Meeting Recap - January 31, 2004

Wow, that was a neat meeting today. Per George's suggestion everyone brought out their latest projects, finished or not.

There was a very good cross-section of what everyone is building, ranging from straight homebrew to a variety of club kits and a good representation of the latest commercial kits, many of which were from the "biggies", Small Wonder Labs and Elecraft. Thanks to all for bringing along their handiwork for all to enjoy and drool over.

There was also the formal unveiling of several new kits. The PIC-EL Board, part of John McDonough's PIC Elmer 160 course is now in distribution and starting to arrive at their destinations. The first run of several hundred were snapped up almost instantly and another run is in preparation. Our tireless workhorses, Tom and Nancy Feeney are doing their usual very thorough, complete job in kitting these and getting them out in a very timely manner to those who have ordered them. The kits, while intended for the course are also extremely useful for general PIC programming as well as being useful as keyers and, in conjunction with the NJQRP DDS board, numerous ham-related projects as well. For more data and ordering info see the AmQRP web page at www.amqrp.org/elmer160/board . You have to see the manual to see what a great job it is!

In addition, this year's Atlanticon kit was brought along -- ELSIE an audio readout inductance/ capacitance meter (L-C, get it?). George, N2APB demonstrated the prototype beeping away with a Morse readout of coils or capacitors connected to it. As he mentioned in the meeting announcement it will be provided to all who pay the Atlanticon admission fee whether they attend or not. See http://www.njqrp.club/atlanticon/ for Atlanticon details. This project will be the subject of the usual Saturday evening festivities and will find continued use in everyone's ham shack as an invaluable piece of test equipment.

Plus an as-yet unnamed kit destined for distribution by the NORTEX club an AmQRP affiliate saw first public light of day. It is an op-amp compensated RF probe that extends measurement accuracy down to the millivolt region, far below the usual probe's low end limit of several volts. It will be available from NORTEX as their summer Hamcon event grows nearer.

The philosophy of assisting AmQRP affiliate clubs with fund-raising projects such as the KD1JV Tenna Tuner for the Four States club as well as other kits to be sold by QRPine (the Maine group) is being furthered by the kit to be sold by NORTEX. And, of course in spreading the QRP philosophy and fellowship, all of the affiliated clubs will be holding their own regional QRP symposia in addition to the existing NORCAL QRPacificon and NJQRP's Atlanticon.

Not mentioned since I forgot was a recent suggestion by Doug Hendricks. A quantity of each cub's kits will be available at club tables at all of these outings so that everyone can see them and purchase them in person. This has been done rather informally to date and has been very well received. So to paraphrase an old country music song "If it feels good, do it!"

Not everyone signed the Attending List, so if you were there and don't see your callsign below, please let us know. Those who did sign-in included ... N2GJ, K2MGM, N3AT, N2AK, AA3WM, AB2PD, W2FTN, W2MC, W2TAG, WB2ZKW, N2UO, N0YMV, WA2DGD, KB3HMR, W2BVH, WA3OWT, N3IUT, K2PQ, N2APB and N2CX.

I hope that all of you (yours truly included) were motivated (shamed?) into breaking out those kits that are still in unopened boxes and envelopes and building them so that they can show off their own handiwork at the next meeting.

Last Modified: February 1, 2004