On August 11, 2025, a Kachina team completed an improvement project at the Torreon repeater. This included a new hardline and a more efficient antenna atop a 10 foot mast. Dennis Mills-WA7ZZT, Bill Turley-KJ7GYH, Tom Goforth-WY7TG, and John Taroli-KK7EYT participated in the project. With the additional height and new components the repeater should better serve the community.
Here are a few pictures.
A team from Kachina ARC supported the bike race held as part of the Deuces Wild Triathlon event on May 31, 2025. The team staffed nine separate coordination sites and provided communications coordination to the event staff. The race was held from Fool Hollow Lake along Lone Pine Dam Road. Here are a few pictures.
Members of the Kachina team notified first responders to provide aid to a rider who fell during the race. As a result of this accident, the race course was diverted off of Highway 260, the highway was closed, and the victim was airlifted out for medical attention. Here are a few pictures of this incident.
This year’s Christmas party was held Dec. 10 at the Snowflake social hall. It was well-attended, a fun evening, and lots of delicious food. Here are a few pictures.
Randy Beecroft, W7RJB, and Matt Lunati, N7OEI, installed a new commercial grade antenna on Greens Peak to support a new Meshtastic node on the mountain top. Here are a few pictures.
Randy Beecroft, W7RJB, and Dennis Mills, WA7ZZT, made a trip up to Greens Peak on Oct. 19, 2024 to repair the W7EH repeater that has been down for a few days. They ran into an early winter storm with about 4″ of snow on the mountain. Here are a few pictures.
Here are a few photos from the bike race held Oct. 5, 2024, with 1091 cyclists registered. Eleven local radio operators helped with the event.
On Sept. 13-14, 2024, Kachina ARC member provided communications support for the White Mountain Tango Endurance Ride. This two-day event was held in the nearby Los Burros trail area. KARC provided communications at six communications checkpoints, checking on status and recording times for the passing riders. Here are a few pictures.
Meshtastic is an open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices using LoRa technology. At the July 2024 KARC meeting, we had a presentation by David Waller, KG7NCV. David is deploying the Meshtastic network in the Mesa, AZ area. Information on this project is described here:
Catalog of Meshtastic equipment
At the August 2024 KARC meeting, Matt Lunati, N7OEI, described his recent activity with the Meshtastic network and demonstrated a small (2.0″ width) Heltec network transceiver. It connects via bluetooth to a phone or tablet, and provides access to the mesh network.
