(Pause for Checkins)

This is (name)(call-sign) thanking everyone for checking in to the 440 portion of the net we had (number of checkins) including myself. I am returning the repeater back to normal operations. 73’s

President Troy opened tonight’s meeting at GRS in Watseka. The August minutes were read and approved. The treasure’s report was read and approved.
Committee Reports

Incorporation and Non-Profit Committee—We have completed all of the steps to file our annual report with the Sec of States office for the second year. We are waiting for more information from the Kankakee club about the 501-C-3 steps
and the info about the Attorney Generals report on fund raising.

Technical Committee—Benny reported that both repeaters seem to be working and conditions seem to be very good with the stalled high pressure over the Midwest.

Program Committee—none.

Publicity Committee—Chris W9CJM reported that the web site now includes a calendar to place important dates and events.
ARES Liaison—None

Red Cross Liaison—
Tim reported that the Pancake breakfast would be on Sept 12. Looking for people to help with breakfast. The ERV training will be on Sunday Sept 13 at the hospital.

ESDA Liaison—None.

VE Liaison—Troy reported that we might need a VEC testing session before Christmas.

OLD Business

Carl is investigating insurance rates for our liability policy and also for the Kankakee club.
Carl K9CS has the paper work done to be the new trustee of W9RWX.

NEW Business

Skywarn Chief Mike reviewed the Skywarn season. So far we have had 5 activations and had one sighting of rotation which did result in a small F1 tornado with some damage to crops and building. Mike reminded us that safety of our members is very important. Our value to the weather service is to report what we see on the ground. They see what’s on the radar. We are planning to try the 444.625 repeater for the next Skywarn session to see if H-Ts are able to get in with out using our base radios. Sam and Mike have a toll free number to call the 24-hour Illinois State Emcomm center in Springfield to report our starting and ending time of the net. This action will place our people under the States insurance plan and if someone gets hurt they might help with our medical bills. When we call they give us an incident number and when we are done we call them and cancel.

Scott has applied for a special event station for Halloween.

Troy and Carl are working on a worked all Illinois counties project for ICARC to sponsor. More details next month.

Net Control Pres Troy would like to have all of us to practice by taking a turn at net control. A possible script is on the web site.
9/14 Troy 9/21 Benny 9/28 Sam 10/5 Rollie. If someone forgets any other person is welcome to pick up the ball and run with it.

Snacks for tonight by Janet and Tim. October meeting is Paul Wilson

Members present Chris M, Carl, Keith, Troy, Rollie, Gery, Chris S, Janet, Justin, Mike, Benny, Tim and Sam. Special guest was Sophie and her high speed dare devil tricycle performance.

Sam W9QKF Sec.

Minutes of the August 13, 2009 Meeting

President Mike asked Carl K9CS to conduct tonight’s meeting at GRS in Watseka.  The July minutes were read and approved.  The treasure’s report was read and approved.

Committee Reports

Incorporation and Non-Profit Committee—Carl has picked up and gone over the application for 503 C status. Troy and Carl will be working on completion.

Technical Committee—None

Program Committee—none.

Publicity Committee—Chris W9CJM reported that the web site now includes a calendar to place important dates and events.  The web site is getting better all the time, if you haven’t looked at it lately go to www.icarc.com and we think you will be pleased.

ARES Liaison—None

Red Cross Liaison—

Carl reported the Red Cross has moved to a small room at IMH.  Tim reported that the Pancake breakfast would be in Sept.  Looking for people to help with breakfast.

ESDA Liaison—None.

VE Liaison—Carl reported that VE testing was done on July 19^th 2009 at the Kankakee hamfest.  A young lady had a perfect score on her Extra (said she had perfect scores on Tech and General also). A 9 year old passed his Tech.

OLD Business

Carl is investigating insurance rates for our liability policy and also for the Kankakee club.

We should be able to have our Sept and Oct meetings at Glenn Raymond School.  Backup could be firehouse and Community Center at Crescent City.

NEW Business

The Board has recommended that Troy W9KVR be elected to fill the remaining term of President Mike.  Mike resigned because travel schedule was preventing him from attending meeting.

Tim W9TRF was recommended to be appointed Vice-Pres to replace Roy who has moved from the area.

Phil N9LAH was recommended to fill an open board position and Carl K9CS was appointed to the board also.

The membership voted to approve these four appointments.

