Newsletter et al

Tue Dec 13 17:48:22 CST 2011

   What sort of member does the organization want in it's ranks? Like 
any semi-professional organization, it's a matter of membership 
standards and requirements. Other than paying yearly dues, are there any 
defined membership requirements presented when soliciting new members? 
Collectively the organization could require each member to present one 
paper per year for publication to remain an active member. That will 
either support the publication in grand fashion or doom the 
organization. Your choice. Anyone have another idea?

Anon

On 12/13/2011 4:30 PM, Terry Fox wrote:
> <flame on>
> Tacoistas:
> Paul needs your help.  In fact, AMRAD needs your help.
> Paul needs articles for the next (and upcoming) newsletters.  The 
> deadline for the next issue is December 19.  If you could produce an 
> article for that issue, please let Paul know.  If not, how about for 
> the next issue?
> Frankly, I am getting burned out.  I have not done much that is 
> documentable in the last month or so, therefore there's not much for 
> me to write about.  Without my regular input, the next newsletter may 
> be somewhat lighter.  It's up to YOU to change that.  My  last few 
> articles have been a stretch, and I am not happy with them, but they 
> did convey some information.
> I realize that it's easy to talk about politics, or a 1920's antenna, 
> or a 1947 tube transmitter at Saturday Tacos, but that does NOT 
> fulfill this club's direction.  AMRAD is meant to be a amateur 
> technical education organization, NOT just another amateur radio 
> social gathering.  Read the charter.  Yes, some of that fun talk is 
> just fine, but if that is all that is done, we might was well consider 
> ourselves another NVFMA.  There is nothing wrong with NVFMA, Vienna 
> Wireless, or any of those other organizations.  It's just that AMRAD 
> is supposed to be different (do NOT read better!).  We have a 501(c)3 
> for a reason.
> There are many fairly smart people in AMRAD and here at tacos, as 
> shown by the technically interesting postings here.  How about writing 
> about some of those for the newsletter?  For example, there are often 
> one-line web site addresses shared here about something of technical 
> interest to the hobby.  Rather than just posting a single line (often 
> without ANY description about what the reference is about), how about 
> writing a single page (or more) about how this affects us amateurs or 
> professional communications experts for the newsletter.  Lightsquared 
> is an immediate example.  Where exactly does their spectrum fit with 
> regards to amateurs, GPS, etc.  Adding some simple path loss 
> calculations -- and discussion of them and their impact -- would be 
> good as well.
> Other items that I would like to see more about include Arduinos, STM 
> microprocessors, dsPICs, Freescale chips, and their respective demo 
> boards and development packages.  And that's just me.  What would you 
> like to see?  Or contribute?
> Also, if someone knows FPGAs pretty good, that would be great.  How 
> about mesh networking?  An SDR that you have played with?  Another 
> project that the collective "we" may be interested in?
> These articles do NOT need to be fancy, and they do not need to be a 
> long treatise.  In fact, Paul has a hard time with my articles, 
> because I have never been accused of brevity in my writings.  Just 
> pull up your favorite word processor, and write!
> I've been able to do more and write more since I retired.  But, I have 
> been somewhat frustrated with the general lack of technical interest 
> and progress within AMRAD for several years, even before I retired.  I 
> realize that it's harder to find the time to do stuff these days, but 
> not all of you have turned in your soldering irons or software 
> development packages.  It's time to tell US what you are doing.
> If this group continues in the present direction, it may not be of 
> interest to those few technical-minded hams in the future.  Why 
> publish the newsletter if there's nobody writing for it?  If the 
> newsletter goes, so does the incorporation -- at least in its present 
> form.  Last one to leave Tippys can turn off the taco machine....
> BTW, my IRLP link is working here in Charleston, on a temporary 
> frequency.  If you touch-tone my IRLP node number (8568) on the AMRAD 
> repeater, it should link to me.  I admit that I am not in the shack 
> too much right now, but feel free to try.  Maybe we could actually 
> make the AMRAD machine work out a little bit!
> IT'S UP TO YOU!
> Thanks for listening.
> <flame off>
> 73s
> Terry, WB4JFI
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tacos mailing list
> Tacos at amrad.org
> https://amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos

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