Sam's & Q2K
Introduction:
This is about my
second annual trailer trip to Quartzite, Arizona to camp with the Sam's Radio
Hams, January 27-30, and at the Quartzfest (Q2K), February 1-6, 2000. Both
were Ham RV campouts held during the annual Winter "shows" or flea markets at
Quartzsite. Quartzsite is on I-10, 18 miles from the California border.
Wednesday - Lake Havasu: I left Sacramento just after 9:30 AM on Wednesday, January 26, and checked in with my friend, Ross, WØXJ, in Kansas, who was NCS that day on the 20 meter Elks Net. I had planned on stopping for the night at Mojave or Barstow, but I had a repeat invitation from Vern, W3DLY, and Trish, WA3GKT, to stay with them in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Good driving conditions made Lake Havasu possible, but made it a long day. I contacted Vern on the 146.96 repeater from west of Needles, California, and let him know that I was on my way.
Thursday-Saturday - Quartzsite - Sam's Radio
Hams: The next morning I grocery shopped at Smith's market in
Lake Havasu, and Basha's in Parker because the stores are small in
Quartzsite. On my way south I talked to Ross again on the 20 meter Elks Net.
A little south of Parker, I caught up to the back-up of traffic extending
into Quartzsite. I had not made advance camping arrangements because Vern and
Trish had originally planned on camping at milepost 115, north of town. Also,
the Quartzfest camp at milepost 99, south of town, was available. I had also
planned on visiting with the Sam's Radio Hams at Rice Ranch in town, or maybe
camping with them. I parked on the roadside by Rice Ranch, walked in, and
talked with Ron, W6KPM, the host (trip leader). He said that they had room
for me, so I drove in and set up my trailer. Sam's Radio Hams is a Southern
California chapter of the Good Sam RV Owners Club. They have monthly outings
11 months of the year. This was nominally their February trip.
Rice Ranch is located at the NE corner of Hwy 95 and the southern frontage
road. For $4 a day, you get to look for a patch of dirt to camp on. This was
dry camping, so everyone was fully self-contained with water, electricity,
propane, and bathrooms. The big advantage of a location in town like this is
that you can walk to many of the "shows", avoiding the traffic gridlock.
During the three days that I camped there, I only drove my truck at dusk or
later. I walked a longer distance each day, with the longest walk about 6
miles roundtrip. A payphone near the Rice Ranch entrance made it easy to
send and receive all my PocketMail e-mail. This and other area phones had
none of the problems in reaching 800 numbers that I had on the September
Canyonlands trip. There were two vendors at Quartzsite selling PocketMail.
More on this later.
There were pot luck and hosted breakfasts, a chili feed, and other group
meals. I contributed my share, but left most of my planned solo meals on the
shelf during these three days. This led to a lot of welcome socializing,
morning and evening. Midday was reserved for SHOPPING. The time zone change
confused some enough that they weren't sure whether to get on at 7 or 8 AM
local with their HTs for the traditional wake-up net.
Since I would be moving on to the Quartzfest later, I drove there on Friday night to visit with the Quartzfest leaders Harvey, K5LJM, and Margie, AB5ZX, from Sun City AZ. They had just arrived a couple of hours earlier. The Quartzfest campsite is at a BLM short-term camping area next to Highway 95, 6 miles south of town at milepost 99. Harvey checked in to the local nightly net, now held on the new Quartzsite repeater on 145.50 MHz at 7 PM. There were about 85 check-ins.
This trip was right after license restucturing was announced. SRH activities included a VE exam session. Five passed the Extra written exam, and one passed the Tech. Other activities were a swap meet and a scavenger hunt. The total count of RVs was 62, including a few from the Dana Point Yacht Club LandCruisers which has some members in common with SRH. I had previously camped with SRH on their regular trip to Midland, and on an add-on trip to Organ Pipe. I also visited their previous camp at Quartzsite, and at Pine Acres (Pine Grove). I decided to join SRH this time and was accepted.
Sunday-Monday - Alamo Lake - Sam's Radio
Hams: Sunday was SRH departure day, but a small number had
an add-on trip to Alamo Lake State Park, about 80 miles NE of Quartzsite. I
pulled out of Rice Ranch while Ron, W6KPM, was conducting the SRH net from
his motorhome. I waved at him as I checked in. I moved my trailer to the
Quartzfest camp and set it up. Then I returned to town just in time to
caravan to Alamo Lake for the day with Frank, W6GZI, and Jan, KD6HYE, from
Yucca Valley. They were towing their brand new Jeep Cherokee behind their
motorhome. SRH uses 147.51 MHz simplex for most camp and road communications.
On the way, we stopped at Granite Pass near Salome to look at some
petroglyphs, item 22 of the 44 Historical Sights and Day Trips on the
Quartzsite map.
All that I'll say about Alamo Lake is that it is no Tahoe. After everyone got
settled in and had lunch, we discussed a day trip for the following day. I
returned to Quartzsite early to be back to my trailer before dark.
The next morning, I met everyone on the dirt road that we had decided on,
north of Wenden off the Alamo Lake road. We headed west in our five 4X4s
toward the Swansea ghost town. On the way, we looked over the remains (not
much) of General Patton's Camp Bouse (item 4). We stopped at the junction to
Swansea for a short rest and found that one of Frank's brand new tires had a
fatal rock cut. The spare was installed and we headed on.
