[Ccarc] meeting stuff

[Chuck Hendrickson]

Howdy all, 

    Hope everyone's day is going well. At the meeting this morning it was brought up wondering where the club banner is. I know this is something that hasn't been seen in several years. The last "evidence" of it is in pictures at Field Day when it was still held at Dave K9DVL's house. What we're trying to do is make one last ditch effort to find the aforementioned banner by asking everyone to please look in their stuff in an attempt to find it. The unfortunate part is that it could be almost anywhere given it's been missing for several years. I would very very much appreciate it if we all could give it one last look to see. 
    Another item came into question as well. There was a UHF beam antenna brought to Field Day two years ago, (2005) that we now can't find. This antenna is one that is brand new never been used to my knowledge. We plan on using it for the link transmitter from EMA to the water tower so if we could find this also that'd be really nice to have for the use of the repeater. 
    As will be stated in the minutes we have repeater work to do before winter. Namely:
 
1. Moving the link antenna higher and replacing the feedline for it. Fortunately this should be a fairly easy project and won't require too much effort. The primary effort will involve stringing the hardline from the link cabinet through the building to the link antenna. The idea here is to create one feeline with no breaks or connections as to help with signal loss. We're going to need help snaking the hardline through the building. 

2. Replacing the water tank antenna and improving the mount. Both of these tasks will require a fair amount of groundwork before we ever climb a tower. Dave K9DVL will be primarily working on the mount and doing the legwork getting that assembled and ensuring it'll work on the ground first. Then comes the hard work, instructing me as to how it goes together so I can do it "topside" when it's time to. I'm thinking we will probably assemble the whole shebang on the ground once if for no better reason than to see how it looks. 

Once we set a date for both of these projects it'll be well publicized on the remailer as well as on the net and on the air. That's when we'll need the bulk of the help in rope rigging, hauling tool buckets and keeping everything straight. As far as the stuff on top of the tank to work on, the pipe nipple will need cleaned out and the old pipe remnants will need chiseled or somehow cut out of it. Then we can start assembling the mount and the antenna. On the ground it seems it's either big time busy or you're bored out of your tree and rarely any middle ground. Sometimes that's how support jobs work. I do want to say right now that both times (so far) I've been up on the tank that I couldn't have climbed one rung without the ground crew. In both cases there are times when it's merely my hands doing the work but the ground crew doing the thinking as to how it should be done. This is why we need plenty of help at ground level so the crazy nuts like me can do the climbing. 

One more reminder of the picnic September 9th at Spencer park lower pavillion from 1:00PM till whenever. We're going to make this pretty much like the Field Day picnic/cookout but without the Field Day stuff. As far as things go we'll need the same type of carry in stuff that we all enjoy from everyone. I hate to ask this of everyone again as we did have an incredible spread at our rainy version of Field Day this year. We just want to do this one without the rain but the same sort of event with the usually incredible eats we're all so blessed with every year. One thing I've always said about our club and the Field Day cookout, even if we don't do radio perfectly we sure eat well!! Raffle tickets are still for sale and will be for sale at the picnic. Once again the prices are $1.00 each or 6 for $5.00 for the regular raffle. This year we have the special raffle of the radio everyone's heard about. Those ticket are $5.00 each with no price break. At this point early sales are a little slow but they're not too bad. Remember, this is our main fund raiser for the club so buy your tickets early and often!! 

Have a great day and hope to see you all there at the cookout. 

73, 
Chuck Hendrickson N9PMW
President CCARC
http://www.culcom.net/~ccarcinc
ARRL Ham Radio's National Association
http://www.arrl.org
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