Cowtown Buildathon
Because a part of our club charter is education, and when we have done building projects, they have tended to be quite popular, we decided to formalize the process and have BUILDATHONS.
These are single day or multi day projects that are not too difficult for a beginner, and not expensive...so far around $20 each. And of course actually useful.
In 2022 we were just wrapping our heads around the concept and came up with a Foxhunt series of events through the year, with classes on Foxhunting, and bulding a 'tape measure' antenna, building an antenna signal attenuator, and finally holding some Foxhunts with increasing levels of difficulty.
In 2023 we had a few motivated members...and one VERY motivated member...that created a small, inexpensive series of projects, that when connected all together, created a simple and useful QRP 'go' kit. Including an end fed half wave antenna, an ADX QRP digital mode Transceiver, a sub project was the Barb-A -Watt SWR/power meter, and finally a QRP antenna tuner.
For 2024 we are starting to formulate plans...due to limited resources, the actual Buildathons are limited to club members, however we make all the documentation available to other clubs, and offer mentoring as needed to do a similar Buildathon.