Murray State University Amateur Radio Club

Minutes of the July 3, 2007 Meeting

The meeting was called to order by President, Randall Winchester, WD4HVA at 1905 hours. In attendance were:

Introduction of members followed with everyone stating their favorite type of Fireworks.

Minutes -  The minutes for June 2007 were unanimously approved as published after a motion by Al Grant and seconded by Bill Call. A comment was made that not everyone received the minutes (I was using an old list) that will be corrected this month.

Treasurer’s Report – Bill Call reported the current balance as $765.83

QSL Manager’s Report – Valerie Barrett reported receiving 2 QSL cards last month, both from the same person for Field Day, one for 2004 & one for 2005. Received one QSL card today and Matt had already sent them a QSL.

Facility Advisor Report – Facilities Management has requested an order list for the movement of the tower. At this time everything is a go to move the tower to the front of this building.

Systems Report – No changes since last meeting.

Net Report – Matt reported 43 check-ins, 97 minutes, Zero traffic and 4 sessions with 69.51 operator hours.

Web Report – No significant changes, routine updates.

Old Business –

Field Day Report – Carolina Windom antenna was pulled up to about 70 feet with the help of Dale and a slingshot. 20 meters was good, 40 meters was noisy quite a bit of the time. We operated 3A, although all 3 rigs were not in use all the time. A good time was had by all that participated.

Litz Decoder – The software is under development. Possible use for a race (I missed the name of the race) with simultaneous starts (at different locations) for the 2K, 5K and 10K races, these races will all finish at the same point.

NVIS Project – Bill Call and John Hart participated in an exercise and had problems with communications from Mayfield to Murray on 80 meters, but 2 meters worked fine. Field-testing should be done comparing NVIS antenna to a dipole.

New Business –

Bill reported that John proposes changing the packet bulletin board system to a WinLink System. Packet radio’s old infrastructure is obsolete. The WinLink System lets you email messages (they go to a clearing house and from there get uploaded to the Internet). This is a more modern usage of the bulletin board system. The cost for changing systems would be Zero dollars. Bill Slayman made a motion to make the switch to the WinLink System and Dale Barrett seconded. Matt Freeman asked what would happen to the station on the LBL if we change and Bill replied that it would become a digi-peater, but that it would not be a node. It would only work for WinLink email addresses. Motion passed unanimously.

Program – Dale Barrett presented his program on the Dayton Hamvention. It was approximately a 10-minute video DVD with music, of the events and people at the Hamvention. The video was enjoyed by all.

Dale also demonstrated the SUSE Linux system with Open Office, PDF Reader and stated that Linux can not put movie decoders in their software packages but they are available.

There being no further business. Dale Barrett made a motion to adjourn, seconded by Bill Call, motion passed unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 2015 hours.

Respectfully submitted,

Debbie Barton, W8IBT, Secretary