CLARA Current March 2026

Welcome to the March edition of the CLARA Current. Our next event is our March 10th meeting. In addition to our main presentation from Mike KEØPWR, we will have a quick recap of Winter Field Day and will briefly discuss our new 2m VARA FM RMS gateway for sending/receiving email with your radio. Read on to stay in tune with all things CLARA!

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Over many years of being involved in ham radio, I’ve found that Field Day means different things to different people. It is important for a club to align on the purpose of FD, else our efforts are confused and less effective. Here are my thoughts about how we will focus our FD efforts this year. I am interested in your comments, objections, suggestions, and rejections.

CLARA members have many different interests, including how they want to participate in Field Day. We can design a CLARA Field Day activity that works for a broad set of members by prioritizing these things:

·       Community Building: a key element of having a radio club is building and promoting a community of radio amateurs that enjoy getting together to do things. Have Fun Doing Field Day!

·       Emergency Preparedness: a key aspect of Field Day is setting up in a remote location and making radio contacts, using off-grid power.

·       Training/education opportunity: There are many ways for people to learn during Field Day, including but not limited to being part of the station setup, participating in educational workshops, and getting on the air.

·       Field Day score: one important way to measure success at Field Day is by the score achieved by the club. We will look at our score through the lens of continuous improvement. How well did we do last year and what can we improve this year?

These four items are roughly equal in terms of importance but I might give a little extra emphasis to Community Building. In the end, the value of a radio club comes from creating community. (Else, we can all just go off on our own and play with radio.) Done well, these four priorities are synergistic and complementary. For example, community building should help drive participation, participation should drive a higher score. Emergency preparedness provides a training opportunity, training activities will result in bonus points, and community building. Improving our Field Day score will result in training (improved operators).Let me know what you think about this approach.

Also, be thinking about how you can contribute to FD.
I am going to need your help.

73, Bob

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Our speaker for our March meeting will be Mike McHargue, KEØPWR.  His presentation will be an entertaining talk on his expeditions up Colorado peaks, with lots of tips for both SOTA activators and chasers.  Mike’s presentation will include videos taken on his SOTA adventures.

With a career spanning 20 years in the U.S. Army and 15 years in high-altitude Emergency Management, Mike McHargue knows exactly what happens when the grid goes dark. As the former OEM Director for Lake County and a current CLARA EmComm chairperson, Mike has a passion for emergency communications. When he isn’t training for the next gravel bike race, you can find him conducting weekly Winlink training or hunting for his first “Mountain Goat” title in the SOTA program.

His wife, Laurel, accompanies him on “tolerable” suffer fests to document his SOTA activations on her YouTube channel. Banjo, the SOTA dog, loves helping during SOTA adventures!

You’re invited to our March 10th meeting!  Social hour starts at 6:00 PM, meeting is at 7:00 PM.  Light refreshments will be served.

To join our meeting by Zoom, click  HERE!  The passcode is 7373

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Broadly, EmComm is an umbrella term for communication systems, personnel and protocols used during an incident when standard infrastructure fails. “When all else fails,” EmComm covers professional responders and volunteer networks (Amateur Radio) and stresses resilience through flexibility. EmComm is often ad-hoc or volunteer-led as in the case of CLARA and relies on “infrastructure-independent” systems. In our case, a radio operator with a battery, a solar panel, and an antenna creates a self-contained communication hub that functions regardless of the state of the local grid (exactly as we practiced during Winter Field Day). EmComm networks can expand from a single point-to-point tactical link (think local shelter to the EOC on an HT) to a global HF relay system depending on the scope of the disaster. As discussed during our January CLARA meeting, if a disaster or significant incident should occur, CLARA EmComm would assist by “neighbor helping neighbor,” where CLARA EmComm and/or general members volunteer to provide resilient communications support when normal channels fail. Additionally, CLARA could provide ad hoc support as the situation dictates and to the extent that members are available, willing and able to assist. 

In future articles I will discuss both the technologies as well as use cases for EmComm in Chaffee and Lake County.

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Bob gave a report on ARRL Club insurance. It is in effect as of March 1st. He then gave an update on Bob Garwood’s mailing to all hams in Chaffee and Lake counties, which was mailed out February 17. We then had a discussion about contacting people who get their license in the future.

Next agenda item was Upcoming Events. The Quangsheng HT Workshop on February 28, the March club meeting on March 10 and the Foxhunt April 18. After the discussion of these events Brian gave a report of a proposal for a WinLink RMS gateway for our valley. It would be the only VARA FM gateway between the front range and Grand Mesa. He has most of the hardware but needs batteries for the backup power system to get it operational. The Board voted to fund the project up to $200.

Our next discussion was about Summer Field Day. Bob had prepared a Mission Statement for the activity that he had distributed to Board members before the meeting. He presented a plan that calls for two transmitters and six Key Roles; Station Manager 1, Station Manager 2, Safety Officer, Chief Cook, Education Leader and Bonus Points Leader. He appointed Doug as Chief Cook and directed him to secure additional help. The event will be held again on Trout Creek Pass the last weekend in June.

The next discussion was about archiving CLARA documents. Brian reported that the newsletter containing  the Secretary and Treasurer’s reports are backed up with the newsletter on the website. He will make additional back ups. We also discussed securing logins and passwords.

We finished the meeting with a discussion of the March club meeting which Brian will run as Bob will be out of town. It will be a SOTA presentation by Mike McHargue. Bob adjourned the meeting at 8:07.

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Reminder to pay your 2026 dues! The suggested amount is $20. You can pay at a meeting, by mail (Jim Willut; 18133 Ponderosa Ln; BV 81211) or by PayPal on the Website. If you use PayPal, please be sure to note the payment is for dues and please pay the transaction fee. You don’t need to pay dues to be a member, but in order to vote or check out gear you need to have paid your annual dues. Thanks!

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Thanks to everyone for being a part of CLARA and for supporting ham radio in the valley and beyond. We hope 2026 will be a year of outreach and growth for CLARA, so tell a friend about ham radio! 73, KF5WCW