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Category Archives: Clubs

Ham radio web sites need improved marketing

Atlanta Radio Club Banner by The Rocketeer

When I moved to Seattle from Illinois, I wanted to join a ham radio club. Great — I hit the Internet and started looking. Once I found a club that I thought I would like, I tried to get directions to where the club meeting was located. Google maps [...]

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Ham Radio Clubs Need After Action Reviews

Ham radio is a hobby, of course. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from others in making ham radio better. In this particular case, ham radio clubs have a series of activities they do with their members. Whether this activity is Field Day, providing public service communications to the community or providing storm spotting [...]

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Using Seminars for Ham Radio

Early in October, I received an e-mail from our ARRL Section that announced an antenna seminar at a convenient location. The subjects of the antenna seminar were:

Antennas 101 — all about the basics of antennas
Portable Antennas for EmComm — antennas that you can carry easily and work in a variety of circumstances
Round Table Discussion on [...]

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27 Amateur Radio Field Day 2008 Videos

Field Day is always a blast. Following the break, all the videos I could find from clubs and Field Day.
Enjoy!

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Club Management — The meeting after the meeting

One of the key aspects of ham radio club membership meetings is that they are social events, not meeting events. If we take this social event approach to the meeting, one tries to maximize the social time around the business and program portions of the meeting.
One of the reasons to be hard-nosed about the [...]

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Club Management — running a meeting

Meetings in the corporate world suck. They take too long, they don’t have an agenda. Too many people with no interest in the meeting attend because they were invited. If the thought of a ham radio meeting was like corporate meetings, no one would join your club. Which is commentary, of course, on corporate [...]

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Club Management — the role of Boards and Members

Amateur Radio clubs are social creatures. There is always a governing body and membership. There is more than one way to approach governing radio clubs. The one I like best is the Board sets policy and budget while the members participate in the activities and programs.
Members have a say, of course, in how the [...]

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Club Program Ideas — 26 Killer Programs

Over the last month or so, I’ve provided a “club program idea” a day for use by clubs and their members. As I was doing these, I continually thought of even more! Brainstorming these ideas really generate more, so I suggest you try it.
Each of these program ideas has a link to the short article [...]

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Club Program Ideas: Public Service Communication Modes

In this series on Club Program ideas, I’m providing possible programs for clubs to use in their meetings. You can find a full explanation of the approach in Club Programs – The Series.
Today’s program idea: Public Service Communication Modes.
Whether communicating for a community charity walk or helping in emergency disaster communicationsl, we most often [...]

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Club Program Ideas: Building Practical Wire Beams

In this series on Club Program ideas, I’m providing possible programs for clubs to use in their meetings. You can find a full explanation of the approach in Club Programs – The Series.
Today’s program idea: Building Practical Wire Beams.
Sometimes we can’t have towers. Sometimes we don’t want towers. But, we have trees or other [...]

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Club Program Ideas — 1.2 GHz

In this series on Club Program ideas, I’m providing possible programs for clubs to use in their meetings. You can find a full explanation of the approach in Club Programs – The Series.
Today’s program idea: 1.2 GHz — the little antenna with the big punch.
1.2 GHz uses the littlest of antennas. A 20-element beam [...]

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Club Program Ideas — Greyline DXing

In this series on Club Program ideas, I’m providing possible programs for clubs to use in their meetings. You can find a full explanation of the approach in Club Programs – The Series.
Today’s program idea: Greyline DXing.
The Greyline is where the sun starts to set and twilight begins. It is magic time for DXing, [...]

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