Carl K9CS was voted to take the club trusteeship for W9RWX.

There was some discussion of removing the club minutes from the web site as all members get the minutes from the secretary.

Net Control  8/17Jake  8/24 Sam 8/31 Sam  9/7 Tim

Scott and Tim won two pairs of hamfest tickets.  Scott took

the Crown Point fest and Tim won the Danville tickets.

Sam provided the cookies and pop for this meeting.  Janet and Tim

will have the treats for the Sept meeting.

Members present  Chris M, Carl, Keith, Troy, Rollie, Gery, Chris S, Scott, Jake, Janet, Tim and Sam

Sam W9QKF Sec.

I wanted to let you know that I am mailing an appreciation letter out to Maggie Martin at WGFA today.

Michael Marcier
President
Iroquois County Amateur Radio Club

July 14, 2009

Maggie Martin
Iroquois County Broadcasting Company

Dear Maggie,

It is with many heartfelt thanks that I pass on the appreciation of the Iroquois County Amateur Radio Club to you and your staff at WGFA Radio.  Your provision of facilities and tower for our repeater, tent for our “Field Day” and WGFA air time in support of our service to the people of Iroquois County and the surrounding region has been a tremendous help to us.

Amateur Radio as you know assists in many communities all over the world to provide emergency communications and support to emergency operations as disasters have come upon our nation.  Our Skywarn storm spotters provide on location eyes to the National Weather Service and report current severe weather activity.

Some of the real impact that many people do not see is our involvement in the lives of people.  Our club has partnered with Glenn Raymond School in the formation of a school based Amateur Radio station.  Through the school’s Science Club and it’s sponsors, Troy Simpson and Paul Wilson, whom have attained an Amateur Radio license themselves, several young people have received their radio licenses and others are in the process of attaining theirs also.  As I and many others of our community can attest, the lives of young people can be greatly impacted by their involvement in Amateur Radio. Many young people’s lives have started down the road of successful careers in communications and electronics technologies due to our club here in Watseka.

So again we want to express our thanks for all your support this year – you are a real blessing to us all!

Sincerely,

Mike Marcier
President
Iroquois County Amateur Radio Club

President Mike opened the meeting at 7:20 pm at the Fire House in Watseka.
The June minutes were read and approved. The treasure’s report was read
and approved.

Committee Reports

Incorporation and Non-Profit Committee—Carl is to pick up and go over
the application for 503 C status. Sam has the annual report for the Sec
of State and the $10 fee ready to be mailed.

Technical Committee—Some people reported trouble getting into 2 meter
repeater and others were getting into machine from many miles north and south.

Program Committee—none.

Publicity Committee—Sam brought copies of publicity in newspapers.
Troy and Sam were on WGFA with Justin promoting “Field Day Fever”
Gov Quinn declared “Amateur Radio Month”. Mike will write a thank you to Maggie Martin
for the tower space and for publicity for FD.

ARES Liaison—Roy is retiring on May 29 and will be going to southern Illinois soon after.
Scott has shown interest in replacing Roy as EC of Iroquois and Ford County.
Roy has resigned as EC and Vice Pres of the Club as of July 15.

Red Cross Liaison—Sam and Tim reported the Red Cross has moved
to a small room at IMH. Red Cross has donated all communication equipment to ICARC.
This includes the low band radio system, ham equipment, antennas, power supplies and
some other equipment. Mike will write thank you letter for the donation. The Red Cross
annual dinner is July 23 rd at the Masonic Lodge at 6:00pm. All volunteers are welcome.

ESDA Liaison—ESDA is improving its radio system and ham frequencies have
been added to the new VHF radio system. We also have UHF radio with ham freqs
but could not afford UHF antenna this year.

VE Liaison—Carl reported that VE testing would be done on July 19th 2009
at the Kankakee hamfest.

OLD Business

Roy KA9MZJ is moving to southern ILL very soon and has resigned as Vice President and EC.
He will be missed. They board will come up with a candidate for the members to
vote on at the next meeting.
Board will be looking for a new trustee for W9RWX in the near future.
This action will require a application to the FCC.

Field day reports were better that last year. We recorded 33 guests including the
Mayor of Watseka (Bob Harwood), and a member of the Iroquois county board
(Susan Wynn Bence)

NEW Business

We have changed the date of the board meeting to the last Thursday of the month.
We are planning to hold the August meeting at Glenn Raymond School.

