YUMA had a Hamfest

On Thursday, a group left Oceanside for the Yuma Hamfest. Leaving at the designated hour brought on the usual go to work traffic. Use of side streets proved that the go to work traffic has many challenges to avoid, so we went back to the main freeway, I-5 South. As we were heading southeast the traffic got better as we got to Mira Mesa Road. Travel on this trip went well and easy. Yuma is getting closer. Along the way, we came across a Highway Patrol unit. No, he did not provide guidance or an escort out of California. And none of our group were offered a ride to interact with the local facilities. It does make you wonder why the driver was at the back door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived at the Yuma Fair Grounds about 1:45 PM. Ready to make an early entrance, after the 200? other early arrivals. A representative of the Hamfest came out, said hi, and since you’re here I’ll let you be the welcome committee for any newer arrivals. We did as tasked welcoming at least 20 more early birds. 2:00 PM came, the waiters started to go in to find parking or tailgating spots for the next few days.  About two and a half hours later the line had cleared to here we could start our travel  into the fairgrounds. We proceeded to follow the direction of the ground guides, who led us to a marked space across from the future balloon launch to be done on Saturday. Along with the other campers, we set up the trailer for public use and demonstration purposes. I was surprised that our location was on the path from the daily parking lot to the sales floor and seminar rooms. The result was a lot of hams coming by to tell us of their trailer builds, and compliments on our build and radio compliment. Some had good suggestions, and some took home ideas used in this build. Being the only yagi on site, this was an attention getter. This was the only radio we saw offered for use to the hamfest guests. (The SDR radios inside were only demo radios without visible transmit antennas. In the next days several members of Palomar Amateur Radio Club came out. They included Charlie, Glen, Howard, Ron, Bob, Bernie,  Marvin and several others my poor memory fails to recall. 

On Friday and Saturday Dick Norton N6AA (Director, ARRL Southwestern Division) came by to work cw. The first day was a challenge as there is no filter installed in the radio. (This is being corrected.) Saturday Dick worked at least 15 contacts and was very happy that we had the radio for guest use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Conrad was drafted to assist on the Arizona Near Space Research Balloon Launch. Good preparation of the trailer provided a ¾ inch speed wrench to mount the MESH dish antenna to the tracking antenna group. The deep well sockets were not deep enough. Next we provided zip ties to secure a transmitter inside the protective packing. Radio testing then came. The original radio for testing did not have a good “3” tone. Off to get a radio. By the time I returned in four minutes, another radio was already in use. As Conrad was such a good worker, he was privileged to be assigned a package holding position, the MESH transceiver package,  for the launch. The balloon went to over 99 thousand feet and landed in the range area. The recovery and analysis will occur as soon as possible. Ron was nice enough to grab a photo of the group so that all three of could have a memory of the hamfest. Thanks! I can only guess that there was not an appearance by our well known drawing winner. This left me an opportunity to win a book from NIFTY ASSECORIES on how to D-STAR and a main prize of a YEASU FT-7900.  This trip was great in all the friendliness shown. Everybody we came in contact with was open and helpful.

Dennis
KD6TUJ