Thanks to All who helped with Field Day

Let me be the first to publicly thank and congratulate all those who helped with this year's Field Day. It would not have been possible without you! A special thanks goes to Ben Johnson stepped up and made a great Event Coordinator and to Joshua Carroll for all the work he did before and during the event as PIO. Both of you deserve big "Atta Boy's" for your great work. All the rest of you(and you know who you are) are to be congratulated for giving your time, talents and even money to make sure we had a successful Field Day 2010. Thanks also to those who dropped by and to the visitors who took a look at ham radio for the first time.
I would also like to thank J.M. Rowe, ARRL AR Section Manager for coming by and staying awhile with us. Great to have you J.M.! And thanks also to the two North Little Rock Alderman for their time during the opening ceremonies and for staying to make the first contacts of Field Day for us.

To all of you, it couldn't have been done without you!
John Goswick, W5JLG
President, CAUHF, Inc.

Social Meeting

Our rescheduled Quarterly Social Meeting will be next Monday, May 17, at the Buffalo Grill on Bowman Curve in Little Rock.
The only business is to vote on the new club constitution. The program is High Speed Multi-Media (HSMM) that will be a great help to our repeater system. You won't want to miss this!

We begin eating at 6:00 p.m. and the meeting will start at 7:00 p.m.

SEE YOU THERE!!!

May Board/Business Meeting

Yes, it's time again for the monthly meeting! This month we will meet at The Pantry in west Little Rock at 11401 North Rodney Parham Rd. We eat from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. and begin the meeting at 6:30 p.m. We will do our best to get you out by 8. Join us on Monday, May 3, 2010. See you there!

John - W5JLG

CAUHF net and ASTEN set to merge

The CAUHF net, also known to many as the AR Link System Net, will merge with ASTEN on April 27th.  The net time will be 8:00 pm Central time.  This comes after much discussion in several club business meetings, polling and receiving feedback from club members, and final coordination with ASTEN net coordinator, John Godfrey, KE5NZY.

This merge will bring together these two state-wide nets to save time and resources for interested operators.  As part of this move, there will also be some small format changes to come in the new net.  One such example is that the "ASTEN/CAUHF Net" will still provide Amateur Radio related training, but comments will be solicited a little bit differently than in the past.  The net will still be available on the AR Link System Repeater Network and on linked IRLP stations.

Any repeater owner who wishes to become part of the AR Link System either on a part-time or full-time basis needs only to contact the CAUHF Tech Team via email at techteam [at] cauhf.org.  The CAUHF Tech Team will help to ensure that repeater control codes don't conflict with anyone else's on the system and help get it connected.

CAUHF announces "Get Your Pet On The Air" movement

The CAUHF Group, in conjunction with local animal rights groups, have started a new movement that they have titled "Get Your Pet On The Air".  It's stated mission is to support the creation of a Pet Radio Operator's license for animal family members of other licensed Amateur Radio operators.

Randy Wright, AE5RW, said "The looks that I get from Sasha every single Tuesday night during the AR Links System Net are just unbearable.  She's always wanted her own license since she was a puppy.  Now she has hope that someday she too can check-in... short of time... with no traffic."

Pet owners all around central Arkansas have expressed interest in helping to create such a movement for several hours, but it wasn't until recently that this dream seemed possible.

But not everyone is in favor of the idea.  Tem Moore, N5KWL said, "That is just crazy.  Seriously, how could my dog remember his own call sign?  He has a hard enough time remembering mine."

Arkansas Section Manager J.M. Rowe, N5XFW, said that he wasn't sure how this would be accepted by the ARRL or the FCC but he was definitely in favor of being favorable.

For the CAUHF Group, I'm N5JLC.  73!

NOTE: For those who may be a little dense, this was an April Fool's joke.

The band is wide open!

I had a neat experience this morning that I wanted to share with the Group.  During this morning's "drive time" traffic, I heard a faint station calling me.  I replied and it took a couple of tries to get the information correct, but the station was contacting us over UHF from Beaumont, Texas!  A distance of about 340 miles!

The weather should be about the same tomorrow morning.  This might be a great time to try out some UHF DXing.

73!

How Google Apps works

This year the CAUHF Group started using Google Apps to make sharing information and collaboration a little easier. I came across this video that Google produced recently and I thought I would share it for those who aren't familiar with how Google Apps works and how can benefit from using it.

You can watch this video blog in the window below, or for a page on which the video will automatically play, browse to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doHnLiAzQ5M.