THURSDAY-November 30, 2017 – 4:00 PM – BAARC BOARD MEETING MINUTES – BRAINERD FIRE STATION

President: Steve Mott NØCRM
Vice President: John Luce WØWY
Treasurer: Doug Bergsnev WØDWB
Secretary: Ron Finger KØGOP
Past Presidents: Charles Lane W5CCL, Al Doree WØRC
Director At Large: Lyle Amundson KØLFV
Director of Emergency Communications: Dave Schuldheisz KØISZ
Repeater Trustee: Mitch Ahrenstorff ADØHJ
Community & Special Events Coordinator: TBD

Attendees: Steve NØCRM, John WØWY, Ron KØGOP, Lyle KØLFV, Dave KØISZ, Al WØRC, Shirley KØDCW, Mitch ADØHJ, Roger WØWUG, and John W3MQD. The President opened the Board Meeting at 4 PM.

Secretary’s Report: 

• Membership roster: 91 members with 30 unpaid for 2017. The Club roster can be found on the Club website under the “Resources/Members Only”  Current paid members can request an individual password for access via the “Contact Us” form. The secretary will send email reminders to members with outstanding dues.
• Minutes: The October 2017 meeting minutes will be posted to the “Club Blog” area.
• Correspondence:
• Documents: Updated 2018 Officers ballot and 2018 Hamfest Flyer.
  • Need description of Community & Special Events Coordinator Will draft and submit to Board for input.
• 65′ of LMR provided to WJJY as goodwill gesture.
• Membership ID’s: proposal to hold off providing photo Membership ID badge until they start to Pay dues or become an active club member. Will develop 1-year “Complimentary Membership” card for new Hams.
• Keep the $5.00 dues increase implemented in 2017 for $25 individual membership.
• Will develop a “Property of BAARC” sticker on the back of the ID badge, to be turned in after lapsing membership.
• Motion to accept: Dave KØISZ, SecondAl WØRC,  

Treasurer’s Report: The President presented the Treasurer’s report which was forwarded to the board showing all month’s account transactions and balances to date.

• Motion to accept: Lyle KØLFV, SecondAl WØRC, Passed

Membership Meeting Programs: The President reviewed recent and future Club programs and events. The December 2017 BAARC Holiday Party will be held on Thursday, December 14, 2017 @ 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM at the Brainerd Chamber of Commerce facility at 224 W Washington St, Brainerd, MN 56401.

Upcoming Events: 

Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza

• January 27, 2018
• http://icefishing.org/
• John WØWY to coordinate with Lt Scott Goddard and John Bowen for CWC Sherriff trailer use
• Need an event coordinator; Mark Cross KEØLFQ volunteered at the main club meeting

Mid Minnesota 150 Sled Dog Race

• February 10, 2018
• https://www.facebook.com/midminnesota150/
• Al and Shirley will coordinate this event.

CQ WPX SSB Contest March 24-25, 2018

• https://www.cqwpx.com/index.htm
• Need to find a location if we do choose to do this.

Digital & Emergency Communications: 

UPDATE: 11/30:

• Duluth SKYWARN link is still working: N0EO
• EOC refit: John W0WY reported per John Bowen the EOC is still in disarray at this time. Will advise when ready for us to reactivate our station setup there.
• John Bowen agreed to our future use of their training room as well.

Old Business: 

New Club Storage container

• Nameplate by Tom KTØMMY with key holder info is complete and installed.
• Inventory of Club Safety Vests is now stored there.

Webserver

• Move Website Server computer into the new rack at Crosby.
• Nick has a newer bigger better server… Hard Drives, (Nick/Lyle)

Club Remote Station

• Pat WØOPW is working on a fan dipole for 80m, 40m, 20m.
• Will need to mount and test the antenna at the high-rise when completed.