The Red Cross is planning their annual dinner meeting on July 23 at 6:00pm at
the Masonic Lodge in Watseka. We have a special hand written invitation for all
of the Red Cross radio team to come and eat supper and fellowship with fellow
Red Cross volunteers. Call Sam and let him know if you will be able to attend.
Please call 432-3308 by the 15th of July.

Carl is investigating insurance rates for our liability policy and also for the Kankakee club.

The web site is getting better all the time, if you haven’t looked at it lately go to
www.icarc.com and we think you will be pleased.

We discussed they idea of a remote rx site in Watseka for hand held coverage.
Although we have much of the equipment it would still be a big job to plan for
antenna sites, coax, 440 yagies, tower space, coordination requests and other
problems to overcome.

Their has been discussion about a new State Wide packet system using
WinLink 2000 based email program. Planned frequency is 145.610.

Kankakee is planning two remote rx sites for 34/94 to improve
Skywarn coverage

Net Control 7/13 Troy 7/20 Chris M 7/27 Tim 8/3 Sam 8/10 Benny

Benny provided the wonderful home made Brownies (thanks Dianne)
and ice cold pop. In August the other Marcier brother will try to carry on
with outstanding refreshments for the group’s pleasure.

Members present Chris M, Carl, Justin, Troy, Mike, Rollie, Gery, Roy,
Justin, Benny, Steve, and Sam

Sam W9QKF Sec.

Sam Ripple W9QKF KAE7607

http://www.arrl.org/scr

W9GRS took 4th place out of 10 schools in the Middle School Division in the Feb. 2009 competition. We faired quite well overall also. Can’t wait until October!

73!

-Troy
W9KVR

This annual event, called “Field Day” is the climax of the week long “Amateur Radio Week” sponsored by the ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio. Using only emergency power supplies, ham operators will construct emergency stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and back yards around the country. Their slogan, “Ham radio works when other systems don’t! ” is more than just words to the hams as they prove they can send messages in many forms without the use of phone systems, internet or any other infrastructure that can be compromised in a crisis. More than 30,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last year’s event.

President Mike opened the meeting at 7:00 pm at the Glenn Raymond School in Watseka.  The May minutes were read and approved. The treasure’s report was read and approved.
Committee Reports

Incorporation and Non-Profit Committee—None

Technical Committee—Mike reported that on one stormy day he had trouble getting in
to the 2 meter repeater with HT while in Crescent City.

Program Committee—Work on field day prep.

Publicity Committee—Carl showed a sample press release from the ARRL field day packet.  Scott is going to use it for a press release from ICARC.

ARES Liaison—Roy is retiring on May 29 and will be going to southern Illinois soon after.  His house has been sold but plans to be here for FD.

Roy also reported that we will need a new EC for Iroquois county as he will resign as soon as move is started. The new person should have 1. ARRL membership 2. One of ARRL Emcomm classes 3. FEMA class IC 100 and IC 700.

Red Cross Liaison—Sam and Tim reported the Red Cross is moving again and would like our help in the move.

ESDA Liaison—ESDA is improving its radio system and ham frequencies have been added to the new radio system.

VE Liaison—Carl reported that VE testing will be done on July 19th 2009 at the Kankakee hamfest.  In our last test one person passed her Tech and has call sign KC9PWZ. Congrats to Milissa on her new ticket.

OLD Business

Mike is still working on the RFI antenna project.

Troy is working on the new control project—Roy came up with a printed certificate.

We plan to use W9RWX call sign in FD.

Field Day fever is planned for Glenn Raymond again this year. Field Day captains are Carl, Tim, Chris M. and Troy.

Operation is from noon to 6PM on Saturday June 27. Setup is from 9am to noon.  Sam is to buy food out of club treasury. Will use GRS radios and other to bring their radios.  We did plan our antennas at the June 11 meeting by meeting at FD site at 6:00 pm to look over and decide on antenna placement.

Troy and Justin bring tents. Phil has main generator with Rollie to bring back up generator.  Talked about have 80, 40, 20, 15, 2, and 6.

Field day 2009 garb is on sale on the ARRL web site.

NEW Business

Carl has a broken 6 meter beam and is ordering new parts for it. Club agreed that if the antenna worked well we would pay for parts and have it as our permenate field day antenna.

We plan to use Tim’s 30 ft tower with 6 meter beam and 2 meter quad.

