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Meetings for 2008 | February 2008 Club Meeting | Hamfest 2008 | Field Day 2008

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The monthly EGARA meetings for 2008 are on the second Wednesday of each month at the East Greenbush Masonic Hall on Columbia Turnpike (Route 9/20) in East Greenbush at 7:00 p.m. (our usual meeting place is also our Field Day site). We are trying to offer a different topic each month in order to increase our membership at the meetings. If anyone has suggestions for the coming months, please contact meetings@w2egb.org

Monthly Membership Meeting

The Wednesday, March 12th meeting of the East Greenbush Amateur Radio Club will feature a presentation on Rensselaer County RACES. Kelly Paslow, Director of Rensselaer County Bureau of Public Safety, along with Tom Stewart, KC2FCR, and Scott Haller, K2CK, from Rensselaer County RACES, will talk about RACES, and answer questions.

What is RACES, and what does it do? How does RACES work in Rensselaer County? How will RACES and the rest of the County government work together in an emergency? Most importantly, how can hams (you) help?

You've probably heard, and read, about RACES. Take this opportunity to hear what it's about first hand. It's real, and we think you'll be surprised.

If time permits, we can talk about NIMS/ICS, the 2007 port drill, and what we've been doing with simplex and NVIS.

We're very fortunate, in this county, to have an active ARES/RACES group. It's good for amateur radio, and it's good for Rensselaer County. Kelly is an interesting and engaging speaker - this is a meeting any local ham, interested in emergency preparedness, should attend.

Hamfest 2008 is right around the corner! See our Flyer for details and directions!

Field Day 2008 is on its way! Here are some thoughts from Scott, K2CK

East Greenbush Amateur Radio Association, W2EGB - Field Day 2008

Field Day 2008 is little over six months away (June 28-29, 2008). Along with our hamfest, this is one of our clubs premier events. To ensure that this will be an awesome event, I am looking for ideas and suggestions.

Here are a couple of thoughts that have been bounced around :

• Youth Involvement

  Field Day is a great time to get younger family members interested in ham radio. Does anyone have contact with local youth organizations, like the Boy or Girl Scouts, who might be interested in participating? Field Day is a great opportunity for the scouts to in an emergency drill.

• Emergency Power

  We may want to consider operating under emergency power. One way we could make this happen is with deep discharge batteries (I have three that could be used) that would be intermittently recharged with a gas generator. That way we can keep the noise and not bother the neighbors too much.

• Antennas

  Last year we set-up three antennas: a triband beam, a triband beam with 40M rotating dipole, and a bazooka. This trio of antennas worked very well, except for 40 and 160 M. Top band may be a bit of challenge, but we had a disappointing number of contacts on 40. For next year we'll have the addition of an army field tower, provided by Donny, N2USM to get one of the tribanders more altitude. For 40 M, I'm proposing a wire two element beam facing to the west: more details to follow. Sometime in the spring, we should do a dress rehearsal and test out the antennas.

Thanks in advance.

Scott, K2CK