Murray State University Amateur Radio Club

Meeting Minutes, December 1, 2009  

The meeting was called to order at 19:10 by President, Randall Winchester.  

In attendance:

Question of the day was: “What is your ham wish list for 2010?”

Minutes – Bill Call motioned to accept the minutes as emailed, Powell Henderson seconded. Motion passed.

Treasurer’s Report – Bill Call reported expenditures of $21.00 (VE fees), and a new balance of $1226.45.

Systems Report – Bill Call reported that the 94 machine noise got worse and he pulled the antenna off the coax and found water in the coax. He cleaned and dried the antenna and switched to the back-up coax. Bill will go back sometime after a significant amount of rainfall to see if the water intrusion has stopped before replacing the coax.

Also, the Digipeater at the university, failed again, another transistor had failed. The Digipeater at the LBL also failed although a power reset fixed that problem. The conversion unit has a problem of hanging up and Bill is checking into a way to remotely do a power reset. The tower crew working on the LBL tower damaged the antenna and a magnet mount antenna has been installed temporarily. A replacement antenna has been purchased by the tower crew and Bill & John will climb the tower to install it as time allows.

Staff Advisor Report – None

VE Report – A VE session was held after last months’ meeting and Mary Erickson passed her upgrade to General exam with a 100%. Mike Metcalf also passed his upgrade to General exam. Pat Stevens-Metcalf passed her Technician Class license exam and her call is KJ4QEC. No other VE sessions are scheduled at this time.

QSL Managers Report – None  

Net Report – No report from Matt Freeman.  

Old Business –

1)      Christmas Party – The party will be December 11^th, at  “The Willow Pond,” in Aurora. This is a family event with a Chinese Auction. If you are participating in the Chinese Auction the dollar limit on a newly purchased gift is $10.00 or if you prefer you can bring in up to 30 pounds of used equipment as a gift. Please remember gifts can be Ham Radio oriented or Non-Ham Radio oriented (just mark accordingly).  If anyone is planning to attend and hasn’t notified Debbie please do so by Friday, December 4^th.

2)      Field Day – Bill Call reported that QST did not have our numbers posted. Randall stated that was because they were never reported due to his flash drive being fried and no back-up file existed.

Ham Bits – December Contests.

ARRL 160 Meter Contest, December 4-6, 2009 (42 hour period, no time restrictions) CW only! Characterists of the 160 Meter Band are noise which diminishes dramatically during the middle of the night and requires a very long antenna.

ARRL 10 Meter Contest, December 11-13, 2009 (restricted to operating only 36 hours, out of the 48 contest hours). Open to all license classes in phone and CW modes only.

Powell Henderson was the only club member to operate the Kentucky QSO Party Contest.

New Business – Christmas Parade, December 5^th. Bill Call asked for volunteers he needs an additional 6 people for communications operations at the parade. Rich Beam (if needed), Terry Ward, Bill Husfield, Mary Husfield, Mike Metcalf and Pat Stevens-Metcalf volunteered. The parade starts at 10:00 am, communications operators need to be in position by 9:00 am. The volunteers will meet at Pagliai’s for breakfast, provided by the Rotary Club, at 8:00 am.

Program – Randall Winchester presented a video from The History Channel entitled “The Internet Behind the Web.” It was about who built the internet and where is it going from 1999. The internet is an incredible communications tool that began in 1969. It was actually started by ARPA and was originally designed to allow computers within an organization to communicate with one another. ARPA was granted one million dollars to design and build this concept. AT&T and IBM were not interested as they felt it was a concept that would be impossible to build. As it evolved more scientists added their ideas, and in 1989 Raymond Tomlinson invented email because he felt if you could send packets of information, why not messages, and so he wrote a program to do just that.

Bill Call stated that Ham Radio was using packet radio to send messages in the early 1980’s. He and his brother used it as it was faster than postal mail and less expensive than the telephone, when communicating to Europe.

Randall Winchester adjourned the meeting at 20:40.

Respectfully submitted,

Debbie Barton, W8IBT

Secretary