Our fearless leader John WD4V has decided to stay for another semester but he had to take a class on Tuesday evenings. So he arrived earlier that usual and updated the members that were present at that time on what was going on.
Hank, N3HV relayed John's message during our regular meeting.

New Officers:
Because of the hurricanes and the closing of FAU for a while as a result of the hurricanes the election for new officers has been postponed to the next meeting October 19!

New antenna:
The saga of the new antenna continues. Because the paperwork got misplaced the antenna was never ordered, we did not use our budget and because of that we received a much smaller budget for this year. According to John, WD4V it was out of our control and we stand a good change to get our budget back to what it was but the rules for student clubs have been revised and we need to hand in a complete and up-to-date membership roster.

Membership Roster:
Due to the hurricanes of the last couple of weeks FAU postponed the deadline for handing in the membership roster but now the time has come to hand it in!
So if you are a student at FAU Boca Campus and you are or want to become a member of our club please contact Hank VanSant, N3HV ASAP at 297-3416 (bldg 43 room 340)

New Member?
On 09-16-04 Hailey Loran VanSant was born weighing in at 8.8 Lb.
She is the daughter of John, KG4LCI and Kim KG4OGJ VanSant, grand daughter of Hank, N3HV and Jan KG4TIG VanSant.

Hurricane damage at K4FAU:
With Frances visiting our area we were lucky that we only had minor damage.
The HF antenna on the EE building had an element missing. The element apparently came loose and landed on the roof without causing damage and without being damaged. All the parts were still attached and the element was put back in place without too much trouble. The tower at T6 was lowered before the hurricane and no damaged was done to our equipment or the "temporary" (the T buildings were build in the 40s) building.

Hurricanes:
During and after the hurricanes most of our members were active with ARES/RACES, CERT, COP and even the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

From ARES/RACES (via John, WD4V) we heard that during the hurricane some shelters were not manned and after the hurricane some requests for assistance could not be done because there were not enough volunteers available. In North Palm Beach County some operators stayed at their post for several days without even knowing if their own home was still standing because there were no operators to relief them.
ARES/RACES members present at our meeting were not aware of this situation and maybe there was a communications breakdown somewhere. This is something that definitely needs to be looked into and maybe we need to recruit more ARES/RACES members!

Some remarks on the hurricane(s):

Except for power outages the members present at the meeting did not suffer any mayor damage form the Hurricane

Hurricane Frances Recovery Under Way with Amateur Radio Help
Hurricane Charley Response Reaffirms Amateur Radio's Value

Ed, W1UY remarked that the power outage as a result from Frances was a good lesson for all on how dependant we have become on electricity. His involvement in the Peace Corps has taught him how to deal with less that what most people are used to nowadays.

However 5 days without cable and being in constant proximity of one's family (especially one's younger brother…) was a bit too much for one of our members who will remain nameless.

This was a good reminder that we need to have our emergency kit ready to go and keep it up-to-date and our batteries charged!

This whole experience also proved that a lot of people in South Florida are not prepared. Someone even remarked that was should not think that we now know what it is like. Especially here in South Palm Beach County and further south of us! We did have hurricane strength winds, but we ere spared a direct hit!

If you have an old UPS with a dead battery, remove the battery and solder some cables with battery clamps on them to use it as an inverter!

Your washing machine can be used as a cooler! Just put some ice in your washing machine and your beer and you are ready. Just don't forget to get your beer out (dink it) before doing your laundry. ;-)

Our next meeting will be: Tuesday Ocktober 19.

Unofficial report by Sjaak W4RIS.