OFFICERS FOR 1977 ELECTED AT
DECEMBER MEETING
The slate of officers, as prepared
by the Nominating Committee, was presented to the membership
at the general meeting of December 8. Since there were no further
nominations from the floor, the proposed slate was elected by
voice vote from the floor. (The Secretary breathed a sigh of
relief, because if others had been nominated, he would have had
to resort to a mail ballot of all members. That's over 100 ballots
to distribute, receive, and count!)
The officers elected were:
- President: Jim Lumsden, WA6MYJ
- Vice-President: Dick Piety, K6SVP
- Secretary: Jack Patzold
- Treasurer: Ron Ploszaj, WA6TPW
Three additional offices and the
above make up the Board of Directors. The additional offices
are Trustee, Emergency Communications Manager (both of whom are
yet to be appointed by the new administration) and the Director-at-Large,
who is normally the immediate past president. The new officers
will be installed at the January meeting, after which the additional
directors will be announced.
These gentlemen are to be congratulated
on their election, and all members should pledge their support
to them. They have an important and tough job to do for the next
year. Jim in particular will need all the support we can give
him, as he will be at Cape Kennedy for nearly half the year supporting
the MJS77 launch. We expect to keep schedules with him there,
in true amateur radio spirit, and keep him informed as to club
progress thereby. And he will have his trusty spokesman here
at JPL in the form of Dick Piety.
Let's get started. Send your $2
dues for 1977 to Ron Ploszaj, 230-136 for starters; then drop
a note or make a phone call to Jim Lumsden (233-103, X 6726)
and tell him how you might be better served by the club that
you just joined. Thanks and let's make '77 even better than '76!
SIX MEMBERS CITED FOR OUTSTANDING
CLUB SERVICE
At the December meeting, President
Brokl presented awards to six club members in recognition of
outstanding service to the club in 1976. "Certificates of
Recognition" went to Dick Piety, K6SVP, Facilities, Norm
Chalfin, K6PGX, Photographer; Nash Williams, W6HCD, Program Chairman;
and Ralph West, WB6YMF, Secretary. A "Board of Directors
Certificate of Recognition" was presented to your humbled
editor, Merv MacMedan, W6IUV, for the Newsletter. And the "President's
Award" was presented to Jim Lumsden, WA6MYJ, for his leadership
of the N6V activity. According to Stan, the reason for the awards
was to make sure that everyone is aware of the effort that these
people put into their work for the club and that while there
is no pay for it, there is visible proof that it is appreciated.
Perhaps, it may even help convince others that volunteering for
a task isn't all that bad after all! Congratulations!
AMATEUR RADIO EXHIBIT IN LIBRARY
A display, "Hams in Space
Communications" has been set up in the Library in Bldg.
111. Club members and others interested are urged to visit the
Library during January, February, and March. The display includes
amateur spacecraft models, photos, and other memorabilia. [K6PGX]
CALL FOR CODE TAPES TO REPORT
IN
There are several sets of code
tapes outstanding which were obtained from Norm Chalfin, Education
Committee Chairman, by persons on Lab. It would be appreciated
if those now holding such tapes would call Norm at X 6833 indicating
if they still want to hold them. [K6PGX]
DECEMBER BOARD MEETING MINUTES
As the December Board Meeting
would have interfered with useful work on December 22 (Christmas
parties in particular) it was not held; consequently we have
no minutes to print and I can use this space to wish everyone
a Happy New Year. [W6IUV]
OOOOOOOPS!
In last month's article about
N6V, it is stated on Page 2 that N6V worked most of the guys
on 2m FM in the Ensenada Radio Club. It appears that, at times,
N6V operators became somewhat euphoric and perhaps stretched
a point. In this case, it was the Tijuana Radio Club we worked,
which is quite a bit closer than Ensenada! Our apologies to the
TRC and thanks to Nash Williams for bringing it to our attention.
CONGRATULATIONS to K6SVP on passing his Advanced Class Exam
on Dec. 15. Amazing how SSTV can motivate!
NEW AMATEUR BANDS PROPOSED
FOR WARC-79
The FCC has issued its Third Notice
of Inquiry concerning the 1979 World Administrative Radio Conference
detailing the new amateur frequency allocations to be asked for.
The band-by-band breakdown is as follows:
Above 1 GHz, all the bands we presently have are included
in the proposal along with specific subbands for the Amateur
Satellite Service.
* = Shared with other services.
In the proposal, the 220 MHz band would be shared with radio-location
and land mobile services. This could open the door for allocation
to Class E CB!
