Historical Electronics Museum Amateur Radio Club

Minutes of the Meeting of

November 11, 2004

The meeting was called to order by President Jim Nowotarski N3GOO at 6:00 PM.

Present on the sign-in sheet were (24): Heru W3WVV, Les WR3X, Jim N3GOO, Jim AB3CA, Charles K3JJD, Alvin K0IQE, Sparky KD4KL, Tim W1TRT, George W3MPN, Gary W3DTN, Fred AI3Z, Bill WT3B, Nick K3NY, Steve WA3ZWC, Bob K3FQP, Bruce W3YVV, Charles AA3FB, Bill NG3O, Gary W3GMY, Andrew KB3JUH, Chip W4PBG, Gene W3BAB, Ray K3ZC, Gary N3BYN.

Gary volunteered to handle the 50-50 drawing.

Minutes

A motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes of the October meeting as published. The motion was approved by voice vote.

Treasurer's Report

Fred AI3Z announced that he had ordered the coax for the antennas. He said that the Club had $24.00 income last month and that 9 members had paid their 2005 dues last month and 7 had paid tonight. There is $167.70 cash on hand and $656.48 in the bank giving a total of $824.18. The coax and ten connectors will cost approximately $215.00. A motion was made and seconded to accept the Treasurer's Report. The motion was approved by voice vote.

QSL Cards

Nick reported that he had just received 5 more QSLs but nothing exciting.

He said that the Second Annual "So You Want to be a Mega-Ham" Quiz Contest would take place after the meeting. Rol said that use of packet cluster is causing an upspurt in countries worked and that 213 have been worked to date. Nick has been receiving 3-5 applications per week for Code Buddies.

The sign-up sheet for the Pearl Harbor Special Event was circulated. Rol can open and close the Museum if needed.

Training

Rol and Les said that 11 students were in the Extra course. The course will finish up before December 1, 2004 even though they lost last week due to a power failure. A Technician's course is scheduled to start the second Tuesday in January.

Station Operations

Rol said that DX4WIN is up and running. Packet and the rotator are also working. Les WR3X said that RTTY is working that the PK232s were installed. Rol plans to swap his personal microphone enabled Rig Blaster card for the station's card. The log book for operations has the settings for DX4WIN if needed. The connections for the PC have also been included. The next project is to build an adapter to interface with the LPT port to automate the auto-keyer. Jim asked Rol to backup the .INI file.

No food or drink is allowed in the Museum. This is a long time policy.There are stains on the carpet near the station. Rol will ask if operators can have water.

FAR Report

Tim W1TRT and Chip W4PBG attended the last meeting. The FarFest profit was about $4,500. All the tables were sold and all the tailgate

spaces were used. FarFest '05 is scheduled on September 10-11, 2005 in the same place with the same rodeo. The larger building will be used. 52

vendors have agreed to come if the larger building is used. The FAR president resigned, but will stay on as FarFest chair. HEMARC protested

receiving only 1 table when 2 or 3 were promised.

The new officers proposed are:

Mary Morris, president;

William Hatfield, executive vice president;

Hugh O'Donald, secretary;

John Chitwood, treasurer.

AutoCall is stable. An advertising and sales representative and a traffic manager are needed. Chip described a proposed club subscription to AutoCall. Club members would submit their subscriptions through their clubs. Some of the subscription money would come back to the clubs. 11 HEMARC members subscribe to AutoCall and were not very interested in this offer. Some said that they would be more interested in a multi-year subscription discount.

Old Business

Tim W1TRT reported that he had looked into the alternatives for a 6/2 m horizontally polarized antenna. He said that the best choice seemed to be

to buy a $200 Cushcraft antenna. Building an antenna would be quite a chore.

Jim reported that the TL922's bank switch needs repair. He talked to the Kenwood service center. The switch is $80 and Kenwood is the only source. With labor it will cost $200-$225 for the repair. The desire is to replace just the bad deck, however, that may not be feasible. Heru asked is we could get a switch kit to build our own. Jim will send information to Gene W3BAB. Jim had a parasitic suppression kit from Rich Measures AG6K to install in the amplifier.

Jim asked Les to update the station diagram.

Antennas

Jim noted the Gap is up and guyed. Chuck said we are waiting for the cable. More 2x3s were bought for uprights. Six beam clamps were donated and we are ready to move. About 140' of coax is needed for each line. Fred will try to increase our cable order to 600 feet.

Chip reminded everyone that the 40/80 m dipole needs to have the ends finished.

New Business

Gene W3BAB reported that PVRC received the winning club scores for the VHF contest and Field Day this year.

Gary W3DTN gave a report on the Scout's Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) activity at Ft. Smallwood Park. He said that 4-5 Hams attended. They hung antennas in the trees; the G5RV worked well on 20 m and 17 m.

No one reported working the operator visiting Easter Island.

Jim reminded the members that we need a replacement for Nick to plan programs. Nick says that he is burned out. See Jim if you are interested.

The Club will elect Officers for 2005 at the next meeting. A proxy form will be included in the next communication. Nominations and elections will take place at the December meeting.

Nick moved that the slate of officers for 2005 be:

President: Jim Nowotarski N3GOO

Executive Vice President: Norman Smith WA6ABD

Secretary: Chip Weems W4PBG

Treasurer: Fred Heath AI3Z

At the next meeting members will be able to vote for the nominated slate of officers, write-in other candidates or send in proxies. Since we have 50 members, a quorum of 17 members is needed to hold the election.

Gene reported that Les was nominated as Super Ham of the Month in World Radio. Les was congratulated by the members present.

Bruce gave Chip a copy of a 1966 edition of the Westinghouse publication Wavelengths. It contained the names of the officers of the Friendship Radio Club for that year.

Jim will try to get a letter from the Museum acknowledging the receipt of Fred's generous donations of equipment to the Club.

Chip offered copies of QST from the past 5 years to the members present. Heru suggested checking with the Museum library to see if they could use any of the copies.

A member asked if we could get a special dispensation to use a spark gap transmitter for a special event. After a discussion, the general feeling was that we would not be permitted to transmit using a spark gap transmitter.

Adjournment

A motion to adjourn was made and seconded. The motion was approved by voice vote.

Respectfully Submitted by

Jim Smith AB3CA

Secretary

The meeting was followed by two activities:

An informative presentation by Tim Titus entitled 'Choosing an Antenna-A Journey into the Land of Compromise' addressing the build or buy decision for a 6m/2m horizontally polarized antenna for the Club Station.

An entertaining quiz created by Nick entitled 'So You Want to be a MagaHam?' that drew wide participation by the Members present.