It’s official: we will be participating in the 2017 edition of the Texas State Parks on the Air event!
Saturday only; but we’ll be at Kickapoo Cavern State Park, just a wee bit North of Brackettville.
Consider this your official invitation 🙂
Attending: Richard N5YPJ, James WW5XX, Jim AB5JK, Dave WA6YJW, Gary K5QOW and Erik K5WW. Gary mentioned his XYL didn’t come with him; because she felt like KU5Z wasn’t going to be there. We’ll try to do something about that.
The meeting was called to order at 7:28 local time because the Secretary was late as his atomic wrist watch was hacked.
The Treasurer reports $1,035 in our sock. That is before today’s dues and donations. More in April.
Dave WA6YJW donated a new, almost 100 percent pre-programmed Raspberry Pi (3?) to the club, to be used for the AllStar/Echolink network. He also showed a magnificent enclosure he made for it on his 3D printer. Amazing work!
Jim AB5JK noted that most, if not all of the zip ties on the beam’s coax/rotator loop have deteriorated after almost 3 years of service. Those will need to be replaced soon, with something more durable; and he needs a helper. This will need to be talked about again in April; as that conversation was not finished.
The club’s TS-2000, donated by Jason KS5TX, has been repaired by Clif at AVVid. Total cost, including return shipping, was a little over $120. Most reasonable! K5WW sent a check to AVVid the day before the meeting; so we should receive the radio back soon.
That brings the final net profit from the WW5XX equipment donation sales to almost $130. K5WW presented a spreadsheet that tracked the sales from the radios, and the expenses to ship the TS-2000 to AVVid and AVVid’s invoice, plus some other miscellaneous expenses.
K5WW reported that the club station is dealing with a new, stronger source of interference, which made participation in the CQ WPX SSB contest this past weekend impossible. Every single band is infested with QRM reaching S9 to S10 noise. 30 minutes of foot work revealed that the QRM originates from one of the buildings across the street. More work is needed to pinpoint the exact building, and then some diplomacy to talk to the owner/operator of the equipment. They may have a defect they’re not aware of, causing this problem.
K5WW made an RTTY QSO with KS5TX on Saturday. He had an amazing signal, especially given his indoor antenna, until someone turned off 40 meters. A KN5S QSL card has been mailed 😉
The meeting was adjourned at 8:30, UMH time.
The March meeting will be held on the 28th, 7 PM at the UMH’s Education Conference Room.
Come early, or you may have to bring your own chair! 🙂
The meeting was called to order at 7:04 PM local time, February 28, 2017.
Attending: Mary KU5Z, Jim AB5JK, Dave WA6YJW and Erik K5WW.
The January meeting minutes were published on the website, read and approved by all.
There were no changes from last month to the treasurer’s report.
The club’s Kenwood TS-2000 was shipped to AVVid. It was received there on February 11. K5WW called Clif (the business owner/Kenwood guru) right before the meeting to get an update. Clif said he’d only need a handful of days to fix radios that were received before ours; so it sounds like we could have the TS-2000 back before the next meeting.
Our repeater has finally been equipped with a microphone; so now we can use the repeater itself (if needed) to reply to other operators using the repeater.
The WiFi in the shack has been acting up since (at least) this past Saturday. K5WW contacted the hospital’s IT department to see if they could help us out. Jose at the IT department said he’s come check it out and take care of it.
We got a really nice surprise in the mail just hours before the meeting: the British Amateur Radio Teledata Group sent us a wonderful contest trophy for placing first in the Multi-Multi category (KF5EJX, N5YPJ & K5WW) of the 2015 edition of the BARTG HF RTTY Contest. The results for that contest were published back in March of 2016, and our certificate was added to our trophy wall back then as well; but the nice people of the BARTG also sent us this fantastic trophy:
(Dare to use this as a coaster and you will be hanged, drawn and quartered!)
It will be hard to mount; but it will be mounted 🙂 Thank you, BARTG!
Also received this week (and picked up from our old mailing address, where it has been sitting for over 2 months – thanks for hanging onto it, Yolanda!) was… a sticker. Yup, a sticker!! But it’s an important one. This one is to affix to a previously received certificate for our winning effort in the 2016 ARRL RTTY Roundup (KS5TX & K5WW):
Stick, stack, stuck.
We like stickers too 🙂 Thank you, ARRL!
The meeting was adjourned at 7:52 PM.
Our shack was visited by renowned operator “Zorro” this weekend to play a bit in the February 2017 edition of the North American RTTY QSO Party.
Zorro – as far as I remember – never attended one of our meetings and doesn’t visit the shack often (he’s kinda shy…); so for those of you who’ve never met him here’s a photo that was taken today:
Guest operator Zorro
He did quite well, given the limited number of hours. He also reported that all hardware is working just great!
Below is the score summary:
The score
Thank you; come back any time!
😉
The second meeting of the year will be on the last day of February.
Please make reservations early! 😉
Attending: Jimi AB5JK, Roger K0YY, Gary K5QOW & Dave WA6YJW.
Meeting was called to order at 7:06 pm.
The minutes of last month’s meeting was read and approved unanimously.
The treasurer’s report was also read and approved unanimously. We’re currently still holding at $1015. But that figure has changed since one of our members who has recently become an official Texan. Who also now has Texas issued radio operator plates to prove it, has renewed his membership and given a generous donation. We now know that Texas will not issue any radio operator plates that has a slash through the zero.
In an executive session it was decided to use the proceeds from the sale of WW5XX’s “old” equipment to get the TS-2000 that Jason KS5TX donated repaired. It will be sent in for repair to Avvid after January 1, 2017. Which was agreed upon unanimously.
There was also discussion about migrating the clubs AllStar EchoLink Gateway to a Raspberry Pi 3 as well as the server for the repeater to the same platform. There is a possibility that Dave WA6YJW, may possibly have one to donate to the club.
No other official business was conducted.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:42 pm Central Standard Time.
We’ll be meeting January 24, at the usual time in the usual place.
You have been invited 🙂
Attending: Erik K5WW.
For once, the meeting didn’t have to be called to order.
The meeting was held in the parking lot, due to an infant needing an air lift to another hospital, and the security guards being super busy with that.
In an executive session it was decided to use the proceeds from the sale of WW5XX’s “old” equipment to get the TS-2000 that Jason KS5TX donated repaired. It will be sent in for repair to Avvid after January 1, 2017.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:15 PM, parking lot time.
