AJ6MF and I attended the Big Bear HamEscape hamfest April 25–27, 2025. Approximately 300 people were there, although the harsh weather forecast apparently discouraged some people from coming on Saturday. Big Bear, CA is a ski resort town, elevation 6,750′, northeast of Riverside in SoCal. Attendees were mostly from California, but also from Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas.

Friday Events

All-day Programs

HF University by Bill Mader, K8TE: a 7-part introduction to HF for Technician Class hams.

• Intro to HF
• Cost of typical HF rigs
• Antennas and propagation
• Operating modes
• Other activities
• Software
• Web tools for HF

ARES Bootcamp: Several new Techs were interested in the all-day “ARES Bootcamp” and expressed enthusiasm afterwards.

In addition, the vendor hall was open 12:00-17:00. Ham Radio Outlet had merchandise on 20′ of table, Bioenno had a table of LiFePO batteries, Impulse had a table of battery boxes and DC power parts, and Hitched4Fun had a display of masts for RV and POTA. Two vendors of antennas brought RVs with large antennas attached so we could see t hem extended.

At 18:00, at the Elks Club across the street, an hour of no-host bar was followed by a good buffet dinner of western BBQ, followed by speeches introducing the local creators of the event: Dede K6DDZ, Nancy K6CUB, and Tracy WM6T. Those local hams were busy all weekend ensuring that presenters had Audio/Visual support, and that everyone had coffee and snacks.

Saturday Events

The vendors were there 09:00 – 17:00. HRO and Impulse were making sales.

• POTA Workshop had many enthusiastic hams of those already registered and were scheduled for outdoors but it started snowing. Unfortunately, the threat of snow kept some 100 one-day registrants
  from getting up the hill.
• Wildfire Watch was of interest to many SoCal Hams and explored a program developed by Orange County Fire Watch.
• What’s up with ARRL?
• Why M17 is better than other digital modes (M17 is an open-source digital voice mode).
• Radio Terminology and Emergency Operating Procedures by Bill Mader K8TE, encouraged Hams to be Concise and Precise in communication.,
• San Bernardino Office of Emergency Services
• ARRL Instructor Academy.
• Digital TV Joel KD6W is extremely active in ATV, knowledgeable, and a great presenter, e.g. “I could tell you a joke about UDP, but you might not get it.” There are several ATV repeaters in SoCal, Santa Barbara, LA, and San Diego. I was surprised by the variety of video formats: old timers still running NTSC, many ops using FM because the $2,500 IC-905 makes it easy, QAM because any modern TV can receive ATV on channel 58, and HDMI because inexpensive video switches and converters are readily available. Joel described the evolution of ATV repeaters, including format conversion and full-duplex. He also had a 10 GHz ATV system on a tripod running in the hallway.
• FCC RF Exposure Rules introduced the available charts for calculating the radiating strength of your transmissions so that you or your neighbors will stay beyond a specific distance from your antenna depending on a specific length of time. Also presented was information about other every-day devices that transmit RF.
• Intrigue and Mysteries on the SWL bands
• FT8 on a Budget
• On-Line Testing – What is Involved: Steve WM7X showed how his group administers ham exams via Zoom. Precautions such as checking that the applicant’s browser does not have AI assistant enabled, and using the “zoom in on eyes” feature of Zoom. All of the paperwork is done with e-documents so that those who pass may receive their new license authorization in 1 business day.
• Summits on the Air…: Presenter Mark Knight, KD6DTS, enthusiastically described equipment and procedures for transmitting from a designated summit and showed photos of his climbs to summits.
• Powering PAPA: (SoCal’s Premier Repeater System)
• 10 Meter Budget Antenna
• Antennas… (Tom Schiller)
• All About StarLink…: Aaron of Hitched4Fun presented various details: the cable between dish and router has voltage drop because of the high current, the new Mini has the router at the dish, so WiFi may
  not work well if you are inside an aluminum trailer. The audience was large and contributed many constructive comments.
• PACE Planning and Preparation (Primary, alternate, contingency and emergency (PACE) is methodology used to build a communication plan. ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACE_(communication_methodology)
• Young Ladies Relay League: Debbie WB6LVC, met with other women Hams to encourage them to support each other and enjoy the use of their equipment. The organization has nets in all areas of the country to share Ham activities: ylrl.org.
• Batteries, Solar and Controllers: Kevin Zanjani of Bioenno gave an overview of LiFePO and then answered many practical questions, e.g. “can they be paralleled?”, “what size charger?”.
• DMR Code Plug Building 101

There was no group dinner Saturday night, so we walked a few blocks to a restaurant, but an hour later we walked back with wind and snow in our faces.

Sunday Events

The vendor area was replaced with a Swap Meet 07:00 – 11:00, one participant had a large assortment of stuff.

Report from ARRL National: Dick N6AA Director of ARRL Southwestern Division reprised his views on how ARRL is cutting back on member benefits and trying to attract new, younger people.

…now what? Tips for mic fright: Presenter Bob Turner, W6RHK, tips: listen first to other conversations, prepare your equipment, practice a script, start simple, practice and reward yourself.

Ask the Experts: Among other topics, K8ATE pointed out that if you attend hamfests, you should buy something from the vendors, or else they will stop coming to the hamfests.

Conclusion

In summary, this was a fun weekend, people were friendly, food was good, and we are planning to go to some of the other hamfests, e.g. Albuquerque in Sep-2025, and Yuma Feb-2026.

– John AC6SL