Mini Makers Faire at Cabrillo College

Hi everyone. Just a quick report on how it went.

I want to thank everyone listed below for staffing the booth and talking with people. Everyone who staffed, worked the crowds real well (I was told by Faire staff that our booth was the busiest booth all day).

Tom KK6NMZ, Chris KG6DOZ, Kathi KE6VTY, Reed N1WC, Rob AA4QA, Gary K6PDL, and Robert KG6FFP (if I missed anyone, I apologize).

Setup was Saturday morning at 7:30. Among 4 people, we were set up in about 30 minutes. Show time was at 10:00 (see attached pictures). 

The Faire staff was amazed how fast we were able to setup and tear down compared to all the other booths our size. I like things to be easy and fun! 🙂

We had Reed’s spark gap transmitter, and a fox hole receiver. Stephen KM6NEP loaned us his hand made yagi made out of wood and metal rods for a Yaesu FT-60. I had my PVC mast, PVC 20 meter horizontal dipole, and a 40 meter PVC horizontal dipole. We had the grab and go VHF&UHF ham station, as well as the HF grab and go station. All powered by deep cycle batteries and a solar panel.

We were concentrating on what can be made simply in the hobby, and educate the general public about amateur radio in our communities.

We had approximately 52 people stop to ask questions about what we do (Tom was counting), and how do they become ham radio operators themselves. Two families, one with four kids, and one with three kids, the parents wanting the whole family to be ham radio operators. Most people who stopped by said they did not know there were any amateur radio clubs in our area, and all did not know there was ARES. A shame we can talk all over the world and yet it seems our own general communities do not even know about us.

Who ever made the great brochures for the Santa Cruz County Amateur Radio Club, thanks! Thanks to Becky for printing them!! We must have passed out at least 20 to 30 of em. Thought we were going to run out. We almost ran out of ARES brochures as well.

We mentioned CERT and San Lorenzo Valley Emergency Network when we could, but we did not have any material to hand out to the public.

The show closed at 5:00, and we were out of there at around 5:30.

Fun was had by all. Lots and lots of interesting people stopped by our booth with lots of good questions and stories to share about disaster preparedness and family members who were ham radio operators. .

I will head this up next year as well.

Please pass this report to anyone you think would be interested in what happened.

73, de Bob KO6XX