The August 20, 2005 meeting
was held at the Old Food Court at the Newton Factory Outlet Mall. The meeting
was called to order at 9:18am by President Kent Harder. Present were Ko Bartel,
Lee Buller, Lon Buller, Tom Dhoose, David Godshall, Kent Harder, Dan Inskeep,
Robin McDaniel, Bob Ogden and Roger Wilson.
Minutes: July Minutes were accepted with no corrections.
Treasurer's Report: Checking account balance of $1100.35, of which $638.35 is
club funds and $462 is from the Marion Ford, K0YWT, Silent Auction. Also have
$165 in petty cash, for a total of $803.35 in the club funds.
Visitor: Tom Dhoose, KC0TWY of Halstead.
MCC Bike Ride: Roger was accepting volunteers to help with communications at the
MCC Bike Ride on September 17. David, Dan. One route to Newton Outlet, another
on to Sedgwick to Ridge to 12th. Other West out of Sedgwick to Halstead, North
to 12th.
EOC Radios: Did some testing, going to do some more testing.
Lee: They are putting up two 300M towers up in the county. Lee wondered if there
was a possibility of moving the repeater to one of the new towers, especially
given some of the apparent interference we're getting on our crowded current location
on the grain mill. Lon said there was a good chance the club could move the repeater
to one of them if the club decided to do so. One towers will be at Camp Hawk,
the other at West Park. Lee suggested the Camp Hawk would be more convenient for
Newton and Wichita traffic. Currently our repeater antenna is around the 250M
level, so getting at least that height on one of the new towers would be desirable.
Lon talked about various agencies in the process of switching radio equipment
to new 800MHz frequencies. Lon will check into who would be responsible to pull
the coax up and mount the antenna; would we need to use professional tower climbers
or do it ourselves? There were questions about what to remove from the old repeater
to the new location -- would we reuse the old coax or buy new coax? Could we afford
and would it make sense to go a new repeater, coax, and antenna, so as to keep
the old repeater in place as a backup? Robin and Kent said the old repeater appears
to be okay, but the receiver seems to be bad. A number of members expressed an
interest in getting a new repeater, and doing so soon. Roger moved that the club
officers and technical people get together within the next week and investigate
options for new repeaters and they be authorized to proceed with purchase if in
agreement. Lon seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Lee recommended we get insurance
as well once we get new equipment. Ko would like to an E-Mail to be sent to club
members once a decision has been made.
Roger got a phone call from a gentleman in Kerney, Missouri whose father had died
some time back. He found some old equipment and was wondering if the club would
be interested in receiving the equipment for free. There was consensus that the
club would be interested in the items. Roger will find out more and we will need
to figure out how to get the stuff to Newton.
Packet E-Mail: Kent talked about a system whereby a computer and packet radio
could be set up in a location and allow people to send and receive E-Mail, for
example in an emergency or in locations without Internet access. There was discussion
about whether this would be a good thing to have ready to go in an emergency?
Perhaps in a health and welfare situation rather than actual emergency information.
There was additional conversation about packet radio
Auction: Kent brought the remaining Marion Ford items and after the meeting adjourns
they will be available for sale.
Meeting adjourned at 10:16am.
After meeting sale of Marion Ford items netted an additional $55.
-- David Godshall, Secretary/Treasurer
