If you d like to see the pretty copy of this month s Smoke & a world of other club info, Go to the CARA web pages

Transcription

1 SWAPMEET & OPEN HOUSE THE CARA NOVEMBER MEETING NOVEMBER 7TH AT GREEN ACRES 7:00 P.M. GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING NEXT BOARD MEETING 6:00 P.M. B/4 OUR GENERAL MEETING CHRISTMAS PARTY COMING UP NEXT MONTH If you d like to see the pretty copy of this month s Smoke & a world of other club info, Go to the CARA web pages PROGRESS AT THE ACRES AND NOV. 5 TH OPEN HOUSE & SWAPMEET Dale Chidester, NJ7C Progress is being made at Green Acres. All is mowed and trimmed for the Swap Meet/Open House, Nov 5 th. Doug Kimble N8QEN wrapped the pipes at the well head with fiberglass insulation and sprayed some more for termites around Larson Hall. Mike McNeill AD7HZ has been working to re-organize lock-up and get things set up for junque sales at the Swap Meet. Lee Ilse KD7OED made a run up Mule to pick up the fire extinguisher for inspection (after Rich and I finally remembered to take it back up there a couple of weeks ago.) Rich Hotchkiss AA7RH has ordered cable and a heavy duty boom clamp for the StepIR and will send the controller in for repair. All old soda (from the Hamfest about 3 years ago) has been cleaned out of the generator shed and the cans flattened for recycling. The gas caddy for the mower and generators has been refilled and treated with gas stabilizer. Garbage and brush was hauled to the dump. (More later)

2 Cochise Amateur Radio Association P.O. Box 1855, Sierra Vista. AZ CARA Membership Meeting Minutes 3 October 2011 CALL TO ORDER: Meeting was called to order at 1900 hrs. by CARA President, Dale Chidester NJ7C. Members proceeded with the pledge of allegiance and introductions, 29 members were present. SECRETARY S REPORT: Secretary s report approved as published in the Smoke for August and September by voice vote of membership present. TREASURER S REPORT: Charles Campbell gave the financial report. The financial report is posted on the back bulletin board of the CARA meeting room. PRESIDENT S REPORT: Dale Chidester, NJ7C, Insurance--- We received a $95 refund for the Fidelity Bond. The Patriot Insurance agent is to address the board this week. Daily Association membership: At present it s $15 annually ($10 for full time students under the age of 25 and active duty military). To be added to the standing rules one dollar daily, waiver of the initiation fee. A motion and second was made for the addition. The motion passed by voice vote by the membership present. Arizona QSO party will be Saturday the 8 th we are sponsoring a plaque and a check for $40 has been sent. JOTA will be Saturday Sunday the 15 th and 16 th of October. We need a volunteer for the material director s position. Fall cleanup days will be Saturday, October 15 and October 22 in preparation for the swapfest. Bernadino Repeater: Vince is testing it PL162.2 Member at large: No report Swap Meet is Saturday November the 5 th and it will be in the form of an open house, N7INK and K4AFN are working on this. We

3 still need volunteers to help with the swap meet. We will have VE testing starting at nine o clock. RACES: For the month of September we had 381 hours a lot of those hours are contributed to Paradise. At present we are about 50 hours higher than last year. Still need more volunteers for the four C s bicycle race. ARCA: Old Pueblo swap meet on 22 October. Third of December we have the Mesa Ham Fest. There will be ARCA meeting at the Tucson Amateur Fest on 22 October. ARRL: Grant Hays WB6OTS reported on the ARRL board, on the restructuring of the NTS. TECHNICAL REPORT: Rich AA7RH: Has been working on the Bernadino repeater- laying out hard-line and checking the continuity to see how much is good and what we may need. 02 repeater has been working real good. WEBMASTER: Everyone go to the CARA website. Everything on the website is up to date and going well. CARA NET:- Greg KC7GNM We appreciate everyone that has been checking in please keep it up. Anyone that would like to be net control contact Greg KC7GNM NEW BUSINESS: Lee KD7OED reported on Ken Gassaway who had a heart problem, he is doing better. Next board meeting will be 7 November 1800 hrs NEXT MEETING: Monday 7 November PM ADJOURNED 1955 hrs.

