Branch County Amateur Radio Club, Inc.
Meeting Minutes
February 17th, 2004

The February 2004 meeting of the Branch County Amateur Radio Club was held in the Training Room of the Branch County 911 Center with 27 members and guests in attendance.

Club President, Larry Camp, WB8R called the meeting to order at 7:00 P.M. sharp.

The meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by introductions of all present.

FINANCES:

Bill Kubiac, KB8VWI, gave the Financial Report. The starting balance at the beginning of the January meeting was $215.08 with debits of $4.22 and additions of $138.00 for a new balance of $348.86. The report was accepted as read.

Emergency Coordinator’s Report:

Jim Voss, W8SST, Emergency Coordinator, gave the EC/ARES/RACES report.

Jim reminded us that spring is just around the corner and with that to be thinking about the upcoming storm season, which comes along with it.

ARES/Races application forms are available. See Jim if you are interested.
A Damage Assessment course is a requirement to be certified and Jim is expecting to receive word shortly on the date of training.

There will be Skywarn training March 6th in Angola. Jim has forms which need to filled out and sent to the State of Indiana for this no cost training.

Jim would like to get everyone standardized concerning their radio power connectors so that all/most radios and power sources will be interchangeable. It appears that we are going to go with Anderson Power Pole 30 amp connectors. These connectors are now the standard in about 38 states.
It was decided that the Club would purchase 100 sets, which will be made available to the Club at a low price in the hopes of mass conversion.

REPEATER Report:

Arnie Hayward, NS8T, presented the repeater report. Arnie reports that the repeater is still working very well. Since it was put on line last October, Arnie has not had to make a single visit to kick the tires.

Arnie reports that the Tuesday night Net has been going strong. Since the first of the year we have had 82 check-ins with 3 hours and 52 minutes of air time.

MINUTES:

A copy of the January meeting minutes was made available to those present and a subsequent motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes as published. The motion was carried. The minutes are also available on the Club’s website at www.qsl.net/wd8kaf.

OTHER:


OLD BUSINESS:

Our Club’s VE Examiners will be holding a testing session on March 6th. This session is mainly for the students currently taking classes but is open to all walk-ins and all license classes.

Steve Williams, N8CTI has volunteered to head up this year’s raffle. The prize will be $500 cash so as to allow hams and non-hams to participate. Tickets are available from Steve in packets of 10 and club members are asked and expected to sell at least 10 tickets each. The drawing will be held at the regular Club meeting on May 18th at 8 pm.


NEW BUSINESS:


An advisory committee has been formed consisting of Mike Murray, Randy Kruger and all Club officials to study the matter of the Club dues. The issue concerns whether to raise the dues and how much to raise them if that is the decision.

The Club will have a table at the Marshall Hamfest where tickets will also be available. We will be looking for volunteers to man the raffle table.

Program surveys were passed out so that attendees could rate the previous year’s meeting programs. This will help in scheduling future programs, which hold the most interest to the Club Members at large.

Matt, N8JWC informed the attendees that a popular weather program on the Internet called WEATHERBUG is actually a spyware program and suggested WEATHERWATCHER as an alternative.

We’ve been informed that the ARRL has added the new character to the CW alphabet. The @ sign, most commonly used in email addresses has been added to the list of Morse characters. It will forever be known as AC sent as one character (Di Dah Dah Di Dah Dit).

NEW EQUIPMENT:

Bill Slade, WD8MGF has acquired a vintage Kenwood 820 transceiver and has successfully tuned it up, resulting in output that meets the manufacturer’s specifications. The next task is to get his tower up and his HF antennas in place.

DX:

Tom Twite has been working some South American stations.

UPGRADES – NEW CALLS – NEW HAMS:

Jeff Roberts, KC8YYH from Litchfield is sporting his new call. Congratulations to Jeff.

A call was made to end the meeting. The motion was made, seconded, passed and this meeting was put in the history books.


OTHER:

Following the meeting, the 50/50 drawing was held. The pot contained $26 and was won by Steve Williams. Steve donated $5 of his winnings to the Club, making our take $18.00
Thanks Steve.

Also raffled off were two tickets to the Marshall Hamfest and two repeater directories, which were generously donated by Carl, K9LA from Ft. Wayne.

Our guest speaker was Dale Williams, WA8EFK. Dale is our ARRL Section Manager and hails from Dundee, MI.


Respectfully submitted,
Bill Kubiac, KB8VWI