March 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, March 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

Thanks to all who participated in our March 1 Division Town Hall Meeting.  Watch for a video of the meeting to be posted at https://www.pacific.arrl.org/town-hall

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The Cascadia Coastal Community Amateur Radio Net will kick off March 6th at 13:30 Pacific on Brandmeister ‘Western Oregon’ Talk Group 31412.

The purpose of the net is to share information on upcoming emergency or disaster-related training events and opportunities, as well as, concise After Action Summaries of actual events. This is an informal net organized to foster communication among Coastal Communities, and to build community awareness, prepare for interruption of essential services and disasters, and to enhance resiliency in coastal communities in AK, WA, OR, CA, BC, and other Cascadia coastal communities.

The NET is open to all licensed amateur radio stations especially those associated with ARES/RACES, ACS, AUXCOMM, Hospital, MRC, CERT, and neighborhood groups.

This NET meets the first and third Thursday of each month at 13:30 Pacific time on Brandmeister ‘Western Oregon’ TG 31412.

For information or to have your training opportunity posted to the web site, contact Dr. Ralph Garono, KA8ZGM, Net Manager. rgarono@cascadiacoastalcoalition.org or KA8ZGM@arrl.net

http://www.cascadiacoastalcoalition.org/ccc-events-2

PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD —

Ralph J. Garono, Ph.D.
rgarono@cascadiacoastalcoalition.org
www.cascadiacoastalcoalition.org

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Call for Volunteers - March 22-23 California Capital Airshow

The Sacramento Sheriff SHARP (Sheriff's Amateur Radio Program) is asking for communications volunteers to help with the California Capital Airshow.

CALIFORNIA CAPITAL AIRSHOW | MATHER AIRPORT, SACRAMENTO MARCH 22-23, 2025  https://californiacapitalairshow.com/

If interested, please contact Michael Joseph – KK6ZGB – kk6zgb@gmail.com

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March Major Operating Events:

• Mar 1-2 - ARRL International DX Contest SSB
• Mar 8-9 - ID, OK, WI QSO Parties
• Mar 9 - North American Sprint RTTY
• Mar 15-16 - VA QSO Party
• Mar 23 (UTC) - North American SSB Sprint
• Mar 29 - CQ WW WPX Contest, SSB

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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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Section Manager arrl.org Email Address Restored.  Please address email for the Sacramento Valley Section Manager to kp4md@arrl.org  Thank you.

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2023 ARRL Pacificon Forum:
"Dealing with Intentional Interference"      

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:

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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