Repeater Sites:

• Gull Lake:
  • Hardline connectors for Gull Lake. ~$35-45 7/8″ Mark originally provided, but have been used by a Radio Tower Engineer. We will need to obtain a new connector after all.
  • Technology decisions to be made: What are we going to use the site for? 440 and APRS.
  • Cabinet/Enclosure for Gull Lake Repeater equipment. (Rack mount DR1/2X, Rackmount controllers, rack mount computer, rackmount webserver) ~$900.
    • Mitch will have the treasurer place the order.
    • We will arrange for pickup to save shipping costs. Mitch will Coordinate with the vendor and either Al or John for a pickup date. 

• Crosby:
  • Second new cabinet at Crosby (target….$) At some point in time it would be nice to have that cabinet purchased.
• Crow Wing Power:
  • Install 3rd common Rackmount linking computer/controller/
  • When can we get this completed? Mitch has it at his house was delayed by the Gull Lake tower site work.
• Cross Lake:
  • No new items.
• High-rise Site:
  • No new items.

Repeater Equipment and linking :

• Due to the firmware that is running on the Wires-X machines, we have hit a limitation with the processing power of the Latte Panda PC’s.
  • LattePanda Ebay auctions are in place (Mitch listing these for Club)
  • Minimum bids and “buy now” prices have been set.
  • Staged, multiple listing Ebay sales.
• Mitch has developed a procedure to standardize the audio levels of the System Fusion repeaters and will allow us to set them up all the same way. We need to plan that effort out after this Wires-X test has completed.
• We have tested a different processor including a common rack-mount PC/Wires-X system that can be replicated at each of the repeater sites and supports our common goal to have common equipment across our systems.
• A replacement computer provided by Lyle still has the same issues
  • The Newer rack mount system PC’s (2 At Crosby are working)
  • Nick completed the third one for Crow Wing Power replacement.
• Discussion regarding upgrade to DRX-2 systems.
  • The new model DR2-X cost would be either $300 or $500 depending upon what options we choose.
  • We do have a bad DR1 that came back from the Duluth club not working. We can send that one in for an upgrade.
  • Motion to trade in DR1X for $300.00 was made and approved at the October meeting.
  • Application has been filled out and delivered.

Misc Items:

• Sell 10 of the Motorola 750’s?
  • These are now less popular Ron will sell on eBay
  • Ron will list for Club on ebay per October meeting motion.
• Provide a check to Crow Wing County Fairgrounds for $200? (Goodwill gesture; We held 3 events there this year (Field Day, Tailgate Hamfest, Trailer exercise/WW CQ event)
  • John motion to pay the county for our use
  • Will present at a Crow Wing County Fairground board meeting.
• New 2018 Club Application form is needed (Ron will provide to Mitch for posting on the website)

New Business:

• New Club trailer heater: We would like to measure and confirm the current draw on the small club trailer heater. It does not seem to be working. Al WØRC will measure.
• 925 DARC room request: to have a persistent (default) connection to that node. Motion presented and approved to give it a try.
• CQ WW SSB contest: and small communications trailer exercise update:
• https://brainerdham.org/baarc-cq-ww-dx-contest-2017/
• October 28th-29th.
  • Crow Wing County Fairgrounds
  • Friday 7:00PM Central to Sunday 7:00PM Central
  • The CQ WW is the largest Amateur Radio competition in the world. Over 35,000 participants took to the airwaves on the last weekend of October (SSB) and November (CW) with the goal of making as many contacts with as many different DXCC entities and CQ Zones as possible.
  • BAARC results:
• 66 countries
• 230 contacts
• 4 bands
• Two Radios and Two antennas

• VE testing: 4 new members per Al providing a class. Laurel VE worked great.

The Board Meeting was adjourned at 4:57 PM.

THURSDAY-November 30, 2017 – 7:00 PM – BAARC MEMBERSHIP MEETING MINUTES – BRAINERD FIRE STATION

The President opened the Club membership business meeting at 7 PM with 28 members and guests present. Lyle KØLFV and Mitch ADØHJ presented a very interesting program on the new digital mode, FT8. Tutorial videos were shown by Mitch and a working demonstration station was set up by Lyle using an indoor HF antenna provided by Pat WØOPW.

