2018-03-09 Board of Directors Meeting

JPL ARC 2018-03-09 Board of Directors Meeting

Attending:  Steve Townes WB4ILW (President), Jonathan Cameron KF6RTA (Vice-president), Matt Bennett KF6RTB (Secretary), Chuck Sarture KG6NF, Chris Gaylord W6YTB (Emergency Communications Manager),  Arian Maleki KM6QPY, Mike Tope W4EF, Rob Smith W6GRV, Bob Dengler NO6B, and Dave Hodges KI6PMB.   We had a quorum.

Meeting Reports / Notes

  • There was no secretary’s report.
  • The treasurer reported that $320.70 was spent to reimburse Jonathan Cameron for the purchase of the web server PC (in 2017).   As of the meeting date, the club account balance was $4187.05.
  • Check-ins on the Monday noon net continue to average in the low to mid twenties.
  • Rob Smith gave a brief report on Nasa On The Air (NOTA) activities.   JPL has started making NOTA contacts, largely through the efforts of Mike Gauthier K6ICS and Steve Townes WB4ILW.
    • We are now number 3 in terms of NOTA contacts.   JSC (W5RRR) is first with 1885, Marshal (NN4SA) is second with 1322, and JPL (W6VIO) is third with 747.   There are 12 NASA Centers/entities supporting NOTA.
  • The talk for the March 23rd General meeting will be “Working Out the 23 cm EME Band”by Courtney Duncan, N5BF.  He will discuss his Earth-Moon-Earth communication activities in the 23 cm (~1.2 GHz) amateur radio band during the 2014-2017 period.
  • Steve Townes encouraged everyone to submit talks to be added to the schedule for general meetings.
  • There was discussion about getting started on Field Day planning.  The General Meeting for April 20 will be set aside for this purpose.   We have not yet selected a JPL Field Day Coordinator.
  • We were reminded that the Great Shakeout will occur on October 18.   Our club will help support the JPL response through JEARS.
  • Chris Gaylord has set up a #jplarc channel on the new JPL Slack Channel.
  • There was some discussion of potential future club activities:
    • Set up a WSPR beacon on the Mesa (frequency TBD)
    • Set up a secondary shack on the Mesa and configuring a remotely controlled radio there.   It would have be self-contained and independently powered (perhaps using batteries and solar panels).
  • There was a report that they may be mice in the B329 shack.  Steve and Chris Gaylord will look into this.