The Executive Committee of the CRES Amateur Radio Club met on Monday,
08 March 2004.  The meeting was held at the Donatos Pizza at Brice
and Livingston in Reynoldsburg and was attended by President Jack
Kirkpatrick/KC8TM, Immediate Past President David Jeffords/K8ON,
Vice President Tricia Kovacs/KC8HIH, Sec/Treas Rob Stampfli/KD8WK,
Contest Coordinator Jerry Scott/K9RV, VE Liaison Art Grandle/KD8ZG,
Station Trustee Mike Rauh/NV7X, and members Mike Stansbery/WD8EBS and
Dave Woolf/K8RSP.

The meeting was called to order by KC8HIH at 6:40 PM, as KC8TM was
a few minutes late in arriving.  

KD8ZG indicated there will be a club-sponsored VE session on Saturday,
April 3rd.  K8RSP will send out an announcement to to the VE list.

The next general meeting will be held Monday, March 22nd.  KC8HIH
will secure a location shortly and then we'll send out an announcement.
K8RSP will give a talk of about 30 minutes covering the recent changes
to the repeater and in repeater operation.

KC8HIH proposed the date Monday, June 14th, for our second quarter
general meeting.  She will pursue getting the ICOM representative
she had previously spoken with to give a talk at that meeting.  She
also indicated Dave Brown/K8AX had a tape on the history and evolution
of radio that might make an interesting program at a future general
meeting.

KD8ZG asked if anyone wanted a free ticket to the upcoming Athen's
hamfest.  He received the ticket because they had him down as the
station trustee for W8ZPF/R.  Nobody at the meeting wanted it, so
it was agreed that we'd make it available to club members on a first
come basis.

K8RSP and KD8ZG provided an update on the changes to the repeater
that have been made recently.  With the conversion of the machine
to full-time CTCSS (PL) operation, several operational problems
have been observed:  On the first attempt, PL detection only worked
successfully through the main site due to a design flaw.  Once this
was corrected, we noticed a subsequent problem with frequent drop-
outs that was tracked to the PL tone not being detected solidly
during periods of frequent voting.  An initial attempt at correcting
this proved unsuccessful.  The second, more concerted, attempt --
by installing a circuit that bypasses the voter and ORs the "PL
detected" signal from each receiver into a fast-attack circuit with
a 4-second hang time -- was installed last Friday and appears to
have resolved all complaints in this area.

Several other problems were also noted:

1. During the work on the machine, it was noticed that two 440 Mhz
   antennas were swapped.  When this was corrected, it was noted
   that the control receiver had improved general sensitivity.

2. Currently, the codes that take the machine out of PL mode only
   work for the main site.  When not in PL mode, PL-encoder on the
   link transmitter at the remove receiver site must be manually
   turned on via a TT sequence to fully open up the repeater.
   K8RSP is investigating an intelligent circuit to automate this.

3. Occasionally, significant signal strength fluctuations on the
   remote link have been observed.  It is believed that the recently
   constructed Pickerington High School lies directly between the
   remote receiver site and the repeater and may be responsible
   for this phenomenon, but it is not clear why the problems are
   so intermittent.  Oddly, a circularly-polarized higher-gain
   antenna that is physically much lower seems to work better.
   The problem remains under investigation.

4. Recently, the in-line power amp on the above link failed and
   needs to be repaired.  The link is now operating without the
   amp.

5. A soft chirp occurring at almost exactly 1-second intervals
   has occasionally been observed on the retransmitted audio from
   the remote receiver site.  It is not on the link, and seems to
   be coming from the remote link receiver at the main site.  Thus,
   it is believed to be an artifact of something occurring at or
   near the main site, probably unrelated to the repeater.  Although
   it is not causing significant problems, we continue to be
   intrigued by this anomaly.

KC8HIH indicated she contacted several Lucent property folks about
our club's desire to keep the repeater on the premises, and
specifically requesting a contact in the company that is purchasing
the front building.  She has thus far been unable to report any
favorable results from those she spoke with.  Several of those
present tonight gave her the names of employees who have befriended
the club and proved helpful in the past, as well as those to avoid.

Next, the Excomm team discussed KC8TM's proposal that we incorporate
and potentially try to become a 501(c)3 organization.  There was
general consensus that it would take a great deal of work to bring
any such transition to fruition.  The pros appear to be that such a
setup would provide better legal protection for the officers, the
potential to raise money via gifting and/or grants, and perhaps some
leverage should we need to approach another company or government
entity for a favor.  The cons are an increased amount of paperwork
and complexity -- both in the setting up of, as well as the running
of, a corporation -- increased costs, and a general hesitancy to
pursue a strategy that is not clearly necessary and is not well-
understood by most of the excomm members.  KC8HIH expressed the
perspective, generally agreed to by those present, that if we
proceed with incorporation, we keep any reorganization to the
minimum necessary, so as to retain the composition and functioning
of the club and its officers as closely as possible to how it
exists today.  Ultimately, no decision on moving forward with
incorporating was reached, and KD8ZG suggested getting input from
the membership on this point at the upcoming general meeting.

KC8TM expressed the thought that the Excomm needs to garner more
interest among the members for the excomm meetings.  KD8WK
responded that, with rare exceptions, any member is welcome to
attend an excomm meeting and we occasionally invite those who
have such an interest to have their email address added to the
notification list for excomm meetings.  He felt that the majority
of the club members were simply not interested in excomm matters.

The discussion then turned to attracting new members.  It was
decided we should ask the membership for their perspectives:  Do
members want the club to grow and, if so, in what direction?  Are
members willing to get involved in new activities and, if so, what
activities?  It was pointed out that we should give the membership
some lead time to think over these points prior to the meeting.

KC8HIH suggested we establish a Field Day committee at the next
general meeting.  NV7X indicated he would be willing to make his
home available for Field Day activities again if the club desired
this, but if the intent was to attract the public at large, perhaps
a site like a park would be a better choice.  The park next to
NV7X's property, run by the Madison Township trustees, was mentioned
as a possibility.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 PM.

No Treasuer's report was requested or given at the meeting.
As a matter or record, the club currently has $81.09 in petty
cash, $4,640.04 in its Telhio checking/savings accounts, and
$2,126.76 in CDs.

Respectfully submitted,
Rob Stampfli
CRES-ARC Secretary/Treasurer