July, 2007

Our meeting scheduled for Tuesday, July 3, has been cancelled due to the holiday on Wednesday. Please plan to attend the September meeting instead.

There is not a great deal of news for the Club this month. We did not meet in May due to the opportunity to meet with the Indiana National Guard CST (Community Support Team) at the Anderson Fire Station. We had a number of EMA Communications/Club members there, and we enjoyed the presentation of the capabilities of the team and we got to view their equipment. We got some good ideas that might improve our overall capability within the County.

The repeaters are working well. We have not had issues that usually come up in the spring bad weather situations. It may be due to the fact that our Technical Committee went up to the .82 repeater and did a good preventative maintenance a few months ago. The other variable is the extremely low level of severe weather events we’ve had this year. In any case all has been working well, we have the high/low antenna relay operational again and we’re prepared for whatever comes up.

The .09 repeater continues to operate well. Matt reported that a software glitch affected the weather station software and also affected the time announcements but he got that fixed. Tim continues to ask that users remember to ID when calling up the IRLP and the automated weather reports. There are users, not necessarily members, who are not id’ing, just hitting the control tones.

The membership of the Club is now 32 for 2007. Tim, KB9VE, our Secretary has gotten in 3 more checks. Thanks to all of you who continue to support our repeater. If you haven’t contributed for 2007 we’d appreciate the support.

Matt also fixed a glitch in the Club Web Site and it’s now fine again. We do need input and other suggestions to improve upon the site so contact Matt, KG9NS, or Tim, KB9VE, if you have ideas.

Tim has moved the sensors for the weather station at the EOC. Since the initial installation the rain gage and associated sensors were located on the side of the windmill tower. There was concern that the tower itself and the beams above it might be affecting the measurements, so Tim put a post out in the open yard away from everything and got the sensor set moved. We hope that the accuracy of the measurements will be improved. Thanks to Tim for that work.

Although not a Club function several of our members participated in field Day from a property on the west side of the County. Tim, WB9GUY Tom, KA9SYP, and Jan, WD9I, from Lafayette planned and did most of the work. We set up 4 stations to operate on the low bands plus 6 SSB and 2 SSB and had a great time making around 100 contacts. There were a total of 22 operators/visitors even though it rained most of the time. We had a great site and a large tent to keep us dry. If you didn’t make it out this year please plan to participate or visit next year. You’ll see temporary antennas strung from various structures, stations operating entirely from battery power sources, and clever operating positions. Tom took a number of pictures and will get them on the web site.

The Madison County Club also operated FD from the club stations at the EOC. Many of the visitors hit both sites and enjoyed the variety of conditions. I didn’t get a report on the success of the MCARC, but we did make contact with them early on FD. The importance of operating from an EOC is recognized with a special classification of operation for Field Day scoring that the club took advantage of. We appreciate the continuing support of the MCARC when it comes to low band amateur communications.

Remember that the Indy Hamfest is coming up on Saturday, July 7.

If you have a Technical Session presentation that you’d like to make at the September meeting we’d like to hear from you.

See you in September.

73,
Steve, WA9CWE
Secretary, ARC