Presidents Message February 2020
January 25th and 26th the Desert RATS held Winter Field Day at Lake Cahuilla Recreation Area and just a whole bunch of us had a great time. The core was Mark KD6SEC, Dale WA6MZW, Clifford KK6QMS and myself, WB6RLC. The three of us circled the wagons (our RVs) and Clifford pitched his tent. To get maximum points you had to operate outside and use batteries and/or solar power. We did just that. We easily had enough power to run the 2 full time stations most of the 24 hours. “Most”… the batteries lasted, we did not. The bands and the ops all petered out about 1 AM, fear not, things got going again about 7 AM on Sunday morning and we fought our way to the end.
We ran one SSB station and one digital station. We had more antennas than radios. Mark brought a 60ft end fed, there was the clubs Comet vertical and Clifford build a 40/20 meter fan dipole, on the spot. There was even a mag loop on display.
The best part was the camaraderie. Throughout the two-day event we had about 20 Desert RATS show up. Not all of them grabbed a mic, but there was plenty of food and socializing to go around. We had a new ham and a yet-to-be-tested new ham stop by just to see what it was all about and ask questions of the radios, operations and the antennas. It was great to see our club so well supported.
Our February speaker is going to be someone special. ME – you lucky dogs, er… RATS. I’ll be talking about one of my real passions in Ham Radio. Boat Anchors. I used to have a 23 ft Islander sailboat and the anchor on it weighed less than some transmitters I’ve had.
I’ll be bringing in some of my collection and talking a little about the history of each as well as and the history in the development of commercial Ham Radio gear.
See ya on the bands.
Glenn, WB6RLC
