will also be providing communication support to the Veteran’s Day Parade on November 11 and the Parade of Lights on December 5.
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Looking Ahead. We have a great line-up of speakers for our membership meetings in September and October, and our December meeting will be our holiday party! On Tuesday, September 15 at 7pm via ZOOM, we will have longtime EmComm expert Scott KC6SKM giving us a presentation on message-passing. Hams from Riverside County RACES will also be joining us for this training.
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Interested in MESHTASTIC or MESHCORE? Fredric Raab, KK6NOW, will convene a brief meeting on ZOOM following our September meeting for anyone interested in participating in a special interest group and/or helping to develop Meshtastic and Meshcore here in the Coachella Valley. You don’t need experience or equipment. If you are interested, please join us! Even beginners!
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Well RATS, that’s about all I have for now. Till next time, keep your batteries charged and I will see you on the radio.
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August Meeting
Our next meeting will be on Saturday, August 15th at 9:00 a.m.
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It will be an in-person meeting. Note the Time.
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This is a social meetings and provides an ideal opportunity for us to all get together in an informal environment. Spouses and SO’s are welcome.
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Saturday August 15th , 2026
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Membership
We have 3 new members for July:
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Please welcome them to the RATS!
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Dues for 2026 are due. Besides PayPal or check, Zelle can now be used. It is also very helpful to fill out a membership form to confirm contact information. When using Zelle, please note your name and call in the notes.
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You can support our club and sign up for a membership using our membership page here. Dues can be paid by check, Zello or PayPal.
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Desert RAT Works For The Mouse
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You may have seen a recent article about the restoration of Walt Disney’s private airplane (the article is available here).
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What you may not know is that one of our own, Glenn WB6RLC has been an active participant in the restoration process through his volunteer work at the Palm Springs Aerial Museum.
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Here is his first-hand account of what was involved in the restoration process:
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As some of you know, when I am not Hamming it up on the bands, I volunteer two days a week at the Palm Springs Air Museum. Over the last two years I've had the privilege to work on a very unique airplane. The plane was originally owned by Mr. Walt Disney himself.
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The plane is a Grumman Gulfstream. It's a twin turbo-prop ordered in 1963 and delivered in 1964. It has a custom mid-century interior that can seat up to 15. It's the plane that Walt used to survey the Florida land that would become Disney World.
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The plane acquired its distinctive tail number of N234MM (Mickey Mouse) in 1967 and remained in service for about a decade after Walt's death, then it was on display for a while, then just moved to a back lot where it languished for another twenty years.
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In about 2022, Mickey was pulled out and given a fresh coat of paint for a big D23 Disney convention. The interior was untouched, as there was nothing left of it.
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The interior had been pretty much gutted to the ribs, the yokes were cut off at the deck and the instruments sold off or stolen, as was most everything else in the interior.
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The Disney Foundation then had the wings removed and the entire plane trucked to the Palm Springs Air Museum. We had to let it set for about a year before we could start in on it. It stank of mold, some said rat and snake as well. Any steel parts were rusted, anything aluminum was corroded, and wood was rotted with mold.
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After team members installed a plywood floor, I started in on the lighting. Some of the light boxes were usable, others, what remained, had to be cut out and re- manufactured in our shop. The lamp sockets were rusted in place and had to be either drilled or cut out with a grinder/cutter. These boxes also held what remained of the sound system speakers. We only had one of the eight original translucent lighting panels. I had those reproduced in the shop, complete with a drilled speaker grill and a hidden Mickey in the center.
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The speakers are thin, door mount, car stereo speaker replacements and all the lighting is now LED. The sound system is a simple off the shelf solid state stereo amplifier. The input is a loop MP3 player. As you walk up and enter the plane, a motion detector senses your presence, and activates the lighting and the sound systems. One channel plays into the cockpit speaker and you hear a recorded PS Tower. The other channel is Dave Brubeck playing Disney songs down the main cabin. The whole thing is run by a solar panel on the cabin roof.
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Another challenge was the main door that folded down to allow Walt access to the plane. It's hydraulic actuated. The gutted plane has no way to power the hydraulic pump. And we'd yanked the reservoir because it was in the way. It took some time and experimenting to come up with the correct replacement pump to actuate the door. The pump also had to be 12VDC powered. I had to figure power usage and size a 12-volt deep cycle battery to handle it, and something that I could still charge off of the solar panel. Also, we needed a way to open and close the door from the outside, also adding in some safety precautions.
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There was also a changeover circuit added to accommodate Mickey being moved inside for events that would require 120V AC powered operation. All the charging circuits would operate from AC power and go back again to solar when the power cord is disconnected.
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Some of the seating in the photos is original to Mickey. All the cockpit and some of the main cabin bits came from a donated carcass Gulfstream donated by Phoenix Air.
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Everything else you see has been reproduced by our shop. I have no idea how many sheets of 4' x 8' Philippine Mahogany plywood was used to reproduce the panels and tables.
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My sister, Kathy, was a helicopter mechanic in the Army. She comes down from Oregon every year to get out of the drizzle and helps out at the museum. She's got many an hour on Mickey as well. She must have pulled out a mile of wire, cables and tubing out of the plane, then started in on the interior work.
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Mickey should be complete by October of 2026, so stop by and take a look. I am there on Tuesdays and Thursdays until noon.
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Radio 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.
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We have implemented a 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.
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These plugs are available to Club Members on our new codeplugs page here.
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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.
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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.
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Thanks to Rick, N6PSP for getting us started with his codeplug contributions!
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Upcoming Events
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Desert RATS September Meeting
The September 15th meeting will be a Zoom meeting featuring Scott, KC6SKM giving a presentation on Message Passing.
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Zoom details will be sent out on the Monday before the meeting.
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PAPA Meeting October 3rd
PAPA will be hosting their Coachella Vallet Lunch on Saturday, October 3rd
Stay tuned for more details.
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Want To Know What's Happening?
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The best way to be fully informed about Amateur Radio activities here in the Coachella Valley is to tune into the RATS Monday Night Net.
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The net is conducted every Monday at 7:00 p.m. on the Edom Hill repeater (146.94 – 107.2) and features announcements about club and ARES activities.
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A Note on Amateur Radio Testing Resources
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Remote Testing for amateur licensing is available from the Greater Los Angeles Amateur Radio Group (GLAARG)
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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.
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For more information on times for the online testing please see the GLAARG website here.
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Note that GLAARG also offers in-person testing when COVID regulations permit.
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Other Testing Resources
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The ARRL is facilitating video supervised on-line examinations. This testing is made available by video from a number of Clubs.
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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.
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ARRL Podcasts Schedule
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The On The AIR podcast is a monthly companion to On Air magazine, a magazine for beginner-to-intermediate ham radio operators, produced by the ARRL. The podcast and other interesting publications are available here.
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Listen to ARRL Audio News, available every Friday. ARRL Audio News is a summary of the week's top news stories in the world of amateur radio and ARRL, along with interviews and other features.
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The On the Air podcast and ARRL Audio News are available on blubrry, iTunes, and Apple Podcasts.
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Club President: Don Stouder, N1GAY
Club Vice-President: Rick Lee - N6PSP
Club Treasurer: Jim Haggerty - KN6QLC
Club Secretary: Gavin Schutz – K6GAV
Directors
Guy Chabot - KS6F
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Mark Johnston - KD6SEC
Shane Meyer - KO6JGR
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President Emeritus: Glenn Morrison – WB6RLC
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Membership: Anne Larson - KJ6QWC
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