4 CARA STUFF FROM OCTOBER 15 TH Dale Chidester, NJ7C Whew! Lots going on today. Dave Bly K7DTB and Wendell Carter AB4LE set up stations in Pete s Palace and hosted several groups of scouts for the Jamboree on the Air (JOTA.) Rich Hotchkiss AA7RH and I went up Mule and managed to get the 76 repeater operational again. We think the problem was a ground loop. Our solution was to completely isolate the charger and batteries from ground. Doug Kimble N8QEN and Bruce Johnson N7NYG weed whacked and mowed. Bob Hollister N7INK and others swept out Larson Hall. Doug sprayed for termites and cleared some of the cobwebs out from the windows. Daniel Riley KE4ZZS finalized the dimensions for the latrine doors and was going to Home Depot to set up a time to meet with one of their installers. There may have been others around helping, but I wasn t there to see and if someone told me I forgot. My apologies (and also thanks) to anyone I ve missed. Good progress was made today! MORE CARA PROGRESS Dale Chidester, NJ7C Daniel Riley KE4ZZS is having the contractor that is rebuilding his garage after the fire give us an estimate for the latrine doors. The Home Depot estimate was over $800 and it sounded like the doors would be tissue-paper thin metal over Styrofoam. Lots still remains to be done: Drain swamp coolers and their water lines. Replace Latrine Doors Repaint Larson Hall Repaint Lock-up. Standardizing Rotors: Get Yaesu 2800s for North and 140 Towers. Get Yaesu 800 for StepIR Get 3 Yaesu Rotor controllers (one for each operating studio.) Run new rotor cables and coax to all towers. Fabricate and install rotor patch panel in Pete s Palace Replace StepIR rotor and boom clamp. Re-do guy wires on 140 tower. Replace rotor and repair 40 M Beam. Repair tri-bander and replace rotor and upper BFDs on North tower. Hope to see y all Saturday at the Swap Meet/Open House. FUNNYBONE TICKLERS From the Internet No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. -Mark Twain (1866 )

5 POSTAGE RATES INCREASE IN JANUARY ARRL Letter, Oct. 20th The US Postal Service has announced that as of January 22, 2012, the cost to mail first class letters, postcards and packages within the US will go up. The cost to mail a first class letter will be 45 cents, an increase of 1 cent. According to the USPS, this is the first increase since May The cost of mailing a postcard will be 32 cents, an increase of 3 cents. This is the second increase for postcard postage in less than a year; in April 2011, the USPS boosted the postcard stamp price from 28 cents to 29 cents. You will also pay more to send letters to Canada, Mexico and other international destinations. U.S. AMATEURS NOW 700,000 STRONG ARRL Letter, Oct. 13th As the third quarter of 2011 came to a close, ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM, began calculating the number of licensed Amateur Radio operators in the US, as well as the number of new licensees. "At the end of September, I saw that the number of hams in the US was high," she said. "When I started comparing that number with other years, I found that it was an all-time high." For the first time, there are more than 700,000 radio amateurs in the US. "When looking at the three current license classes -- Technician, General and Amateur Extra -- these numbers are impressive," Somma explained. "The number of Technicians peaked in March 2011 at 342,572, while in September 2011, we saw both Generals and Extras peak at 159,861 and 125,661, respectively. As new Technicians earn their Amateur Radio licenses, and current Technician licensees move on to General and Generals upgrade to Extra, this can cause up-and-down fluctuations for these totals." AMATEUR RADIO IN SPACE: ARISSat-1 Team Announces Morse Code Contest: ARISSat-1 -- the latest Amateur Radio satellite -- began its education-based mission after deployment from the International Space Station in August The ARISSat- 1 mission is to provide a variety of information through its many broadcast modes promoting STEM-based education initiatives in the classroom. In an effort to help realize this mission, the ARRISSat-1 Team is sponsoring a CW contest. To participate, listeners need to copy and submit any six of the more than 200 call signs transmitted during ARISSat-1's multiple satellite passes. These call signs represent those radio amateurs who have made significant contributions to the ARISS program or Amateur Radio as a whole. They have been digitally stored on board ARISSat-1 and are being transmitted in rotation using Morse code at MHz. The call signs can be heard between the RS01S CW identification and the CW telemetry in the repeated code transmission sequence.

6 FUNNYBONE TICKLERS From the Internet I did not know this... When you drink vodka over ice, it can give you kidney failure. When you drink rum over ice, it can give you liver failure. When you drink whiskey over ice, it can give you heart problems. When you drink gin over ice, it can give you brain problems. Apparently, ice is really bad for you. Warn all your friends. THE COCHISE SMOKE is published each month by and snail mail. Editor is Ted Weaver, K9TED tedweaver2@juno.com Snail mail stuff you d like to have me publish in Smoke to P.O. Box 6017, Huachuca City, AZ or use the above address. The Cochise Amateur Radio Association, Inc. (CARA) P.O. Box 1855 Sierra Vista, AZ This Is A First Class Publication