President’s Message – November 2019

The falling leaves, cooling temperatures, and earlier sunsets are some of the things I always look forward to with the coming of autumn. Of course, in a couple of months I’ll be ready for the longer, warmer days of the summer months but for now I will enjoy what is here. I hope in the next couple of days to start checking out the antennas and feed lines and make sure they are ready to go for the winter. As I am writing this message, it is the weekend of the CQWW contest in which I am having a very bad showing. Unfortunately, due to lots of personal commitments this weekend prevented me from getting in front of the radio as much as I would have liked. Also, when I was operating, it was rough. Not sure if it was the conditions, equipment issues, or operator error but not many contacts were being made. I pulled out the test equipment and gave everything the “once over” and it looks good so it’s probably
the latter of the problems.

At the time writing, there are still some tickets left for the Holiday Dinner, but I expect they will not last long. For something different this year, we are holding the dinner at Giuseppe’s Restaurant right in front of the Ben Wilson Senior Center. Dinner is being catered by them and there will be a cash bar in the room that we will be using. Door prizes will be presented, and the awarding of the Dave Simpson Outstanding Ham of the Year. I am looking forward to a great evening with a bunch of good friends, and fellow club members.

In case you missed it, our November meeting is our ARRL night. Our impressive line up of speakers from ARRL are as follows: Howard Michel, WB2ITX, ARRL CEO, Tom Abernathy, W3TOM, Atlantic Division Director, Bob Famiglio, K3RF, Atlantic Division Vice-Director, George Miller, W3GWM, EPA Section Manager and our own Tom Mills, AF4NC, EPA Assistant Section Manager will all be in attendance. Come out and hear about everything all things ARRL related. You won’t want to miss this night!

Speaking of the CQWW Contest, I am currently listening on the frequency that our club members were last spotted on operating as VP5W from Turks and Caicos. They are currently sounding like the grownups from a Charlie Brown cartoon, “Wah, waah, waah, waah, wah.” I think I’ll try tuning around a little.

73 George, KC3ESH
KC3ESH@outlook.com