Notes Posted By Sheila Clarke on February 9th, 2008
Vienna Wireless Society
Friday, February 8, 2008
Our love lorn turkey gobbler (Valentine’s Day is coming remember?) was heard calling for his true love plus the meeting to order by our President, Jim W4JTP at 7:33 pm.
ATTENDANCE: 41
NEW VISITORS: 5
Megan Williams, writer for the Vienna Connections newspaper.
Ione Quinn, daughter of member Tim Quinn KI4PVF.
Rich Fischer WA3SXX, a licensed ham since 1972.
Charlie Rothrock K3SR, a licensed ham since 1960.
Bert Tagge KJ4BQD, a licensed ham who also joined our club tonight. A big welcome to Bert!
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
1. Tom N4ZPT our Balloon Boss announced the cancellation of our balloon launch this Saturday due to high winds. The launch is now set for next Saturday, February 16. If weather isn’t good, then the launch will take place sometime in mid-March.
The VWS-6 Balloon Launch is also accompanied by children in the Near Space Explorer’s Club from the Algonkian Elementary School, who have prepared 3 packets of seeds as a payload experiment.
2. Dennis WA4QMS, our Veep, and Winterfest Czar, explained what Winterfest was for our visitors stating that it is the first hamfest event in the NVA area and this year takes place on 2/24/08 beginning at 8:00 am. Money raised from this event helps support many of our other club activities all year.
He then announced that we only had 4 tables remaining to sell! [Applause breaks out!] The postcards are getting ready to be mailed out this week. He will also distribute the sign-up sheet to the leaders of the various jobs for Winterfest so that they can then contact those that volunteered on their team. Team leaders are advised to meet with their helpers before Winterfest to avoid confusion. There is still a sign-up sheet if anyone still wants to volunteer for anything.
Dennis also said that he needed a volunteer to help make vendor badges. Rick N6CY offered to do this.
He also added that parking details still need to be worked out for Saturday, since you pay on Saturday, but not on Sunday. Dennis concluded by saying that we’ve received a lot of response from the vendor community about Winterfest.
3. Tom N4ZPT is the Winterfest Consignment Captain and asked that any member who wants to sell something at Winterfest to come and take a form he prepared. Then fill it out and put this form on your equipment when you bring it to the consignment table. He wants all the equipment to be already tagged when it is arrives.
4. Gary KI4EKM announced that he needed help to get Len’s equipment out of his garage and taken over to Winterfest. He mentioned there were a few racks too.
5. Pete KG4OJT our beloved Bean Counter had a few announcements.
He sent in the form to request $500 from the Town of Vienna as a donation towards our repeater-linking project.
Applications were sent to Burke Lake and Lake Fairfax for our Field Day and NAQP operations this year.
As far as Burke Lake, they are not going to provide us with picnic tables or trash cans. So, the club members need to come up with some ideas for providing tables, chairs and trashcans for Field Day. All ideas are welcome and to be given to Pete.
In regards to Lake Fairfax, in previous years we’ve never had to pay for park space. This year we are being charged $200. Pete is scheduled to meet February 11 with Park Management to possibly look around for a new area. But, the primary concern is to have electricity, bathrooms and good antenna support no matter where we are.
The club is donating $100 to the American Lung Cancer Research Foundation; plus an additional $125, which has been collected from member on behalf of the recent passing of member Alan KO4ALA. If anyone wants to donate who hasn’t, they are welcome to do so.
He recently deposited around $8,000 into the club funds coming from various sources (to numerous to list).
Byron W4SSY will be having a “Spud Gun” class on Saturday, March 1. So far 8 people have signed up. The fee is $60 per person to cover the cost of materials. If you are interested, contact Pete or Byron.
6. Sheila KI4WKY, our Secretary announced the results of last week’s tally of members in regards to our August banquet. The majority wanted to move to a new location and their price point range was $25 to $30. With this in mind, the board on Monday (February 5th) voted to have our August banquet on Thursday, August 21 at the Marco Polo Restaurant in Vienna. This will be an all-you-can-eat banquet, with drinks and the tax and tip included. The cost is $26 per person. Children are half price. Children under 5 are free. The restaurant will make special food for the kids (i.e. hamburgers and fries, chicken strips, hot dogs etc.) if they don’t like what is on the buffet. We are booked in a private room consisting of tables that seat 8. Give your money to Pete KG4OJT to sign up.
7. John KA4YMA asked for members who have HF mobile units in their vehicles to contact him if they wanted to be a part of the VWS-6 Balloon Launch recovery team.
8. Kerry WA4BQM announced that if any member has any outgoing DSX cards to contact him.
9. Jim AG4MA, announced that he will be in charge of our QRP event which will be held at Ft. War on April 26.
10. Mike AE4R announced that in March we would have a presentation from Julie Zoller, Chairman of the Regulatory Commission of the International Telecommunications Union. She is also an engineer at ITT. Our visitor, Ione Quinn has been the go-between to arrange this. Everyone thanked Ione for her good work. Mike then introduced tonight’s presentation.
PRESENTATION:
Pete KG4OJT put together a 1-hour presentation from a bunch of videos that he found on YouTube.com pertaining to amateur radio. Some were serious but most were pretty humorous.
Thanks were also given to Tom N4ZPT for letting us use his equipment to present this. And thanks also to Phil AI4JF for his technical advice.
REFRESHMENTS:
Steve N5SK provided us with a great variety of goodies.
Thanks Steve!
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