President's Letter

Jonathan Pearce, WB2MNF

September 2023

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Despite being a popular month for vacations there was some active Club activity in August. Following up on his excellent presentation on mobile radio installations at the General Membership Meeting Tony Starr K3TS brought his truck over to the Clubhouse for Tech Saturday and demonstrated some of the installation techniques that he had described in his presentation. Other members brought their vehicles and picked up some tips on effective mobile installations. Tech Saturday always creates an opportunity for informal collaboration on projects and conversations no matter the planned topic.

Meteor Scatter Successes
As noted elsewhere in this month’s CrossTalk an intrepid group of experimenters at the Clubhouse had some success in bouncing 6 meter radio signals off of meteors and creating contacts with distant stations. Working meteor scatter is one of the more unusual ham radio activities and requires the station with the capability similar to those at the Clubhouse for success. Since this is one of our early efforts we had to figure out how to make things work, but we hope to be better prepared for the events occurring in December and January, especially if we can get the new VHF equipment set up in time. Look for announcements in December for the next meteor scatter event.

2023 Hamfest - September 10, 2023
I hope that every Club member has a large notation on their calendars for September 10th on which is inscribed in big letters “Go to the Hamfest!”. Along with Field Day, the Hamfest is one of the two major Club events of the year, and a large volunteer group is needed to run the event, so if you're interested in volunteering please let me know and I'll forward your information accordingly. The Hamfest also provides an opportunity to get together with a large group of hams from various areas, sit through some interesting technical and organizational presentations, and perhaps purchase some valuable amateur radio equipment! Weather for the Hamfest is always great so we expect to have a large turnout of members for this event. (Note - my voice recognition software continues to transcribe “Hamfest” as “hempfest”; please be assured that it is the former! We don’t want any dissatisfied customers at the HAMfest!).

Recording Secretary Needed
A pretty nice day was ruined when I received an e-mail from Karl W2KBF informing me and the GCARC Board that he wouldn't be seeking reelection as Recording Secretary at the end of 2023. If you're one of the people who actually reads the Board and General Membership Minutes in CrossTalk you know that Karl does an outstanding job of parsing through the somewhat obtuse discussions at these meetings and recording them in a reasonable way. Thanks are certainly in order for his time in this position, but we're now faced with seeking a new Recording Secretary. This position is an officer of the Club with voting privileges and has the obvious responsibility of creating the official record of activities at Membership and Board meetings. This position starts at the beginning of the year and has a one-year term. Karl’s musical abilities and prowess at playing the accordion were certainly a plus but aren’t required for this position. If you're interested in being nominated for this position at the end of the year please contact me so I can inform the Nominating Committee of your interest. 

DMR at Tech Saturday
September 9th (the day before the Hamfest) is the September Tech Saturday Forum at which Len Rust W2LJR will be presenting a session on “DMR Techniques You May Not Know”. Most DMR users know how to connect to a repeater or hotspot and link into a talk group but may not be familiar with the DMR capabilities that allow directly calling a distant station without knowing which repeater or hotspot it's using. Similarly, the procedures for sending SMS text messages, sending digital APRS locations, roaming and simplex operation may not be widely known. Len will be covering these topics and others that may broaden the capabilities of DMR users.

If you have a DMR radio and are planning to attend, please email me your DMR ID and callsign. It may be useful for attendees to program several code plug entries in advance of the session so that they can participate in the activities like direct calling and SMS messages but these require the destination ID and callsign to be programmed as a “talk group” that can be selected through the menu. We’re hoping to publish a list of code plug additions before the session containing the connection information to allow everyone to participate.

Technical Committee Members Wanted
Many of the Club “committees” actually only include the chairman, but I’m hoping to expand the Technical Committee to include a small group of Club members who are interested in experimenting with various types of ham-related activities and collaborating about those activities. The main vehicle for this collaboration is the Monday night “TechNet”, which will restart on Monday, September 18, 2023. The challenge for any such activity, though, is creating subject matter, which I hope that this group can identify. This group can go in many different directions depending on its interests, so please let me know if you’re interested in participating.

73 de Jon WB2MNF
GCARC President

Saturday, September 2, 2023

Monday, September 4, 2023

Friday, September 15, 2023

Saturday, September 16, 2023

Monday, September 18, 2023

September 18, 1947

Saturday, September 23, 2023 @ 0250 Hours

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Full Corn Moon : September 29, 2023 @ 0558 Hours. Corn was ready to harvest at this time. In the 1760s, Captain Jonathan Carver came across this Native American term during his travels. Similarly, the Western Abenaki called this the Corn Maker Moon, and the Dakota, the Corn Harvest Moon. NOTE: Harvest Moon refers to the full Moon closest to the September equinox, which is the tradition that The Old Farmer’s Almanac follows. Moon When Rice is Laid Up to Dry (Dakota) refers to the time of harvesting and processing rice. Autumn Moon (Cree), Falling Leaves Moon (Ojibwe), Leaves Turning Moon (Anishinaabe), Moon of Brown Leaves (Lakota), and Yellow Leaf Moon (Assiniboine) all speak to the leaf-changing season. Child Moon (Tlingit) occurs when young animals are weaned. Mating Moon and Rutting Moon are Cree terms that describe the time when certain animals, such as moose, are ready to mate.