Section Manager’s Report June 2021

   Hello, welcome to summer, “unofficially”, but we know what that means…FIELD DAY! So far, I know of 2 clubs going live this year. How about the others? I am looking to plan the tour. I may not get to them all but will sure try.

   May 8th, we had our ARES SET to figure out where we are at and what we need to work on, I feel after 10+ years of nothing we did pretty darn good, some good data was received and Bob K1YO is looking at it to develop the next step. I wish to thank you all who participated and did a fine job. I was disappointed my NVIS antenna I built did not perform well as I hoped. I need to look at a possible connection issue at the center point. I guess that is what the test is about! I also need to hone my digital setup more to be more effective and allow to rapid deploy and change as needed.

   With the opening up of the state and the relaxing of Covid safeguards things are coming back to normal. The HamExposition is going to happen! Phil Temples, the Vice Director is looking for people who would like to do a presentation there. Give him a shout if interested. Also live is Near-Fest. That one I missed a lot. (Not the rain though!) Near-Fest is going to be October 15 and 16 this year. Plan on going and supporting this great event.

   I know that some club’s kind of fell into a deeper slumber and others saw opportunities and capitalized on them. One thing that Covid brought us was the benefit of virtual presentations that are in YouTube, etc. and invitations to far reaching people are now a click away. I feel all the clubs should take advantage of this medium. There are clubs that struggle for presentations. This is the answer for you. I know Gordon West just did one for the club in Meridan CT. I don’t think Zoom is going away anytime soon!

   We as Ham’s have this love affair mostly is that nice tower of steel supporting a variety of antennas on them. The one thing that seems to be a challenge is getting someone to climb them to do repairs. I know that some that did is getting older and does not climb anymore. The other thing is liability. That one seems to loom large in light of some of the accidents we have read about. One question is who is out there? The other is, is there some kind of training and certification available? Is there anybody interested in getting that training? Yes, I do need tower work, but I put this out as a general inquiry to see who is doing what and what’s out there.

   I hope everyone has a Fun, safe summer out there. Enjoy the sun!

73, Ray KB1LRL