We had nice weather and a nice turn-out. Two of our members were on excused absence. Ron, WAØOJS, and Ralph, N3KZS, were attending the IRLP convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. They presented a paper on their pioneering work on automatic antenna steering for repeater systems. We also had a special guest. Ed, K3CAV, from BARC was present. He dropped by to work out a lot of the details of our combined BARC-HAHA Field Day.
Speaking of Field Day. This will be a big one! There will be four stations operating all weekend. Two will be standard HF, one GOTA and one VHF station. Pick your station and time you want to operate. This will require a lot of operators. Our main contribution will be to set up and tear down the VHF station. BARC is supplying almost all of the equipment for a nice 6 and 2 meter station. We are still looking for two runs of really low loss coax - about 75 to 100 feet each. Also we need a good 2 meter mast mounted receive pre-amp. If you have either available let us know! Incidentally, just because we are responsible to set up the VHF station does not mean that we can only operate that station. Anyone can (and will) operate any of the stations. This just worked out to be a convenient division of labor for set up. And do not forget the club picnic Saturday afternoon. This is a club function. Even if you do not participate in Field Day (don't know why you wouldn't) come to the picnic anyway. Bring the family or a prospective member. Visit our Field Day page for more information.
It's Payday! The check for running the gate at the BARC Hamfest arrived. The club treasury is nicely replenished. A very special thanks to the members that gave their weekend to make this possible.
Negotiations continue with the Fire Company about bingo. Simply put, the problem is that our club is diminished in size to the point that we can not muster the massive amount of manpower required to run the bingo game. The Fire Company is short of help for the remainder of the carnival and can not provide us any relief. They are disappointed with this development. Current ideas being explored include running a smaller bingo game. But even a small amount of relief to us will result in a large decrease in revenue to the Fire Company. More at the next meeting.
Speaking of diminished club size - this problem will not go away on its own. When was the last time you brought a prospective member to a club activity? How about the May meeting? How about bringing one to Field Day?
We took care of a few minor details and decided that was enough business for one evening. We enjoyed the refreshments and enjoyed talking ham radio.
HAM TRIVIA: In the United States, 13 percent of the hams are female. The remaining 87 percent are, of course, male. The District of Columbia has the lowest percentage of female hams. Alaska and Arkansas have the highest. Maryland and Pennsylvania are average. (From http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2005/03/15/1/)
Copyright © 2005
Hanover Area Hamming Association
All rights reserved
Web Design by B.E.B.