Every year on the fourth weekend of June—this year, from 11 a.m. on June 25 to 11 a.m. on June 26—the T-CEP and DRT teams set up extra antennas at the Emergency Operations Center in Topanga to reach as many stations as possible.

Among the participants at this year’s Field Day was ‘HAM Whisperer’ Norm Goodkin, Topanga locals James Grasso, Bryce Anderson, Eric Fitzgerald, Keith Tomlinson, Terry Cox, Mark Sage, and Roya Fouladi, who came all the way from Orange County.
The Field Day is also a competition, where more than 35,000 contestants from all over the United States and Canada compete ‘off the grid’ to see how far their direct radio contacts can go without using repeaters.

“It was a North American contest,� wrote James Grasso of T-CEP. “I had several contacts in Hawaii, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Georgia, most of the Canadian Provinces and probably [more than] 35 states. I suspect that among all of us we hit all 50 states and likely all the Canadian provinces.�
The Topanga teams also boast capabilities to send messages via Win Link Global Radio Email®�, “which is a network of amateur radio and authorized government stations that provide worldwide radio email using radio pathways where the internet is not present.�
For more information regarding Field Day or the Disaster Radio Team, contact DRT@TCEP.org.
To learn more about Amateur Radio: emergency-radio.org.
For more information on getting a ham license in the greater L.A area, contact Norm Goodkin at hamclass.goodkin.net.