We’d like to welcome a new member to our growing VARC family, Rusty Wetherington, KB4VLD! Rusty is bringing his wealth of knowledge and experience to our group and we can’t be more excited to have him involved. He’s also been elected unanimously as our club secretary! Thanks Rusty!
Please welcome Walt Dix – KM4SMU and Dale Blanchard – KM4QFB to the VARC family. Both Walt and Dale are active amateurs and are committed to the advancement of amateur radio in the South Georgia area.
Walt has accepted the position of President and Dale has accepted the position of Vice President. Please reach out to them and show them your support!
Check out their bios on VARC – Leadership page….
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.
VARC members and other area hams met this evening to enjoy each others company at “Chow Town” which is a fairly new oriental restaurant located over by the mall. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and the meeting area was very pleasant for socializing about ham radio. Discussions centered around HF, DX, antennas, HamCram, repeater system upgrades, ways to promote amateur radio to the younger generation, field day in June, social networking tools, etc. In order to encourage more activity and accessibility for members it was decided to change the meeting time from the first Tuesday of the month to the last Saturday of the month. All those who are interested in amateur radio are always invited to socialize and to enjoy their favorite interest.
The March VARC club meeting was on Tuesday the 6th. Members met at Applebee’s for supper and to enjoy socializing with each other.
A report was made for the Century bike ride which was held the previous Saturday during very dangerous weather conditions. Amateur radio and VARC really shined during this event. The severe weather really showed the need for members to have spotter and ARES training and to always be ready.
Other interesting discussions during and after the meeting were related to the new Navy electro-magnetic rail gun that can shoot 100 miles, J-pole antennas, the Italians experimental work with vorticity radio wave technology, Aircraft navigation technology history, interesting information about Rommel’s 10 meter band tank to tank communications during World War II, 2M/440 Mobile antennas and how to install NMO mounts on vehicles, Physics and the latest developments on photon entanglement experiments and many other interesting subjects related to amateur radio, history and science.
Members were also reminded of the 5 K run coming up Saturday and the Hamcram session coming up in April.