Tag Archives: nco

October Meeting

The October meeting was held in A1/1026 at 11:30 AM on 10/29/15.

Atendees:

  • Kirk Crawford KG6MTE
  • Archie Buchanan KD6OLH
  • Ryan Noguchi AI6DO

Audio of the meeting:

Audio Player

First we discussed the Fan Dipole antenna system Ryan installed in his attic.  Then we talked about the Sky Loop antenna I am thinking of installing.  We looked up the homes on google maps to see the feasibility of these things.

I suggested that in an effort to attract new members and make more hams, the club should purchase some training courses from HamTestOnline.  This is the company I used recently to study for my Extra license.  They have a program called Ham It Forward.  Where you can purchase the Technician course for $15 each (minimum 5) and we give that away to prospective new hams.  We should also assign a club member to be a mentor and help encourage them or answer questions.  It also comes with a free General course that we could give to some other technician in the club that may need it.  Read more about it at their site.  Since we didn’t have a quorum, we didn’t vote to purchase it.

Archie suggested we might want to make the deal even better.  If the prospective Ham passes the test, we could provide them with a free Baofeng 2m/440 radio.  This would give them the ability to get on the net for emergency communications, and would only cost the club $34.

I used the Buddipole system that the club owns on my last business trip and made several successful contacts during the CQ Worldwide DX SSB contest last weekend.  From this experience and from reading the Buddipole in the Field document, I propose purchasing the following Buddipole accessories to enhance the system and make it able to be used in more configurations:

(* added after the meeting)

We also talked about the morning net.  We aren’t having a net anymore because we don’t have a net control person that can be on at 8 am.  One proposal was to try it at another time.  I will send out an email survey to see if it would work better at a different time of day.

Our next meeting is on November 19.  Note this is a different Thursday of the month due to Thanksgiving.

Our Christmas Party will be held at the Proud Bird on December 10.  It is reserved.  We will do the same thing for raffle prizes this year like we did last year with the winner designating their Ham Radio supplier of choice.

After the meeting, Archie donated three 33 foot fiberglass masts (MFJ-1910)  to the club for future field day use.  They are new in box.  They look like they will be perfect for setting up some dipoles or a Sky Loop on Field day.

 

73,

 

Kirk Crawford KG6MTE

 

February Meeting moved to D8/1006A

We will be having our February meeting in D8/1006A at 11:30 AM.   This was discussed at our last meeting so that we might have more D8 people show up and learn about becoming Net Control Operator for the morning net.  We will also discuss other issues.

 

73,

 

Kirk Crawford

KG6MTE

January 2015 Meeting Notes

Aerospace Ham Radio Club

Meeting Notes – January 29, 2015

 

Present at meeting:

Name Call Sign
Donald Hall KK6DCX
Joe Barger N6KK
Teresa Moore AG60D
Phil Martzen KK6PSA
Joseph Pham AB6TK
Victor Lin (studying for license)


 

Discussions:

  • Victor talked with Joe about membership, dues, etc.
  • Portable Ham antennas
  • Need for morning NCO (control operator)
    • Group discussed need for NCO
    • Discussed possibility of having next meeting in D8, to make attendance by employees working in D8 more convenient, hopefully to identify future NCO
    • Teresa mentioned she could do morning NCO, but lacks a ham shack at her location (D1)
      • Group discussed feasibility of purchasing needed equipment to set up in D1
        • Joe stated he thought we could easily afford equipment to set up in D1 for morning net operations
        • Teresa will check on opportunities for installing an antenna at D1
      • Phil mentioned he needs to acquire a handheld
        • Group discussed some inexpensive handhelds that are available