CRES AMATEUR RADIO CLUB MEETING MINUTES APRIL 18, 2013 The following members were in attendance: K8LJ Bob Kenyon President K8AX Dave Brown Vice President W3CRZ Bob Cartwright Treasurer KD8ZG Art Grandle VE Liaison K8RSP Dave Woolf Past President WA8LBZ Al Mecozzi N9CX Bill Erwin KD8DZ Mike Mickelson K8NQ Weldon Mathews N8WL Steve Katz KD8RTP John Buck WD8JLP Mike Neal W8NFT Doug Gibbs K8ON David Jeffords KC8HIH Tricia Kovacs W8UL John Tipka Bob Perdue KC8JPM Dennis Brewster KD8OQA Martin Hohl N4DLR George Foy KD8TFR Tony Vetali CALL TO ORDER: K8LJ Called the meeting to order at 19:01. SECRETARY’S REPORT: K8LJ reported that the secretary had a conflict and could not be present. TREASURER’S REPORT: W3CRZ gave the Treasurer’s report, indicating that we have 45 paid members and a balance of $9821.65. VE UPDATE: KD8ZG reported that there were 13 applicants at the last VE session at the Parkview Presbyterian Church. 12 passed their exams. The next VE session will be the first weekend in August starting at 9:00 AM. More information will be forthcoming. He also reported that he plans on buying VE polo shirts for the examiners. Depending on the colors voted, they will all be either blue or grey. Cost will be approximately $12.99 which the club will pay. He will order 20 shirts (some spares) with the examiner’s name, call sign, the CRES logo and the Laurel affiliation. REPEATER: K8RSP reported that the "voter" sometimes failed to operate, however on pushing the reset button the problem was corrected. ECHOLINK: K8LJ indicated that EchoLink was generally working, but that sometimes stations attempting to connect did not have audio which required personal adjustments to their equipment. On a few occasions EchoLink was not working and required rebooting of the controller to bring it back on line. FOLLOWUP ON PERSONAL GOALS: K8LJ discussed the list of compiled member and club goals for the coming year. Two goals the seemed to come to the top of the list were 1) improving member’s CW proficiency using MCW over the repeater and 2) a club challenge to work as many states and countries as possible during the year. This would be done on the honor system. A certificate might be awarded at the end of the year. FIELD DAY: Field Day will be the 4th weekend of June (the 22nd and 23rd). K8LJ raised the question of location. The previous use of Infirmary Mound Park was discussed. There were no objections, so on the motion of W8UL and second by K8AX, the membership voted to return again this year to the Park. OSPOTA: CRES placed 5th last year in the OSPOTA multi-operator high power category. The club received a certificate and a number of QSL cards. Among them, were two from the W1HP HP Club and K5WH HP Compaq ARC in Houston celebrating David Packard’s 100th birthday. On the motion of N8WL and second of K8RSP, the club voted to return to the Buckeye Lake Park location of previous years. This year, the event will be held on Saturday September 7th. Thus ended the business part of the meeting. PROGRAM: N9CX presented a program on surface mount techniques with support from K8AX and WA8PGE (who was unable to attend due to work). Discussion included information about SMD devices, board layout software, and board design. Techniques for placing and soldering devices to boards were discussed. Several videos were shown which detailed various approaches to soldering the devices. The presentation took a lot of the mystery out of the process of the assembling PCBs with SMD devices. As N9CX quipped, “if I can do it, so can you!” It was a great presentation. The meeting adjourned at 20:28. Respectfully submitted, Mike Mickelson – KD8DZ Temporary CRES-ARC Secretary in the absence of Rob Stampfli