Announcements

June 22-23 ARRL Field Day - Section members, groups and clubs who plan to participate should assure that publicly accessible Field Day sites are registered on the ARRL Field Day Locator https://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator.

SV Section Manager ARRL Field Day Site Visits Cancelled

I regret that I will be unable to travel throughout our Sacramento Valley Section this weekend for ARRL Field Day site visits as I am quite ill and under isolation and treatment for a new case of COVID-19. 

I hope to contact many of you from my home station and wish you all good propagation and an enjoyable and successful Field Day weekend.

ARRL Sacramento Valley Section
Section Manager: Dr Carol F Milazzo, KP4MD
kp4md@arrl.net

Our ARRL Sacramento Valley Section HF Net has now moved to 60 meter Channel 1, 5330.5 kHz USB Dial Frequency due to seasonal propagation changes. In addition to better summer NVIS propagation, the 60 meter band suffers less from the atmospheric noise that is often prominent on 80 meters.

Thanks to all of you who visited our ARRL SV Section Booth at the Carmichael Elks Lodge ARC Ham Radio Swap Meet on Sunday, May 26! 

Section Manager Email address.  ARRL Headquarters has not yet restored access to my arrl.org email address, so for now please address any email for the Sacramento Valley Section Manager to kp4md@arrl.net  Thank you.

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Laguna Creek High School Students earn Amateur Radio Licenses

On behalf of the ARRL I recently visited Eric Johnson, KN6TNH, at the Laguna Creek High School Amateur Radio Club.   Eric J Johnson, KN6TNH, is the Lead Teacher at the Green Energy Technology Academy at Laguna Creek High School in Elk Grove, CA.  ARRL awarded them a grant to build their own station to track and communicate with satellites and the ISS, to support teaching and licensing their students, and to design, build and launch a pico-satellite.  On December 2, twenty of their students earned their amateur radio licenses at an on-site VE test session.  Eric provided the following report. See photos at https://photos.app.goo.gl/q5aRyPzk7csFjhvg7

73, Carol Milazzo, KP4MD, 
ARRL Sacramento Valley Section Manager

Our Story:

The Green Energy Technology Academy (GETA) at Laguna Creek High School in Elk Grove, CA, began in 2008 with the goal of introducing students to the technology of energy conversions: Solar Arrays, Wind and Water Turbines, Hydrogen Fuel Cells, and Biomass. An academy is a program within a school, where a themed CTE (career Technical Education) course is supported by two to three academic core classes each year. For example, in the sophomore year, GETA students take our hands-on CTE class (shop class) and also take GETA English, GETA World History, and GETA Physics. The other non-academy schedule slots are for our students to take their Health, PE, Language, and other graduation required courses.

As a bonus to our GETA students, we offer after school extracurricular club and leadership opportunities. On Mondays, Leadership, on Tuesdays, Solar Regatta, (A regional solar and battery powered boat racing competition sponsored by our local utility company-SMUD). On Wednesdays. Satellite and Rocketry activities (much more about this later) and on Thursdays (Hydrogen Powered RC racing- an international competition run by Horizon Educational call the H2GP- Hydrogen Grand Prix).

Two years ago, we were challenged to bring satellite technology into our curriculum. I did not know the first thing about satellites, but energy propagation, energy management, energy conversions, and energy storage all seemed to be a perfect fit into what we already did, so we accepted the challenge.

Back in 2003-2006, my AP Physics students launched rockets with Amateur Rocketry Clubs in the TARC (Team America Rocketry Challenge) and with NASA in the SLI (Student Launch Initiative), and in that season, we met Bob Twiggs. Bob was a Stanford professor who co-invented the CubeSat and used it as a platform to teach satellite basics to his Stanford grad students. So, with the challenge in front of us, we reached out to Bob, and he was excited to hear from us. It had been nearly 17 years. He explained that he had retired and started his own educational company (Twiggs Space Lab) specializing in STEM modules that took students from simple soldering and circuitry on up to their first micro satellite (CanSat, CubeSat, PicoSat, QB2 PocketCube). During that phone call, Bob asked if we would be interested in being a BETA school for his STEM modules. We said “YES!” immediately.

As we worked though and documented our experiences with the Jiggy Bot, the CricketSat and the AlphaSat modules, we soon realized that we were going to need to the ability to transmit to these devices, not just receive. This brought us to the Amateur Radio community. We reached out to various clubs in the area (Sierra Foothills ARC, Elk Grove Florin ARC, River City ARC, Lodi ARC, Stockton Delta ARC). In this season we met some very helpful Elmers (Dave- KK6MVJ, Jojo-KN6HTD, Nelson-K6VDU, John-NZ6Q, and many others) The lead teacher, the author of this article, and a student received their Technician licenses early, and then…

An ARRL grant opportunity opened for us. In writing the grant, we proposed funds for our own HAM Shack, the necessary antennas to track and communicate with satellites and the ISS, funds to support the teaching and Technical Level licensing of our students and a chunk to support a launch of our eventual pico-satellite in association with the NREP Initiative (NanoRacks External Platform) aboard the ISS. Matt Craft and Bob Twiggs of Twiggs Space Lab have been helping us move in this direction.

