Minutes of the East River Amateur Radio Club meeting. May 4, 2009 Ryan’s Steakhouse Bluefield, VA. http://www.erarc.com The May meeting of the ERARC was opened at 708pm by Hooger Fisher W4OF, ERARC Secretary. There were 18 members and guests in attendance. Don Andersons WD8OOR gave the Treasurer’s report. Don paid a phone bill and for renewals for Sam’s Club memberships AND HAS ONE LEFT if anyone is interested. “CRAM SESSION” FOR TECHNICIAN LICENSING JUNE 6, 2009, 9AM TO AROUND 2PM, AT BLUEFIELD STATE COLLEGE BASIC SCIENCE AUDITORIUM FOR PUBLIC EMERGENCY SERVICE PERSONNEL AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. (Please see minutes from last month for more detail at http://www.erarc.com ) Public service personnel will have their testing paid for by the State of West Virginia and the general public will be charged $15.00 to take the written test. Don Anderson had contacted BSC and then went by and signed paperwork for use of the facility for the class. The auditorium will hold over 100 and there is a PA system and other amenities that will come in handy. There is no charge to the State or Club for use of the room. The Department of WV Homeland Security is putting on the class and the ERARC ARRL VE Team is doing the actual testing. The contact person in Charleston is Joe Richards WV8WVU, the CEO of WV EMS Technical Support Network, Inc. 304-965-0573. jrichards@wvemstsn.net . Gary Kadar will contact the ARRL on Monday, May 18, the number of people who pre-register for the class so that he can procure the needed testing materials. We decided that Don Anderson and/or Gary must know by Friday, May 15, the number of people taking the class. Don is the ERARC contact person with Joe. Gary mentioned protocols and needs during the testing session. He had a show of hands confirming that at least 6 VEs would be there. Discussion. Don will contact Joe and ask several questions concerning: our agreement to announce the class and what that announcement will consist of, reimbursement by the State to the VE Team for testing and workable timetable for Gary to send the testing results to the ARRL, the question of emergency personnel from Virginia taking the class and having the test paid for by WV, AND to have Joe be the contact person who will take pre-registration via email (Subject line: ‘BLUEFIELD TEST SESSION’) and/or phone inquiries. None of those in the meeting thought that any ERARC member should be responsible in taking pre-registration for the State when the State is putting on the class. The ERARC is ONLY responsible for procuring a site for the class, announcing the class locally and testing the candidates from the class. David Sexton AB8D asked about the outcome of the Bland County, VA personal property tax on ERARC equipment. Don Anderson reported that we had received official notification that the Club is tax exempt and owes no taxes to them. Doug Ritchey WG8D mentioned that his friend Rich K4GPS is APRS equipped and while traveling from North Carolina, to Bluefield, WV and beyond, was being monitored via computer by Doug on his progress. Rich said that Bluefield, in particular, was not repeating as he was used to in most other locations. John Riddle N8RIG explained that the current Bluefield APRS digi has an “old” format and that he and Don Anderson have an EPROM chip, an EPROM burner and software to do the job but they can’t figure out which of the many many programs to use. Once updated, the APRS will work, repeating only once or twice to ‘local’ digis instead of repeating and repeating, tying up the network. The Bluefield APRS digi is at John’s home and is running 24/7. Gary Kadar N8GK, ERARC ARRL VEC, said that the next ARRL test session would be this Saturday, May 9, 2009, 9am, at the Mercer County 911 Center. He clarified that the equipment that Jerry Connelly KC8TES-SK had donated to the Club belongs to the Club and that Mercer ARES could use it with the understanding that it be returned to the Club. This information came from Jerry’s ‘significant other’, Bonnie Angove, during a conversation with Gary recently. Harold Hodges N8NCP reported that he and Gary Kadar had used Gary’s ‘spud gun’ at Harold’s home to string antenna wire over tree limbs and that the gun worked absolutely great. He said that 50 pounds of pressure sent the ‘spud’ into the next county and 28 to 30 pounds was just right. FIELD DAY: Hooger read the new requirements from the Boy Scout Council in Charleston, WV for use of Camp Roland for Field Day. They wanted payment and a $2,000,000 combined liability policy in place among other things. Hooger had called a Scoutmaster he knows and explained the situation, especially the fact that the ERARC provides JOTA http://www.arrl.org/scouts/jota/ for the local district every year. This gentleman made some phone calls and called Hooger back, reporting that we could use the Camp as we’ve done in the past without payment due…………for this year. We’ll see what happens next year. Keep your fingers crossed that we have no problem in the future. Discussion. Hooger said that we will have a GOTA (Get On The Air) station at Field Day for newcomers or old-timers who haven’t been on the air in a while. We’re listed with ARRL for Field Day Station Locater at: http://www.arrl.org/contests/announcements/fd/locator.php (search W8MOP) and the Field Day and GOTA description and rules can be found at: http://www.arrl.org/contests/rules/2009/fd.html Don Anderson said that he had received a bill for $321.76 from our liability insurance company for the upcoming insurance year. Discussion. We agreed that we do need to have the coverage. The bill will be paid but Don will contact the company and see as to how they come up with their figures and adjust if possible. There was no 50/50 drawing for the flower fund. ARES net control positions were overlooked for April but Ronnie Childress KD8HBO, Mercer County EC, said that he and others would fill the positions. Ronnie mentioned that he would like to have a “battery-only” ARES check-in net sometime soon. It felt like the meeting was over around 9pm but I think it was about 815pm. Submitted by Hooger Fisher W4OF, ERARC Secretary. TO DO LIST: 1. Equipment inventory with serial numbers for insurance reasons 2. Antenna for the Bluefield, Va. Rescue Squad 3. Cathy Underwood KG4CTK would like us to look into possible funding via the Office of Homeland Security. 4. The Communications Bus/ RV that the Club began to work on. 5. Communications class for the Mercer Co. Civil Air Patrol 6. Trailer for storing equipment. Also used for deployment.