LARC General Meeting – Jan 2011

Meeting was called to order by Jim Walker, N0XDA, at 07:00 pm MT, 19 Jan 2011

Jim welcomed everyone to the first club meeting of the new  year and introduced Doug Altman who provided a show and tell about a contact he listened to that afternoon on 20 meters. Quite a number of folks were enjoying a rare contact with a small island in the South Atlantic called St Helena. This place was made famous as the spot where Napolean was held in exile. Doug shared a Google maps photo and other things of interest he learned about the location. For more information, contact Doug or look up the information on the internet. The station’s call is ZD7VC.

Jim lead the attendees in a discussion centering on easy ways to recall important facts about Amateur Radio to make it easier and more enjoyable. Things like ‘a gram is equal to the weight of one cm³ of water and remembering the # 300 as a tool to use to quickly convert frequencies to meters. Other items that were discussed were decibels, multi-path, phase polarization of signals, and circular polarity.

Some discussion also concerned future potential programs. Paul Patrick (AC0QE) provided us a chalk talk about charging batteries with solar cells that proved very interesting. He also volunteered to share a future program dealing with various Amateur Radio applications available for the Mac.

John  Kennedy (KD0JPE) introduced the club to a new kit he found on the internet for a total of $4.30 that gives the user a good start to PIC programming. Anyone who might be interested can find the information on the internet.

Four door prizes were won this evening by Nancy (AC0DC), Doug (KE0SI), Ray Rayburn (N1IUU), and Ray Warren (W9LQM).

Jim mentioned that a future program will be a visit with Harry Johns (WB0LBL) who will have a show and tell about all the CW keys he has in his collection. Harry does not even own a microphone. He is definitely a dedicated CW amateur.

Jim adjourned the meeting at 8:30 and a number of folks stayed around to chat after the meeting.

Attendees:

Jim (N0XDA), Jerry (N0OUW), Nancy (AC0DC), Paul (AC0QE), Duane (WD0EEM), Ray Warren (W9LQM),

Ray Rayburn (N1IUU), Wayne(N0LEA), John(KD0JPE), Doug (KE0SI), Mark (KD0GOC), Bobby (WA4ZSQ)

Please contact Jerry, N0OUW@arrl.net  with any corrections or additions to these minutes……….’73