Minutes of Arlington Amateur Radio Club - October 20, 2009
President Reed called the meeting to order at 7:37 PM. Corrections were noted to the previous minutes and they were approved. The Treasurer made his report.
Tom Azlin, N4ZPT, made an excellent presentation on the use of 23 cm D-Star 128 kB data bridge and 9600 baud packet to be used for communications at the Marine Corp Marathon. This is a very sophisticated data system meeting all of the marathon’s communications needs.
ARRL News - Dennis noted that there was a contested election for the Director of the ARRL Roanoke Division. There had been some problems with the Log Book of the World and electronic certificates. These problems have been fixed. The ARRL is now shipping out the ARRL 2010 Handbooks. Everything else was quiet.
Our guest, Max, from Australia asked about the foundation license concept in the US. He noted that the foundation license has been generally successful in Australia. Dennis noted that the Technician license has been the foundation license in the US. The FCC was generally reluctant to add any new license classes.
EnComm - The Arlington ARES sponsored course last month produced eleven new Technician licensees. They are generally members of CERT. Gary noted it would be desirable if there were more ARRL certified VE’s available from Arlington. Currently, only Dennis and Mike are ARRL certified VE’s
Upcoming Events - President Reed noted there were the following possible future events:
-November Phone Sweepstakes
-10 Meter Contest (if any propagation on 10 meters), and
-January RTTY Roundup.
Please let him know if you are interested in participating in any of these events.
New Business - The club received and application from Craig Pennington, KJ4NJF. (This will be deferred until next month). The club will hold elections next month. The floor is open for nominations. The meeting was adjourned.
In attendance were: Ken WB4AKK, Gary KC5QCN, Prentiss K4PDJ, Gerry KJ4DFY, Jim K9AUC, Walter KJ4DZZ, Dennis W4PWF, Jack WA4FXX, Pat KJ4OCA, Chuck KI4DHW, Chuck KE4LYK, Mike KG4RKL, Roy AI4GO, Tom N4ZPT, Arthur W4ART, George KR4MU, Randy WB4MJF, Mike NW3V, and Max VK2ARZ/W4