Initial reaction to the Amateur
Radio portions of the 280-page document is that we could have
done a lot worse. Though none of the three new HF bands the WARC
working group had proposed made it into the Notice, the only
band in which we'd lose some spectrum is 160. 40, 20 and 15 all
gain spectrum, and 400 exclusive kHz on 80 would be a nice bonus,
as would the new 160 kHz and 900 MHz bands.
Comments on the Notice of Inquiry
must be filed by January 31 and
Reply Comments by February 21 - far less time than had been expected.
Since the book-sized document is not available in sufficient
quantities for general distribution, ARRL is offering an abstract
covering the amateur portions with suggestions as to appropriate
comments - - SASE with 24¢ postage will bring you a copy.
Club members should note that our Trustee and ARRL Vice Director,
Jay Holladay, W6EJJ, has both the abstract and the original FCC
document if you wish to look them over, but copies are out of
the question.
Dick Baldwin, ARRL General Manager,
has issued some guidelines for those drafting comments on the
proposal. He says that we should comment favorably in areas where
we agree with the proposal, not just omit mention. This is necessary
because other services will probably be unhappy seeing our service
make gains and will seek to have those positions modified.
Dick believes that the 15-meter
band is unduly distorted from what it has been in the past, with
attendant massive equipment changes required to allow existing
equipment to be used there. He feels it would be worth giving
up the additional 50 kHz proposed by the FCC to keep the band
as it is now. FCC's position is that the change was needed to
accommodate requirements of the Maritime Mobile Service. Their
band could, as an alternative, suggests Dick, be moved to 20650-21O0O
kHz.
A third comment is that adequate
attention was not given to the original request for new Amateur
bands at 10, 18 and 24 MHz. Even a narrow band at each of these
frequencies would help maintain continuous contacts with certain
areas of the world during times of changing conditions. Sharing
with other fixed services is not an unacceptable position, because
one of the guidelines for these new allocations is that they
must support our communication needs from 1980 to the year 2000.
By then, we would expect most of the fixed services to be on
cables or satellites, leaving these bands essentially ours; but
on the other hand, the frequencies will be needed to support
growing numbers of hams, which are expected to increase from
750,000 in 1975 to 1,000,000 in 1980 and to six million by 2000.
Baldwin also makes the point that
the amateur bands have served as a reservoir of frequencies available
to the government during times of national emergency as in World
War II. The maintenance of our present bands, plus the new bands
at 10, 18, and 24 MHz would be deposited in the "bank."
All club members are requested
to consider what this proposal means to them and then write their
comments to the FCC on the subject before January 31. For conference
preparations, FCC requires an original and 19 copies to be provided.
It would be appreciated if members would also send a copy of
their submittal to Jay Holladay, Mail Stop 126-112, to help ARRL
develop their filing to the FCC. This will be completed at the
ARRL Board of Directors meeting, January 20-21. You may also
pass along any other comments on matters you would like to have
brought up at that meeting through Jay, who plans to attend,
along with our Division Director, John Griggs, W6KW.
[Tnx to HR Report, ARRL, and W6EJJ
on this one.]
MT. WILSON REPEATER RETURNS
WR6ABE, the Mt. Wilson repeater
on 147.435/146.40 is returning to the air January 1 under the
guise of WR6AMD. It has been off the air for a number of weeks
while it and its management was overhauled in an effort to clean
up some of the bad operating practices of users. Written rules
and regulations have been distributed, and those not abiding
by the rules are publicly chastised by being mentioned in a daily
bulletin on the air; however, it is hoped that those unwittingly
violating the rules will be advised by their peers on the air
in a friendly manner. A booklet explaining the rules and philosophy
of this wide-area coverage repeater is available from the WR6ABE/WR6AMD
Control Group, 13135 Ventura Blvd, Suite 203, Studio City, Calif.
91604. We wish the new WR6AMD best wishes for a well-disciplined
New Year!
BERRY COMES BACK
Emergency Communications Manager
Glenn Berry, K6GHJ should be returning to his office by the time
you read this. Glenn had surgery December 1 to remove a cancerous
growth in his nose after radiation treatments were found to be
ineffective last summer. They believe it is fully controlled
now and Glenn should be as good as ever. Glad to have you back,
OM!
WANTED:
Single band (40 meters) SSB transceiver,
inexpensive. Paul Lecoq, K6KNA X 5517 or 213-794-5166.
****** DUES FOR '77 DUE! Happy
New Year! *****
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