The March meeting of the ERARC was opened at 658pm by Lonnie Underwood, ERARC President. There were 16 members and guests in attendance. 
 He asked Hooger Fisher for his report. Hooger went over the February minutes with no additions or corrections noted. 

 Don Andersons WD8OOR gave the Treasurer’s report. Don has a phone bill and P.O. Box rent to pay. Sam’s Club sent a renewal for the current 6 people signed up for memberships there. Don would like to have the $35.00 renewal from anyone who would like to continue with Sam’s by April 25. The six are: Steve O’Dell, David Cox, Don Anderson, Racine Stefancic, Bob Frazier, and Harold Hodges. We can have up to 8 memberships thru the Club so………… IF you’re interested, please email Hooger Fisher, W4OF, at w4of@hotmail.com and he’ll hook you up.  Don received one membership by mail from James Boyd from Honaker, Va. who recently upgraded to General with the ERARC VE team.

 Don and Steven Stefancic KD8EPJ went to the past Bland County Supervisors meeting and presented the Club’s case for the taxes on Amateur Radio equipment that was located on East River Mountain in Bland County. He told them that he could not find any Virginia Code that classified such equipment as being taxable. The County’s attorney is to get back with the Board by their next meeting.

 Gary Kadar N8GK reported on the February 14 ERARC ARRL VE team session. There were two upgrades to General, two new Technicians and one person took the initial Technician and passed then took the General test and passed. Gary mailed the results to the ARRL on Saturday afternoon and even with the Government holiday on Monday, the new/upgraded calls were listed by the FCC on Wednesday afternoon.

Gary showed off his newly built ‘spud gun’ that was in a recent QST magazine. It’s made of PVC piping, uses compressed air and shoots a 3” PVC “bullet” that is hooked to a fishing reel. On demonstration this weekend, it proved to shoot the projectile over 100’ in the air. This will make stringing up the Field Day dipoles much easier.

 John Riddle N8RIG asked that we consider using 4:1 baluns for our dipoles as he measured the resistance between the coaxial feed line and antenna and he thinks that we will do much better getting our signals out. Discussion. Don Anderson thinks that he has such a balun and will loan it to John for experimentation.

 Gary Kadar said that Jerry Connelly KC8TES, Mercer Co. ARES EC, has donated 3 boxes of radio equipment to the Club/Mercer Co. ARES. Gary wants to do an inventory and place the radios in proper position for deployment. Gary said that Jerry is ill again. We need to keep Jerry and his family in our thoughts and prayers.

 Lonnie gave a brief overview of the February 28 ARES training class that was held in Tazewell.

 George Dietrich KF4YGL won the 50/50 drawing for the Flower fund.

 There were no takers for the ARES net control position for March but Lonnie said that he and others would fill the positions. 

 The meeting was over at 752pm. 
 Submitted by Hooger Fisher W4OF, ERARC Secretary. TO DO LIST:

1. Equipment inventory with serial numbers for insurance reasons
2. Antenna for the Bluefield, Va. Rescue Squad
3. Cathy Underwood KG4CTK would like us to look into possible funding via the Office of Homeland Security.

4. The Communications Bus/ RV that the Club began to work on.
5. Communications class for the Mercer Co. Civil Air Patrol
6. Trailer for storing equipment. Also used for deployment.