Archives 2013

Every February, the Magnet Lab invites the public to spend the day at its world-class research laboratory, and every February, they come by the thousands.

Open House typically attracts around 5,000 guests. The 2013 Open House will be held on Saturday, February 16 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

This free event features something for visitors of every age: hands-on demonstrations, self-guided tours, activities from our Community Classroom Consortium partners, food, and the chance to meet and chat with our scientists and other MagLab staff. It’s also a chance to do good for the community: The canned goods we collect as the unofficial price of admission go to America’s Second Harvest Food Bank of the Big Bend.

Open House offers an up-close look at our record-breaking 45-tesla hybrid magnet, our 900-megahertz superconducting magnet and other powerful research instruments. A special Exploration Station features hands-on science fun designed especially for families with young children.

Hams from the Valdosta and Thomasville areas enjoyed a great day touring the labs.  It was an awesome day learning about science and seeing the biggest magnet in the U.S.A.   See you there next year!

Several hams from the Valdosta area made a road trip down to Orlando for the hamfest.  The weather for the hamfest was excellent!  The fest was well attended from hams from all over the Southeast area.   There were several vendors selling new ham equipment and the flea market are had a lot of low cost used gear.  Friendships between hams were renewed and testing was provided for those who were looking to become a ham and for those wanting to upgrade.  Orlando is one of the best hamfests to attend from the Valdosta area.

Tonight was the first VARC meeting of the year.  Due to the unavailability of the normally scheduled meeting place the club meeting was held at the “Smok’in Pig” barbeque restaurant which is known for its great food.  The normal crew was present for a great evening of socializing and tasty barbeque.  Ham radio discussions centered around the up coming Orlando hamfest on February 9th and the Century Bike Ride coming up in March.

Well 2012 is behind us and hopefully each one of us had a great holiday season to top it off.  We are well into the New Year now with the first Monday evening net behind us with 13 check ins.  So thirteen is our lucky number!

The first testing session for the year was yesterday the 12th.  Unfortunately no one showed up for the session so each one of us need to step up to ensure that there are people testing during each session.

The first club meeting for the year will be the last Saturday of the month.  Please make plans to be there to learn about computer repair.