Please vote for your Board members - ballot is attached - and let us know you are coming to the October 18 annual meeting/get together. You can vote online after signing in or print and mail your vote.
Online ballot: Online Ballot 2005.
or
Print Mail-in Ballot and mail your votes.
Ellen Hoff
President, for the COMARA Board
Dick Arndt, Denis Curtin, Irv Dostis, Ron Garlow, Jack Hannon, Ellen Hoff, Bob Kinzie, Walt McKee, Peter Weiss
By popular demand, COMARA will again hold its Annual Meeting and Election of Board Members at the Brickskeller Restaurant in D.C., commencing at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, October 18, 2005. PLAN TO COME! And please let us know that you do plan to come [e.hoff-at-wlpco.com] so we have enough food on hand for all- heavy hors d'oeuvres will be served. Cash bar. The Brickskeller is a short few blocks from the Metro red line Dupont Circle Station/Q Street exit. However, if you are interested in carpooling to the meeting, let us know and we'll try to facilitate travel groups.
Buzz Beitchman's company JGB Consult still does most of its business in the Japan - US satellite telecommunications market (he has made 5 trips to Japan already this year), and he has an ongoing business relationship with Space Communications Corporation (SCC). In the course of developing a new project, for the first time since the center opened about 1987, he visited the SCC Satellite Control Center in Ibaraki about 80 miles from Tokyo. There Buzz saw a reminder of his and Comsat's past. Still in service with Superbird A2 is the Comsat Laboratories Range Processor unit that I sold to them in 1986 or 87. He was stationed in Tokyo for Comsat from 1985 to 1989 (followed by 8 years with Hughes in Tokyo) and the sale of this Range Processor built by the Labs was his first hardware sale in the country. Superbird A2 is still in inclined orbit service, having been launched in 1992, and the Range Processor remains in operation as a primary part of the satellite control system. When he asked SCC how they managed to keep the device maintained, they said it was a struggle, but their own people figured out the design and operation and have been able to keep it going without assistance. The device will stay in service until Superbird A3 is launched in 2008 or 2009. Buzz sent in photos, which will be posted on our website.
Read Comsat Range processor still in service in Japan with pictures.
Jerry Breslow writes, "I have been a member of the Strathmore Hall Foundation board for several years, appointed by Douglas Duncan, Montgomery County's County Executive. This year I was elected Secretary of the Foundation. In February Strathmore inaugurated its $100 million Music Center with a 1976-seat concert hall and accompanying educational wing. The Music Center also is home to one of Strathmore's partners, the National Philharmonic, whose Chairman is Joel Alper."
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