THE TARC 75TH ANNIVERSARY EVENT’S “AFTER ACTION REPORT”
By
Don Thomas, W6LRG
Your dedicated president was at the 75th Anniversary site next to the Turlock War Memorial at the crack of dawn six o’clock in the morning on September 20th. He was alone except for Richard, KE6RGB and Bruce, W6PER who brought the doughnuts. Some of the others began to show up at daylight somewhat sleepy-eyed.
The work didn’t begin in earnest until Ron, AA6D arrived with the club’s reinforced trailer and re-adjusted 20-meter beam. About that time Vaughn, K6IMN showed up and with a little help from a couple of others, managed to get the thing up and ready for Richard to begin making contacts promptly at eight o’clock.
Your president ignored their activity and began to string up his recently home-
made 40 meter G5RV antenna between two light poles. He
brought along a telephone company multi section locking fiberglass “push up
pole” to raise the center of his dipole into an inverted “V” configuration. 
Shortly thereafter John, KG6NS and his son the “gorilla,” James, KG6JSH
arrived to put up their 135-foot off-center fed Windom.
John dragged out his trusty old slingshot, a heavy metal washer and a fishing pole.
James held the fishing pole. John was ready
to “shoot” the washer high into a second tree to pull up the antenna. However, the second tree was not as easy as the
first one. 
Your club president was down range and nearly on line with the tree he had in mind to use. His first shot went high into the air and was flying straight and true. However, it came to an abrupt stop and fell “sickly” to the ground several feet from the tree. It was obvious to everyone there he had never been allowed to use a slingshot in his growing-up years. His second shot did the same. By some miracle his third shot missed the club president and went over the limb he wanted. John and James operated C.W. and S.S.B. quite successfully all day and logged 18 stations.
Richard, KE6RGB had the easiest time setting up.
He “sort of mingled around” with the guys that were setting up the
club’s 20-meter portable beam until it was up. He then rushed over to his rig,
screwed in the coax connector and was on the air at eight o’clock. He and his sidekick Jim, KG6OWS snagged 57
stations. 
“Mikie,” AD6AA had a different type of setup. He was trying real hard to out perform all the
other stations. He used two antennas. The
loop was hooked onto one of the two antenna outputs on his TS 570. The other antenna was his “famous”
four-inch coil home-brewed “screwdriver” antenna mounted on his truck like a
“three point hitch on a John Deere Tractor.”
He was going to do the “A-B antenna switching thing.” He brought
his desktop computer and a keyboard along also. It
looked like he planned to play some games or maybe check his E-mail. He claimed he brought
it to operate a PSK “30 something” station.
Yeah, right! He was closely watched a good part of the day by a couple of
“non-believers.” 
The reports that drifted in from time to time told a story that the equipment he was using had been programmed for the CQ call with the TARC call sign as well as for the information the hams needed to obtain the special “Ivan Lowe QSL card.” The spies reported that they never really saw him typing any messages on the keyboard. He seemed only to tap a key here and there, now and then, and just sat back and watched the computer and radio do everything. I just wonder if the amateur radio/computer operator at the other end of his contact was doing the same thing?
The bottom line seemed to be that neither operator was doing anything. The computers were simply exchanging the pre-programmed information between each other, and each operator only sat in front of the system and appeared to be doing something. That’s not the end of that “tom foolery either.” Neither operator even scribbled down any logbook information. The system did that also, but not too good. Based on the log he e-mailed the club president, it repeated the contacts two or three times and made the operator appear more industrious than he actually was. After putting Mike’s “feet to the fire,” he came through with another e-mail that showed only 19 contacts – listed once.
Therefore, a point can be made that Mike could just as well have sent someone else to bring his gear, plug it in, turn it on, and let it start exchanging programmed information with the other computers while Mike stayed in the Los Banos Tap and Grill. Every Saturday they have a “two for one” sale. It’s one drink shared by two drinkers according to “Dickie Boy,” K6SUU.
