58^th Annual
St. Patrick's Day Hamfest
and ARRL West Texas Section Convention

Field Day 2012 was held the weekend of June 23 & 24 at Beal Park, Midland, TX.

(Beal Park = LOCATED AT 31.9694N 102.141W)

Members set up a 20 foot tower with six meter beam, setup stations in three air conditioned vans, Three very active stations, A GOTA Station and almost no sunspots. Ten and six meters did not fair well but the CW ops went to town to bring in the QSOs. FD operating began at 1 pm Saturday afternoon and continued till 1PM on Sunday afternoon.

Excellant eating was provided for workers at field day with brisket served round the clock with sodas. MANY Thanks to those that came out and help set up and operate.

Two new ARRL membership benefits that will be introduced in June 2012. In addition to the print copy of QST, all members will have access to an online, digital edition of QST at no extra cost. You will be able to access QST from anywhere--on nearly any computer, laptop, mobile device, smartphone and tablet (including Apple iPad, iPhone, and devices using the Android operating system).

Also in June, members will gain access to archived issues of QST from December 1915 to the present (previously, only issues through 2007 were available to members). If you are familiar with the current periodicals archive (which serves images of pages), that platform will be expanded to include all of QST from December 1915 through December 2011. A second, new archive will be introduced for issues beginning January 2012, featuring enhanced functionality including full-text search.

Of course, to take advantage of these benefits you have to be an ARRL member. Not a member? Join through MARC today. Just click here!

At the club meeting on November 28, John, WA5PFJ, gave an interesting presentation on grounding and the use of a counterpoise.  The following reference material may be downloaded:

Counterpoise

Tunable Counterpoise

More Resources

The MARC Christmas Party will be held at Gerrardo's Bistro on the north side of the Claydesta Building on Monday, December 12, at 6:30 pm.

The menu will be beef and chicken fajitas with all the fixin's.  The cost is $15/person which includes the meal, soft drink, tax, and tip.  Advance reservations and payment is required.  Reservations are now closed.

We'll have installation of officers and, of course, lots of visiting! Hope to see you there!