Richard,
At my Club, I suggested that  in stead of meeting  is to do a drive through 
and visit  each ones shack on how it is set up, or  at least  during the 
introduction  is to describe  there shack. They thought it was  a cool idea, 
so it was a topic of a meeting.
Then the conversations  came alive.
Cool on your antenna, I am sure you will be able to get your swr under 
control.
Pierre
k9eye

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Fiorello" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2011 7:34 PM
Subject: ham clubs


> `Hi everyone;
> I suspect things vary drastically from club to club.  I was delighted to
> discover that an area club meets at a church about two blocks from here.
>  After some kind urging on my part they did help me get up my hf9v and
> everyone marveled at how wonderful that big antenna looked.  The flip
> side is that the president who is a ve has no station and most others
> have primarily two meters and echo link.  The beautiful antenna has a
> terrible noise level and anything above 20 meters has a totally
> unreasonable swr.  So its not just enough to get someone to help but to
> get someone with some experience and most of all time to help.  This was
> a one day project.  When the day was gone so were they.  Lots of
> progress was made during that day but they definitely needed to stop
> back for a few hours and try and help perfect the job.
> I am left with the feeling that most members have at least their general
> but most don't have a working station.
> -- 
> richard