There was some also some whispering going around that Mike may have eaten a whole box of doughnuts so he could use the box to provide shade for his computer screen. That would explain why the club president and several other club members didn’t get any.
“Todd, KG6JWH was kind enough to put his Echolink node on the club repeater for the anniversary event. Manuel, N6MDM and Larry K6MDX ran it remotely with Manuel’s two-meter radio. Manuel hooked up with a net in Brazil and all the net members were speaking Portuguese! He joined them. Everyone that was listening to the club repeater at that time had no idea what any of them were talking about. Manuel knew of course. He brought along his granddaughter. It’s kind of hard to figure out how such a cute green sprout like her could have sprung from such a gnarly old stump as Manuel
“Todd showed up with his tribe and promptly made contact on Echolink with a ham on a repeater in Japan. Everybody was impressed except his wife. She was trying to get him to help with the kids and couldn’t care less about Japan – it was no big deal to her.
“The Echolink set-up was an enormous success. Everyone was impressed except Don, W6LRG. It would take another Korean War or a spark transmitter to impress him. He just smiled and shook his head like he did when we landed on the moon,” was Dick’s slant on that part of the operation.
“Everyone kept asking who the tall guy with the camera was? I said it was Larry, K6MDX. Everybody just walked away with their jaws hanging open. Nobody could believe that Larry finally made it to a club function. Even Larry was unsure how he got there and why,” is Dickey Boys recollection of the surprise visitor.
Chris, K6CP, the club’s treasurer logged 62 contacts from “his remote site,” wherever that was. He turned in a very detailed “log sheets” that included everything but whose sheets they were. Your club president was tempted to claim them as his, but he doesn’t like to be “tarred and feathered,” especially in the summertime.
Let’s not forget Dickyboy, K6SUU’s task at the event. He was appointed the Chairman of the Board for the 75th Anniversary Event. He had it all laid out and planned down to the tiniest detail. The snag he overlooked was that he had to work that day. That dedicated employee figured out how he could both work and come to the event.
He went to work in the wee hours of the morning and got the guys at the plant started. Then he “played hooky” and came out to the site with his “Old Faithful” barbecue grille in hand, well, actually on Ron’s truck. One good thing we can all say about Dickyboy that day is that he only set fire to his grille once and the flames didn’t catch any trees or parked police cars on fire. It could have been worse. As for his cooking skills, well the line at his “trough” hung on until the last burger was gone and he started “pushing” the hotdogs. I wonder what his employees thought when he returned to the plant later in the day smelling like fresh cooked hamburgers and hot dogs while all of them had been hard at work?
Now a few words about your club president and his careful planning. His station was going to run C.W. part of the time without headphones so the visiting public could listen to the old code signals coming in and read what they said.
Don brought along a C.W. key, just in case the scheduled C.W. operator, Bob Lorentz, AB6MA showed up without one and used the excuse not to stay. Once he took over, Don would be free to supervise the entire operation.
“The best laid plans of mice….” That’s what happened. It seems the C.W. operator got cold feet, or I should say broken bones, as he fell off a ladder and wasn’t able to participate in the club’s operation. That presented a problem. Don had prepared the “News Releases” for both the Modesto Bee and the Turlock Journal. Both of them mentioned that old-fashioned C.W. would be used at the event. No C.W. operator, no C.W.!
Don the sly person that he is, figured out how to demonstrate C.W., which he hardly ever uses any more. He kept the key and the mike both plugged in and whenever a “citizen” stopped at his table he dropped down to the C.W. part of the band and either called CQ or answered someone’s CQ. He also copied a few lines from other stations in QSO for the benefit of the “visitors.” He never was able to hook up with any stations. Maybe his “fine looking” multi-band homemade antenna wasn’t working as well as he thought it would?
He spent most of the day zipping up and down the band, juggling his mike and key, and dragging his table around to stay in the shade. He also “visited around” a whole lot. As a result of those intensive efforts, he only managed to confirm one contact – old Clyde on the 40 meter S.S.B. “noon time” net. Oh well, there’s next year’s Field Day event where he will have a chance to excel.
