February 2025 Announcements
See our ARRL Sacramento Valley website for photos and further details.
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The ARRL Sacramento Valley Section-wide VHF and HF Net will be conducted on Thursday evening, February 20, first on the WD6AXM FM repeater on 146.085 MHz, then on 3880 kHz LSB +/- 3 kHz for QRM.
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March 1 ARRL Pacific Division Town Hall Zoom Meeting
QST ALL ARRL Sacramento Valley Section Members!
An ARRL Pacific Division Town Hall Zoom Meeting is scheduled for Saturday, March 1, 2025 at 3:00 PM PT.
Watch your email for an invitation to attend this Zoom meeting. https://www.pacific.arrl.org/town-hall
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ARRL Pacific Division Director Speaks on ARRL Matters February 4
ARRL Pacific Division Director Tony Marcin, W7XM, spoke on ARRL Policy Matters discussed at the recent ARRL Board of Directors Meeting and Directions in Amateur Radio in his presentation at the February 4 meeting of the River City Amateur Radio Communications Society in Carmichael, CA.
All are welcome to view the video recording of Tony Marcin's informative presentation and his follow-up question and answer session.
Watch the February Meeting Presentation
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New Field Organization Appointments
Effective January 25, 2025, James Goldstene, AE6JG, is appointed ARRL Sacramento Valley Assistant Section Manager. James is active in Sacramento County ARES and also serves as our Section Affiliated Club Coordinator, and as President of the River City Amateur Radio Communications Society.
Effective January 1, 2025, Robert Kelly, K6VNR, is appointed ARES Emergency Coordinator for Yuba and Sutter Counties, replacing Neil Bossard, N6CNY, who is leaving our area for family reasons.
Thank you, Neil, for your years of service and Welcome Aboard, Robert!
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February Major Operating Events:
February 1-2 BC, MN and VT QSO Parties;
Feb 8-9 CQ WW RTTY Contest;
Feb 10-14 ARRL School Club Roundup;
Feb 15-16 ARRL International DX Contest CW;
Feb 22-23 CQ 160m SSB Contest, NC & SC QSO Parties, and NA QSO Party RTTY.
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Loomis Hamfest Scheduled for March 22
All are welcome at our next ARRL Sanctioned Section event, the Loomis Hamfest, 7-11 am on Saturday, March 22, at the Historic Loomis Train Depot, 5775 Horseshoe Bar Rd, Loomis CA 95650. Please stop by and say hello at the ARRL Information Booth while you are there. Watch the Sierra Foothills Amateur Radio Club website https://www.w6ek.org/activities/hamfest for updates.
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ARRL Section Members Give Amateur Radio Talks at NorCal RV Club Rallies
On September 12 Airstream RV Club International Region 12 members participated in the Introduction to Ham Radio workshop presented by SacValley President and ARRL SV Affiliated Club Coordinator, James Goldstene, AE6JG, and James Aspinwall, NO1PC at their Rally in South Lake Tahoe, CA. James gave a live demonstration of HF communications on 40m SSB QSOs with Jim Zheng, W6JCZ, at Ham Radio Outlet in Sacramento, ARRL Sacramento EC Jay Ballinger, N6SAC, ARRL Sac Valley SM, Carol Milazzo, KP4MD in Citrus Heights, and others. Participants really enjoyed the workshop and commented on how well organized and informative the presentation was. James is a teacher after all! Thank you James and all that participated!
On September 5, James Goldstene, AE6JG, also gave an introduction to amateur radio talk to about 15 members of three Airstream RV Clubs at their joint "Silver in Cascadia" Rally at the McCloud RV Park near Mt. Shasta, CA. "We used a sling shot to get a Chameleon EFHW up in the air and hit Mexico and Haiti."
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Section Manager arrl.org Email Address Restored. Please address email for the Sacramento Valley Section Manager to [email protected] Thank you.
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Intentional interference is increasingly reported in our section and elsewhere around the nation. At the 2023 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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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 [email protected].
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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