The SNA's March 2026 board introduction mentions Michael Kelly's membership in the San Francisco Amateur Radio Club almost in passing, tucked into a sentence about local safety. Easy to skim past. But the club, founded in 1909, is not a person hunched alone over a shortwave dial.
This August, SFARC members will build directional antennas from tape measures, then fan out to locate a hidden transmitter by following its signal on foot. The club calls it a Fox Hunt, which is, practically speaking, a scavenger hunt run on radio frequencies. San Francisco turns out to be a rare county in contest geography, so operators elsewhere actively seek contact with anyone transmitting from here.
If you see Kelly at an SNA event, try: Are you doing the Fox Hunt in August? He'll have to explain what it is, and that's the conversational door opening.
The club: San Francisco Radio Club (SFARC), formed 1909. The Board of Supervisors declared December 18, 2016 "San Francisco Radio Club Day."
Meets: 3rd Friday monthly, 7–9 PM, Randall Museum, hybrid with Google Meet
Fox Hunt date: August 2026, Randall Museum. Participants build Yagi antennas from tape measures, then track a hidden transmitter on foot.
Why SF matters on air: "San Francisco is a rare county. Operators across the country look for us." — SFARC on the California QSO Party
The quiet link: SFFD's NERT program uses amateur radio as its communications backbone. Kelly's SFARC membership and his NERT coordination share the same underlying infrastructure.