[AReU] BARS Fall Picnic

[Tony Stone]

To all who were there, thanks for coming. 

To all who missed it for any reason, you missed a great picnic. 

The weather was perfect, the food was good, the company was 
beyond comparison and the bands were in good shape. 

The first contact was with a group operating on an island on 
the West coast of Florida. I had received an E-Mail from 
Al Sanders (WD4A) saying that he was going to be in that 
group and I asked Karl (K1ARL) if Al was there. Karl 
got Al to the microphone and we had a swell QSO. That 
was a highlight of the day and we're glad that Al has found 
a "ham home" in his new location. 

We had two HF stations operating today. One was Ed's 
FT 847 with a Butternut vertical and the other was my 
Elecraft K2 with a doublet and an antenna tuner.  Ron 
(KD4JN) and Mark (WB9UJS) operated some CW 
and I heard a South African station on 10 meters. I couldn't 
get back to him with my measly 10 watts unfortunately. 

The picnic started about noon and we had about 27 in 
attendance. Everyone seemed to have a good time and 
they got plenty to eat. There was a contingent of "stragglers" 
at the pavilion until past 3:00 pm. We just couldn't let the 
beautiful day pass without enjoying it a little while longer. 

Ed has some pictures that he took with his new digital 
camera and, hopefully, he will share them with us in the 
near future. 

73

Tony