President's Message
Greetings Comrades in radio: I must say it's been quite a ham radio month. I hope everyone found that elusive item at our most recent hamfest. Looking ahead we have the ARRL HF voice contest coming up on the third weekend in November, I'll be there Saturday evening/night and I'm looking forward to giving our new HF rigs their first official workout. Bob AA2ZW informed the board in October that all 3 antennas and radios are ready to go, so if your free that weekend come on out and take a turn at the helm. In the past we've worked several of the VHF contests, so I am really looking forward to this HF contest.
After that we have the Christmas and awards party coming up on December 6th, that is always a great time and with all the large turnouts we've had at the meetings this year I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this should be one heck of a party this year.
The membership chairman has asked me to remind you that it's that time of year again, time to pay your dues. Dues are still only $30. Dues help to support your clubhouse and it's events. This past year we added several new events and we've had a really fun year with the hobby and your club. The plan for next year is to keep the ball rolling, while we'll be doing most of the events we did this year again, I do have a plan for a couple of new ones as well. I had a request form the bicyclers for an event and I'm working on that, for those of you who haven't been on a bike for some time, this is your first warning so start working out.
Also next year our club will be going to the dogs for a couple of months, so you might want to get your bark on, HI HI. A rolling stone gathers no moss as they say and your club won't be gathering any next year either. It's Your Hobby, It's Your Club, Be a Part of Them.
73 JOE WV2NY
Election Results
> Nominees List
Thanks to all who came out to this month's meeting to vote. The board member election results are below.
Member of the year is announced at the Christmas Party, so make your plans to attend!
- Vice President
- Steve Piotrowski KC2QZF
- Treasurer
- Chuck Curtin W2EM
- Board Members
- Dave Minchen N2BND
- Kevin Retzer K9KVN
- Chuck Lawson KC2BLH
- Member of the Year Nominees
- John Maxwell W2EM
- Steve Piotrowski KC2QZF
- Joe Gearhart Wv2NY
- Phil Meyer KC2TPY
- Vince Orlowski KA2HJX
- Bob Delameter AA2ZW
- Jay Thompson AC2GJ
- Pam Ware AB3PW
- Chuck Curtin W2EM
- Chuck Lawson KC2BLH
- Tom McCormick AC2BT
November GM Meeting
> KC2TPY (Pictures)
Lucky attendees of the November General Membership meeting were treated to a quick dinner of pizza and wings, courtasy of Joe, WV2NY. While Joe assures us that this was in no way meant as pre-emptive bribery, it did indeed leave everyone well interested for our elections.
The November GM means elections, and you can see the results above. Of course, member of the year will be revealed at the Christmas Party, the details of which are below. This year it is important to note that you must register early, so get ready.
The meeting program this month was Game Night, also courtasy of Joe, WV2NY. Family fued found club members pitted across from each other in a battle of wits. You'd have to be there to know how much fun everyone had, but, take a look below to see - it was surely a good time.
Dues are Due
>KC2YQF
Once again, as Joe mentioned in the President's message above, your dues are now due.
Phil, KC2TPY, the membership chairman, insists that you cough up before January 1st to maintain your membership in good standing. It is not as hard as it sounds though, you have many ways to pay:
- Pay by Check to "Lancaster Amateur Radio Club", at the club's mailing address: 525 Pavement Road, Lancaster, NY 14086 (write 'dues renewal' on the check please)
- Pay in person to Phil, KC2TPY during a club open house
- Pay online with Credit or Bank Account with PayPal, by clicking here
Remember: January 1st!
LARC Christmas Party
>WV2NY
Hi Guys, I know Halloween isn't here yet and were already talking about Christmas.
However, This years Christmas and Awards Party will be held on December 6th. 7 PM at the Westwood Park Casino Building in Lancaster. The park is off Pavement Road.
The cost of this years party is only $5 per person and you can bring family members if you wish.
If you would like to attend, please contact Joe Gearhart WV2NY or send in your payment via Pay Palon the club's website. You must prepay or contact Joe before November 22nd which is the cut off date.
Pay online by clicking this link
Thank You.
Joe Gearhart WV2NY
NYQP Revue
>N2WLS
Despite cold weather, constant rain, and high wind warnings in WNY, Steve (KC2QZF) and I were able to pull off another successful contest. In response to relatively low turnout in previous NYQP years for Allegany County, we opted to hitch up the RVs and head to a campground about a month prior to the contest and got the "OK" from the owners to setup antennas, etc. It's difficult enough to explain ham radio to non-hams, but it's even harder to explain contesting. Luckily, the campground owner was somewhat familiar because one of their seasonals is a ham operator (who incidentally we worked during the contest while he was at a differnt QTH!).
Steve spent most of the contest on 80M and 20M via his IC-7000 and an 80M dipole at a NVIS-friendly height. I spent most of my time on 40M via my TS-2000 and a 40M dipole. Steve was able to find enough room to somehow string up the two dipoles as a cross-polarized within the bounds of "a campsite" (or two) (maybe three) (and a campground roadway).
Despite our best efforts, some of the 80M RF was making its way back into the camper. We tried both chokes and line isolators to no avail. At least this time our router didn't keep rebooting every time we keyed up (as in our past roving exploits during a certain January VHF contest)... Just don't ask us how our comptuer mice worked while 80M was in use. 80M was a bit dry early on in the contest thanks to those friendly sunspots. We did both note an abnormally high number of stations calling us that were dupes. Otherwise there were no significant oddities. We even worked a couple of 5W QRP's from across the state -- that may be my next category to try and tackle!
A big thank you to the rovers and mobiles out there - we appreciate your efforts to activate the rare counties. We ended up with 53 out of the 62 NY counties -- did anyone find the Bronx on the air?
Thanks RDXA for another fine year!
Take a break
If you haven't been out to the clubhouse recently, you're missing something new.
Come on down during Thursday open house, have a cup of coffee, and have a good time
