Monterey

One of the reasons I'd decided to stay in Monterey for 2 nights was because I had found on the 'net that there was to be an Amateur Radio Rally or HamFest as they call them here. It was billed as a 2 day even so I assumed it would be a rather large affair. Actually it was very small but there was lots to do and see. Every hour there was a talk or demo by one or another area of interest (some more interesting than others). Outside a 'Mission Control' (They like grand names over here) was set up for a couple of radio amateurs who are also parachutists. They got in a plane and jumped out at 18,000ft and made radio contacts with people on the ground – not easy apparently as you're supposed to need oxygen when you get near this height, and they didn't just free-fall but actually opened their chutes which add's complications because they were on a flight path for a local airport! They had permission to do this and they had GPS plotters connected to them so 'misssion control' and the 'ground op's' could monitor their progress, all of which was relayed to a large screen in the main hall of the event. I did actually make contact with one of the jumper's - AF6IM and I await my card to confirm this! The other interesting event was 'fox-hunting' where a low power radio is hidden and you have to use a direction finding aerial to find it. The guys that were running it were having difficulty getting the low tech gaffer tape and pen top to keep the hidden radio on 'transmit'. After a bit of fiddling I found a way to get a special beacon mode to work on one of the radios they had, and also meant they were operating legally by sending their call sign (which seemed to impress them – RTFM!)