Hi everybody,
Thanks for attending the first meeting of DARC last night in the Mill Park. It was great to get it off the ground and to see so many there.
We have no doubt that this club will grow from strength to strength. It will prove an invaluable resource for existing Donegal amateurs or for people wishing to become a licensed amateur.

We will update the site here a bit more over the coming days with some more info including the club photo. We will then send this to Echo Ireland as well for publication.

All in all we had 9 attendees including five licensed amateurs in Jason EI6GRB, Paul EI5GTB, Laurent EI9JV, Dessie EI3GWB and Charles EI9IT.

We also voted in our committee which is Chairman, Jason McGarrigle, EI6GRB; Secretary, Paul Sinclair, EI5GTB; and Treasurer Daniel McGlashin.

If you know of anyone who may be interested in coming along please encourage them to visit one of our upcoming meetings.

Meetings will be run on the first Monday of the month at 8pm in the Mill Park Hotel. So the next one is the 3rd November at 8pm.

The next meeting will consist of apologies, minutes from last meeting, correspondence, update on club news, Demonstration of SBS air nav system from Daniel, Any other Business, and then a practical class demonstrating resistors and basic electronic components.

Now that the introductions have been done and the club formed etc we hope to keep the meetings in around an hour or so with the practical class after for the people wishing to sit upcoming exams.

Classes
The next amateur radio exam will probably be held in May/June so we will start with classes at the next meeting.
The meeting will start at 8pm and we will wrap it up around 9 or shortly after and then have until 10pm to run the first of the course elements.
This will allow 6 classes (once a month until June) and in the final weeks before the exam we will step it up to have more frequent classes. We plan to have about 10 classes if there is a demand for it.
Ideally we will have 4 electronics classes, then one on safety and one on rules. Then in the weeks before the exam we can focus on parts of the course participants are having difficulty with.
This should be complimented at home with plenty of listening in on the amateur bands to get used to the band plan and callsigns and operating procedures.

Our contact numbers are Jason, 086 1928897, or Paul, 086 1229669, or email ei6grb AT dxireland DOT com or paul AT paulsnet DOT org. We can also usually be reached via the sligo repeater or simplex 145.365. or skype on jason.mcgarrigle or paulsnet.

Any suggestions or ideas you might have on the club please let us know.

Jason EI6GRB and Paul EI5GTB