Scott and Jake have a 10 by 20 tent. Troy ,Tim, Sam and Justin have tents also. Radios from Scott, Carl,
Troy, Chris and Mike.

Troy added our FD site to the ARRL web site.

If Glenn Raymond school is not available we might use the Firehouse in Watseka on Oak and Fifth for the July Meeting.

Snacks for this month were by Rollie. July snacks are to be brought by Benny

Net control for 6/15 Benny, 6/22 Jake, 6/29 Scott, 7/6 Melissa

Meeting was adjourned at 8:16pm.

Program was by more discussion on field day rules and plans.

Sam Ripple W9QKF Sec.

Members present Chris M, Carl, Tim, Troy, Mike, Rollie, Gery, Jake, Scott, Roy, Steve, and Sam

Sam Ripple W9QKF KAE7607

February 2009 Results

4th Place – 92 QSO’s (20 states, 8 schools, 31 DX, 4 Provinces) 16,150 Pts

I’m not sure how many were in our division this time, but I know we had considerable more success than some of the other schools.

I’m heading to Dayton/Cincy for a couple days, but W9GRS will be operational Friday morning to work VP2 DXpedition and if bands hold out like they have been work some Asia QSO’s

73!!

-Troy and W9GRS Crew

Minutes of the May 14, 2009 Meeting

President Mike opened the meeting at 7:05 pm at the Watseka Park District Office in Watseka.

The April minutes were read and approved. The treasure’s report was read and approved.

Committee Reports

Incorporation and Non-Profit Committee—None

Technical Committee—Benny reported that both repeaters were working.

Program Committee—Work on field day prep.

Publicity Committee—KC9GNH reported that web site has been improved and signed up

those present for an email list if they wanted to be included.

ARES Liaison—Roy is retiring on May 29 and will be going to southern Illinois soon after.

Red Cross Liaison—W9QKF reported the Doug Walker and Lou came to Watseka to teach

a Disaster Assessment class on May 9th. Carl and Tim have taken more Red Cross classes

and Doug and Lou will provide more if we come up with interested students

ESDA Liaison—Drills planned with public health dept and hospital. This is to be a full scale in

June of this year. This drill may be cancelled because we had the real thing at the end of April.

VE Liaison—Troy reported that testing could be at Glenn Raymond School on May 21st, also

testing will be held at the Kankakee ham fest on July 19th.. VEs that are planning to be at the

test session are Tim, Sam, Mike and our leader Carl.

OLD Business

Dues for 2009 were collected from a total of 19 members and we hope that a few more will pay

dues next month.

ESDA had a weather spotting school on April 14, 2009. The meeting place was in Crescent City

grade school at 6:30 pm.

Thanks to Clay N9IO the APRS machine is now a super digi and seems to work very well

at the east site.

Field Day fever is planned for Glenn Raymond again this year. Field Day captains are Carl, Tim, Chris M. and Troy.

Operation is from noon to 6PM on Saturday June 27. Setup is from 9am to noon. Sam is to buy food out of club treasury.

Will use GRS radios and other to bring their radios. Could use W9RWX or W9GRS call sign.

We hope to plan our antennas at the June 11 meeting by meeting at FD site at 6:00 pm to look over and decide

on antenna placement.

Troy and Justin bring tents. Phil has main generator with Rollie to bring back up generator.

Talked about have 80, 40, 20, 15, 2, and 6.

Field day 2009 garb is on sale on the ARRL web site.

NEW Business

As Sam is going to 70 years old next year he will not be running for the Sec-Treas job.

He will be transferring the trusteeship of W9RWX to a younger club member. He also

plans to donate full ownership of the W9QKF repeater to the club. Thirty years has been fun

but time for new blood to take over.

Justin has transferred to a new server but we should not notice any big difference in the

ICARC web site.

Snacks for this month were by Justin. June snacks are to be brought by Justin.

Net control for 5/18 Chris M, 5/25 Sam, 6/1 Jake, 6/8 Scott, 6/17 Benny

Members present for the Feb meeting were, Troy, Tim, Keith, Chris M, Gery, Rollie, Mike,

Justin, Benny and Sam.

Meeting was adjourned at 8:16pm.

Program was by Justin and Benny on laptops and wireless internet cards.

Sam Ripple W9QKF Sec.

Sam Ripple W9QKF KAE7607