Man, is the year going by! Here we are already in August. I hope you are all staying cool.
I want to thank everyone who came out to the annual Organ Stop Pizza party. This was our 11th year there, and we will continue to go as long as they will have us. The music was great, as usual, and the food was awesome. We had over 100 people there this year and we grow more and more each year.
At the end of the event, as tradition would have it, I gave out a few awards to those members who deserve it. Matt, K7YEG and Fred, WB4AEJ received a award for starting up the club’s first VE Testing team. This is something the club talked about for many years, but Matt and Fred got it done. Great job, guys.
Chris, KJ7ZQP and Ed, K7EDT both received awards for their hard work on the club websites. A big thank you to you guys as well. Thank you both very much. The last award went to Dennis, KA0OBC. Dennis received the Dale Schmidt Award. This award goes out to club members who do a lot for the club behind the scenes. These folks are rarely at club functions and you seldom hear them on the radio. However, they do a lot for the club.
Dennis is one of our top guys on the Tech crew, and without him this year you may not be using the repeaters. Dennis, thank you so much for your hard work for the club on the Tech team. We appreciate it more than you know. The next time you see or hear Dennis, give him a big thank you.
Speaking of Tech stuff, the team plans on putting up the new tower and antenna at the Stone Castle site sometime at the end of September. Well, they will if it cools off by then. The tower will be 40 feet in the air with a new dual-band antenna. We hope it will last another 40 years. There is also some discussion about adding a third repeater site in Apache Junction. If we do add this site, we will most likely link it to the Usery and and Stone Castle repeaters.
The club has a new Echolink node and call sign. It is now WB7TJD-R. Previously it was WB7TJD-L. The new node number is 821793. The old one is now inactive, but we could still use it sometime if we want to. The Echolink is hosted by me in my shack. The radio is a Kenwood TM-V71a that has Echolink built into it. I am still working out some of the bugs, but it should be usable.
The Club AllStarLink is currently still down. However, I think it will be back up and running soon. I know there are several club members who live out of town or who are snowbirds that like to use it. Meanwhile, Echolink is there to use. It’s linked to the repeaters 24/7.
The club’s biggest revenue source is our Superfest. We say this all the time and will continue to do so: Please help out with the Superfest. This is one of the biggest hamfests in the Southwest, and we need help running it. It takes a lot of people to put this thing on for our Ham community, and it just cannot be done with six or eight people.
Please contact someone on the SuperFest committee and let them know you can help. Even if it is only for an hour. We can use all the help we can get, and the Superfest will be here before will all know it.
73 for now, and keep cool.