Ice Station WØJH 2014
2017 SARA Officers
Kilo Parks Award
Split Rock 2013
2023 Simonet Memorial Award
SARA Work Party 1
SARA Field Day 2011
SARA Work Party 3
SARA Does Skywarn
2020 S.A.R.A. EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

BOARD MEETING MINUTES – November 17, 2016

Stillwater Amateur Radio Association

1618 Pine Street West

Stillwater, Minnesota 55082

 

Roll Call of Officers – Six of the seven officers were in attendance.  Peter NØGRM was absent.

The meeting was held at the Lake Elmo Library.

President: Joe KCØOIO

The meeting was called to order at 6:00 PM.

Secretary’s Report – Steve KAØOBI

Minutes from the Board Meeting on October 20th, 2016 have been posted on the website.  No additional comments from the group.

Treasurers Report – John N5JLZ

Beginning Balance      10/1/2016                   $3,062.12

Income                                                               $354.00

Expenses                                                           $     0.00

Ending Balance           10/31/2016                 $3,416.12 (Not including HELP income/expenses)

$16,285.75 (Including HELP income/expenses)

Reports of Committees:

Activities & Events:  Dave WØOXB

Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald – Nov 4th-6th – Getting the email certificates updated and they will be sent out shortly.  We left the Trail Center spotless.  The reservations have been made for next year’s event – Nov 3, 4, 5, 2017.  There were 726 contacts made.  The majority of contacts were on 20 meters, 17 meters, and 75 meters.  No contacts were made on 15 meters.

Ice Station WØJH – the event will be held Feb 18th– 20th, 2017.  A permanent antenna will be put up at the location just across from Dave KØAIF’s house on Lake Elmo well before the event to save time.

MAP:  Dave WØOXB

The antenna projects where assistance has been requested for the remainder of this season have been entered onto a spreadsheet.  The spreadsheet will be used to track these projects, assign volunteers, and schedule installation dates.  The actual schedule to complete these projects will be discussed at the December 1st Thursday evening meeting.

Meetings & Programs – Joe KCØOIO

December – Ask the Elmer/Stump the Elmer Roundtable or SDR Show-N-Tell IC-7300.

January – SWEEP (SARA White Elephant Exchange Party)

February – DMR (Digital Mobile Radio with MNDMR Trygve Svärd KDØPNQ

March – Randy KDØVKB Reconditioning Antique Radios

April to May Ideas:

Antenna analyzers, DMMs and other Diagnostic Gizmos; Baluns, Ununs, and Chokes; Mobile Installation – Tips, Tricks, and Pratfalls; Maidenhead Grid Squares; Operating Portable Roundtable; Propagation – Can I get there from here?; Station grounding; Tuners – Manual versus Auto & Their Care & Feeding; Special Interest Clubs – SKCC, County Hunters, QCWA, 070, OMISS, YLRL; Setting up your Shack; New Technicians: Here’s what you can do now.  Possible ARRL update with Greg KØGW.

Education & Training Report – Bob WØGAF

The training classes are currently on a short break.

The SkyWarn 2017 Training – Saturday, February 25th at Stillwater Library, from 10 AM to 3:30 PM.

Technician Class 2017 and Extra Class Study Group – the first class will be March 2nd.  These two groups will run parallel to each other.

Newsletter & Websites – Pat Tice WAØTDA and Dave WØOXB

The December issue deadline is November 29th with a publishing date of December 3rd.  The January issue deadline will be December 31st with a publishing date of January 7th.

Repeater – Henry KØHAS & Shel NØDRX

Nothing new to report.

Unfinished Business

HELP Project:

WØZSW – was momentarily off the air due to power supply issues.  A new 50 amp QJE switching power supply with adjustable voltage was purchased from Radio City for $180 on 11/12 and given to Pat to correct the problem.

WØEQO – Three weeks ago there was an issue with the transceiver where it would not tune on 40 meter phone.   In the last couple days, a Windows 10 update was done by Bill NØCIC on 11/16, the router had to have the port firmware changed, and it is now working on 160 meters and 40 meter CW.  A shorter piece of coax was put in to enable tuning on 1.964.  Procedures suggested to try next – upgrade the balun, take the ground wire off, and maybe do a hard reset on the tuner.

Remote Base Team – It was suggested that we establish a team for troubleshooting and implementation of future solutions for the remote stations.  The team will consist of Pat, Bill, and Eliot with Henry acting as Technical Advisor.

Eyeball Sessions – at the December 1st session we will discuss further the projects we would like to schedule from these suggestions: baluns, SWR Bridge Calibration (KØGW), building coax cables, FLDIGI hands-on, exploring JT modes and software, programming HT’s, using ACLog, and DX lab.

Equipment Trailer – On Saturday, November 19th we will be going to Goodrich Trailer Sales in Elk Mound to purchase a trailer.  With the trailer we will also purchase a trailer lock, spare tire, jack and lug wrench.  The trailer will be transported to Bill’s in Marine on St Croix for storage.  The trailer will be registered with a one-time fee.  The ARRL equipment insurance program charges $1.40 per $100 value of radio and related equipment.

SARA’s 25th Year in 2017 – There were several suggestions for how to celebrate the 25th anniversary which included a Banquet/Dinner gathering and/or a Summer Picnic on Sunday afternoon in conjunction with our Field Day.  Shel NØDRX has many of the original newsletters from the early days of the club.  So it was suggested that articles and photos from the past appear in each issue of the 2017 Newsletter.  Another suggestion was that the 2017 Ice Station WØJH be used as our Special Event to mark the 25th year of the club.

Slate of Officers for 2017 – All of the current 2016 club officers have agreed to run again in 2017.  This does not preclude other people from being nominated as well.  There is also a 2-year Director’s slot (currently held by Peter Howard) which is up for nomination in 2017 and will run through 2018.  The full slate of nominees will be determined at the December General Meeting and the election will take place at the January General Meeting.

New Business

Motion – a motion was made, seconded and passed to purchase four Poinsettias to be given to Boutwells Landing.

Motion – A motion was made, seconded and passed to award Associate Memberships to Mayor Rudy, Bill NØCIC, the SEMARC President, and Matt Arthur KAØPQW.

Motion – A motion was made, seconded and passed to award one year Associate Memberships to anyone passing a test at one of our VE Sessions.

Motion – A motion was made, seconded and passed to create a new award recognizing contributions of a SARA member to the success of the club and amateur radio.  The award is to be named “The Joe Simonet WØTBC Founder’s Award”.  There will be a three person committee composed of the President, Vice President and Trustee.  Written nominations describing the contributions of the candidate will be submitted to the committee for consideration.  This need not be an annual award.

5013C Application – We should consider investigating applying for 5013C status.  It has been suggested that the Board Members should view the video of the 5013C seminar from NEARfest which is available through ARRL.  The online application form is now only three pages for entities who take in less than $50K annually.  A working session for the Board should be scheduled outside of the regular Eyeball night to review this information and determine the path we want the club to follow.

Club Logo on Shirts – Keith AGØH suggested that we investigate what it would cost to make it possible to put the SARA logo on shirts.

Field Day Reservations – John N5JLZ will make the reservations for Field Day 2017 for the Autumn Hills location on January 1, 2017.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:20 PM.