CONEJO VALLEY : Radio Club Hams It Up in Competition

“I am Mina M6UHK,” she said. “Oh, my last name is Maxfield.”

Mina Maxfield spends so much time introducing herself on the radio as Mina M6UHK, it might as well be her name. After the Leisure Village resident saw an article about amateur radio in a senior magazine about five years ago, her life has been filled with funny monikers and unseen friends.

“I went to classes and taught myself Morse Code, and I’ve met more people and more friends,” Maxfield said. “So, you see, any age can really get in.”

Now she has a ham radio shack at home and a dual-band radio in her car.

“When I’m in the car, I can always talk,” she said. “You can’t be lonely, really.”

Maxfield and other members of the Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club participated Saturday in the nationwide amateur radio Field Day competition, a 24-hour contest testing their operator skills and endurance.

The club set up camp on top of Rasnow Mountain at the end of Ventu Park Road south of Thousand Oaks. Members plan to broadcast from their 22 stations for 24 hours straight until 11:01 a.m. today.

The idea of the contest is to simulate emergency conditions, so the stations operate on only five watts of battery power. Participants score points for every contact and exchange of required information they make.

“It’s a grueling exercise, part of emergency preparedness,” said Greg Lane, operations chairman for the Conejo Valley club. “That’s what the effort’s all about. In case of earthquake, flood or storm, the first 24 hours of communications will be our bag, and hopefully we’re prepared.”

Many of the club members arrived Friday evening, set up their antennas and equipment, and spent the night in tents and sleeping bags. Less hardy souls came the next morning.

Some of the hams reported having trouble making contacts because of recent solar flares and atmospheric conditions. Others, like Maxfield, didn’t seem to notice. In less than three hours, her station had made contact with places as far away as Germany, New Mexico and Wyoming.

“I like to get a station and have them come to me, rather than turn the dial,” Maxfield said. “But the guys do it their own way. They hunt and peck, which is a lot of work.”

The competition is sponsored by American Radio Relay League, an organization of amateur radio operators founded in 1914 and headquartered in Newington, Conn. The league has 140,000 members in the United States and Canada.

The Conejo Valley club has finished first in the nation in the contest twice in the past three years.