[FCARC] August 17 Meeting Notes

[Craig Szczublewski]

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

The meeting was called to order at 7:30pm with 22 members in attendance. The 
Finance Report was read and accepted.

Bills Presented: KB8ELG presented an expected invoice of $213.90 for replacement 
tires and rims for the pneumatic mast trailer.  We expected this maintenance to 
be occurring, and the club members voted to approve the expense.

Membership: The club currently has 55 members

Committee reports follow:

Education: There is still plans to hold a Tech Class this Autumn, but a firm 
date has not been set..

Hamfest:  With a couple of large Hamfests coming, KB8ELG encouraged all club 
members to print the PDF flier for the winter hamfest and distribute them at 
Findlay and Ft. Wayne.  The Hamfest flier can be found at:

http://k8bxq.org/hamfest

Repeater Committee: The club is still planning on deploying the Yaesu DR-1X as a 
440 machine, borrowing the frequency pair from KB8GOM.  The plan is to put the 
repeater on air at the backup site before winter.

After much debate, the club voted on enabling CTCSS on the 147.195+ repeater 
with a tone of 103.5.  KB8ELG suggested a target date of October 1st to turn on 
tone.  All amateurs are advised to enable tone for this repeater ahead of that 
time so they are not left out when this feature is enabled.

EC Report: K8JPD reported that the Wednesday night nets have been falling off in 
attendance.  All amateurs are encouraged to check into the 7:30pm Emergency 
Practice net.  This is not a rag chew net and tends to end fairly quickly.

Bryan and Jim also made a trip to Henry County for their regular scheduled 
meeting to discuss emergency services interaction as well as repeater use 
between counties during emergency exercises.

Related to club EC activities, Bryan (KB8ELG) provided some specs on two 
dual-fuel generators, both from Northern Tools:

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200641812_200641812
https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200646084_200646084

We would like to stay at or under the $1K price point, and dual-fuel capability 
is a must as well.  While all club members were in favor of a generator 
purchase, it was decided to defer acquisition until after the winter hamfest. 
Any further suggestions would be welcome also.

Good of Amateur Radio:

OSPOTA is coming up very soon on September 12.  We will be at Harrison Lake at 
the Marzof Shelter House.  Like last year, we plan on having a cookout around 
2:00pm.  Anyone interested in helping setup should be at the park by 10:00am. 
The shelter house is reserved in our name, so there should be no surprises. 
Look for a separate email regarding this event.

WB8ZOI reports much improved conditions at his QTH after line noise was repaired 
by the power company.  We encouraged Bob to write up a history of the problem, 
the troubleshooting steps taken, and the end result as a article to submit to 
QST.  There are certainly other Hams with line noise problems who could benefit 
from his experience with this issue.

Members in Distress:

Ralph Smith is reported to be improving, and Grant (KC2RCU) reported his tests 
went well.  Thanks for keeping both in your thoughts

On the topic of Members in Distress, we reported last month that we needed 
someone take over the Memorial Committee.  Lindsay (K8LI) volunteered to take 
over the responsibility for this position, and we thank him greatly for it.

Upcoming Hamfests:

09/06/2015 Findlay, OH
09/13/2015 Adrian, MI
10/18/2015 Kalamazoo, MI
10/24/2015 Madison Heights, MI
11/14/2015 Ft Wayne, IN (2 days)
12/05/2015 FCARC Winter Fest, Delta

Next Meeting:  The next regular club meeting will be September 21 at the County 
Administration Building (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 7:30pm EC Practice 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 good for now...

Craig Szczublewski - KD8KBU