March Meeting

New Section Manager

The Jonesboro Amateur Radio Club met at 7:30 PM, March 4, 2003 at the Craighead Court House Annex. Meeting was called to order by president Steve, KD5JGF, by leading the pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag. We had three officers and six members for a total of nine present. The Mark IV repeater finally returned March 4, 2003. Bruce and Ralph wanted to check out the repeater to see if it worked. It is Castleberry’s basement now. The antenna at the channel 19 tower was badly damaged December 4, 2002 and we are waiting on Scott to climb the tower to repair the antennas. It was discussed what to do in case of a terrorist attack. Jack said like you would prepare for an earthquake, bottled water, extra food, flash- lights and good batteries, all this close at hand and any medication you are taking. The club is planning a fish fry in May. Everyone be making plans to attend and what to bring. We will have games and etc. More later on the place and time.

Our April meeting will be April 1, the first Tuesday in April, (no fooling) at 7:30 PM at the Courthouse Annex basement. We will get the latest on the repeater work and we need to plan our May fish fry.

The FCC has a new e-mail service called the FCC Consumer B-Bulletin. Those signing up can expect to receive FCC fact sheets, consumer brochures and alerts, news releases, public notices, notices of proposed rulemaking, reports and orders, and other consumer related info. To subscribe, send an e-mail to [email protected]. On either the subject line or in the message body, type “subscribe fcc-consumer-info<first name> <last name>”. If you encounter difficulties subscribing, send an e-mail to [email protected]. (Info from ARRL)

Arkansas has a new ARRL Section Manager... Dennis Schaefer, W5RZ, Dover, Arkansas. He succeeds Bob Ideker, WB5VUH. W5RZ’s term begins April P. Arkansas ARRL members may contact Dennis via e-mail at [email protected].

Field Day will have another class of station this year. . .it’s Class F. Class F stations will operate at emergency operations center. ARRL says the new class of station renews the emphasis of Field Day’s origins as an emergency preparedness exercise as opposed to a routine contest. A class F station must be set up at an established EOC and must be operated in cooperation with BOG staff.

The ARRL is now providing license renewals, address changes, and other license modification services to “non-member hams”. For a $12.00 Fee, the ARRL will renew a nonmember’s ticket, file an application to change address or request issuance of new sequential call sign. The ARRL has been providing that service for members for a number of years free of charge...now it’s providing the service for non-members for a $12.00 fee. Check out the ARRL website... .www.arrl.org.