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President's Message
Still no snow!! What a winter!!! Saturday the 22nd and it was 65 degrees!!
This month has been eventful. Pete, KA1AXY, finished the kit building class and at last count everyone's Morse Code Computer worked!! It was great fun and I am looking forward to the next project. Phil, N1MQG, continues to work very hard on the library. The last I heard he has a full set of QST's back to 1950, with only a half a dozen holes. Not bad! Phil is still looking for more magazines, QST, CQ, etc., as he has other plans for some to the duplicates. If you can help give us a call at the shack. Thanks.
In preparation for the ARRL DX contest, we moved the vertical antenna to a new and improved location on the roof. It is now at the same height as the beam. There are still some problems but hopefully they will be corrected by contest time. We still plan some more changes in the shack but it will be nothing earth shaking.
We continue to look forward to the flea market on April 6, 1997. If anyone is planning to go to any other flea markets between now and then, please think about handing out some fliers. The more people that know about it the better. If you would like to help out at the flea market give me a call or let me know at the next meeting. There will be a sign up sheet also. Thanks.
Don't forget about license in a weekend to be held March 21 -23, 1997. If you know of anyone that maybe interested in getting licensed please pass the word to them about this opportunely. This has been a great program in the past and we plan on our successes to continue.
Have a great month and look forward to seeing you at one of the upcoming events.
License-In-a-Weekend
Ed Weiss, W1NXC
Just a reminder that the next License-In-a-Weekend will start on Friday, March 21. Now is a good time to start talking it up to your friends who might have always wanted to become a ham!
Another Viewpoint
Mike Yetsko, N1DVJ
I can understand wanting to say "HI" to other hams via your car horn. I've personally gotten behind a known HAM on the highway and flashed CQ52 with my lights, alas with no success. I even had an unmarked cruiser on the MASS Pike do it to me once! (He then told me "gotcha, slow down" when we chatted direct!)
But I think there is a real problem when your target vehicle may be unknown, or there are other vehicles around. There are enough short tempers on congested highways and town roads that using the horn in this manner may not be a very good idea. Even if you know (or suspect) the other operator is a HAM, if he doesn't know your vehicle or you already, is he going to mentally kick into gear and recognize your CW message first or is the first reaction going to be one of a normal MASS driver to being honked at?
Even so, sending "HI", while recognizable when in a 'CW environment", may not be so in a strange environment. Sending something like "CQ" with "dah" and "dit" patterns that are noticeably different even to those unfamiliar with Morse code immediately triggers an association as a "message" and not just "noise" portraying a message of annoyance.
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