The members met at the Bellevue Senior Center, with 6 members. The meeting began at 7:06 PM with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Attending were members Van Kichline KD7QIT, Charles Beckmeier W7CEB, Don Hickman WF7Z, Dick Schwanke W9HXM, Edna Rideout KA7HNH, and Doug Bell KD7KKR.

Ron Verschuyl K7AAE, who was scheduled to give a presentation, did not attend.

Don volunteered to host the holiday party this year. It was tentatively decided to have the party on Thursday, December 16, at 6 PM.

Don talked about AM & FM stations he listened to in the three countries he toured, the Falkland Islands, Chile, and Equador.

Van exchanged email with John AA7UJ, who hasn't had a chance to work on our repeater yet.

Charles mentioned starting to plan for the Mike & Key Arc Swap Meet. Van will send out an email appeal for donations.

Don mentioned that free Juno email accounts have been cancelled.

Treasurer's report: Charles deposited $819.60 for a current total of $1654.98. The names need to be changed on the current account. Charles will take care of it.

The members decided to no longer produce the Sparks newsletter. We'll spend more effort on our website instead. Doug will do minutes of the board meeting as well as the the general meeting, and place them on the website.

Dick gave a presentation about the 35 foot long loaded dipole wire antenna he made for 80 meters and his coil winding jig.

He mentioned a free antenna design program available from ARRL at www.arrl.org/files/qst-binaries/lopes1003.zip Dick can supply the unzipped verion of the program if you don't have unzip software.

Dick used 1" thin wall PVC tubing for his loading coils because he couldn't find 2" thin wall. Don mentioned that Valley Plumbing has a good selection of PVC tubing.

The attendees broke for snacks.

Van gave a presentation about building and using his improved satellite antenna system and the satellite software he got for his PDA. So far, he has made 5 contacts to the Echo satellite. He also talked about what is needed to talk to the space station.

The PARS website is: www.qsl.net/k7par

There was discussion about learning Morse code.

Dick brought and Van talked about the MFJ-417 Morse Code Tutor with QSO. They remembered it as costing $80, but MFJ website currently shows it for $60. They may have been thinking about the MFJ-461 Pocket Morse Code / CW Reader, which is $80.

Van talked about his noise cancelling headphones, which were useless for use during Field Day because they picked up RF from the radios, but worked perfectly for use with his satellite rig.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:24 PM.

Respectfully Submitted -
Doug Bell, KD7KKR
PARS Secretary