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President's LetterJonathan Pearce, WB2MNFJanuary 2024 |
GCARC had many successes in 2023 and moving into 2024 will hopefully bring the same level of member involvement in the broad group of activities that the Club offers. We’re looking forward to continuing high attendance counts at the Wednesday Night General Membership Meetings and we’re planning a new slate of Tech Saturday Forum sessions to provide a broad spectrum of hands-on projects in many areas of amateur radio. The Monday Night TechNet ZOOM Forum sessions will focus on collaboration among participants on technical topics with early discussions on interfacing radios, computers and external devices and other similar areas.
But 2024 won’t be without its challenges. A significant source of member growth has been through our licensing classes but demand has diminished (possibly because we’ve already helped all of the candidates become licensed) which may create challenges to bringing in the constant stream of new members that we need to maintain the club’s financial viability. Costs continue to increase for electricity, insurance, internet access, and other expenses. Several long-time Club activity leaders have indicated their plans to step down from those positions, requiring new leaders to take their places.
All of this can create opportunities for members to find new places to participate in Club activities, especially some who have joined recently. With almost 20 percent of our membership having joined within the past two years many new members likely have skills and interests in participating in or managing significant projects and activities within the Club. In particular, someone with project management experience could fill a significant role by understudying the management of the hamfest this year with the goal of taking over its operations next year. Other less visible but no less important tasks involve working with the presentation, technical and education committees to come up with topics and speakers for meetings, Tech Saturdays and several other initiatives. So don’t hesitate to raise our hand or to speak to one of the Club leaders if you’re interested in taking on some new function within the organization. There are opportunities for ALL of our members to be involved in some way in this club!
Holiday Dinner
The Holiday Dinner took place in November after the President’s letter was submitted so it’s important to acknowledge its success and all of the hard work that went into creating it. More than 50 members and guests attended with food prepared by Kathy Romeo, Mary Jane Block and delicious desserts by Phyllis Martin. A humorous musical interlude on the accordion was given by Karl Frank W2KBF and Volunteer Appreciation Awards were presented to Anthony Cerami N2OAC, Gary Mirkin WA3SVW, Carl Wittig N2CRW, John Zaruba Jr K2ZA and a special non-member award to Kathy Romeo for her repeated efforts at feeding the Club at the dinner, multiple Field Day occasions and other times. That event also created a significant financial contribution towards the VHF tower fund.
“Got My License – Now What?” Session
This session was presented to about a dozen hams who had become licensed within the past year or so, and was quite well received. Interestingly we found that most participants were already more familiar with some of the material than we had anticipated - many had already operated on HF bands and everyone had used an HT - but some topics like POTA, SDR radios, and satellite communications were unfamiliar. Feedback from the participants was quite useful, asking for more information on topics like antenna building, logging, and others that may be helpful subjects for Tech Saturdays or TechNets. We’ll repeat this session periodically as new licensees emerge.
Meteor Scatter Operations
Once again we fired up the Flex 3000 with the Elecraft amp on 6 meters attempting to bang signals off of meteors during the Geminid shower a couple of weeks ago. It was dark and cold and there were a lot of competing stations that made reception difficult in the two time slices that the MSK144 uses for this mode but K2QA and I made two genuine contacts before packing it in around 11 PM. Meteor scatter is pretty interesting the first few times but like some other modes gets boring once you’ve achieved success so future organized efforts, at least by me, are uncertain unless others are interested in working with this mode. There’s another meteor shower in January so let me know if you’d like to try it.
Tech Saturday with Raspberry Pi computers
The Tech Saturday session covering Raspberry Pi ham applications was well attended and included members with a wide range of experience with these devices. Given the interest we’re going to devote a few of the Monday Night TechNet sessions to various aspects of these devices as well as interfacing other computers including PCs to radios and other station components. Check out the TechNet ZOOM Forum on Monday, January 8, 2024 if you’re a Pi user or want to become one.
Holiday Wishes
Since this message will probably reach you after Christmas I hope that Santa (or HRO or MicroCenter or Amazon) brought you many new devices that will create hours of enjoyment of our hobby, that you’ll share your newfound knowledge with our great community of hams, and that we’ll see you many times at GCARC activities in 2024.
Have a safe holiday, stay grounded and we’ll all get together in the new year.
