Ron called the meeting to order.
Foster Cooper, who'd visited us last year, was introduced. He's bought a home here. He's going to be a great addition to our club.
Vance Roth, a snowbird from Ohio was introduced. He's been a long time winter visitor. More on him later.
Ron and Gene have repaired the 27/29 link. The audio still needs a little adjustment, but it's working just fine. Ron says he and Gene will go up and repair it on the first....the first chance they get.
Great picture of Lloyd in this month's QST
Lloyd reported that the kids at Continental school were busily at work on their projects. This year, radio control airplanes were added in addition to the regular projects. Several of the kids have chosen this more difficult project, and Lloyd reports that theyr'e doing well with it.
Thanks to Bill and Sharon, Doc, Jim, Karl and Carol, as well as several others, this year's class, which is the biggest ever, is thriving.
Lloyd also asked for VEs for the upcoming exam. He got them very quickly.
What a great club we have. Somebody mentions a project, and within minutes, volunteers appear out of thin air...
As usual, Jon gave us more information than we could process. Last month we had 944 unique visitors...I wonder what a visitor has to do to be classified as unique..oh well, I guess Jon will tell us next month.
We had 11,030 hits, with visitors from Germany, the Military, Brazil and more. Most checked out the Disc Cone antenna. Many made comments...most of which were positive...and that's a good thing.
The Tucson Ham club picnic is coming up the afternoon of 3/8. It'll be held at Christopher Columbus Park on North Silverbell Rd. They're nice folks. I'm sure it'll be a good time.
The Tour d' Cure, a 100 km bike ride, sponsored by the American Diabetes Assn., has asked to use the 29 repeater on 3/9. Permission was granted. Our own Bob and Linda Epstein will be riding their tandem bike with a H-T, to report any accidents back to net control, which will be at Rancho Sahuarita.
The Boy Scouts asked us if we'd help them organize a transmitter hunt this Summer. Gene Schouweiler suggested that we have one ourselves, to familiarize ourselves with how one of these works. He volunteered (see what I mean?) to head a committee to get this done. I'm sure he won't have any trouble rounding up a few suspects to help him with it.
The aforementioned Vance Roth presented an interesting film, promoting ham radio. So many facets were shown, it's difficult to imagine that a viewer wouldn't be attracted to ham radio. This film is available to clubs interested in the promotion of our hobby.
Ken Hall created a power point presentation of our repeater site on Elephant Head. It featured great photography, a musical background, and every bell and whistle Power Point has. There were things zooming in and out, fanning, and doing everything but dancing the Polka. It had more special effects than Star Wars, and oh yeah, there were pictures of the repeater site and several members of the club.
Look out Steven Spielberg.
Continental School Radio Club students are hard at work on their projects. Those building AM/FM radios are past the halfway point with several ready to finish up this week. Those building radio controlled planes are almost complete. There has been a holdup as the radios are on back order. Spring vacation is March 17-21 and the radios are promised to be available when school resumes. All students have had a chance to fly planes built by the staff, but they will be flying their own soon.
Please add the following people to your club roster
GVARC gave a license exam on February 24, 2008. Five people earned their General license. They are
Gary Ebbesen Kc0ZVN, Robert Shaub KE7QKP, Neal Scofield KE7BTC, Tim Hickman KC7QKQ, Colin Farrell KE7QKV. Three people earned their Technician license: Charles Elder KE7SBR, Robert Call KE7SBQ, and 6th grader Jordan Juhlin KE7SBP.
Dale Lang, AA1SZ, to do a slide show and talk on PSK31. Also there will be discussions on the upcoming transmitter hunt and the annual spring picnic. Hope to see you all on March 12th for this meeting.