The CRES Amateur Radio Club held its first general membership meeting of the year on Thursday, 03 February 2011, at the New Albany branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library. The following members and guests were in attendance: K8RSP Dave Woolf - President K8LJ Bob Kenyon - Vice President KD8WK Rob Stampfli - Secretary KD8ZG Art Grandle - VE Liaison N9CX Bill Erwin - Past President WA8LBZ Al Mecozzi KD8DZ Mike Mickelson W8NFT Doug Gibbs K8AX Dave Brown WA8PGE Fred Sass N4HAI Tom Foy N8WL Steven Katz KC8DJR George Kinder WB8ABE Philip Wilcox N8VWQ Bob Mayzer KC9AKG Pat Rainbolt - guest KD8OQA Martin Hohl - guest W8KRR Pete Elliott - guest K8RSP called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. The first order of business was to discuss the desirability of the club renting a flea market space at the Dayton Hamvention this year. The Hamvention folks have a special rate for ham clubs -- four spaces for $100. In the past, the club has used their space (1) to allow members to sell their goods, and (2) to provide a space for members to rest and relax and also to store items they have bought until they are ready to leave. The consensus view was that this would be useful. K8LJ and KD8WK claimed it might be the determining factor in their going to Dayton this year. By contrast, regular flea market spaces go for $70 per space. KD8WK will call the Hamvention to verify the availability of these spaces and get back to the Executive Committee. If we acquire the spaces, we'll have to decide whether to split the expenses (and space) with the Newark ARC group. Dave also reported that the Executive Committee is attempting to resolve the issue of the vacant Contest Coordinator position. The committee consensus view is that the position entails too much work, and they are looking at how to split or downsize it. One option is to make the CC responsible for filing the logs, but not responsible for doing the groundwork for procuring a location for our club contests. Since W3CRZ has in the past performed many of these functions, the Executive Committee wants to discuss the particulars with him and get his thoughts after he returns from vacation. Dave reported that he had again been contacted by a local resident who asked for help with the diagnosis of a continual noise she hears on her property which she thinks may be electromagnetic in nature. K8RSP and KD8WK had met with her last fall, but were unable to discern anything, and could not hear the noise themselves. Dave said he might make another attempt with a spectrum analyzer. The minutes of the December 7th meeting were approved. N9CX gave the Treasurer's report for W3CRZ. The club has $9,460.10 in its various accounts at Telhio. KD8ZG reported the club's next VE exams will be held in early April at the Parkview Presbyterian Church in Reynoldsburg. The exact date is still being determined. K8RSP reported that we have been having technical difficulties with the repeater. The audio level on the repeater's output is fluctuating between what is normal and loud enough to cause a noticeable distortion. In addition, we are still hearing some local radio stations weakly on the repeater output. Dave is continuing to investigate. KD8WK scanned the roster of those present and introduced two guests, Pat Rainbolt/KC9AKG and Martin Hohl/KD8OQA, who has visited us before. Rob reported that the Columbus Works ("CB") location had won the "Top-5" location score in last year's CQ-WE contest, and showed a certificate we had received for it. Our club has held onto this honor in the contest since 1999, although we received a real challenge from Middletown ("MT") this year. Indeed, MT actually beat us in the total number of submitted logs, with an unprecedented 27 participants this year. Rob also mentioned that the CQ-WE committee is interested in trying to preserve some Bell System heritage by creating a history area on the CQ-WE website for the various Bell System locations. He had written a brief history of Columbus Works and the CRES-ARC and asked people to review it and let him know of any errors. In addition, if anyone has an historical knowledge of other locations, it would be appreciated if they would commit it to text for inclusion as well. N9CX commented on a conversation he had with a new ham who had just bought a "$200 J-Pole antenna". Bill commented that any new ham in the club should contact the club before investing that much in an antenna. N8WL renewed his request that members should wear name badges to the club meetings for the benefit of the newer members and guests. The question of our Field Day location came up. Our normal locale, the Infirmary Mound Park near Granville, is closed for the winter, but is expected to open again once the weather warms up. K8LJ said he would call and verify that we can reserve our standard location in the park for Field Day once again this year. The meeting was adjourned at 7:23 PM after which K8LJ gave a brief introduction to tonight's topic, the JT65-HF weak signal digital mode, and then turned the floor over to WA8LBZ who gave a very thorough presentation on the K1JT software program which implements this mode. After Al's presentation, K8AX and N8WL gave a demonstration of the protocol using two low power station in the meeting room each connected to dummy loads. Respectfully submitted, Rob Stampfli / KD8WK CRES-ARC Secretary WA8LBZ