Minutes of Arlington Amateur Radio Club Meeting - June 16, 2009
President Reed called the meeting to order at 7:55 PM. Some members were placing ropes for the Field Day 80 meter antenna. The minutes of the previous meeting were approved. The Treasurer made his report.
ARRL-Dennis reported that there was little new. The Log Book of the World was reporting about 2 million contacts a month. There was an electronic reporting of contacts on VHF and UHF. Working 100 grid squares would lead to an award. Electronic field reporting for other awards was in beta testing. The ARRL Board will meet next month. The ARRL is otherwise ok.
CERT-Cynthia reported that they were seeking volunteers for the July 11th Decontamination Exercise at the Pentagon. The CERT class had graduated 24 or 25 new amateurs. There was enough interest that they will do the 2 day class again in the near future.
EnComm-Gary had no updates. Volunteers were requested for the Alexandria Waterfront Festival
Old Business-The new 2 meter radio was passed around. That will replace the IC-211. It would be hooked up after the meeting. It is a 55 watt radio.
VA QSO Party-The club will get a certificate. We were the only station in Arlington County.
Red Cross-The Disaster Communications Team will meet tomorrow.
Repeater- The club repeater is working ok. Improvements are being made to some of the remote receivers. It was recommended that members add the PL tone (107.2 Hz) to their transmit signal to assure they would bring up all of the remote receivers. There are still some interference problems to be solved. Use of the repeater was encouraged.
Field Day- General instructions were to load the program FD Log and get some experience with it. The use of FD Log also required you to load Python on your computer. The need for laptop computers was noted, as well as a network switch and a UPS. NW3V would make up CDs with the software.
The overall plan for Field day was to have as many as 10 transmitters at the start with coverage of 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters HF. 6 meters, 2 meters, and 70 cm were also included. A possible 2 meter digital operation would give another band mode combination.
The key limiting factor was the number of antennas, radios, and operators available.
Setup will begin Saturday at 10 AM. Operation at 2PM. Operators could stay late on Saturday, but not all night. Operations on Sunday would be 10 AM to 2 PM. The Red Cross mobile command vehicle would visit during the day, but also would go to other Field Day sites.