Well, first off I want to apologize for there not being a December newsletter. When life goes sideways for one key person, things can recover. When things take a step in the wrong direction for 2 key people, about all you can do is shrug your shoulders and move on. Everyone is fine, but as we keep telling everyone, this is only a hobby and family and jobs come first.
We have a good year lined up. Several good speakers are all set for this year already. Hamfest is coming up March 12th. We’ll be sending around a sign up sheet at this months meeting. We have most of the same vendors signed up as well as some new ones. There looks like there will be 2 rooms running concurrently with speakers on a great variety of subjects. This year we decided that the swap meet spaces on the ball field will be free to sellers. Stay tuned for things as they come up. Check out palmspringshamfest.org.
Membership
It’s the first of the year. You know what that means. Your Desert RATS annual dues are due. You may pay them at the club meeting or go on line to Desertrats.am and either fill out the form and mail in a check or use PayPal.
Some things coming up of interest
Quartzfest is January 17 to the 23 at Quartzite AZ. It is close enough that you could drive there for the day. There are speakers and a swap-meet and all sorts of RV and Ham related stuff. See them at quartzfest.org
Yuma Hamfest is February 18-20th in Yuma AZ. Some do the event in a day. It has a huge swap-meet area and guest speakers and all of the Hamfest stuff including a balloon launch. It can be tracked on APRS or monitored on your HT. A great day. See it at http://www.yumahamfest.org/
YL/XYL Net
Some one came up with the idea. I think that it is a good one. How about a lady’s net? About one third of our membership are licensed woman hams. It could be an open mic, round table kind of a thing. Topics could be ham related or not. Whatever. Now we just need a moderator/net control operator or two to get the ball rolling.
A Present for all of the Desert RATS
I drove by the city yard the other day, coming back from a thrift store. The street is now paved. You no longer have to put your truck in 4 wheel drive to get to the meeting. You can put the kidney belt away.
