[today’s run: 3.2 miles]
Last Thursday I went to the monthly ham radio club meeting for the first time in a long while. They changed the meeting place since I last went. We were in an old building owned by the city which was slowly falling apart. Club leaders decided not to wait for that event and moved the meeting to the county emergency operations center. We lost our radio setup space and antennas, but I think the county people are open to getting some of that put back together; I’m not really sure.
The meeting was good. They had a guy give a talk on the role of amateur radio in emergency communications on the local level. And then they had the business meeting which also went well. But all together it was right at two hours long.
I’m glad I went.
One guy talked to me about climbing the tower at the new site, and I may end up getting involved with that. It seems I’m the main tower climber person in the club.
I have three tower sections which I got as spoils from my last tower climbing project. I want to put them up to make about 25 ft. But I haven’t got started on it yet. Then I will string up some kind of wire antenna and be able to do radio stuff again.
In other ham radio news: I received a letter from the ARRL, the national ham radio organization. One of the benefits of membership is their monthly magazine QST. A few years ago I spent a bit of money on a “lifetime” membership. The recent letter says that the cost of the lifetime membership has proven to be not enough to cover the expenses for long time receipt of QST, so they are going to switch lifetime members to the online version of the magazine and not mail a hard copy. If I read it correctly, I can opt to continue to receive the hard copy. But I have a final date for making that determination. I haven’t yet decided. I’m leaning toward continuing the hard copy. But I confess I don’t always read the whole thing.
There are other benefits in addition to the magazine, so I’m still happy I bought the lifetime membership.