Vice President Ray W2RS called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. He was in charge in the absence of President Gene W0KAD.
Guests were Erick Ellingson W7VGW from Center Harbor, NH and John Hallinan KL2EB from Anchorage, AK.
Treasures report given by Secretary Phil WE7PB.
Technical Report given by Vice President Ray W2RS in the absence of Ron VE6RGP. The 145.27 repeater has been moved to the SAV building. Also, Ron has been working hard on the remote control of the club radio at the SAV and has things working pretty well. He is still having problems controlling the Stepper Antenna. He suggested that everyone download a free program called Ham Radio Deluxe. Secretary, Phil thinks another program must also be downloaded called IP Sound.
The topic for discussion was antennas for UHF and VHF in Green Valley. Vice President, Ray led the discussion and was joined by various members of the audience. James Belanger N1HN, told us about a program on the internet that has a 90 day free trial and cost in the neighborhood of $32 annually. The web site is QsoNet.com.
May 2nd was the last day for the Continental School Radio Club. The school year ended with a picnic and lots of high sugar food. The club built a total of 40 kits from the simplest flashlight kit to the AM/FM radio and a digital multimeter.
As we have done in the last several years, we entered the county wide solar competition. This was a competition of model houses showing applications of solar energy and a miniature solar car race. We had 8 students working on solar projects, unfortunately only 3 went to Tucson and entered the competition. We took first and second in the solar house competition and first in the solar car race.
I want to thank all of the volunteers who help make the club work. It would not have been possible without them.
Lloyd N7GV
Lloyd taught an Extra Class this spring. They met twice a week for 2 hours each night for 6 weeks. There were 9 students and they all passed and are now Extra class hams. The new extras are:
We now have a new Net on 145.29 at 9:00 AM Wednesday Morning. It is appropriately called The Oatmeal Net. Listen in and contribute.
Speaking of Nets, there is some talk of starting a local CW net. If you have any interest please bring it up at the meeting May 9th.
The Green Valley Snowbird net will become active on May 16th, 2007, to supply a link back to Green Valley for those snowbird members that have fled Green Valley during the summer for their homes in Northern climates.
The Net meets on 14.242 Mhz every Wednesday at 2000 hrs GMT (1:00 PM local Green Valley time.) The net continues each Wednesday thru the summer and ends October 10th when the regular monthly club meetings resume. All stations are welcome to check in.
NOTE: The Club Station now has its own call, WE7GV, which will be the Net Control Station. Anyone interested in operating the club station and doing the NCS duties, please contact the club president, W0KAD.
As most of you know, Field Day is an annual event that exercises Ham Radio operator's ability to set up radio stations all over the United States with less than optimum conditions and maintain their operation for 24 hours, thus demonstrating the ability to provide communications in time of an emergency without the normal resources for energy, electric power, telephone, etc., as would be the case in primitive areas.
Most clubs and groups will travel some distance to a remote area, such as a mountain top camp ground, to set up and operate the 24 hours event. We here in Green Valley ARC, have a little different approach which has to do with being older and wiser than when we were 22 years old. Sleeping in a tent on a mountain top was fun then. Being wiser, we will run our Field Day from the Green Valley Fire District Headquarters Building at S. Camino del Sol and Camino Encanto. They have air conditioning, a kitchen and toilet facilities, and we can go home to sleep in our own beds if we choose. All of these things, we as wiser people know, are important. We will however, use solar power to operate the radios and of course have a potluck Saturday, shortly after the event starts.
The basic hours of Field Day are from 11 A.M. Saturday, June 23rd to 11 A.M. Sunday June 24th. Set up is late afternoon on Friday, June 22nd.
By the time most of you read this, we will have had the May (9th) meeting of GVARC at which time we will have discussed the What, Where and Hows of the event. Keep an eye on the web site for more information.