Swansea (item 18) was a copper mine and is maintained as an interesting
tourist destination. After lunch, we headed north for a gas pipeline crossing
of the Bill Williams River, where we understood that it might be possible to
ford the river to return to Alamo Lake.
We came within sight of the pipeline crossing, but lacked time to pick out
the right trail to the river. Instead, we turned SE on another trail which
eventually took us back to the Alamo Lake road near where we started. The
others turned north to return to their camp, and I went back to the
Quartzfest campsite.
When I got there, Vern and Trish had arrived with their friends from Lake Havasu: Bob, KI7LO, and PC, KI7LN; Dennis, KB7RGV, and Julie, KC7VGM; and Don and Kitty (no calls yet).
Tuesday-Saturday - Milepost 99 - Quartzfest
2000: The next day, Tuesday, February 1 was the start of
Quartzfest 2000, or Q2K. Here's some of the activities through Saturday:
Pancake breakfast, APRS seminar (Bob, WA7HRA), AirMail 2000 & WinLink
2000 seminar (Pete, W3CWD), VE exams (Bob, K9WMP, Laura, K9BZY), Hobo Stew
potluck, Donuts, 75 meter mobile antenna shoot out, Computer seminar, Seafood
buffet, Ham and craft yard sale, and Last Hurrah cookout. There was a social
hour for announcements and entertainment at 4 PM every night. The activities
gave everyone time to go to town as they wanted.
Summarizing AirMail 2000, AirMail is a program used with the WinLink Pactor gateway stations to send and receive e-mail on Ham HF frequencies. With WinLink, your e-mail address identifies the single station that you must contact for mail. AirMail 2000 allows you to contact any WinLink 2000 gateway, presently four stations in this start-up mode. Attachments are also possible for the first time. (Forget attachments!) Kantronics KAM Plus or KAM 98 digital controllers are suggested. Update: See Digital Dimension - WinLink 2000: A Worldwide HF BBS, WA1LOU, Mar. 2000 QST, Pg. 90.
I took the following notes on the VE exam results:
12 took Extra written - 8 passed
2 took General code (13 wpm) - all passed
2 took General written - all passed
1 took Technician - passed
2 took Novice - 0 passed
Total - 19
The 75 meter mobile antenna shootout was well run, with all antennas placed
on the same mount on the same vehicle. A matching coil was first adjusted to
optimum SWR. A distant field strength meter was brought to the same reading
each time by adjusting transmitter power, and the resulting power read on a
Byrd wattmeter. Here are the scores:
WC0M Bill linear loaded 100w 0db
K5LJM Harvey long Bandspanner 6.3 12
w ext 4.4 13.6
W1FJS Andy Hustler std 11 9.5
w ext 7.2 11.4
KK5IC Chuck 4 band 6.5 11.8
W6TEE Les Spider 33 4.8
KK5IC Chuck single coil vert 8 11
horiz 7.8 11.1
N0FZZ Mac Com Products 31 5.1
WC0M Bill Killer 4.2 13.8
Killer Jr 4.9 13.1
Hamstick 90 0.5
w coil on top 45 3.5
Bandspanner short 24 6.2
11' base loaded 22 6.6
W6YXE Howard Hustler bad conn 22 6.6
Enough people retired to their RVs early every night that I was hesitant to fire up the mobile rig (and the engine) to check in to the 75 meter nightly SRH net. It was not on until 9 PM, Arizona time. By Thursday, I got brave enough to do that. Everyone seemed to be home from Alamo Lake except Frank and Jan who were at Salt River, north of Mesa. The next night they were at Globe, and still moving. I reported this to Frank and Jan's ham "neighbors" Ray, K3USG, and XYL Mo, W8MBY, from Joshua Tree, who were camped next to me.
Roy, W5RT, who was camped on the other side of me, decided to buy a
PocketMail from Too Crazy Ladies, badge vendors who he had patronized. His
training class had 10 people in it, and I assume that was one day's sales.
This was a popular item among the RVers at Quartzsite. They also had little
PocketMail badges for sale. I bought one and made a graphic like it to the
right.
The Seafood Buffet replaced the Fish Fry of previous years at Sweet Darleen's, and was held at the Black Rock Restaurant, up Hwy 60 in Brenda. About 80 attended and all agreed that the food was excellent.
The ham and craft "yard sale" was held on Saturday so that other hams could
attend for buying and selling. As usual, I picked up a couple of HF mobile
antennas for my collection. I saw nothing new, but I bought replacements
that were in better shape than some I had. I did refrain from buying a
Outbacker that would have given me 160 meters because that model was
designated for portable use in their ads and might not survive while mobile.
It was decided that enough people were planning on leaving on Sunday that the Last Hurrah Cookout should be advanced to Saturday night, and would be the last event. It was also decided that the experiment of holding the Quartzfest after the RV and other shows was succesful in avoiding the traffic problems in town. But it was thought that next year's event should straddle the shows' closing weekend to provide the best of both. Harvey announced that they would do less planning next year, making the event more informal and less structured.
Sunday - Home: I folded my trailer first thing in the morning and headed for California. I checked in to the Sam's Radio Hams Sunday morning net from south of Needles. Frank and Jan were near Benson AZ. A day of good weather let me drive all the way home to Sacramento.