Our program for the July meeting is "up in the air" (a little Ham Radio humor). I think Judy is working on something, but it may just turn into a time of ragchewing with each other.
Field Day was great this year. The rain held off and there was a good turn out for the family cookout. It was good seeing everyone out.
We still have a few activities planned for the remainder of the year. The North Carolina Home Furnishings Festival will be in August, and YesterYear in Motion will be in September. We need your participation, so plan now to attend these events. Bring someone with you to our club meeting. Hope to see you there!

Well, we dodged the bullet again this year. The rain all but missed us during our Field Day activities, and no one was seriously injured (Scott's son, Josh, did mash a finger, though). Combined with the wonderful food and good attendance at our family cookout, I call that a successful Field Day.
We only had two radios brought out by the start up time, so we operated this year as 2 Alpha. One radio used one of the club's tribanders, and the other was set up on a 40-meter dipole. The club's trailer was showing off its new paint job and reflectors. Josh was put to work logging in calls and received a little exposure when Fox 8 News came out to do a segment on us. The High Point Enterprise also did an excellent article on Field Day and our club. Some of you might want to send the High Point Enterprise a letter of thanks for such a wonderful article promoting Amateur Radio. For those who participated, you may want to order the Field Day pin. As reported in May, these pins are $5.00 each. Please see the club treasurer if you are interested. Field Day in the High Point Amateur Radio Club has always been about having fun and not about numbers. From my vantage point, I saw a lot of people having fun. If you came to Field Day and had a good time, then that is what I consider a really successful Field Day.

Myron Buser has been awarded an Outstanding Service Award plaque in appreciation of the time and energy he has spent on the HPARC Web site. The plaque reads in part "for establishing and designing the HPARC Web Page http://www.qsl.net/ kq4za."
We are grateful to Myron for taking this project upon himself and the excellent work he has done on our Web page.

The June meeting of the High Point Amateur Radio Club was called to order by President Scott, KE4ZFV. It was reported that Myron is improving some but still remains in poor health.
The minutes were read by Chris and approved by the club. Mark read the treasurer's report. The old business was the reminder that the club is waiting on the arrival of the repeater controller.
Under new business it was brought to our attention that there is a new display on the first floor of the High Point Public Library. Also, club members need to visit the Amateur Radio book section and check out some of these books. The library books are being audited for frequency of check-outs. If books are not checked out they may be sold at the book fair.
Sam presented a Tech Minute on Lightning and QRN (static). According to Sam, lightning bolts can generate a tremendous amount of electrical current, between 10,000 and 40,000 Amps. Sam explained how the noise or static due to lightning decreases as frequency increases.
John Covington, W4CC, was on hand to tell about his quest to become the next ARRL Section Manager. A new section manger would take on duties beginning April 1, 2000. John has been a Ham 27 yrs and a member of QCWA.
Judy presented the program for the June meeting. Judy encouraged us to find a niche in Ham Radio. One of those niches, she explained was managing a weather station. Judy passed out some information on costs and procedures to enter this part of Amateur radio. Please see Judy or Scott for more information.

There are now 76 cosponsors for The Amateur Radio Spectrum Protection Act, HR 783. The measure would require the FCC to provide "equivalent replacement spectrum" should the agency reallocate any Amateur Radio or Amateur Satellite service allocations to another service.
"Our regular visits to Congressional offices on Capitol Hill indicate that, while most members of Congress understand and appreciate the benefits of Amateur Radio, some are reluctant to sign onto such a technical piece of legislation without some indication of support from their own constituents," says ARRL Legislative and Public Affairs Manager, Steve Mansfield, N1MZA. HR 783 still must make it out of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee and its parent House Commerce Committee before it goes to the House floor. There's a lot of pending legislation already in the pipeline, however, so that could take some time. Hams wishing to help the effort to move HR 783 can do so by writing to their member of Congress. Visit ARRL Web, http://www.arrl.org/gov relations/hr783.html for a sample letter and addresses.

The fee to apply for an Amateur Radio vanity call sign will increase from $13 to $14 starting September 10, 1999. The FCC has released its FY 1999 fee schedule which rounded down the proposed $1.42 per year fee.
The FCC continues to receive in excess of 1000 vanity applications per month. During May, the FCC got 1165 vanity applications, all but 141 of them filed electronically.

