May 1, 2025 Club Meeting
The RVARC club meeting will be held Thursday, May 1st at 7:00 PM at the Phoenix Library, 510 W 1st St., Phoenix, Oregon. Our speaker will be Amy Haptonstahl, AG7GP, who will present on the SOTA and other operations.
This meeting or event is not sponsored nor endorsed by the Library.
Note: that the exam times & locations have changed. Please consult the Exams page for details.
Announced in the May 2025 issue of The Repeater.
Meeting Notes
From the June 2025 issue of The Repeater.
May 1 Meeting minutes.
7:00 PM—meeting called to order by VP Allan Taylor, K7GT. Attendance 24.
Visitors:
- KK7WHM—Galen (now member)
- KK7ZNB– August (now member)
- KK7ZSK—Makai
- KJ7GFS– Dave
- KM7AJD—Matthew
Field Day will be held at Lud Sibley’s place. We will be using the callsign K7D, and the dates are June 28 and 29. We will operate class 2A plus a GOTA station. Michael Fowler and CARE is organizing the event this year. We will be renting a porta potty ($150).
7:24 PM—Amy Haptonstahl, AG7GP gave a presentation on portable operation “Where every day is Field Day”.
Amy started her portable operations in 2017 when she went to the total solar eclipse in northern Oregon. In 2018 she started chasing grid squares, and activated 2 counties not previously on.
This week (June 1st) she operated her 500th summit, having activated 231 different summits.
Additional portable operating events: World Wide Flora and Fauna OTA, Parks on the air (POTA), Summits on the air (SOTA), Gridchase, lighthouses, Islands, Castles, and even Walmart parking lots on the air.
She said that most times portable means not in your vehicle, and not attached in any way to your vehicle, but each event may have differing rules.
She uses a Mountain-topper 3B radio (20m, 30m, and 40m) 5 watts, CW only, no speaker or tuner. It’s very small and light and the 600 mAH batteries last a long time. Headphones are needed.
SOTA (Summits) is more popular on the west coast, while Parks (POTA) is more popular on the east coast.
She will be operating Queens of the Mountains on June 7-8, Field Day (of course), and the W7O campout July 25-28.
Matt KC7OOY uses 4 x 100 AH batteries in series to provide 48 VDC to run a kilowatt moonbounce portable/mobile station.
Amy noted that 2 meters is very quiet in the Rogue Valley compared to most other places Oregon, so she is sponsoring “The Battle of the Band” event June 1—August 31. Operate 2m all modes CW, FM, SSB. Details can be found on our club webpage.
— Tom, N5EG, temporary secretary.
