Festival air
Photo via Tom McLean

Festival air

On April 11, the American Legion Post 519 Amateur Radio Club put up a booth at the Palm Springs (Calif.) Village Fest. We had a radio set up with UHF/VHF/HF and encouraged the public to stop by. We had over 100 veterans, family members and curious tourists stop by to thank us for our service and inquire about The American Legion. All children passing by received an American flag – we had 1,000 flags to begin with and ran out halfway through. We even got several youngsters and adults on the air. It was a great night.

Mid-April brings the Coachella music festival, with over 100,000 concertgoers in town for a two-weekend extravaganza. Pop Up Palm Springs is a brand-new event taking place on April 16 between the festival weekends. Main Street Palm Springs, the association of Uptown and Downtown Palm Springs businesses, invites local businesses to host an on-site special event, and Post 519 is a participant. We are still finalizing details, but currently our plans include a tour of our historic post including the restored Amateur Radio Room (K6TAL), a lecture on the history of the post, and maybe a lecture on our Palm Springs fallen heroes. For more information, visit palmspringslegion.org or call (760) 325-6229.