The meeting was called to order on January 6, 2008 with 15 members and guests present.

MOTION TO ACCEPT MINUTES: of the December meeting approved by Edgar (KC8VLV), seconded by Jeri (KC8YRQ), approved.

TREASURES REPORT: Our treasure was not available for this meeting.

DISASTER REPORT: There were a couple of local fires that he Red Cross responded to. There were no events that required the call out of amateur radio assistance.

NET REPORT: Edgar (KC8VLV) reported that net participation had been light over the holidays. He went on to say that the net operations have been moved to the club office at the Chapter House. Please make note to join in Tuesday evenings at 8pm, on 146.800MHz. Andrew (KC8SPD) recommended that an ARRL news piece be made available to the newsletter. This once a month article will be added to the announcements and other info section of the minutes report.

SPECIAL EVENTS: None on the agenda for this meeting.

CLUB STATION: Everything was reported as operational. Gene (NA8I) rebuilt the power supply for the 220MHz packet station last month.

NEWSLETTER: Our newsletter and web page is available at www.qsl.net/arcars .The www.bandopening.com/arcars is temporally down due to moving the web server location . We have a wealth of information available on the website including the RSS feed.

CLUB PROJECT: The radio room at the Chapter House is very small. It will only accommodate two people comfortably. Andrew recommended that we expand the room into the adjoining storage area.

MOTION: Jeri (KC8YRQ) moved that we expand the club room and that the work is to be done by members. This was seconded by Russ (KD8FRE) and approved.

There was a sign-up sheet circulated for volunteer workers to help with this project.

OLD BUSINESS: The communication trailer project has been deemed as not financially feasible at this time. Other financial funding options are being explored to complete the project.

NEW BUSINESS: The Field Day site has been verbally secured at the St Clair County Park. Written acknowledgement should be sent to Dennis (KB8OCG) sometime in January.

Andrew recommended that we allow annual club donations to be collected for the Chapter House. These funds will help defray ongoing expenses for events and necessary purchases. The discussion about this subject led to a pending motion to adopt the collection of these funds contingent of the acceptance by our treasure, Suzanne (KB8GFY).

Andrew announced that there will be a General Class instruction that will begin in April. The course will be held every Tuesday from 6pm to 9pm, and should run eight weeks. The course is set to begin April 1^st and run until May 20^th with a VE examination at its conclusion. The classes are planned to be held at the Chapter House lower level.

DX SPOTS/ SPECIAL EVENTS: Conditions on HF have been poor as we are at the bottom of the current solar cycle. No one present reported working any DX contacts during the last month.

MOTION TO ADJOURN: by Jeri (KC8YRQ) seconded by Paul (KG8OU)

ANNOUNCEMENTS and other info:

The ARCARS & International Traders Net is held every Tuesday evening at 8pm on the 146.800 NA8I repeater.

The International Friendship Net is held every Thursday at 9pm on the 145.370-VA3SAR repeater

The Thumb / Mid Michigan Nets are held Monday through Saturday at 9:30pm on the 147.300 repeater.

HF: The Great Lakes Emergency and Traffic Net is held nightly at 8pm on 3.932 kHz

The AC8W DX Cluster on 144.970 MHz is available. Check it for HF activity.

Swap List provided by Frank, VE3FBH

The opinions expressed below, as well as the accuracy of the content of the information belongs to Dan KB6NU, and are not those of ARCARS or any of its affiliates.

KB6NU’s Ham Radio Column:

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CW Geek and MI Affiliated Club Coordinator
Read my ham radio blog at http://www.kb6nu.com
LET'S GET MORE KIDS INTO HAM RADIO!

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Tubs of Tubes

by Dan Romanchik, KB6NU'

The other day I got a call from a guy whose website I'm working on.
He says he's calling from the Ann Arbor Reuse Center and that they
have two tubs full of vacuum tubes there. He asked, "Do you know
anyone who might want them"?

"How much are they asking for them"? I reply.

"Ten cents a piece."

"How many are there"?

"I'd guess about two hundred."

"Well, tell them I'll give him 20 bucks for all of them."

He tells them that I'll give them $20 for the lot. I hear some
mumbling. He comes back on the line and says they're negotiating.
After a minute or two, he says, "OK. You got them. How do I get to
your house"?

I gave him directions, and in about 15 minutes, he pulls up to my
house, gets out, opens the hatch, and pulls out two plastic tubs and
a cardboard box with vacuum tubes in them. I can tell he was way off
in his estimate. There must be at least 400 tubes in all.

There's nothing really exotic--most of them seem to have been taken
out of old TV sets--but I did find a couple of 6J6s. These are the
tubes used for the single-tube transmitter I have been thinking about
building (see http://wv7g.home.mindspring.com/jones_6j6.html for more
info). In one of the tubs, there was even a socket for the 6J6.

There are also a bunch of 6KS7s. According to the RCA tube manual,
these tubes were often used as RF or IF amplifiers. That sounds like
the beginning of a receiver project, doesn't it? In fact, 6SK7s were
used in the receiver section of the ParaSet
(http://www.mines.uidaho.edu/~glowbugs/paraset.htm), a "spy radio"
used during WWII.

And, of course, there are a bunch of rectifiers to make a power
supply. Now, all I have to find some cheap transformers. Anyone know
a good source for them?

When he's not wondering what he's going to do with more than 400
vacuum tubes, KB6NU works CW and PSK on the HF bands and blogs about
ham radio at www.kb6nu.com. You can reach him by e-mail at
cwgeek@kb6nu.com.

[[NOTE: A photo of one of the tubs can be had off my website at
http://kb6nu.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/tuboftubes.jpg ]]
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