3M ARC August 2002 Meeting Minutes

Monday August 5 at Spicewood Springs Library at 6:00 PM we didn't have an official meeting, we were short of a Quorum so a relaxed meeting was sped through.

 

The Secretary's Report was waved at, and the Treasurer's Report summarized.

 

3M Century of Innovation Special Event

Thank you to John Benedict for being the only club member that operated the special event station.  John made 57 radio contacts on behalf of the 3M ARC.  About 12 requests for certificates have been received and John has generously volunteered to send the certificates out too.

Remote Receiver in Leander/Georgetown Area

Computer Upgrades in Radio Room   No report.

Field Day

Dan and Pat Reisem, and Dan and Brenda Cronch were the only ones that came in for Field Day.  Despite the low turnout, everyone had a good time. The XYLs made the majority of the contacts!  The group made a total of 57 contacts in a period of about 4 hours from 6 to 10 p.m. on Saturday.

Old Business

Special Guest Speaker

Renowned DXer in his own right, John Warren, NT5C, a member of the Central Texas DX & Contest Club (CTDXCC) managed to arrange a visit to the Austin area by one of the best-known DX operators and DXpeditioners from one of the most rare countries in the world.  The event was co-sponsored by the CTDXCC who asked the 3M Amateur Radio Club, W3MRC to help host.  The 3M ARC arranged for the use of the 3M Company meeting facility at the 3M Innovation Center in Austin, Texas for the presentation.

Tom Christian, VP6TC, from isolated Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific was our guest on Wednesday June 19th. Tom is the great-great-great-grandson of Fletcher Christian, of “Mutiny on the Bounty” fame (1789). Recently, he shared in the DXpedition to a brand new DXCC country, Ducie Island, in the Pitcairn group.  Many hams worked him as VP6DI during the DXpedition.

Tom's slide presentation about his Ducie trip and life on Pitcairn Island (one ship calls every 3 months!) started at 6.30pm on Wednesday 19th, and was of general interest to hams and non-hams.  Invitations were sent to many of the local ham radio clubs by email to get the word out on relatively short notice.

It was our good fortune that one of the people copied on the email distribution was Mark Johnson, a reporter for the local CBS television station, K-EYE (www.keyetv.com).  Mark Johnson contacted our club treasurer, Tom Nevue, W2MN, to arrange to interview Tom Christian before his presentation.  The interview was broadcast on K-EYE during the 10 p.m. news broadcast that night.  I have enclosed a CD with an MPEG video of the news piece.  The video features footage of the interview and slide presentation at the 3M Innovation Center, as well as the 3M Amateur Radio Club station.  The gentleman shown leading the tour of the W3MRC radio room is Tom Nevue, W2MN.  Another club member, John Benedict, KE5RS, is shown operating the radio.  Coincidentally, we were operating a special event station, W3M, to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the 3M Company at the time.

Another fortunate coincidence that we didn’t realize at the time was that the event occurred during Amateur Radio Week (June 16 – 23). 

New Meeting Day or Location?

The Spicewood Springs Branch library is now closed on Thursdays due to city budget cuts.  We have decided to change the day of the 3M ARC meeting in order to stay at the same place.

 

Dan Cronch submitted a meeting room reservation request to the Spicewood Springs library on July 1, the first day that requests were accepted.  Dan requested the 2nd Monday of the month as first choice, the 3rd Monday of the month as second choice, and the 1st Monday of the month as third choice.

New Business / Announcements

Big Brothers/Big Sisters “Live Under the Oaks” concert.  Dan Cronch has volunteered to be on the logistics committee for this event, a concert by Michelle Shocked and The Neville Brothers at the Back Yard on October 13.  Dan has received a donation of 13 commercial band radios from the 3M Research Blvd. Plant.  The radios will be used to provide communications for non-ham volunteers at the event.  The need for ham volunteers is not known at this time.

 

Motorcycle Special Events Team  The Austin-area members of the Houston-based Motorcycle Support Team (MST) have spun off to form a new organization called the Motorcycle Special Events Team (MSET)  We have worked with these guys on several events such as the 3M Half Marathon, MS-150, Outlaw Trail 100, and Ride for the Roses.  We are looking forward to many more successful events with the new organization.

 

Space Station 3D.  The new IMAX movie showing at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum features a ham radio contact with astronauts onboard the space station – in 3D!  Don’t miss it!

 

The meeting was ended about 6:25 and Dan Cronch N5VRS gave a presentation on Home Networking .   It was with great slides and covered the subject very well.  He went through all of the ways that you can connect two computers in your home with temporary and permanent wiring, rf and cabling.  He elaborated on the methods that interested the rest of us.   He demonstrated a new CAT 5e Jack (RJ-45) and some of the test equipment developed for it.  Most of us knew something about some of methods but this presentation covered all of them.

 

            E Hollingsworth N5PAT