Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society
News
President’s Corner
July 2, 2020
Howdy again, friends and neighbors!
This is David Gilpin, K5GIL, and I’m happy to be your humble servant once again.
I’d like to say “thank you” to all the candidates who ran for election. It shows commitment and loyalty to MARS. At the MARS virtual meeting on Thursday July 9 we will have the results of the re-vote for the Director position.
Yes, we live in strange times. COVID-19 is a very unwelcome fiend. It has caused us to change so many of our routines.
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Many of us look forward to Hams & Eggs every Saturday morning (including Denise, the General Manager of our Whataburger) but we haven’t been able to do that since the lockdown started.
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We didn’t have an opportunity to spend lots of money at Ham-Com this year.
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Field Day at home was fun but it didn’t feel like a “real” Field Day.
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And we have been doing web conferences instead of face-to-face meetings.
The leadership of MARS will strive to make MARS as comfortable and familiar as possible – while keeping our members safe. Eventually we’ll be able to have our usual meetings in the usual places.
Our terrific Vice President Tom Yenny, K5LOL, and I will be collaborating on bringing new innovative presentations to MARS meetings. I will be reaching out to numerous Ham clubs across North Texas helping Tom find programs and sharing the presentations that I and other MARS members have produced.
I’m working with Steve Darrah, KD5YPB, on some build-a-thon ideas for Radio Play Days. Of course, this will have to wait until we can safely meet at the library in person.
Finally, here’s something to think about: “Don’t jump to conclusions.” If you were planning Field Day last week and you took a peek at the Ham Radio Space Weather forecast https://www.qsl.net/k/kb7tbt//spaceweather/ you would have just ignored 6 meters or 10 meters. If 20 meters shows “Poor” daytime propagation and the MUF (maximum usable frequency) is so low, attempting 6 or 10 would just be a waste of time—right?
“Don’t jump to conclusions.”
If any of you tried 6 or 10 for Field Day, you would have been pleasantly surprised. Both were WIDE OPEN! I made numerous FT8 contacts on 6 and 10 all day and most of Saturday evening. The bandscope at times was wall-to-wall QSOs. Some of us suspect that both 6 and 10 had improved propagation from the Saharan Dust cloud, causing some sort of ducting.
For over 40 years the Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society has been a place for hams to gather and HAVE FUN! We’ll eventually get through these trying times.
Stay safe and have fun on the air!
73
—David