July 2025 Announcements

Jay Ballinger, N6SAC, Appointed as Sacramento Valley Section Manager

Effective July 17, 2025, Jay Ballinger, N6SAC, has been appointed as ARRL Sacramento Valley Section Manager.  Carol Milazzo, KP4MD, who filled that position since 2015 now serves as ARRL Pacific Division Vice Director.

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See our ARRL Sacramento Valley website for photos and further details.

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A Pacific Division Town Hall Zoom Meeting is scheduled for Saturday, July 12, at 5 pm.  Watch your email inbox for your invitation.

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Jay Ballinger, N6SAC, of Antelope, California, has been appointed Section Manager of the ARRL Sacramento Valley Section, effective July 16, 2025. He will serve the remainder of a term that expires on September 30, 2027.

Dr. Carol Milazzo, MD, KP4MD, of Citrus Heights, California, Sacramento Valley Section manager since 2015, has been appointed Vice Director of the ARRL Pacific Division, effective July 9, 2025. She replaces John Litz, NZ6Q, who acceded to the position of Director in May. She will serve the remainder of a three-year term ending December 31, 2025. 

Vice Director John Litz, NZ6Q, acceded to the Pacific Division Director’s chair on May 25, 2025 to complete the remainder of a 3-year term ending December 31, 2025. Litz was appointed Vice Director in April 2024. Before that, he was ARRL San Joaquin Valley Section Manager from January 2020.  

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Our Thursday evening, July 17, ARRL Sacramento Valley Section VHF and HF Nets will be conducted, first on the WD6AXM FM repeater on 146.085 MHz, then on 3880 kHz LSB +/- 3 kHz for QRM.

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July Major Operating Events:

July 5-6 - CQ WW VHF SSB/CW Contest
July 11-27 - K6C Special Event Station at California State Fair
July 12-13 - IARU HF World Championship
July 19-20 - CQ WW VHF Digital Contest, North American QSO Party RTTY
July 26-27 - AL QSO Party
Aug 2-3 - North American QSO Party CW

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Visit our Amateur Radio Exhibit and Special Event Station K6C at the California State Fair!

The ARRL Sacramento Valley Section is sponsoring an Amateur Radio Exhibit and Special Event Station K6C at the July 11-27 California State Fair.  Come and visit our team of volunteer exhibitors in the air-conditioned Building B at Cal Expo as we promote our amateur radio activities, clubs, literature, services and outreach to the general public.

Our K6C Special Event Station is scheduled to operate all modes including the target phone frequencies of 7.290, 14.290, 21.390, and 28.390 MHz +/- QRM, and the N6NA 145.25 MHz FM repeater (-0.6 offset, 162.2 Hz CTCSS) or N6NA-R on EchoLink..  Go to https://www.qrz.com/db/K6C for more information.

Special Edition QSL Card

To request our downloadable Special Edition QSL Card confirming your successful contacts with K6C, enter your correct QSO information on this webpage.  Confirmation should be available within 24-48 hours of your contact.

ACTIVATE OUR K6C SPECIAL EVENT CALLSIGN FROM YOUR OWN STATION

Although applications for our exhibitor team are now closed, California radio amateurs may still sign up for July 11-27 dates and times to activate the K6C callsign from their own stations.  Please click on this link, select the ON THE AIR SIGN UP tab at the bottom of the sheet, and enter your callsign in the date, time, band and mode slots that you wish to operate. 

Please note that our California State Fair exhibit has priority to use the K6C Special Event Callsign during the grayed-out exhibit hours on the schedule

Operators may use the K6C callsign only on the bands, modes and times that they have selected under the privileges of their own license.  Activating the K6C Special Event Callsign indicates your agreement to follow the K6C Special Event operating instructions and to submit an ADIF formatted log file of contacts for us to respond to QSL card requests.  Contact n6sac@arrl.net for K6C log file upload instructions.   K6C activators who submit logs with at least ten contacts will be awarded a collectable 2025 California State Fair K6C Commemorative Certificate of Appreciation..

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Field Day Messages to Section Manager

I received and responded to Field Day messages from: KM6RFB (Sierra Foothills ARC), K6GAB, W6PNH (Yuba-Sutter ARC), KN6HTD (Yolo ARS), W6RHC (Golden Empire ARS), N6ERL (Nevada County ARC), WE1SPN, KN6DRN (Lincoln Hills Amateur Radio Group), WE6Z, W3WRC (World Radio Club) and AG6FK (Santa Clara ARES/RACES).  Thanks to you all!

Properly formatted formal Field Day messages to the Section Manager or SEC count for 100 Bonus points during Field Day.

Dr. Carol Milazzo, KP4MD,  ARRL Sacramento Valley Section Manager 

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Field Day Weekend Operation from Vieques Island (IOTA NA-249)

At the kind invitation of ARRL Puerto Rico Section Manager Carmen Greene, KP4QVQ, and the Vieques Island Amateur Radio Club, Carol Milazzo, KP4MD operated Field Day on June 28 with the NP3VI Field Day group on the Caribbean island of Vieques (IOTA NA-249).  Carol was glad to provide PR Section contacts to AG6AU (El Dorado County ARC) and several other Field Day sites throughout our section on 15 meters CW.  Watch her Field Day video report at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfJcgpAKZiI 

Dr. Carol Milazzo, KP4MD

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The Berryessa Amateur Radio Klub announces their repeater at Berryessa Peak has a new call sign:  K6BER.  The prior call KE6YUV has served from 1995 but had no relationship to the club.   All other details remain the same. For full details on the repeater and the club visit:  https://www.barkradio.org.  The repeater features an Early Morning Round-table chat net at 7:00 AM Monday through Friday.  All are welcome.

Bill Ragsdale K6KN 
BARK President

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Section Manager arrl.org Email Address.  Please address email for the Sacramento Valley Section Manager to n6sac@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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