Minutes of the Arlington Amateur Radio Club - February 16, 2010
This meeting began with a presentation on the Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS). The presentation was made by Mr. David Trachtenberg, State MARS Director of Virginia. Gary and Ken are both active in MARS and can answer any follow up questions the club members may have about the MARS programs.
President Norton called the business meeting to order at 8:05 PM. The minutes of the January 2010 meeting were approved as posted on the web site. The Treasurer made his report.
ARRL Business - Members noted that the new ARRL web site has not been put on line. It was noted that the ARRL was working on a draft proposal to address the use of the amateur bands by users who were in paid positions. This was seen to be in conflict with the inherent nature of amateur radio.
EnComm - Gary noted during the current snow emergencies, there had been no outages of normal communications. Thus there were not ARES or other amateur operations. Red Cross and Arlington County Shelter were opened during this period. Gary will be working towards organizing an ARRL Emergency Communications course in the near future. He noted that the course would include a Beginners and Advanced levels of training.
Club Weekly Net - Craig noted the club weekly net is doing very well with lots of check-ins. We continue to encourage members to join the weekly net. Gary again mentioned the idea of broadcasting material from the ARRL Newswire before net. Craig also mention the need for 12A or 20A power supplies for the repeater system. Check if you have an extra power supply to donate. The club voted to authorize Craig and Randy to acquire low cost used power supplies for the repeater system at upcoming hamfests or other opportunities.
Red Cross - George noted that Jim and he had been cleaning out excess and obsolete paper from the radio room in an effort to utilize the limited space more effectively. The will be a Red Cross meeting on communications tentatively on March 10 in Fairfax, Va.
CERT - Pat noted that a new CERT class will begin in March. Please contact Cynthia if you want to participate.
Old Business - Ken provided the club with a sound card interface for the TS-850S HF transceiver. This is stored in the top drawer of the file cabinet in the station.
New Business - 440 Repeater available for club use in nets or emergency training. This is W8HNT on 449.325 (-) with PL 151.4. This repeater is in the center of Arlington County.
T-MARC Coordination - Art will attend the upcoming coordination meeting at Winterfest and represent our repeater interests.
New Members - The club voted to approve membership for Dave Shaw, David Church, and Efrain R. Reyes.
Potential Changes to Club Meeting Times - This was discussed. President Norton will undertake an e-mail survey of club opinions on this question.
Upcoming Operating Events - This includes the VA QSO party on Sat, March 20 and Field Day June 26 & 27. The club has the room reserved for these events. Discussion on Field Day brought up the idea of a simpler setup that would focus on operating radios with less emphasis on a complex computer logging system. The focus would be having a smaller number of radios setup up, but manning each radio for a longer period during the 24 hour operating period. The approach would be less competitive, but emphasize having more fun. Further discussion will be held as we approach the event date.
Present at the meeting were: Ken WB4AKK, Arthur W4ART, Ian KI4DTP, Pat KJ4OCA, Randy WB4MJF, Craig K4GOR, David Church (SWL) , Prentiss K4PDJ, Gary KC5QCN,
George KR4MU, Chuck KI4DHW, Mike KG4RKL, Mike KA8OPJ, and Dave KJ4IMI.
