[PVRCNC] draft 1/8 minutes

[Jim Price]

Here are the draft minutes for the PVRCNC/West meeting on 1/8/04 --
please send me any corrections within the next several days, then I'll
submit the official version to the main listserver.

73, Jim WW4M

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PVRC/NC Meeting Minutes
8 January 2004, Golden Corral, Dillard Drive, Cary

Members Present:
Jim WW4M, Wes K4WES, Nick K7GM, Bert N4CW, Bob K4HA, Guy K2AV, Jim
K4QPL, Jeff NX9T, Will WJ9B, Tom N4TL, Jay NT4D
Guest: Keith W4KAZ

Chapter Business

    Jim WW4M passed the hat to recoup the $99 expense for one-year
renewal for hosting our website (pvrcnc.org) and received $86.  Good
enough.  He vaguely remembers that Pete AD4L gave him $20 last fall to
cover the cost for the domain name.

    Guy K2AV drew everyone's attention to recent traffic on the email
reflector about a pdf article concerning the potentially fatal risks of
using climbing harnesses.

    Guy also polled those present about preferences for spring/fall
biannual meetings of all PVRC members in North Carolina in Burlington
(between the Triad and Triangle).  He'll get back to us when the date
for Spring 2004 is confirmed (options were 2/18 and 3/10).  He also
affirmed our decision last year to continue to meet during the summer
months.  Even though the numbers were down, we continued to have
meetings June through August and those who showed up enjoyed the
opportunity to get together.

Member News

    Guy has fixed his amp and blown it up 3x recently and says you
should not run an AL1200 with the case off because it will affect
resonancies.  If you want to know the details, ask Guy and he will tell
you exactly what will melt.

    Bob K4HA said "I ain't done a thing" recently.  He'll be in the 160
contest with W2XL and K4NYS.  He reported that Alan K4PB (down in
Florida) has recently bought a new Orion, a new Alpha 87 and a new wife.

    N4CW has been in the 10 and 160m contests (worked from W0UCE/multi
with NA4G), the OK RTTY contest (he discovered you only get points if
you work at least 1 OK station), and the RTTY Roundup (did better than
last year, using N1MM logger).  "I didn't blow anything up!  It was
wonderful!"  Bert plans to operate in NAQP using callsign N4CW at W0UCE
using UCE's name (Jack).

    Wes K4WES had no news other than that he had somehow managed to
break the FSK on his rig.  He suspects a relay (NX9T had experienced
something similar).

    Rick K7GM has been enjoying being a vagrant op @ NY4A with no QSLing
responsibilities.

    Will WJ9B spent CQWW at NY4A ("a real experience").  Operated the
10m, 160m and Stu Perry contests and is looking forward to being at
Howie's for the ARRL contests (he enjoyed learning WriteLog, which is
the new software at NY4A).

    Tom N4TL has been working on W4ATC (NC State Club)'s TR7 -- it's now
making power again but is unstable on the low bands.

    Jay NT4D introduced his friend and neighbor Keith W4KAZ.  Jay
discovered that squirrels had chewed through his rotor cable, but in the
process of repairing it experienced major trouble with his crankup tower
(it got stuck at the 75-foot level, then bent stuff when it came back
down).

    Keith W4KAZ considers himself a little pistol who mostly operates
barefoot with wire antennas (he has something up for every band except
160m).  He uses the name Andy in contests because it works better than
Keith. He has been playing with contests and enjoys experimenting with
wire antennas.

    Jeff NX9T did the 10m adn 160m contests and is now having problems
with his 1000D (an audio rx relay problem with the audio fading away).

    Jim K4QPL has not been doing much actual operating but instead has
been working to finish his new 2-car garage with upstairs shack.  He has
installed a 30A 240V line for amps just in case a guest op wants to
operate >100w at his station.  He'll be doing the ARRL DX contest at
Howies and is signed up for a team for NAQP.

    73, Jim WW4M