A Serious Ham : Through her radio club activities, Mina Maxfield reaches out and touches the world around her.

Dressed in jaunty aubergine shorts and blouse, Mina Maxfield recently spent a weekend shouting, “CQ, CQ, CQ, Field Day 23 alpha!” into a ham radio microphone until her voice gave out.

Maxfield explained that she was using that basic code to tell other radio operators that she was calling from a club station rather than a car or home radio.

“We’ve got 23 different stations here on the mountain,” she said as we crouched in her tent on Rasnow Peak in Newbury Park.

With permission from the Rasnow family, members of the Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club set up 23 groups in tents and RVs on the wildflower-dotted ridge commanding a view of Conejo and Hidden valleys.

Maxfield, who is in her late 60s, and some of her fellow club members were participating locally in the 24-hour national American Radio Relay League’s Field Day that ended the morning of June 28.

During the annual event, licensed amateur radio operators practiced their emergency communication skills by competing for long-distance ham radio records. They used a variety of equipment, including hand-held “handy-talkie” phones and low-band frequency radios. The signals from both can be bounced or linked through a series of repeater equipment positioned around the landscape to maximize the distance reached.

The idea of the contest is to simulate disaster conditions. So the stations only operate on 5 watts of battery power. Participants score individual and team points for every successful contact and exchange of required information.

“Last year our club won first place in field day competition among clubs in the U.S. and Canada for the number and distance of contacts we made. We even reached an airplane,” Maxfield said. And she thinks her club will win again this year. Results will not be announced for several weeks.

Jolts from the earthquakes near Yucca Valley and Big Bear on the second day of the event lent verisimilitude to the exercise. “One of the girls was working another frequency and I heard her yell, ‘Earthquake!’ ” Maxfield said. “But since it wasn’t local, we didn’t jump in.”

Even before the temblors hit, the three tents forming Maxfield’s all-female station--the Young Ladies’ Yak Shack--were hives of activity. She said about six of the 10 women spent the night and used the radios in shifts.

“Usually the ladies are in the background, helping husbands or boyfriends,” Maxfield said. “Most of them are ‘techs’ who cannot operate the radio unless there is some person like myself with a higher classification present.”

This was the first year the club had an all-women team. And many, like 45-year-old Bunny Treganza, were novices.

“Mina’s a special lady,” Treganza said. “This is my first field day, and she’s a good role model. She’s very active and even works part time at the Reagan library.”

Jerri Scott, 37, joined the club two months ago after her 13-year-old son abandoned his CB for a ham radio. “I realized I needed to learn about ham radios to help him,” she said. Scott’s husband, Randy, and their 8-year-old son are also amateur radio enthusiasts.

“It’s a terrific hobby with no age limit,” Maxfield said. “And our club is very family-oriented.”

Maxfield got interested in amateur radio about six years ago after reading an ad in a magazine for senior citizens. She taught herself Morse code and advanced to “general” classification. She belongs to the amateur radio club at Camarillo’s Leisure Village, where she has lived for the last 15 years.

“I’m also fingerprinted and photographed at the sheriff’s station for the Amateur Radio Emergency Service,” Maxfield said. She is a volunteer disaster worker registered with the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service. That means Maxfield wears a badge during emergencies and helps in the field to coordinate communications with the Red Cross, police and sheriff’s departments and other relief agencies.

Maxfield’s call sign, M6UHK, is among the thousands worldwide that are listed in the ham call book of licensed operators.

“It’s not like a CB, where anybody can use it,” she said. “You cannot talk on amateur radio without an ID or call sign. And I feel safer because I can even call for help from my car.”

“I live alone. And I am alone,” said Maxfield, a widow who lost her only son two years ago. “When I want to talk to someone, I get on the radio and it’s a good feeling.”

* FYI

Ventura County is home to several amateur radio clubs. To locate one near you, call a chamber of commerce. For information about the Conejo Valley Amateur Radio Club, call (805) 484-9461.