HAM LUNCH / MEETINGS FRIDAYS As speculated in the last Harmonic, we voted to move our regular meetings to the new Friday noon meetings at the CCC Union. The surprise twist is that, for now, we're considering all such Ham Lunches as meetings. Most likely, we'll settle in doing most formal business on the 2^nd Friday. We are hoping to make the 2^nd Thursday evening a time for work nights, activity sessions, or other events. All participants continue to give the new ham lunch venue high marks. The variety and quality of food is good and at $4/meal or $35/10, it's a good buy too. Most Fridays we have our own private meeting room -- Union 107, This is the Lions/Rotary room which is the first door on the right after entering the Union from the western-most door on the south side. If that room is taken, we find a table at the north end of the dining room.

SEVERE WEATHER AWARENESS WEEK The National Weather Service has designated the week of March 11 – 15 as Severe Weather Awareness Week. Most areas will participate in a Tornado Drill on Tuesday March 12^th at 10:30 CST. This year, the Weather Service will be conducting a full test of the EAS network.

WX SPOTTER TRAINING Remember spotter class for Thomas County March 26^th at 7:00pm. The meeting will be held in the Colby Community College Student Union Activity Room. With Kevin KCØFEH gone to the east coast, MIC Scott NØQE will be conducting the session.

ARRL DX CONTEST KØFJ and KØBJ were planning a visit to the WØNO QTH in Beloit for the ARRL DX Sideband contest March 2-3, but were waylaid by the blizzard. They regrouped at Mike's utilizing his nifty DX Telnet spotting software, and got KCØJAO to do relief operating. They piloted the effort to a decent finish with 1342 contacts, 330 multipliers and 1 1/3 million points, and lots of fun all around. 2 weeks earlier KØBJ worked the CW portion of the contest to 1200+ QSOs. Both weekends had great band conditions.

PACKET RACKET de Mike KØFJ – The Weather Node at Hoxie is up and running, after several trips to Hoxie. KØFJ, KØBJ and KØMXU spent Sat, Feb 23^rd working on the Node problem. NØXJ assisted from Colby checking receive status. The MFJ UI Digi, was replaced with a Kantronics KPC-3 Digi, and changes made to the APRS formatting at the Hoxie Grade School. Weather packets are making their way to the NWS Office with no problems again.

BANDSCAN KCØHBR's youngest son spent some time in Citizens Medical Center recently with a hot appendix. A trip to the O/R has him back on level ground again. Jim and Jodi took turns sitting with him during the ordeal. Best wishes to all. BT KØFJ and harmonic Candace had a surprise the morning after the Feb. 10 snowstorm -- missing car and van! Turns out the vehicles were a half block downstream, having been hit by a sliding semi! FJ’s van was not totaled but will be in sickbay for several weeks getting repaired. Early speculation was that the insurance company might total the van out, and Mike would have the thrill of reinstalling A LOT of radio gear….. BT KØFJ got some press in the March KAR Newsletter from Section Manager WØOYH. Mike's being the only KS ham to pass all levels of the Emergency Communications course was mentioned. BT KCØJAO has had real success placing want ads on qsl.net, and picked up a nice FT100, as well as an ATAS 100 remotely tuned mobile antenna, for bargain prices. The ATAS-100 needed a bit of surgery involving the in-out mechanism on the coil tuner. Jeff has the rig performing well now. BT Getting the Field Day itch? KØBJ already has some FD2002 pins on hand for $5 each. The pin celebrates the fact that starting this year, the event is for all hams in IARU Region 2 -- North and South America. BT KØBJ just sewed up Worked All Continents on 160 Meters by logging EA8BH on Canary Islands for Africa. On the 100^th year of transatlantic SWLing, and his 50^th year… BT NØXNJ's sister, her husband, and their daughter were recent ham lunch attendees. The girl was touring CCC in anticipation of attending next school year. It turned out to be a fortuitous lunch, as she bumped into the famous Uncle Pick, chemistry instructor at CCC, and is fortunate (?) enough to have secured a room to rent in the fall. BT Then the next week XJ's dad Marvin showed up at Ham Lunch from Salina. He was headed out to the mountains and waiting for the blizzard to play out….. BT A recent Ham Lunch was the place for awarding "Clean Sweep" mugs and participation pins to KØFJ KØBJ and KCØJAO for their SSB Sweepstakes entry last November. The guys were Midwest Division runners-up to the serious contesting crew at WØNO in Beloit. BT KCØJAO continues to expand his cw QSO count. He managed a TI9 CW QSO with that DXpedition on Cocos Island National Park in Costa Rica BT HF Mobile flu seems to be infecting many Trojans…. Darel WAØGBN is working on an antenna to go mobile with his TS-50. He's been looking at screwdrivers, the ATAS-100, or other possibilities.

NEXT MEETING MARCH 15 NOON CCC UNION *** ACTIVITY NIGHT MARCH 14 7:00 PM CITY SHOP 3^RD & FRENCH The Activity night will involve training and review with the Mobile Command Post. The club is buying software for the IRLP worldwide repeater linking project and this will be discussed. KØBJ will be /7 in Phoenix so NØXJ will be potentate at this meeting.