[FCARC] October 20 Meeting Notes

[Craig Szczublewski]

Hello everyone, here are some notes from the Monday night Club meeting:

The meeting was called to order at 7:30pm with 19 members and guests. Minutes 
from the previous meeting and the treasurer's report were read and accepted.

Members in Distress: Bob (WB8ZOI) continues to recover after surgery in 
September, we hope to hear him back on the air soon.  Trenton (KD8WVO) has been 
dealing with some medical issues as well, and we wish him a speedy recovery.  On 
a positive note, we were glad to have Reggie (KG4NXM) in our company for the 
meeting as he continues to recover from his accident.

Committee reports follow...

Education: The VE Team held a testing session on September 27, issuing two new 
Technicians and one upgrade to General.  No calls have been made to reserve the 
October test session yet.

Repeater Committee: Maintenance was performed on October 11 by KB8MDF and 
KD8KBU, some of the items worked on include;

- Adjusting the duplexer pass and notch on receive, and the pass on transmit. 
Better isolation through a dummy load, but that did change when placed back on 
the antenna.

- Changed the cables to the repeater and separated the DC wire from the 
controller cable bundle to isolate some controller noise away from the repeater.

- Separated the repeater DC power and attached to the Astron power supply for 
more noise isolation.

- Removed the chassis ground from the controller power supply to maybe eliminate 
more noise sourced from the controller.

- Turned off the air and on the heater.

After all said and done, we did not notice a large improvement in receive 
sensitivity, and a noticeable amount of RF was being generated by the CAT 300DXL 
controller.  The current plan is to perform some additional troubleshooting on 
the 300DXL, leaving open an option to swap in our standby CAT controller if we 
cannot eliminate the noise from the controller.  This will happen within the 
next couple of weeks as time permits.  We will roll over to the backup repeater 
when we start this maintenance cycle.

Memorial Committee: No report.

EC Report: No report.

Membership: We have 50 members up to date on dues so far.  Thank you for your 
continued support.

T-Shirt Committee: No report.

Hamfest Committee: We are listed at the ARRL for the December 6 Hamfest, and 
have received a package from the ARRL including door prizes.  We also decided to 
purchase 4 of the Baofeng HT's as door prizes.  Bryan has worked out the 
floor-plan to allow for 25 tables, and we expect these to go quickly.  We should 
have one table for the club, so members can bring in any items they might want 
to sell.  Of course, we are looking for help for the hamfest (setup, teardown 
and cleanup, ticket sales, etc.).  Contact Bryan for more details on this event 
kb8elg at hotmail.com.

Upcoming Events:

11/08/2014 Keiser Run / Fayette
11/28/2014 Archbold Festival of Lights Parade
12/15/2014 Christmas Dinner at the Barn Restaurant in Archbold

Good of Amateur Radio:

1. We participated in the Lockport run on October 4th, providing radio 
communications for the organizers.  We were a little short handed, but were able 
to cover most of the course.  Thanks to the club members who took time out of 
their Saturday morning to assist with this event.

2. We have been formally asked to assist with the Keiser Run/Walk on November 
8th, although it will be a shorter race then the past two years, switching to 
what we believe is a 5k/10k.  Details are still coming in, but plan on November 
8th around 8:30am in Fayette.

3. The club authorized Bryan (KB8ELG) to purchase a table for the club at the Ft 
Wayne Hamfest so we have a presence at that event.  This will be important in 
promoting our Hamfest in December.

Upcoming Hamfests;

11/15/2014 Ft. Wayne (11/15 and 11/16)
12/06/2014 FCARC / Delta

Next Meeting:  The next regular club meeting will be October 20th at the County 
Administration Building second floor (same as the Drivers License Bureau), 152 
S. Fulton St, Wauseon.  The club meeting will be at 7:30pm.

Club Nets:

Weeknights at 10:30pm Bud's Midnight Madness Net -- 147.195+
Wed at 8pm Informal Two Meter & ARES Net -- 147.195+
Wed at 9pm 6M Net -- 50.400 AM on the first Wednesday of the month
Wed at 9pm 6M Net -- 52.525 FM Simplex

That's all I have for now.  Please reply back to me with corrections...

Craig Szczublewski - KD8KBU