Annual Meeting 2019

The meeting was held at the El Camino Hospital, Mountain View Campus on Jan. 12, 2019, 9:00 am. We had two featured speakers and elected officers for 2019.

Image at right: Grant (outgoing secretary, incoming president) turns his books over to Jack (incoming secretary.)

Minutes

Rob Fenn: PARACHUTE MOBILE: Past-Present-Future

Rob showed us pictures and videos of this exciting activity, where a paratrooper jumps out of a plane, opens his parachute, and proceeds to contact as many operators as possible on his hand-held radio before landing in the drop zone.

We saw that there is a lot of ground support required, and members need to be very innovative in putting together equipment (cameras, radios, antennnas, etc) that functions well in this situation.

Vests with gear.

Rob fits Dave with a 'chute.

Rob Fenn

Above: Examples of parachute Vests

Right: Rob fits Dave with a chute.

Rachel Kinoshita

Rachel Kinoshita: Off the grid battery/solar setups

Rachel showed us the variety of components that make up a small off-grid solar setup, including batteries, solar panels, charge controllers and inverters. Rachel has performed real world tests with batteries and solar panels and showed us how to determine needs and put together systems to supply our radios on a 24/7 basis when there is no electrical power.

Rachel's presentation (pdf)

Boxes of various sizes with batteries, charge controllers, fuses, etc.