General Comms
During all three days of Borrego Fest, Hector Figueroa, KE6VRL will be operating an Amateur Radio "shack" in the desert, in camp. In addition to several HF bands, his setup will serve as comms central for all of the runs on Saturday and a 2 meter call-in station on 145.570 simplex.
With a little encouragement, I think we can get Hector to do an APRS demo, a demo on working satellites (the ISS?), and maybe even a little fox hunting. If time permits, I may be able to do a HF email demo.
Repeaters
There are high level repeaters that serve the general Anza Borrego area very well. If you are on a run, need to contact us for help or directions, or just want to chat, you will need to program these repeaters into your rig:
- 1. Monument 147.240, (+), 103.5
2. Black Mtn. 147.120, (+), 103.5
3. Laguna Mtn 147.150, (+), 107.2
Several us us will be running APRS, and surprisingly enough, it works well in the park and surrounding areas. If you are running solo, on a run, or traveling anywhere in the area, your APRS signal can be an important tool in providing assistance. In past years, my tracks were recorded (by APRS.fi), and it shows good coverage from Julian to the camp. In the image below you can see my route as I traveled from Temecula to camp.
- APRS Coverage to Camp.JPG (428.65 KiB) Viewed 8113 times
During the weekend of Borrego Fest this year, we will be participating in the California QSO Party (CQP) under our club callsign of K6OAU. The California QSO event has been an ongoing competition since 1966. The official website (http://www.cqp.org/) says this about the event
The event begins at 1600 UTC on October 1, 2022 and ends at 2200 UTC on October 2, 2022. Check out the CQP website for more details.The California QSO Party (CQP) is held every year on the first weekend of October. The first CQP took place in 1966. Since 1974, the Northern California Contest Club (NCCC) has sponsored CQP. CQP has traditionally opened the annual contest season by providing an opportunity for contesters to prepare for the ARRL November Sweepstakes since the format is similar.
Stations outside of California, worldwide, work stations in California only. The 58 counties of CA are the multipliers. California stations work all stations in or out of CA. The 50 US states and 8 Canadian areas are the multipliers. Stations outside of Canada and the US add to one's QSO total but do not count as multipliers.