–Respectfully submitted by Ron KØGOP, Secretary

THURSDAY-October 26, 2017 – 4:00 PM – BAARC BOARD MEETING MINUTES – BRAINERD FIRE STATION

President: Steve Mott NØCRM
Vice President: John Luce WØWY
Treasurer: Doug Bergsnev WØDWB
Secretary: Ron Finger KØGOP
Past Presidents: Charles Lane W5CCL, Al Doree WØRC
Director At Large: Lyle Amundson KØLFV
Director of Emergency Communications: Dave Schuldheisz KØISZ
Repeater Trustee: Mitch Ahrenstorff ADØHJ
Community & Special Events Coordinator: TBD

Attendees: Steve NØCRM, John WØWY, Ron KØGOP, Al WØRC, Shirley KØDCW, Mitch ADØHJ, Roger W0WUG, and John W3MQD. The President opened the Board Meeting at 4 PM.

Secretary’s Report: 

• Membership roster: 91 members with 63 paid for 2017. The Club roster can be found on the Club website under the “Resources/Members Only”  Current paid members can request an individual password for access via the “Contact Us” form.
• Minutes: The September 2017 meeting minutes will be posted to the “Club Blog” area.
• Correspondence:
• Motion to accept: Al WØRC, SecondMitch ADØHJ,  

Treasurer’s Report: The Treasurer’s report was forwarded to the board showing all month’s account transactions and balances to date.

• Submitted Payables: John W0WY $90 reimbursement for portable rental from Blakeman’s Septic for CQ contest. Ron K0GOP $27.97 reimbursement for FTDI chipset programming cable for Club Motorola portable radios.
• Motion to place a minimum bank balance cap of $2000 for Club spending; not to include the $2000 Hamfest account: Steve NØCRM, SecondJohn WØWY,  
• Motion to accept: Mitch ADØHJ, SecondAl WØRC, Passed

Membership Meeting Programs: The Vice President reviewed recent and future Club programs and events. At the November meeting, Lyle and Mitch will present a program on the new digital mode, FT8.

Upcoming Events: 

CQ WW SSB contest October 28th-29th

• Crow Wing County Fairgrounds
• Friday 7:00PM Central to Sunday 7:00PM Central
• The CQ WW is the largest Amateur Radio competition in the world. Over 35,000 participants take to the airwaves on the last weekend of October (SSB) and November (CW) with the goal of making as many contacts with as many different DXCC entities and CQ Zones as possible.

Digital & Emergency Communications: 

UPDATE: 10/25

• Duluth SKYWARN link is still working: N0EO
• EOC refit: no update from John Bowen; John W0WY will get an update.
• Can perhaps use their training room as well. John/Lyle will check into this.

Old Business: 

New Club Storage container

• Need to determine Key Holders: Lyle, Ron, Al
• Need to Put Key Holder names and phone number on a plate to attach to storage container. Working with Tom KT0MMYnow to get this engraved.

New Business:

Expenditures requests/discussions

• Club will donate 50′ of LMR-400 to Mark Persons as a goodwill gesture for getting us into the Gull Lake site and access to our own entry keys.
• Shelving purchase for the club storage container was already approved at our last meeting
• DR2X upgrade: Motion to trade in DR1X for $300.00: Steve NØCRM, Second, John WØWY, Passed. 
• Provide a check to Crow Wing County Fairgrounds for $200? (Goodwill gesture; We held 3 events there this year; Field Day, Tailgate Hamfest, Trailer exercise/WW CQ event. Motion to give $200 donation to CWC Fairgrounds: John WØWY, Second, Al W0RC, Passed. 

