VALBARC

Veterans Administration Long Beach Amateur Radio Club

Veterans Administration Long Beach ARC (AC6VA)

After an ARALB Ham University Technician License class at the Long Beach VA, about 15 veterans decided to start a ham radio club at the VA for veterans, VA employees, VA volunteers, and their families. We became a club on October 2, 2015. Since then we have grown to about 30 members, a number of whom are members of also ARALB, AARA, and other clubs.

Our primary purpose, being on a hospital campus, is to provide hospital emergency communications for the Long Beach Medical Center. In that effort, we have been provided a trailer for our station, and some of us have attended a training session to learn to operate the VA’s new HF ALE system, which has a VA call sign as well as a ham radio call sign assigned to it by the FCC.

We participate in many activities both on and off the campus. We are ARRL affiliated, we are members of the Los Angeles Area Council of Clubs, and we participated in the last HAMCON in Torrance and the Ready Long Beach event at the Pyramid, CSULB. We are open to participating in more events to hone our EmComms Skills while having some fun.

If you are a veteran, VA employee, VA volunteer, or a family member of one of these groups, we invite you to stop by and see us. Our monthly meetings are the first Saturday of each month at 11:00 am, at the Ham Radio Trailer [across the street from Building 50, and adjaxent to Building/Trailer 167T], on the VA campus.

In addition, we have our weekly net on Wednesdays at 1830 hours [6:30 pm for non-military], on 146.790 MHz, PL 103.5 Hz, -600 KHz offset. Visitors are always welcome to check in.

For more information, please contact Andrew Variano, at KK6LPT@arrl.net.

You may also contact Greg Sachnewycz at KN6NQF@arrl.net.