All: Our hosts are busy working on final details and arrangements for Symposium. Several items of interest:

1. The event coordinators, Pat (KC4WTT), Kevin (N3HKQ), our "A/V guy", and I visited the hotel on Friday. If you were there 2 years ago, it looks very different after the renovations. Our meeting room is huge and has an overhead speaker system, so nobody will get blasted out. A large hallway outside the meeting room will provide room for exhibitors, and Martha and registration will be in a separate room off the hallway. Our guest speaker, Sy Liebergot, will have a table in the hallway on Saturday afternoon, where copies of his book, "Apollo EECOM - Journey Of A Lifetime", will be for sale, and he will be signing copies. If you saw the movie "Apollo 13", you know who Sy is. See http://www.apolloeecom.com/

2. Our Audio setup will be: AMSAT wireless mikes to the wireless receiver, thence to a mixing board provided by Dan, KB3HVN. The main output will go into the hotel audio system, monitor output will go into a computer which will make the echolink connection for the AMSAT General Meeting, and another output will go into two separate systems to record the proceedings. Dan will be doing a dry run of all this next weekend. NOTE TO PRESENTERS: If your presentation includes audio which you'd like played over the room sound system, please let me know ASAP, so we can configure and test another input from the display computer.

3. We have received requests for T-shirts in addition to the "nicer" shirts available on the web site. They are available and now on the web site. There's also a key chain.

5. There was an issue yesterday with the AMSAT block of rooms being full. Patti and Kevin discussed this with the hotel yesterday (while I was with the A/V guy and Chief Engineer) and there should now be more rooms in the block. I've received notification of at least one subsequent reservation, so I think this is OK, but Patti will verify on Monday morning. If you have a problem getting a room, please advise Martha, who will collect data and she and Patti will work on the hotel.

6. Exhibitors: I know of 4 exhibitors tables which need to be set up. If you want to set up a table and are not Flex Radio, AMSAT, Eagle, or the "Shirt Guy", please advise ASAP. Room is finite, but we'll do our best to accommodate. There appear to be plenty of outlets in the hallway, and we have defined a path to run feedlines from the 2m and 70cm antennas on the tower trailer for satellite QSOs and demonstration of the SDX. If you need anything weird or special, like 440 volt 3 phase at 4000 amps or broadband internet, please let me, Patti (kc4wtt@amsat.org), and Kevin(n3hkq@amsat.org) know ASAP.

7.. If you have special needs or questions not previously covered, please contact Patti & Kevin ASAP.

8. Presenters: You need to think about how you will get your presentation to us in advance, so that we can load on the display computer before presentations start. We don't want to lose time between presentations loading on the computer.

A lot of people are working really hard to present a good Symposium. They, and I, look forward to seeing you in Pittsburgh.

73, Jim wb4gcs@amsat.org