Things have been hopping on the net this past month or so, culminating in some new G numbers, new D numbers and now with the annual Board Meeting having taken place, a new endorsement, bringing us up to 38.
You webmaster finally got serious and earned his Directors number (731) after many years of inactivity. At one time, I had several hundred numbers collected and was going to apply for the Directors Award along with a bunch of endorsement stickers. But a hard drive crash wiped out my logs and my enthusiasm for starting over from scratch as well.
Working 100 Geratol numbers was surprisingly easy. There are so many people out there with more than one number that I felt like I was cheating. People who have moved and gotten a second number and people who have club calls with a number really helped out.
With Alaska and Hawaii both on the net in the past few nights, I’d expect there will be a bunch of new numbers and endorsements for people coming soon too. Both K7OC/KH6 and KL1V were greatly appreciated by those who could hear them. I heard no more than a whisper, so I didn’t even try to get on a work list.
The new Endorsement 38 for working all 10 Canadian Provincial Capitals should bring some more interest. Maybe some more Canadian participants too. I can see why our awards and net isn’t a high priority to Canadians, our little Extra-class only subband is meaningless to them under their license plan. But it would be nice to have our friends to the north on with us. With a Canadian officer on the Board now, I look for more participation.
I’ve been avoiding the net the past week or so. I’ve been busy with one of my projects and needed to spend time with it, both at home and out. But I did listen in as I worked at my computer. I am an advisor to a FIRST Robotics team at my local High School and the past week has been the busiest part of our six week window when we build this year’s robot. Tuesday was the Bag & Tag day, when the robot is sealed up in a large bag and cannot be worked on until it is in the pits at competition. As the lead advisor for programming as well as electrical wiring, you can imagine I’ve been busy with the students.
Thankfully, we seem to be in good shape and our robot got it’s final touches done before going into it’s bag. We compete in Rochester NY on March 8-9-10 and again in Cleveland two weeks later. You can find out more about our team at warlocks1507.com.
I’ve also been judging the web sites for those two regional competitions. The teams also compete for best web site, among other awards. So, I’ve been in front of the computers quite a bit doing that. That allows me to listen in on the net at least. Just like the Geratol Net, there are many ways the students can participate and earn awards. It’s a great program that gets kids interested in Science and Technology and has a great success rate for getting kids into college and getting scholarships.