|
|
|
|
|
|
(Continued from page 1) Presidents Message
practically no Novices, so I expect that the rules committee will eventually eliminate this station altogether. Maybe even this year. Otherwise, business as usual we'll be 4A Battery. I think we were 7th nationally in 4A last year (1st in the 4A Battery class); and we'll try to break the top-five this year.
Following Field Day, I expect that there will be a lot of digital mode activity. I'll be doing a program on PSK31 and somebody will do a similar program on packet to complement the very popular programs we presented last summer and fall. The packet activity will come together over the summer. We are restoring the Mitrek to 144.91 and the tech committee is committed to getting 147.18 running, perhaps as soon as April. Wayne WA7NE has been plugging away on the 144.91 node. A lot of behind-the-scenes backbone links have been developed and we'll be giving him a hand with the "trail-head" in the next month or two so that more people can more readily access the BBS. We'll have a series of packet programs over the summer at the general meetings to help get people up and running on packet, and then sponsor some packet nets on either the BBS frequency or the repeater frequency.
The April club program will be a viewing of "Toy Story", narrated by Rich NF7D from HRO, who will bring some of the latest and greatest mouth watering treats that the marketplace has to offer. After that, there will be a
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Field Day program, the aforementioned digital mode series, several radio electronics theory seminars, antenna theory and modeling, a kit-building seminar, a LINUX seminar, and Xvcr "physicals."
On the topic of monthly general meeting programs, we've recently revamped the manner in which club programs are handled. For the first time in several years, we have an Activities Committee which doesn't consist of officers or directors. Dave KC7YOE and Max KB7TMH will grab the bull by the horns and pull together a running schedule of events. The Activities Committee will chat about all this at the club breakfasts, which are the 1st Saturday of every month at the Country Buffet, 9 am, SE 106th & Washington, in order to fine-tune the program.
Our VE testing sessions are working out very well. The board's decision to run small sessions has enabled us to spend "quality time" with attendees; the recruitment rate has been relatively high and the sessions have been very manageable. Bruce N7XB has made a commitment to develop our VE testing program and Marilyn K7LUM has been very helpful and diligent at the sessions we have had so far. I think this is a terrific new initiative by the club and each and every examinee has been very appreciative of our efforts. By the way, if you're a Novice or a Tech+, buckle down and study the General element!! If you're Advanced, do likewise for the
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Extra class. I think you'll find that the next hurdle is pretty low. I'd like to see more members upgrading at these sessions. We'll be moving the start time up to 6:30 pm to give people a better chance to be in-and-out in time for the general meeting.
Chuck KC7PDI is wowing people with the on-line sPARCgap and I bet we can get going on further website development during the coming year if we can free Darrell KC7AOI up from the bureaucracy of managing the membership database.
Changing to a calendar year renewal system was the one step toward this, adding an on-line application to the sPARCgap was another, and we'll otherwise continue to find ways to reduce the paperwork load.
Our 501(c)(3) application has been filed, and if approved, we'll return the coffee-stop calendar. Also, we will construct a grant application that could result in the most significant restructuring of our repeater system in years. We have a laundry list of ideas, including the installation of a voting receiver system, a 440 MHz machine with a 10M gateway, and improved UHF links for the digital mode network we're developing. The technical committee continues to meet on Tuesday evenings at Howard Barney's shop, Bayhouse, 1100 NW Glisan and I would expect a lot of the chatter on this will take place there.
CUL ES 73 de N7RX
|
|
|
|
|
|