The FCC has acted to keep a new piece of ham gear off the market. The agency says that its really a CB set in disguise. Our business reporter Don Wilbanks, KC5MFA, has more:
The FCC has asked the U.S. Customs Service not to allow the release of a transceiver for importation and sale in the United States. This because the FCC says that it is really a CB set in disguise. The letter to Customs is from the FCC's General Counsel Christopher Wright. It quotes a report from the Agency lab that their engineers have determined that this device and similar models are and we quote, "intended for use in the CB frequencies as well as in the Amateur Service. Because they have built-in capability to operate on CB frequencies and can easily be altered to active that capability such as by moving or removing a jumper plug or cutting a single wire."
The radio was to be marketed as an Amateur transceiver designed to operate only in the Amateur 10 meter band. The FCC did not announce who is importing the radio in question so its unknown if the company will try to challenge the government in federal court.

We are again in the season when lightning storms cause a lot of QRN as well as endangering communications gear that is not properly protected. A lightning discharge is a great big pulse and is most often in the range of ten thousand to forty thousand amps. Generally speaking, the current in a lightning pulse rises to its peak value in about a hundred micro seconds and lasts about ten milli seconds. (Note: An electro magnetic pulse caused by a nuclear detonation rises to its peak current in about ten nano seconds or about ten thousand times faster than lightning and lasts about one micro second or about ten thousand times shorter than a lightning pulse.)
The lightning pulse creates a whale of a lot of RF energy and therefore a lot of QRN. The RF caused by a lightning pulse begins to roll off between ten KHz and one hundred KHz and is down about twenty-five DB at 1800 KHz. It is down about forty DB at 10 MHz and seventy DB at 100 MHz. It can be seen from the above information that extremely high RF voltages are generated in the HF bands by lightning pulses and QRN can be troublesome thru the VHF bands and on into the UHF bands.

Here is the listing of what we currently have in the club library:

Videos:

• ARRL Library Vol. 5 - Educational - Everything you always wanted to know about antennas...but were afraid to ask, and Spark Gap
• ARRL Library Vol. 6 - DXpeditions - VP8SSI: The South Sandwich Saga, and Journey to Peter 1 Island
• Ham Class by Gordon West
• Skywarn Education Material - National Geographic Cyclones
• Dr Owen Garriott, Amateur Radio's Newest Frontier
• Northern Lights, Field Day Fever, All China Amateur Radio Direction Finding, Oscar and the Ham
• ATV, ATV in Great Britain, ATV in Australia, Signal to Noise Story
• At Any Moment...Amateur Radio & Disaster, Field Day '83, Wire Antennas, Bob Swanlund - Squaw Mountain, Sarex Shuttle
• "Hurricane" National Weather Service, Surviving the Cold, At Any Moment... Amateur Radio & Disaster Preparedness, AMSAT Slide Show, Packet Radio Primer

Software:

• STS Plus 9435a Satellite and Space Shuttle Orbit Tracking Simulation
• Nu Morse (Windows 95)
• Mac Morse Trainer 1.1 (Mac)

Books:

• DX-Aku: Messages from the Easter Island Expedition
• VK0IR: Heard Island

Cassettes:

• The Code Teacher - W5YI

MFJ Enterprises has acquired Hy-Gain, a well-known manufacturer of antennas, towers, and rotators. Hy-Gain was owned by Telex Communications of Lincoln, Nebraska. MFJ President Martin Jue, K5FLU, said he anticipated production at the new site could begin within a few weeks.
As it has done with other enterprises it's acquired, MFJ plans to keep the Hy-Gain name and operate the antenna manufacturer as a separate entity. Hy-Gain products will compete with MFJ's own line of antenna products, but Jue said the short-lived Ameritron antenna line would be discontinued in favor of the Hy-Gain line. Jue said Hy-Gain would immediately start selling the entire product line through the Amateur Radio dealer network. For the past year, Hy-Gain had sold its products factory-direct. MFJ said it expects there to be a "small transition period" as stock, parts, equipment, and production are moved to Starkville. As part of MFJ, Hy-Gain will continue its current product line and introduce several new ones--including two new verticals announced at Dayton.