Because I arrived a little late at the meeting I missed the beginning. I did manage however to score 2 hotdogs ;)

Bike ride:
Last Saturday was the 15th annual Frank Stark celebration ride by the Boca Raton bicycle club. Many of our club members helped with the organization of this 16, 29, 62 and 100 mile bike ride along A1A from Boca Raton to Palm Beach and back.

As far as I know there were no major issues with the bike ride. Because of personal commitment I was not able to have our APRS system ready for the ride. According to Hank, N3HV this would have been a great addition to net control.

Field Day 2004:
Despite or maybe because of the smaller setup Field Day 2004 was a great success!
Please read my Field Day 2004 report. We hardly spend any money and even tough we have done this several times before we still learned some new stuff:
- Generators need oil
- No matter how many times you check an antenna for some unexplained reason it can still be worthless once you have it on the tower.
- Wire antennas might be the way to go in the future!

Nelson NE4LS and Paul N2PK are so enthusiastic after this Field Day that they already have plans for Field Day 2005! They are thinking of using an Elecraft K2 with a vertical for the CW station. The have a year to build the radio and the antenna so that should be just enough time to have this setup for next year!

New Antenna:
John WD4V was not present at the meeting. Hank N3HV will check to see what the status is of the antenna.

The role of our club at FAU:
There are some exciting things going on at FAU. More and more people see the potential value of our club in emergency situations and our club is getting more and more support.
The new police station were EH & S reside will have amateur radio capabilities.

Our emergency response capabilities are emphasized by the fact that many or our members are also member of other groups like ARES/RACES, CERT and Skywarn.

We need to keep sending out a positive image of our club and don't give anybody reason to complain make sure to keep our space in T6 clean and organized.

Our next meeting will be Tuesday August 17.

Unofficial report by Sjaak W4RIS.