Musings

By KE2LJ

Our next GARC meeting is January 19, 2005. It will NOT be at U.L. Because we want to operate some antique spark equipment, we can’t be in a U.L. facility. Jack hunted around for a room, and came up with the Bethpage Credit Union’s downstairs meeting room. This is on South Oyster Bay Road, just south of Old Country and Stewart Avenues. We should meet in the ATM lobby of the Credit Union around 5:15 and be shown how to get to the room. I bet some people will still show up at U.L. looking for us. They need to stay in touch better. Our Thursday night nets are a good way to find out what we are up to. This one will be a fun meeting. George, W2KRM, has a great slide show of old spark stuff, and also has some equipment to demo. It makes a lot of noise and ozone. My kind of demo. Bill, N2SFT and I have seen this before at the Riverhead Science Museum, and it is very interesting. On the subject of ozone, I am doing another Tesla Coil demo at the Larkfield ARC on 1/13. That will be fun also. And the Sayville Town Historian, Natalie Steele has asked me if I could do that demo for some of the historical associations on L.I. While the demo is fun to watch, the presentation is geared towards Hams and people who understand basic electronics. So I don’t know how well it will be received

You may remember I was having some difficulty with the IC706 in my Blazer. It was getting very noisy and I couldn’t hear anything. It had to be repaired, and I didn’t know if I should send it right to Icom’s repair site, or have a local authorized Icom repair shop do the fix. I decided to try the latter, and sent it to Hal in Land-Air Comm to take a look. He had it back to me in a week. Very fast turnaround. And the price wasn’t too bad. So far, it seems to be performing perfectly. I hope it will stay fixed.

We had our Club Holiday Party at a Buffet type restaurant in Levittown, and it turned out to be a very good deal. The price was $10 per person, and all you could eat. The food quality was acceptable, and I was very satisfied with the venue. Jack did a great job, as always, of getting us fed. Joe WA2BAJ and Dave AB2EF took some pictures, and we now have them on our Club web site.

I spent about 8 days in Florida during the Holidays, mostly in West Palm Beach. But, we did take a ride over to Tampa to check out some things on our new house. We’re having hurricane shutters installed, and any external modification needs approval from the Homeowner’s Association. Wait till they get the plans for my crank-up tower! And I have to build a garage there as well, so lots to do yet, and lots of money to spend.

I have no news on the condition of Dave, KA2FEA, our Editor. I hate to bother the family, but they don’t call me, and I have no other way of finding out how he is. I’ll try calling one of these days. Since Dave probably won’t be coming back as Editor, I had asked for volunteers to edit this newsletter, and inject some life into it. I am happy to report that Bob, W2ILP has stepped in. He just bought himself a new Dell, and as soon as he gets set up, he will plunge into the Editor’s job. He could really use some article submissions from you guys. Don’t be afraid to write a simple article on some project you did, or how you solved some little problem. We all enjoy reading those kinds of articles.

This past weekend, we did the Ham University at Briarcliff. This building was once Grumman Plt. 35, and it has had a lot of remodeling done since we got out. They have lots of classrooms and offices on the first floor, and we rent the second floor from the owner. It lends itself nicely to an activity like Ham University. Bob W2ILP did a session on RF safety, and also helped with the live demos of digital modes on HF. Marty, NN2C and I, ran a 2 hour session on various topics in DXing. Some of the people who did presentations with us were AG2A, K2MFY, KD1F, and W2FGD. It was well attended, and very successful. The highlight was having Riley Hollingsworth from FCC Enforcement be the keynote speaker. He can’t comment on cases which are still under investigation, but he had some interesting things to tell. He says that most of the deliberate interference he sees is from higher class licensees like Advanced and Extra. So, the CW requirement didn’t seem to act as a filter as he once thought it would. And he wants to clean up the mess on 3945 because it’s an embarrassment to Hams everywhere. He was a good speaker, and it was fun to hear him live.

That’s it for now. I hope to see you all at the January meeting. -pat