Zero Beat 03 2012

The March meeting will be back at the Police Precinct at 6850 Whitten Bend Cove. Map and directions are on the web site.

Program

Program is a silent auction for some items that the club has accumulated and some items donated by John Beyer (K2LK). John is moving into a luxury apartment and cleaned out his shack prior to the move. The auction will be by silent bid. Bid sheets with minimum bids will be on the items. We plan to group some the items to speed things up. Starting bids will be low. Bring your check book, bullion etc. A list of the items for the silent auction is attached to the outgoing Email only

Software Order

March is the last meeting to order software. Bring your order form and cash or check. Randy plans to place order in March. Our goal is to have it by the May meeting.

Dues for 2012

Please pay your dues for 2012. Dues are $15 per person or $20 per family. John Parish will be collecting dues at the meeting. Remember; no dues, no software order.

FreeFest 2012

FreeFest is April 14, this year. All notices have been sent out and we need for you to pass the word any way you can. We are also interested in getting some flyers and circulars to local venues like Radio Shack. I’ll bring some posters to the March meeting. My printer is slow so if we need more I will print them off and get them to you later.

Main prize list is complete We have 2x 16 gig IPads, a 32 inch LCD TV, an Icom V-8000, Yaesu FT-2900, MFJ-4225 Power Supply, and $100 gift certificates to Bass Pro and Restaurant Iris. This is over $2000 in prizes and you do not have to be present to win any of these. The hourly prizes are also starting to come in.

We remain 100% full and I have had to turn down 2 mid size commercial vendors who wanted to come. We have several on the waiting list.

One special perk of being Hamfest Chairman is the job of handling complaints. I received a complaint 2^nd hand from Steve Smith of MSARS. Steve sent it to 3 or 4 of our board members but not me directly. It was addressed to me though I never received it. [a copy is attached to the outgoing email]. Steve accused me of discrimination against a “local company” because I put Giga Parts on the front wall where they were last year. Though the logic was fuzzy, the basis seemed to be that MSARS was a “local company” and Giga was not. The guys that represent Giga at Hamfests in the southeast are from the Memphis side of Nashville but Steve apparently thought that was too far away. I try to be fair and keep a level playing field and recognize vendors that donate to FreeFest. My reply to Steve is attached to the outgoing email.

Members Needing Mental Help

Lance and I are seeking the services of a good mental health professional. We recently bid on and won a 6 meter GE Mastr II repeater and Duplexer from the Knoxville Public utility system. I conned Dennis Foster into driving to Knoxville with me to pick it up. Dennis was so astounded when he saw what we had done he bought a hand gun to protect himself on the way back thinking we had gone “plumb ass nuts”! ! ! The repeater is 21 inches wide, 16 inches deep, 30 inches high and weights 160 pounds. The duplexer has 4 cans 1 foot in diameter and 79 inches tall. It weights about 150 pounds. The duplexer is a narrow space duplexer (440 KHz) which is extremely rare on 6 meters. Both duplexer and repeater are in extremely good condition. There are no definite plans at this time as this was one of those “it seemed like a good idea at the time” things. If any of you would like to help let Lance or I know. It should be a fun project.