GVARC took the opportunity to move club communications and calendaring to groups.io. We have actually been there pretty much for the duration of the Covid lock downs. Emails were sent inviting the known roster emails on at least 2 or more occasions. Email is sent from groups.io each month with the Zoom links for the monthly meeting.

If you have still not joined the group, you can go to groups.io, create an account, and then search for the W6GGF group and ask to join. Or you can also find me on the repeater, or use your old copy of the roster to send me an email so we can send another invite.

Hope to see you at the next monthly Zoom!

Field Day 2019 is quickly approaching. June 22-23 at Christmas Hill Park in Gilroy, where we have been for FD for past several years. We plan to operate for the 1 day, Saturday, with 4 stations, plus GOTA (Get On The Air). We are still in the planning phase and there will be a meeting the evening of May 9th at the home of W6BWJ. Please contact him directly for details.

WB6ZVW has been transferred to the club call sign and is now W6GGF UHF! The announcements on the repeater have been updated and most of our online information will be updated over the coming week. Merry Christmas!

It is that time of year again! Operators from MHARS, GVARC, and SBCARA will once again invade Christmas Hill Park in Gilroy, CA and operate (probably) 4A on the weekend of June 23-24. Stop by and check out what a larger amateur radio operation looks like. We will have multiple towers, dipoles, hexbeams, and yagi antennas as we operate 15, 20, and 40 meters on SSB, CW, and digital modes.

GVARC will once again be at Christmas Hill Park, in Gilroy, for the 2017 ARRL Field Day. Enter the park from Miller Ave and go all the way to the back of the park. Relay for Life will also be in the park this weekend.

We will be operating 4A with GOTA. There will be multiple towers, radios, power systems, go boxes, and other ham related things to see and do. We will also be operating a GOTA (Get On The Air) station for those that would like to try their hand at amateur radio for the first time.

Please visit our sister site AfterTheNet.Net for sign-ups if you would like to operate for a shift. Of come by and offer support. This is also the official monthly breakfast and meeting for the club. So come on by!

Photo: Scott Hinrichs

The past 30 days has been pretty gnarly. With saturated ground, flooded intersections, closed roads, mud slides, power outages, etc. – How did you prepare? Many folks in the Hollister area were forced to abandon their homes. Falling trees knocked out power all over the county and beyond. The SBCARA teams were busy with multiple activations and rescues. So. Where you ready?

Join GVARC on Saturday, June 25th, at Christmas Hill Park in Gilroy for the annual ARRL Field Day (not really a contest) Contest. We will be running 4A with a GOTA station this year. We have added 2 mobile towers to our operations. 1 50 ft trailer-ed tower, and a second trailer-ed tower that can go to 100′! We will be using N3FJP logging software, and operating on batteries. Stop by and say hi!

Set-up begins at around 8 AM
On The Air begins at 11 AM
Break Down will begin around 8-9 PM.

Newly updated frequency lists have been updated to the frequencies page. There are 2 lists currently posted. There is the full, 250 channel, CSV for use with RTS software. There is also a 120 channel list CSV that is compatible with CHIRP for programming a wide selection of radios that only support 128 channels. A full 250 channel version of the list compatible with CHIRP will be posted soon.

The official GVARC frequency list has been posted to the frequencies page. The list is a work in progress. There are a few errors here and there. As we clean things up the list will be updated.

It was a dark and stormy night… Well, ok, it was daytime, and it wasn’t that dark, but there were clouds, and it was raining somewhere.

We had just completed our monthly breakfast meeting and it was decided that was a good time to wrangle some help to raise the W6GGF antenna to address some coverage changes from when the antenna came down previously due to a mounting pole failure. The new mount is 10′ of 1-1/2″ galvanized pipe into 10′ of 1-1/4′ pipe. This new configuration raises the antenna about 8′ higher than where it was originally. So far the signal reports are favorable of the change. Thanks to everyone that helped with the change! Woody (K6WWS), Larry (W6LWC, Ray (KJ6VTP), and Bill (KK6MEN).