Ham Radio Camping & Caravaning

This is a history of Ham Radio friends in Sacramento camping and caravaning together, from 1971 to now. A caravan is a number of vehicles traveling together in communication by Amateur Radio. Many trips involved special interests such as trains or 4WD. The first, in 1971, was a caravan to Durango, Colorado (photos). See the table below for a listing of all outings covered by this history, and for links to trip reports. Please take a look at the trip reports to understand what this is about. For earlier activities with some of the same people, see The Unofficial History of the RAMS.

The Mt Vaca Radio Club started in 1969, but did not engage in trips and outings at that time. When some of us started taking long trips together in 1971 as friends, we jokingly called ourselves the "Mt. Vaca 4WD Club". The only MVRC involvement in these trips was that we talked about them on the air, and mentioned them at the meetings. The MV4WDC name fell into disuse when real MVRC trips started, even though these longer "friends" trips, sometimes called "unofficial" trips, continued.

The first MVRC campout was in 1980 and the first club caravan was to Death Valley in 1983. MVRC campouts and caravans and our non-club trips are both shown below for easy reference. Only Spring Trips (exc. 1987) and MVRC Campouts are MVRC trips.