We were awarded the grant and off to the Ham Radio Outlet (HRO) we went. We set up our Ham Shack and antennas, purchased the study materials and studied and reviewed a little from meeting to meeting. Unfortunately, because our students are so involved in other activities on campus, very little studying was done between meetings, so we reached out to John-NZ6Q of the Stockton Delta ARC to see if he would be willing to host a HamCram, and he said ‘yes’. In addition to the Satellite and Rocketry Club members, I opened up the HamCram opportunity to other GETA students. On the day of the HamCram, twenty-four students showed up and twenty passed the exam on December 2, 2023. The four who didn’t pass, had to leave early, challenged the exam, and the test won. Otherwise, those who stayed to the end had a 100% pass rate. Thank You John!!

Since that day, other contacts have been made. Most notably David-WB6TOU, who does research with pico balloons. David came by on December 7th to speak with a handful of our students concerning opportunities in space weather research and WSPRnet technology (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter).

As of the writing of this article, final exams are underway, so decisions for the pico-balloon opportunity have yet to be discussed or made. This opportunity is incredible. What you don’t know is that the GETA program already has an international footprint all around the globe with their solar suitcase program. The GETA sophomores learn solar technology using the solar suitcase as the learning platform and then, because grants are used to fund these units, they are sent to energy poor nations, villages and families with contacts we have with humanitarian and faith-based organizations. To date we have 175 of these solar suitcases in 27 nations and 10 more will be going to Uganda in January 2024. This footprint might-well be extended into space if the students decide to pursue the pico-balloon opportunity and push towards the NREP program.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,

73- Eric KN6TNH

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Redding Veterans' RC W6VET Veterans' Day Special Event      

The Special Event Station Celebrating Veterans at W6VET was a success, especially for me, the operator, K6WK, Mike.  However, "success" as a term does not describe fully the impact that operating on this SES has had on me.  I enjoyed talking to all the Veterans, families of Veterans, and supporters of Veterans.  I got tongue tied a few times, I was in need of a rest, also,...to assimilate the "happening-input of life experiences" into my consciousness....  This was an experience for me, which stands above nearly every post-service experience as a US ARMY VETERAN that I can remember.  Thank you to all who made contact, and especially to those who could not get through because of my long windedness.  I hope to work you soon.  This is our second Annual Special Event Station on Veterans Day at W6VET.  73  - Michael, K6WK

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October 21 ARRL Pacificon Forum:
"Dealing with Intentional Interference"      

Intentional interference is increasingly reported in our section and elsewhere around the nation.  At the 4 pm October 21 ARRL Pacificon Convention forum entitled "Dealing with Intentional Interference" ARRL and other amateur radio leadership presented and discussed resources and strategies to assist radio amateurs, clubs, groups and repeater owners in controlling this problem.  

Local direction finding (DF) teams have been organizing to collect evidence of these incidents. 
If you experience intentional interference, here below are several ways that you can immediately assist:

1. Dealing with a deliberate jammer is emotionally difficult. But if we’re to successfully get rid of them, everyone involved (and I do mean every single ham) must remain calm. We must also be patient, as it can take a while.

2. This may be the most important of all; do not attempt to engage with the jammer, or even acknowledge their presence. Although some of them may do what they do because they have a beef with the repeater owner, club, or another ham; most jammers do it for the same reason others engage in destructive behavior; to get attention. We must deny them that attention. So, control your anger and don’t tell them to stop, threaten them or even acknowledge that the interference is occurring.

3. If the level of interference allows it, continue with your QSO or net as if the interference was not there.
   If conversation is not possible, you may be able to QSY to an alternate frequency.  Otherwise, just sign off as if you’ve naturally finished and go radio silent until the jammer leaves. They may return when you do, so you’ll have to do this several times, until they get the message that they won’t get the satisfaction they’re looking for.

4. Do not discuss the jammer on the air, even when jamming is not present.  Understand that just one ham losing control and engaging with the jammer or acknowledging the interference, even in passing, is enough to undo the efforts of everyone else.

5. In case of repeater interference, each repeater owner has the ability--or should have the ability--to constantly monitor the repeater and if all else fails shut it down in instances of abuse.   Running a repeater is not much different than allowing access to your home base station by anyone who wants to use it.

6. Control operators can and should immediately disable the repeater when any illegal activity occurs, and keep it disabled until attempts at the illegal activity end. They can monitor the repeater’s input frequency for this.

7. You should report a repeater's failure to control intentional interference to the ARRL-FCC Volunteer Monitor (VM) program. 
   Collect and submit recordings of the interference marking the date, time and frequency as evidence. 
   The ARRL-FCC VM program has the resources to motivate owners to control their repeaters responsibly.

How To Report A Possible Violation to the ARRL-FCC VM Program

To report clear violations of FCC Part 97, particularly instances of unlicensed operation, repeated deliberate interference, and operation outside of a licensee’s authorized frequencies, send the report via email to Riley Hollingsworth (K4ZDH), ARRL Volunteer Monitor Administrator, at K4ZDH@arrl.net.

Important: include the following information in your report…

- Frequency (MHz) of incident:
- Time of incident (UTC):
- Date of incident:
- Call sign(s) of station(s) being reported:
  - If a repeater, call sign of repeater involved:
- Description of alleged incident being reported:
- Your full name (person submitting report)
- Your call sign:
- Your email address:
- Your phone number:

All reports will be acknowledged, reviewed, and the person submitting the report will receive a response as quickly as possible.

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