The meeting was called to order by President Gene, W0KAD, at 7:00 PM. Lloyd, N7GV, gave the Treasurer’s report. We have $2,087.93 in the Repeater Fund and $1,664.78 in the General Fund for a total of $3,752.71.
Our new members present were Ron Phillips, VE6RGP, Rudy Sweisforth, N3EBG, and Omar Spaulding, KW7OS.
Ray, W2RS, gave an update on the Stepper Beam, which is ready for installation. The old beam is down and For Sale. This will provide the club station with the latest technology. Please use the station, it works great.
The Newsletter will now be only provided on e-mail unless you contact Carolyn to place your name on a mailing list.
A picnic has been planned for March 16th at Madera Canyon at noon. More information will be emailed concerning food etc.
A Ham Breakfast will be held in Patagonia on Feb 25th at 10:00 AM with other hams besides us.
Lloyd, N7GV, stated that the Tech class will conclude in two weeks and testing will be held on Feb. 26th. General Class instruction will begin on March 5. Lloyd brought in one of the Digital clocks that his students are working on. If you can help Lloyd at the school, please give him a call.
A reminder that while in the SAV Building, wear your SAV badge.
SAV will be conducting an upcoming Emergency Drill in which we will be providing back-up communication. A list of volunteers was circulated.
Our speaker was Larry Brown, W7LB, who gave an excellent presentation on Satellite Communication. Larry is the AMSAT Director for the state of Arizona and provides technical support for the ARRL. He has worked out at Raytheon for 27 years. He is very active in the current Satellites and those that are planned for launch. Many of us have seen Ray, W2RS, pointing his arrow antenna to the sky and making contacts for us during ham contests. Contact is even available to the International Space Station and Larry has achieved that. Satellites that are currently available to work are the AO-51, SO-50, AO-27, AO-7, FO-29 and the VO-52. Amsat.org is a great website for tracking satellites. Suitsat was launched but the signal is very weak. Further suitsat missions are planned. Two new Satellites are planned, the P3E and Eagle. Both of these satellites are high earth orbits, which will provide worldwide communication for longer periods of time. Hopefully, P3E will launch late 2006 or sometime in 2007.
The meeting adjourned at 8:30 PM.
Evelyn Mitchell- XYL of John AC7JM
George Vasquez- Oct. speaker from Davis Monthan
Monica Voorhees- Mother of Continental student
Frank Cadell- Earned Tech Plus
Sharon Hanold- KA9GPY