Glenn asked everyone to introduce themselves 

Glenn spoke about the Tsunami.  Because of the Tsunami, HAM radio operators have been the life’s blood of communication to and from this area.  

Applications for new membership:  Mark Fox (KM1FOX), C.L. Marshall (KC4WW), and Ann Rice (KG4ZAY).  A motion was made & 2nd to accept these new members.

 David Hook (KE4GES) gave the Treasurer’s Report.  We had a successful year in 2004.

We are on the list for the City of Gastonia to rent the Farmer’s Market on Saturday, December 3, 2005.  We do not have an answer from them as of this writing. 

For the next Swap-Fest, a suggestion was made to change the name to the GAARC-FEST.  After discussion, the general consensus was to leave the name unchanged.

The Swap-Fest was a great success.  We did have some minor problems with power and the lack of heat was mentioned a few times.  Total profits from the Swap-Fest were 43% higher than last year’s Swap-Fest.

ARRL donated three books to our Swap-Fest to be used as door prizes. 
The winners were:
ARRL Repeater Directory – KG4YOU - Robert L. Austin Jr.
ARRL Handbook to Richard Murphy – no call sign
ARRL Antenna Book – KC4BMW - Randy L. King

The backup repeater is in-place on Whetstone Mountain.  It is not operational, but is nearly ready to be placed on the air.  Some maintenance is needed.  On January 17, 2005 we will have a work-day on Whetstone Mountain.  Once the backup repeater is working without issues, we need to take the primary off the mountain so maintenance can be performed.

We need to establish a repeater committee for 2005:
James Hyman (KI4DQX)
Don Wankel ((KG4TQE)
Gene Ewing (K3GTE)
Ken Ledford (AG4EI)
Harry Adams (K4CHA)
Milton Rice (KC4YOT)

We need to establish a DVR committee for 2005:
Milton Rice (KC4YOT)
Don Wankel (KG4TQE)
Mark Thornburg (KI4CYG)
James Hyman (KI4DQX)

Our program for the evening was presented by Marc C. Tarplee, Ph.D. NCE
N4UFP.  The program was:  “Near Vertical Incidence Skywave propagation”

If you want to know more about Marc’s presentation, you can visit the York County Amateur Radio Society’s website at:  http://www.ycars.org

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, February 3, 2005 at 7:00 p.m. at Westfield Mall in the Community Room next to Dillards.