Thursday, April 6, 2017

What a Great Fraternity we have in Amateur Radio

No radio for me tonight.  This evening the Indiana Elmer Network hosted a fantastic antenna building seminar.  Mostly attended by recently licensed hams.  Paul KD9IAO, a newly minted General Class operator, did a two hour class on building a UHF/VHF copper cactus J-Pole antenna and  I spent about 20 minutes talking about compromise wire antennas for camping trips. Focusing on the Norcal Short Doublet and Crappie Poles

We had nine eager hams show up, and I think when I left 7 of them had just about completed the soldering of their antennas and Wayne AC9HP was getting ready to hook the MFJ-269B antenna analyzer up so we could see how they did. 

A great time was had by all, we told stories and laughed and had the best time tonight, spreading the joy of homebrewing and amateur radio.  

Huge kudos go out to the Aviation Institute of Maintenance for allowing us the use of their facility and class room, we've used it for training classes, VE testing sessions, and now a great building session.  We also found out today that AIM has agreed to host a Tailgater Hamfest in August. Stay tuned for more info on the Tailgater!  This will be a joint effort between AIM and IEN. 

This weekend we have several QSO parties going on.  QRP-ARCI, Georgia, and the SKCC Weekend Sprint.  All have QRP categories and I hope to be in the middle of it all.  Join in the fun! 

73 de KB9BVN

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