[SMCARA] SMCARA club meeting this THURSDAY (28 May 2009)

[petebutt at comfac.com]

Folks,

  This is a reminder that the May meeting of the St. Mary's County Amateur
Radio Association (SMCARA) will be held tomorrow evening, 28 May,
beginning at 7:30 PM at the Naval Air Museum in Lexington Park.

  Although I won't be there (sorry, I'm providing the sound systems for
all of the high school commencement ceremonies this week in the arena at
St. Mary's College) and Tom, W4OKW is on travel, Walt Rupp (W3GYT) has
graciously agreed to host the meeting.  The plan is to review our final
plans for FIELD DAY to be held the last full weekend in June.  Garner
has made arrangements for the tent and Gene has made arrangements for
the site so we just need to pull together the rest of the plans
including food (most important field day planning item), generator, gas
for generator, radios, fans, etc.  I have the tent lighting package
stored in my garage so that can be crossed off the list.  It would be
great to have an air conditioned space to revive ourselves so perhaps,
if we are really nice to AJ, he might possibly consider bringing his
trailer if he isn't already committed to a family outing that weekend. 
I know that Gene has four laptops already configured and ready to go for
wireless logging and we probably have a few more in the process of being
configured between Ray, Ed and others so we should have that area
covered like a brick.  Areas that need to be addressed include publicity
(alerting the newspapers and on-line web sites), signage, calling the
scouts in the area, getting radio spots on southern Maryland
broadcasting (WMDM, WKIK, WSMR, etc.); setting up a welcome table for
any visitors; perhaps setting up a specific radio to be used as a
talk-in station on the repeater; and seeing if any other group wants to
go along with us on a display and/or operations.

  We are not currently planning to have a June SMCARA meeting since field
day is just two days later so this will be our last shot at getting
everything coordinated.  Please help Walt as much as you can by
volunteering to help in some way whether it be for setup, tear down on
Sunday morning, transporting equipment to/from the site, cooking
burgers, bringing a covered dish (salad, dessert, etc.) to the picnic at
6 PM on Saturday, operating radios late at night, etc.

  Also, at this time I again would like to thank Walt for his stellar
coordination of the display at this year's Patuxent River AIR EXPO (air
show).  Take a look at the pictures on the web site (www.qsl.net/smcara)
to see a first-class presentation of amateur radio to the general
public.  Walt went way beyond the call of duty by handling all of the
arrangements with the Navy to make this display happen.  Thanks Walt!

  Hope to see all of you at the meeting tomorrow!

  Vr, Pete (WA3UMY)
      President, SMCARA