73 de Jon Pearce WB2MNF
GCARC President
But 2024 won’t be without its challenges. A significant source of member growth has been through our licensing classes but demand has diminished (possibly because we’ve already helped all of the candidates become licensed) which may create challenges to bringing in the constant stream of new members that we need to maintain the club’s financial viability. Costs continue to increase for electricity, insurance, internet access, and other expenses. Several long-time Club activity leaders have indicated their plans to step down from those positions, requiring new leaders to take their places.
All of this can create opportunities for members to find new places to participate in Club activities, especially some who have joined recently. With almost 20 percent of our membership having joined within the past two years many new members likely have skills and interests in participating in or managing significant projects and activities within the Club. In particular, someone with project management experience could fill a significant role by understudying the management of the hamfest this year with the goal of taking over its operations next year. Other less visible but no less important tasks involve working with the presentation, technical and education committees to come up with topics and speakers for meetings, Tech Saturdays and several other initiatives. So don’t hesitate to raise our hand or to speak to one of the Club leaders if you’re interested in taking on some new function within the organization. There are opportunities for ALL of our members to be involved in some way in this club!
Holiday Dinner
The Holiday Dinner took place in November after the President’s letter was submitted so it’s important to acknowledge its success and all of the hard work that went into creating it. More than 50 members and guests attended with food prepared by Kathy Romeo, Mary Jane Block and delicious desserts by Phyllis Martin. A humorous musical interlude on the accordion was given by Karl Frank W2KBF and Volunteer Appreciation Awards were presented to Anthony Cerami N2OAC, Gary Mirkin WA3SVW, Carl Wittig N2CRW, John Zaruba Jr K2ZA and a special non-member award to Kathy Romeo for her repeated efforts at feeding the Club at the dinner, multiple Field Day occasions and other times. That event also created a significant financial contribution towards the VHF tower fund.
“Got My License – Now What?” Session
This session was presented to about a dozen hams who had become licensed within the past year or so, and was quite well received. Interestingly we found that most participants were already more familiar with some of the material than we had anticipated - many had already operated on HF bands and everyone had used an HT - but some topics like POTA, SDR radios, and satellite communications were unfamiliar. Feedback from the participants was quite useful, asking for more information on topics like antenna building, logging, and others that may be helpful subjects for Tech Saturdays or TechNets. We’ll repeat this session periodically as new licensees emerge.
Meteor Scatter Operations
Once again we fired up the Flex 3000 with the Elecraft amp on 6 meters attempting to bang signals off of meteors during the Geminid shower a couple of weeks ago. It was dark and cold and there were a lot of competing stations that made reception difficult in the two time slices that the MSK144 uses for this mode but K2QA and I made two genuine contacts before packing it in around 11 PM. Meteor scatter is pretty interesting the first few times but like some other modes gets boring once you’ve achieved success so future organized efforts, at least by me, are uncertain unless others are interested in working with this mode. There’s another meteor shower in January so let me know if you’d like to try it.
Tech Saturday with Raspberry Pi computers
The Tech Saturday session covering Raspberry Pi ham applications was well attended and included members with a wide range of experience with these devices. Given the interest we’re going to devote a few of the Monday Night TechNet sessions to various aspects of these devices as well as interfacing other computers including PCs to radios and other station components. Check out the TechNet ZOOM Forum on Monday, January 8, 2024 if you’re a Pi user or want to become one.
Holiday Wishes
Since this message will probably reach you after Christmas I hope that Santa (or HRO or MicroCenter or Amazon) brought you many new devices that will create hours of enjoyment of our hobby, that you’ll share your newfound knowledge with our great community of hams, and that we’ll see you many times at GCARC activities in 2024.
Have a safe holiday, stay grounded and we’ll all get together in the new year.
73 de Jon Pearce WB2MNF
GCARC President
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
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January 17, 1706
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Full Wolf Moon - January 25, 2024
January’s full Wolf Moon reaches peak illumination on Thursday, January 25, 2024 @ 1254 Hours. At a full Moon, the Moon is located on the opposite side of the Earth to the Sun so the face of the Moon facing towards the Earth will be completely illuminated by the Sun’s rays. Look for the Moon to rise from the northeastern horizon around sunset that evening.
Old Farmer’s Almanac - www.almanac.com