Meetings

June Meeting

The June meeting included a review of the NZART Conference by Jim ZL2IA. Hopefully many club members will be able to attend the 2009 Conference in Hawkes Bay. There was also a discussion of the proposed NZART agreement with Kordia for 9 repeater sites around the country, including Whakapunake.

May Meeting

The May meeting determined the club's positions on the 11(!) remits before the NZART AGM. Roger ZL2RC provided a video explaining the history and workings of the Gisborne town clock.

Club BBQ

A Branch 11 BBQ was held Sunday afternoon, 27 April, at the QTH of president ZL2UT.

April Meeting

The April meeting provided a quick update on the Branch 11 Committee meeting (including word that the digipeater would be updated to current APRS standards). This was followed by a screening of a documentary on the challenges of building the gigantic Itaipu Dam in South America.

March Meeting

The March meeting was Branch 11's Annual General Meeting (AGM). President Ric ZL2RIC had announced he was not be available to stand as President for another year. A new slate of officers and committee members stepped forward to help the club. Dues were reduced to $35/year, with a $10/year rate available for students.

February Meeting

The February 11th meeting reviewed the December earthquake, and its reminders for individual preparedness.

Roger ZL2RC also reported on the successful installation of the National System equipment, which is currently running as a local UHF repeater.

December Meeting

The December meeting was held at a new venue! The club enjoyed being able to use the spacious Bryce Street Scout Hall.

November Meeting

The meeting was held on 12 November on Kaiti Hill in the observatory at 7.30pm The Coso club is closing on Monday nights and the suggestion is that the new meeting location should be in the observatory. The general consensus was that was not the ideal location for club meetings at present. There was a showing of a video about contest operation.

Interesting video of contesting and Jota, much thanks to Robert. Good view but I think most there agreed there were some problems. Others showed up after the meeting as I made down the steps in the dark

October Meeting

The October meeting featured a tour of the radiology department thanks to Mike, ZL2CJH. We had a chance to see the equipment, some schematic diagrams (with their remarkable similarity to QRO ham stations), and even a chance to peer "inside" some antenna coil housings and a black box module. Thanks also to Steve, ZL2RI for arranging a van to shuttle members from the Cosmopolitan Club to the hospital.

August Meeting

Joe Campbell was the guest speaker at the August meeting on the topic of commercial wind power generation on the East Coast. Joe gave a great talk on wind power up the coast, trips to India for transformers and the Gisborne steam loco. Background information, the history of each since it's start and technical details made for a very interesting evening for a well attended meeting.

July Meeting

Hamish, ZL2HC demonstrated the Channel 39 ATV Repeater at the meeting on Monday, July 9th. Good reception of the repeater was obtained and DVD's with views of the repeater and other club repeaters were played through the repeater for members present and any watching at home one of whom called in on 680 and he could then see the members present as well as hear them when a video camera was used to feed the repeater uplink transmitter