October 2004 Meeting Minutes

The meeting was called to order by Pres Jerry at 7:00 pm. The meeting was
held at the Red Cross office in Watseka.

Old Business

Janet (xyl of Tim) took a series of group photos to place on the web site.
Thanks Janet.

Sam read the minutes of the Sept 1 meeting and Ted would like to amend the
minutes to include the fact that Marion Sheilds K9BEM was instrumental in
the formation of the ICARC in the early 1960’s. This was done.

Dues were collected from 5 members and pleased to announce that $125 was
collected for the payments to Tim and Sam for the 500 feet of coax
purchased for 2 meter repeater. The total cost of the coax was $1,317.50.
Sam paid by personal check. $500 was paid to Sam out of club treasury and
Tim gave Sam a check for $500. I would like for Tim to be repaid for some
of his generous contribution. Sam bought 2 connectors for 7/8 hardline at
hamfest—gave one to Jerry as a replacement for connectors that he used from
his stock and one Jerry placed on the GMRS repeater antenna at Iroquois
Paving Corp. We will probably owe Jerry for some more connectors.
Jerry’s crew installed the 2 meter antennas and Red Cross antenna at no cost
to club. This would have cost more that $1,000 if not for Jerry donation.

Justin reported on an offer by the National Weather Service to have a
severe weather spotting school in Iroquois county. He is to tell us later
about date, place and time. Fire dept, police dept, and radio station
personnel will be included also.

Justin is to place the website on our own domain. He will maintain the
site at no charge. Thank you Justin.

Tim reported on the Red Cross communications and we are making good
progress on it. The ham 440 and 2 meter antenna is up and running–the
47.42 antenna is almost ready. (it is rusted to pipe and was lubed with
penetrating oil). The 47.42 simplex repeater is in the back of Sam’s truck
ready to be installed at Jerry’s tower site. The Kraco antenna is placed at
about 250 feet on the west side of the tower. This should give us coverage
to Ashkum, Gilman, and up and down of I 57. We have great hope that this
system will cover all of Iroquois county.

Carl, Jerry and Sam have the site for the GMRS repeater going and we are
testing the range to see if it will be worth drilling hole in building to
install the hardline that Steve donated. More tests are in the works.

There was a lot of discussion of the new 2-meter repeater site—almost all
good news. We seem to cover a area of north of Urbana to route 17 in KKK,
east toward Remington and west to Fairbury. We have some trouble with HT’s
in Watseka. Was discussion of a voter and remote site for receive in
Watseka with link on 440. Would be a long process with 2 more UHF radios
and the two antennas and also the voter.

Steve will demo the IRLP link and Sam will try to demo Echolink for the
next meeting. Next meeting might be held at Jerry’s qth but we will have to
wait to see how that works out.

Tim and Justin asked about work on new members, Justin offered to host hams
on WGFA—has a few public service announcements almost ready to go. Problems
with new non-hams would be that we would have to have programs that would
teach and be interesting to new people. This is a lot of work and someone
will have to step up and take a leadership role and provide that service.
There was discussion about buying some copies of the ARRL book called “Talk
to the World.” We found out they are $20 each. Sam and Justin have some to
loan to new ham want-to-bes. Also there are tons of info about ham testing
on the web. Practice tests and exams.

Tim discussed the idea of replacing the messages of the tale timers on the
repeater. Justin may be able to get some great voice overs for us. (free is
the key).

We had a guest for the meeting–a new ham from Hoopeston
KB9YZI Jeremy (and little harmonic Iszack). Jeremy is very much into public
service communications in Hoopeston. Discussed APRS, UI view, UINWS on
144.390. We need to know more about new digital modes.

Sam brought in the refreshment of cookies and pop and a few stayed until
almost 10:00pm.

People present

Jerry WB9Z
Steve K9TA
Sam W9QKF
Ted WA9GGU
Carl K9CS
Tim KC9FON
Justin KC9GNH

Sam Ripple
W9QKF KAE760

October Ham News

Dear Radio Club Members

Don’t forget the net at 8:00pm–KC9FAV Brian is going to host the net–if you can–be there.

The meeting on Wed will not be at the Red Cross but will be at Jerrys WB9Z farm three miles south of Crescent City. Jerry is going to have the the treats that we all know and love. This is an example of very high end contest station–probably one of the best in the USA.

I am going to try and bring a special guest–a guy that has been in the “exciting world of two-way radio” all of his life.

Steve is going to try and demo ILRP for those that have never hear of it. (I have heard of it but never used it.) We might be able to talk to North Carolina on a HT.

Red Cross has three projects that that have great start but need to get done before winter.

GMRS repeater works OK but needs to have hard line from base of tower to repeater installed. We have hard line and connectors from Steve K9TA.

Red Cross 47.42 antenna at Red Cross hq needs to have coax connected to antenna. Tim has run two runs of coax but we couldn’t get the coax connected to the antenna. Sounds like a easy thing to do but getting it installed is not. Antenna is frozen to pipe and hard to get off tripod.

Carl, Jerry and Sam installed 47.42 base station on 250 foot tower–thought we had done a great job but results were disappointing. The simplex repeater will open squelch on its own. Turned squelch full but still no work. Needless to say I was disappointed as I have been working on this project for over a year!! Anyone got an idea on what to do next?

The 2 meter station at Red Cross is up and running fine (Thanks to Tim KC9FON for doing all the heavy duty crawling in the attic.)

We have the beginning of a possible solution to HT coverage in Watseka. Remote rx site in Watseka. That would be a big job. Couple of possible ideas.

Will be listening for you on the net 8:00 Mon night and see you on Wed night at 7:00pm

Sam Ripple
W9QKF KAE7607