Minutes of March 26, 2015
Post date: Mar 27, 2015 4:58:20 PM
Jack Garner called the meeting to order at 7:15 with pledges to the US and Texas flags. Jack offered the prayer.
Rose Head read the minutes from the February meeting. Ronnie Head moved and Rondel Stevens seconded that the report be approved.
Old Business:
Alan Brown reported on his conversation with Judge Fulk, the emergency coordinator for the county. Fulk wants to talk to Centex on our behalf.
Jack suggested we do some planning now for the Goat Cook-off. Rondel will bring his shade canopy, table, club banner, 50’ extension cord, power strip, foot locker and stack antenna poles.
Ronnie will bring our WAS awards, some antennas and another extension cord.
Alan Brown will supply his radio, an amplifier, power supply and CW bug.
Walt Kovar will reserve the booth site and bring certifications of participation.
Everyone will bring their own chairs and an extra for guests. We will come at about 6 pm to set up on Friday and then at 9 am on Saturday to finalize everything.
New Business:
Derek Pausewang proposed an auto-patch system for the county to compensate for the cell phone dead areas. Alan said that requires a telephone line at the repeater site which the club can’t afford now. Ronnie said some clubs have a person monitoring the repeater at all times who could place a call for you. Don Padgett, a charter member who was buried today, used to do that because he had the radio on at his floral business all day. The club repeater was above the cement plant at that time.
Walt showed a chart showing nationwide growth in the number of Hams. There are 726,000 Hams in the US at this time. He suggested we try to take advantage of the new emphasis in science, technology, engineering and math in the schools. We may be able to interest youth in amateur radio in this area to create growth here.
Field Day is June 27th and 28th. There is a new emergency communication guide. Walt said we need to work harder at getting the county officials involved. He had printed out the Field Day Rules and put them in a binder for our use. If we get an official proclamation establishing Amateur Radio Week just before Field Day, we can put that in the newspaper for extra credit and to increase attendance.
Rondel suggested we find out how the current county administration feels about Ham participation in emergency situations. We need to show them (perhaps through field day) how we can help. We need to get them to attend.
Alan told us the site we have been using has just been sold. We need to contact the new owners to use it again or choose a new site. Ronnie said the arena area behind the community center would be a possibility.
Ronnie told the club that Don Padgett’s son, Carson, will get his ham radio equipment ready for us to sell at the Belton Ham Fest April 18th.
Ronnie Head presented the program about multi-frequency loop antennas, double bazooka antenna, tip up poles, and crank up portable poles.
David Lewis has the next meeting’s program on websites essential for new hams.
The meeting adjourned at 9 pm.