Minutes of the East River Amateur Radio Club meeting. 
August 4, 2008 Ryan’s Steakhouse Bluefield, VA.
 http://www.erarc.com 
The August meeting of the ERARC was opened at 704pm. Gary Kadar N8GK volunteered to run the meeting. There were 18 members and guests in attendance. 
  Gary asked Don Anderson WD8OOR for a repeater report.  He said that all were working well except for the 145.49’s controller. It has been ‘crazy’ for the past several days and Don has reloaded the date and time several times to try to correct these and other problems. He even called the manufacturer and received some new codes to enter to try to fix the problem. The controller has several memory locations and each one can be muted to touch tones and he found one that had mysteriously been muted, then fixed it. 

 Hooger Fisher read the minutes from the July meeting. He also gave a Treasurer’s report. He has had no bills to pay as of tonight and received 10 membership renewals tonight (includes ham/family memberships on some) and a $5.00 donation from Trancy Belcher KA8CFR for equipment storage boxes and an anonymous $3.00 cash donation. Bank balance reported.

 

 ERARC MEMBERSHIP DUES ARE NOW BEING ACCEPTED FOR THE UPCOMING 2008-2009 YEAR. Please send $15.00 for each membership, $1.00 for each family member (at the same mailing address) to: P.O. Box 1362, Bluefield, WV 24701. We do appreciate your support for the repeaters, insurances, associated equipment and for providing emergency communications for the surrounding areas. Thank you! 

 

Gary Kadar N8GK, ERARC VEC, reported a bank balance for the VE Team. 

He said that there would be an ARRL VE test session this Saturday, August 12, at 9am at the Mercer County 911 Center. 

He has received the new Extra exams and is ready to go. Gary asked for help with this test session. 

  Gary: Old business. Hooger asked if anyone had looked for the large plastic bins for storage for the Club’s antennas, feed lines, etc. Gary said that the Dollar General Market had some and Ed Viers KD4WOO said that he got some nice ones at Wal Mart. Hooger will look into purchasing 4 of them for the Club. 

ARES net controls for August: We forgot to ask for volunteers to run the net. PLEASE don’t hesitate to run the net if possible. We have had around 8 or so people to run the net this year on Tuesday nights at 8pm. THANKS! 

 Gary mentioned the September ARRL VHF contest on September 13-15, 2008 http://www.arrl.org/contests/rules/2008/sepvhf.html  . Discussion ensued including just focusing on 2M and 6M SSB voice. We have a really nice 6M 3-el beam that Jerry Connelly KC8TES made and donated to the Club as well as an 11- or 13-el beam that the Club has. Gary asked Jay Belt K8CTI if he would contact Mike Shott and see if we could use the mountain property across from the overlook on top of East River Mountain. He said he would. 

 

 We decided to not have the 50/50 drawing for the Flower Fund due to low attendance. 

 The meeting was over at 732pm. 
 Submitted by Hooger Fisher W4OF, ERARC Secretary.

TO DO LIST:

1. Equipment inventory with serial numbers for insurance reasons
2. Cathy Underwood KG4CTK would like us to look into possible funding via the Office of Homeland Security.
3. The Communications Bus/ RV that the Club began to work on.