Hi Clint!
AMSAT sure is well represented at the ARRL Southwestern Division Convention in Mesa, Arizona!
The AMSAT booth looks great...and I just attended WD9EWK Patrick's presentation entitled, "Typical Radio Gear for Satellite Communications." His room was darned near full...as was the crowd for W7LB Larry's earlier presentation, "Future Satellites..."
Great job to all the AMSAT folks who made this happen. We looked first- class and appropriately professional!
Thanks for the compliments!
In addition to Larry W7LB and me, we had additional help at the AMSAT booth throughout Friday and today. Ray Fobes W1OTH, an AMSAT member from Prescott AZ, has been *very* helpful at the booth. With Ray sitting at the booth and talking with anyone stopping by, Larry and I were able to make great use of the 2-hour slot we had in a presentation room this morning. All three of us have been able to wander around the convention, get lunch when we wanted, and also has allowed me to go outside the convention hall to attempt demonstrations during the past 2 days.
I apologize to anyone who may have been listening for WD9EWK on the satellite passes today. There was some really loud QRM that completely wiped out the 70cm satellite subband throughout the day - most likely from a generator in an RV parked nearby. I will try again Sunday morning and possibly early afternoon to do more demonstrations and make more QSOs for my log from the convention.
There is still a half-day remaining for this convention - 0800 to 1200 local Sunday morning. After the convention, I will post the slideshow I used for my Saturday morning presentation to a web page for anyone else to see and download.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/