Arlington Amateur Radio Club Meeting Minutes 9/19/06

 

In Attendance:

Jack WA4FXX

Dennis W4PWF

Arthur W4ART

Ken WB4AKK

ChuckKI4DHW

JamesKB1JMV

Bob WB4KLJ

John ex K9UHA

Mike KA8OPJ

Ian KI4DTP

 

Jack calls meeting to order 7:30

New Business

-         Message from Alan: He is sick and wishes everyone well

-         Secretary Adam/ai4qb absent, Acting Secretary Mike/nw3v AWOL

-         Minutes are approved as read

-         Treasurer is going to be late

-         Jack reminds everyone that background checks from my backgroundcheck.com are due to continue to volunteer for all Red Cross units

-         Jack has completed CERT (Citizen Emergency Response Team) training and encourages other club members to also join and receive training

-         MCM (Marine Corps Marathon) is coming up (October 29^th)

-         MS Walk (Multiple Sclerosis) is also upcoming and needs volunteers the MS walk is a multi day event that is a 50-mile walk to downtown DC from VA.

-         NCAC (National Capital Amateur Council) Institute is upcoming October 21^st Skywarn, NIMS classes and MCM preparation are on the agenda

-         The club is reminded that NIMS (National Incident Management System) training is a good idea and we should all take the classes are our next opportunity

-         FAR Fest (Foundation for Amateur Radio) there was a large problem with parking at this years FAR Fest the fairgrounds owners imposed a parking Fee and there was little or no warning given to the attendees. Many attendees expressed their frustration with the new fee and indicated they would not come back if the fee continued. It is questionable if there will be another FAR Fest. Ian Reported besides the Parking Issue the Fair looked normal but was only there on the second day and did not know how the first day went.

-         Dennis noted that the VA Beach Convention was a success. There was more tailgating and all the vender spaces were sold out

-         Dennis: ARRL (Amateur Radio Relay League) has been fighting BPL (Broadband over Power Lines)

-         The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has allowed BPL carriers to have up to 20 db of interference with other systems. The ARRL is considering their options in opposing this development. In other FCC news they are still very quite on six proposals of rule making.

 

 

Old Business

           

-         Ian forgot once again receipts for reimbursement for food purchases for Field Day

-         The Arlington County Fair was a success. All the clubs back-up batteries that were used at the Fair were reported in good condition and were fully charged. Although we need a system to insure that they are always charged. The clubs station was set up inside of Tomas Jefferson Community Center few contacts were made but the station was able to run the whole time of the Fair on one battery

-         Dennis had sent the IC-761 to be repaired. The IC-761 had been received, fixed and is in route back to Arlington. The cost was approximately $10 for parts and $84 for labor

o       The club approved reimbursement not to exceed $100 for the repairs

o       The shipping charges were to be pushed to the next meeting

-         NOMIC is working on VOX, PTT dose not work DB9 port dose not provide enough power. The unit is still not working adequately

-         Dennis, Ian & Art will come in and try a USB-Serial port to see if that works

-         Questions were raised about the ability to encode e-mail and then transmit it over Winlink using zip file encoding

-         JOTA (Jamboree On The Air) is coming up October 21-22 2006

-         Sweepstakes are coming up in November

-         GSA (General Services Administration) is selling some HF radios

-         Reminder that Elections are held in November

 

Presentation

- Art presented a presentation on NERA Repeater radio System