• Hardline connectors for Gull Lake. ~$35-45 7/8″ Ask Mark if he has?
• Cabinet/Enclosure for Gull Lake Repeater equipment. (Rack mount DR1/2X, Rackmount controllers, rack mount computer, rackmount webserver) ~$900.
  • Can possibly save on shipping if we are able to pick up and deliver? (need to investigate that)
  • Motion to purchase a cabinet for Gull Lake not to exceed $1000.00: Steve NØCRM, Second John W0WY.

• Excess inventory of 10 Motorola HT-750 transceivers. Less popular as they require Motorola proprietary programming software and lack digital channel display.
  • Motion to list and sell on ebay: Ron K0GOP, Second John W0WY, Passed.
• The 2018 BAARC officer ballot was discussed, and will be finalized by the secretary for distribution to the membership at the November meeting election.

The Board Meeting was adjourned at 5:20 PM.

THURSDAY-October 26, 2017 – 7:00 PM – BAARC MEMBERSHIP MEETING MINUTES – BRAINERD FIRE STATION

The President opened the Club membership business meeting at 7 PM with 23 members and guests present. A “Show and Tell” program was presented with several members showing various rigs and items of interest in amateur radio. Presenting were Al W0RC: unusual vacuum tubes and hand-built rigs, Ron K0GOP: classic tube breadboard QRP-rigs built by Jim K0VAN, Nick W0NY: 3D printing for HAM radio, and Mitch AD0HJ: new technology in SDR and micro-computer applications.

–Respectfully submitted by Ron KØGOP, Secretary

THURSDAY-SEPTEMBER 28, 2017 – 4:00 PM – BAARC BOARD MEETING MINUTES – BRAINERD Chamber of Commerce

President: Steve Mott NØCRM
Vice President: John Luce WØWY
Treasurer: Doug Bergsnev WØDWB
Secretary: Ron Finger KØGOP
Past Presidents: Charles Lane W5CCL, Al Doree WØRC
Director At Large: Lyle Amundson KØLFV
Director of Emergency Communications: Dave Schuldheisz KØISZ
Repeater Trustee: Mitch Ahrenstorff ADØHJ
Community & Special Events Coordinator: TBD

Attendees: Steve NØCRM, John WØWY, Lyle KØLFV, Al WØRC, Shirley KØDCW, and Mitch ADØHJ. The President opened the Board Meeting at 4 PM.

Secretary’s Report: 

• Membership roster: 90 members. The Club roster can be found on the Club website under the “Resources/Members Only”  Current paid members can request an individual password for access via the “Contact Us” form.
• Minutes: There were no formal meetings in August due to the annual Club Picnic and Fox Hunt.
• Correspondence:
• Motion to accept: Al WØRC, SecondShirley KØDCW,  

Treasurer’s Report: The Treasurer’s report was forwarded to the board showing all month’s account transactions and balances to date.

• Club Equipment Sales: were approximately $800.
• Tailgate Hamfest Sales: $380.00
• Club Container and post expenditures: $2286.00
• Kiwanis Club donation to Club: $100
• Jaycee Run for the Lakes donation to Club: $250

Membership Meeting Programs: The Vice President reviewed recent and future Club programs and events. At the October meeting, interested members will present a “Show and Tell” program on various Ham radio projects.

Upcoming Events: 

Haunted Trail event (Friday-Saturday on October 20-21, 7-9PM)

• Ron KØGOP has contacted the Northland Arboretum, and they are looking forward to our help again this year. The new Executive Director is Vicky Foss, taking over from Matthew Hall this spring.
• Event dates have been moved to a Friday-Saturday on October 20-21, 7-9PM. They request we arrive at 5:30-6PM for a meal and early deployment in the parking and trail assignments.
• Ron will volunteer to chair this event again this year, and is happy to co-chair with anyone else interested. Ron will prepare a quick briefing for our members, along with a sign-up sheet for tonight.

CQ WW SSB contest October 28th-29th

• The CQ WW is the largest Amateur Radio competition in the world. Over 35,000 participants will take to the airwaves on the last weekend of October (SSB) and November (CW) with the goal of making as many contacts with as many different DXCC entities and CQ Zones as possible.

