President’s Corner for April 2010

Hello Fellow Amateurs,
Spring has come upon us and now is the time to get all the tower and antenna projects underway. Speaking of antenna projects, I am pleased to announce we have our HF remote rig installed. With a few bugs to work out before turning it over to our membership, I look forward to hearing it on the air and seeing smiling faces from the users.
We also have our 35x PTZ camera up and running. It does come with some limitations. As soon as the user protocol has been worked out we will also turn it over to the membership. We have some snapshots posted on our blog at w4bbb.blogspot.com, so check them out to get an idea of the potential for viewing.
We had a great turnout for our March meeting, and I want to thank Kevin Duplantis, W4KEV, for hosting the event. He covered a lot of ground with his tour of the facilities. I don’t know any other place that has commercial and amateur repeaters, television and FM radio stations at one site. Thanks Kevin for a great presentation. And I know he had nothing to do with this, but WHAT A VIEW!
Over the next few months, we are going to have a blast at our meetings and events. Our annual Hamfest will be held on June 12, 2010 at Kerbela Temple. Field Day will be on June 26& 27 at Ft. Dickerson park in south Knoxville. Our May meeting will be on how to build a repeater which will be a show and tell event.
The April meeting will also be of interest to all of us. I have no doubt that any Ham that has internet access has used QRZ.com. The guest speaker will be Mr. Patrick Thrush, AE1PT, who is general manager for QRZ.com. He will bring some very interesting insights into amateur radio’s most used website. I have no doubt in my mind that everyone in attendance will have questions for Patrick to answer, so my suggestion will be to plan on attending our April meeting.
We will be taking nominations from the floor for the office of Trustee. David Waters, AC4JF, has agreed to take the position if he is elected to the position. He was nominated for trustee and we will vote on this at the April meeting.
I want to thank all our members for supporting the club. Bring a fellow Ham or family member or friend to our meetings. Everyone is welcome, 7:00pm, Wallace Memorial Baptist Church on Merchants Drive.
Keep our military troops in your prayers.
See you at our next meeting,
Jim Norman, N4CFB
President

NOTE: Our meeting room has permanently changed. It will be in the same room as the VE testing is held. Signs will be posted.