Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club (SPARC)
2017 Sterlingfest
The Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club hosted a special event station at the 2017 Sterling Festival on Saturday, 7 October 2017.

It was a good Sterlingfest.  We started with setup at 0800.  People started to stop by starting at about 1100.  We started to tear-down about 1600 and by 1645, we were gone.

We had several visitors during the day.  The ones I remember are:

    A nice lady stopped by and reminisced that when she come to the States from Peru to attend university in Iowa, she keep in contact with her family in Peru via an amateur radio link.  She still remembers that fondly.

    Two youngsters, Avery and Shane, stopped by with their mother.  They both make a contact with stations in California in the California QSO Party.

    A new ham stopped by and also make his first HF contacts in the California QSO party.

We had a few SPARC people come out to visit us at the booth. We had a good time and hope that others did also.

73, Gordon, NQ4K


Paul, K4PDF, was the first to arrive and immediately started to setup his homemade hamstick dipole.  Two hamsticks on a homemade aluminum bracket attached to plastic electric conduit as a mast in a TV antenna tripod.  Worked very well.  We had this setup for 40M and made a few local contacts.
Monte, KV4KS, arrived carrying his power supply.
Monte, KV4KS, and Paul, K4PDF, assemblying stuff.

Duane, K4UW, arrives and immediately trips on the flat, paved parking lot.  He as not hurt. (reenactment of the event shown.)
Setup and all set to go.  Duane, K4UW; Monte, KV4KS, Paul, K4PDF, and Gordon, NQ4K.  The SPARC banner is proudly hanging at the front of the canopy.
Monte, KV4KS, was the the booth for a couple of hours in the morning and afternoon.

Paul, K4PDF, stayed all day.
Duane, K4UW, stayed all day.
Gordon, NQ4K, stayed all day.

Gary, K4SRX, arrives and participated most of the day.
The SPARC booth a little later in the day with two SPARC members exchanging valuable information on the state of the world, the value of the proposed Amateur Radio Parity Act, the effect the wind was having on the canopy, the tastiness of a pulled pork sandwich versus the shrimp and fry plate, and other important topics.
We had plenty of visitors.

Linda, K4LDT, with her grandaughter.
Joe, WB2SAI.  His sone also stopped by for a few monents.
Dan, KN4DII, makes a few QSOs in the California QSO party.

Mark, KI4CTR, stopped by to rag chew.  
Evelyn, who is becoming a a very good field day HF contest operator, and Marty, NV3H.
And then it was time to leave


Monte, KV4KS, taking down his buddipole antenna we had set up for 20M.  This is the primary antenna we used to make the contacts in the California WSO Party.
And it was over.
Once again this year, it was worthwhile to host the station.
Pictures were taken by Gordon, NQ4K.

Made on 10 October 2016