The San Bruno Amateur Radio Club

For the first time in over fourteen years members of the San Bruno Amateur Radio Club put on Field Day in the city. Field Day is the "open house" for Amateur Radio. It gives a chance for members to demonstrate their skills. One of the main reasons for the existance of Ham or Amateur Radio is operators ability to pitch in during emergencies to help their communities. For that reason in 2022 the club operated two portable stations with temporary antennas, radios that operated on batteries which in turn were charged by solar panels.

This year's event took place on Narita Plaza located in San Bruno's Civic Center between City Hall and the Library. This location sits outside of the City's Emergency Operations Center which members could use their skills in communicating to other citizens and other groups effected by the event. To show the importance of this cooperation the San Bruno Emergency Preparedness Committee also had a table offering information on how to be prepared for possible events in the community like an earthquake.

On hand to explain to explain to visitors what the day was all about were, Steve Paganelli - K6YUA, Tom Jones - KN6TEI, Ron Rugel - KK6AMZ, Tony Dowler - K6BV, Matthew Rappaport - KD6KVH, Malcolm Robinson - KM6LUM, Ron Nicholson - N6YWU, Dave Dornlas - KN6KOO and stopping by to check on us was Tristan Willy - KF6MUY.

Being the first time in years that the club put on their own Field Day event was a learning experience. We learned that "propagation" is not always working the way we want it to work. On this day, we knew going into it that there had been major solar activity that was working against us. This limited our ability to make a lot of contacts around the country and the world. While that's a problem, it's also part of what you learn from. On the other hand, we were able to speak with licensed amateurs who live in San Bruno about joining the club and was able to pick up seven new members for the group.

We were also appreciative of the three members of the City Council who were able to stop by and see what the Club was up to. Thank you to Councilmen Tom Hamilton, Micheal Salazar and Marty Medina for taking a few minutes of their weekend to check us out. We also want to thank our served agencies who stopped by. They include Officer John Ray Quinto or the San Bruno Police Department and Doug Kunze of the American Red Cross.

The goal for 2023 is to build on the lessons of this year's event and better serve our community.