Digital & Emergency Communications: 

UPDATE: 9/28:

• Mitch delivered a repeater for Doug to use.
• Mitch attended the Duluth clubs meeting and heard news about the new Fusion repeater.
• Doug has already returned their repeater, they seem to have other issues.
• N0Eo-ND is now working.
• Packet node going back on Mille Lacs tower, VHF packet station can go from the north to the twin cities.

Old Business: 

Webserver

• Move Website Server computer into the new rack at Crosby.
• Nick has a newer bigger better server… Hard Drives, (Nick/Lyle)
• New rack for the server
• Network is slower at Crosby

Club Remote Station

• Determine a viable multi-band antenna for our remote station antenna.
• 80-40 and tune to what we need Alpha-Delta Need to shorten it.
• Mount and test the antenna at the high-rise (Antenna did not have good bandwidth).
• Move radio and interface into the high-rise.

EOC Station

• New EOC configuration again. (Dave S./John Bowen)
• EOC ham station is going to be re-vamped. The LEC move EOC will cause a Re-do our station again with and the design will provided an elevated desk.
• County board is reviewing design prints.

Repeater linking

• Due to the firmware that is running on the Wires-X machines, we have hit a limitation with the processing power of the Latte Panda PC’s
• We have tested a different processor including a common rack-mount PC/Wires-X system that can be replicated at each of the repeater sites and supports our common goal to have common equipment across our systems.
• A replacement computer provided by Lyle still has the same issues
  • The Newer rack mount system PC’s (2 At Crosby are working)
  • Nick working on the third one for Crow Wing Power replacement.

• Request was verbalized and shared with the board. In a holding pattern until the Wires-X linking test between Crosby and Crow Wing power is set-up, run, and demonstrated for a test period.

New Business:

Expenditures requests/discussions:

• New Club Storage container

• • Need to determine Key Holders
  • Lyle, Ron, Al
  • Need to Put Key Holder names and phone numbers on a plate to attach to storage container.
  • John, Lyle and cell numbers.

• Of late of we have heard a few comments about our BAARC’er/Blog part of our BAARC Website not being updated and or having recent Club Activities added. I have talked to Dave Anderson KEØIUZ and he has agreed to update this part of our Website as long as Club Members forward to him the pictures and or articles to be published.   We have a great start to our new Website, however we should make every effort to keep it current. We can talk more about this at our upcoming Board Meeting.

• • Steve and Mitch have been doing updates.
  • Steve has not been to the Triathlon or the Fox Hunt/Picnic and has not received any photo from anyone for those events
  • Tried to update the Blog with September “All Things HF” but appeared that the server was down late Sunday evening.

• BAARC Website – Dave Anderson KEØIUZ approval to update the BAARC’er part of our website.
  • Let the club know.
  • Send out his email.

• Old Large BAARC Trailer – We have a person who is interested in buying ($800-$1000)
• Should we sell and or spend additional funds on insurance and maintenance?

• • Doug has provided a verbal Yes vote to sell
  • Al has provided a Yes vote to sell
  • Lyle yes
  • John Yes

The Board Meeting was adjourned at 5:20 PM.

THURSDAY-SEPTEMBER 28, 2017 – 7:00 PM – BAARC MEMBERSHIP MEETING MINUTES – BRAINERD Chamber of Commerce

The President opened the Club membership business meeting at 7 PM with 23 members and guests present. Mark KEØLFQ suggested the Club consider supporting the Shriners 5K Turkey Run to be held at 7:00 AM on Thanksgiving Day. The course will include areas located at the Armory and CWC Fairground sites. A show of hands indicated 4 interested operators at present. Pat Goff from Crow Wing Power Cooperative once again provided an informative and interesting program on electrical grounding.

–Respectfully submitted by Ron KØGOP, Secretary