The members met at the Bellevue Senior Center, with 5 members. The meeting began at 7:02 PM with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Attending were members Van Kichline KD7QIT, Charles Beckmeier W7CEB, Ron Verschuyl K7AAE, Dick Schwanke W9HXM, and Doug Bell KD7KKR.

Repeater Report: Van heard from John Sherman AA7UJ that the PARS 440 MHz band repeater will be going in at Evergreen Hospital. Kirk Bellar is still the registered trustee, so we're in the business of transfering that. Hopefully by the next meeting our repeater will be back on the air. We will be sharing our repeater with medical services, so we won't have to pay anything for it. It will be the same frequency as before, 443.2 MHz, positive offset, 103.5 Hz tone.

Dick presented an interesting account of his life with ham radio.

Van showed some "decision tree" tables he had created to help him to learn Morse code. Ways to learn Morse code were discussed. The group talked about ways Van could learn Morse code while waiting for events from his test rig at work. He talked about writing or finding a Morse code program for his PDA.

Dick mentioned that MFJ has two gadgets, one that copies Morse code and displays it on a screen, another that sends code. He hadn't seen them and didn't know how well they work.

There was discussion about whether DSP makes a significant difference to the ease of copying voice. Dick talked about two different "clear speech" speakers. One is currently off the market and should reappear under the Heil Sound brand name; the other is put out by SGC. Dick used the former unit on a Field Day and found that it wasn't especially useful for 20 m, but on 80 m he could obtain clear copy from a signal which without the unit he could barely hear. With the SGC he's currently using, it takes a couple of seconds to recover between transmit and receive.

The meeting was adjourned near 9 PM.

Respectfully Submitted -
Doug Bell, KD7KKR
PARS Secretary