Minutes of the November 2013 meeting of the Fort Smith Area Amateur Radio Club
Meeting minutes for Monday Nov. 18, 2013 for The Ft. Smith Area Amateur Radio club.
The meeting was called to order at 7pm by David Overton (Vice President) who turned the floor over to Rory Bowers (Treasurer) who gave the clubs financial report for the month of November which can be seen in its entirety on the clubs website. There was a motion on the floor to accept the financial report and the motion was voted on and carried.
David took over the discussion about the October meeting minutes and asked if there were any questions or corrections that needed to be made and with no corrections from the floor there was a motion to accept the October minutes and with a vote the motion was carried.
Repeater Committee
David then asked the Repeater committee chairman Wayne Johnson if they had anything to report. Wayne Johnson mentioned that the 146.640 machine still had an issue with the controller playing multiple announcements on Monday and would be resolved soon. He also mentioned that the repeater building was playing host to several wasps and warned everyone to be careful if they were going up on the hill (Cavanaugh Hill/ repeater location) to work. David also told the group a story about using cattle ear tags in enclosed locations to help in the prevention of these stinging bugs from making these types of areas becoming homes to them and that the tags did work well.
Rory Bowers then made mention that he has been online investigating the ongoing issue with that particular controller and has found out there also many other repeater owners with this controller is having the same type of issue which is mostly involving the audio and push to talk problem. He also mentioned that he’s going to send a copy of the repeaters configuration file to the manufacturer and have them do an assessment of the file. He also said that the controller has the current firmware update (6.0.1) and suspected there are some bugs (programming errors) in the firmware update.
Van Committee
The floor was then turned over to Royce Rainwater who is planning on taking the club van to Muskogee on December 7th to the USS Batfish and the USS Oklahoma museum to help with that weekends Pearl Harbor memorial operation. He also made mention that the Muskogee club has invited the FSAARC to come out and participate in that weekends event and are in hopes we as clubs/Hams can work together in other activities.
David also made mention that the club reimbursed Wayne for the purchase of NEW windshield Wiper Blades.
Activities
Mike made mention that the January Banquet was fast approaching and asked the floor if they wanted to look for another venue for the banquet or if they were satisfied with Big Jakes Steak House and with a show of hands it was decided to go back to Big Jakes for our Banquet. Note: The date and time will be sent out as soon as reservations are made.
Old Business
Art Sellers asked David and the Van Committee what the club had decided to do with the van and David explained that the club is going to keep the van and use it for more Public Relations oriented activities as well as have it ready in the case it needs to be used in an emergency capacity as a communication vehicle.
Charles Floyd then took the floor and discussed his displeasure about the Field Day event at Bell Park in Greenwood due to the unsanitary restroom conditions that were made available for that weekend’s events and wanted to make a suggestion about looking for another place to work FD for 2014. After a somewhat lengthy discussion on the floor with other negative conflicts that happened that weekend it was noted that Joel Goldstien made mention that he is planning to attend the weekly park committee meeting and would investigate the situation and let us know what he’s found out via an email to the Freelist.
New Business
Mark Clayton brought to the members attention that the Hamfest date was fast approaching and made a suggestion that we needed to get started on making arrangements to start working on this event and someone mentioned that a committee was appointed to work on the Hamfest with Jimmie Lowrey again being Hamfest Committee Chairman. There were also a few members that spoke up to volunteer to help in working on the hamfest. A lengthy discussion followed with a decision to start advertising in some amateur radio magazines as well as other ways to promote this annual event.
Corey Freeman brought to our attention that the club officers that were nominated at the October meeting be voted on and accepted by the attending members and put in this month’s November meeting minutes so the minutes can be presented to the Bank so the NEW Officers are to be Authorized to write and or sign the checks on behalf of the Fort Smith Area Amateur Radio Club for the 2014 Calendar Year.
They are in order
Jimmie Lowrey-W5JNL / President
Thomas (Mike) Cole-W5TMC / Vice President
Chuck Johnson-N5JUD / Treasurer
Jeff Rickets-K5KDX / Secretary
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The floor was then opened for any business and Mike Bell made the motion to adjourn the meeting and with an overwhelming vote it was passed and we adjourned.
Program
The program that immediately followed the meeting was facilitated by Rory Bowers and it involved Amateur Radio Antennas from the Dipole to the Step-IR.
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Mike Cole, W5TMC