CMRA Club Meeting

October 11, 2011

President Daniel,KC0UTW, called the meeting to order at 7:03 PM with 25 present including guests, with introductions all around.

September minutes were approved as distributed on the CMRA reflector.

Treasurer’s report same as last month (see last minutes)

Old business:

Corey, KC0YNS reported that the Boy Scout Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) will be held 15 October with more than 10 hams and more than 25 scouts expected to put several stations on the air. Also there will be a fox hunt for the scouts. Corey suggested that  the club put in some funds for food and supplies for this event. Motion passed for the club to supply about $50. Corey asked that those who could not attend for the day might monitor the 76 repeater for local contacts. He contacted TV Channel 8 and 17, and hopes to see Rod Wideman from Channel 17 come out for a TV story.

Corey, reports that the club generator has had some repairs and is waiting for the board that senses oil to come in for the final fix.

Mike, AC0G, reports testing sessions going fine. The next one will be next Monday and several are coming for this session.

 Dave, KV0S, reports on the club’s balloon launch activity. Several participants from our club were involved in the launch of another club’s balloon. Corey, and Don, KM0R, watched the balloon up to 88,000 ft altitude and then saw it burst fall back to earth. The group learned to take a chain saw and a good plat map of the area for finding and collecting the returned balloon. Other ideas will help with our launches for next year, Dave reported that perhaps the club could have three launches next year. The launch last month was west of Deer Park from private property there.

Don, N0UBC, reported the count was down to 14 on net check-ins this month, where it had been more like 29. Please check in on the 146.76 Wednesday night net at 9:00 PM.

Mac, K4CHS, reports that the Thursday net on 146.61 is still going with about 6-8 check-ins average. The NWS weather service put out an emergency report for the missing girl in KC on the weather radio, so our scripts might have to be modified.

Mike,AC0G, reported that the club station antennas are needing some work. He will be announcing a date for antenna work at the club station on west Worley. Question was raised concerning the generator there. It should be started regularly, and Dale, AE0S, reported that about 5 years ago it worked fine! Will look at the generator when the antenna party comes about.

No new member applications have been received.

Club assumes Golden Coral reserved for our Christmas meeting.

John, N0OFJ, reported that there are no fox hunts are currently scheduled, except for the Scout activity this weekend.

New business:

Don, KM0R, gave a report on the D-STAR activity from BCARES. They have acted in a short time to generate an application for an ICOM D-STAR repeater. The repeater is already here and under going tests and configuration on the bench. There should be two folks from St Louis for the next meeting of CMRA to tell us about the digital service and its potential. We need to register 10 new call signs in the D-STAR registry through our newly acquired repeater to meet the ICOM requirement for the free repeater.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:35 PM.

Following the business meeting, an interesting  presentation by Tom Ciolino, K0TJC,  on amateur Rocketry was well received.

Respectfully submitted,

Bill, N0AXZ, recording secretary