MANCORAD

 May, 2006, Mancorad Meeting Minutes

  President Fred (W6BSF) called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m. on May 10, 2006.  The Treasurer’s report was given by Dick (N9QFY), and was accepted by motion from Ken (K9HAG) and second by Mary (KB9GOY).  The April, 2006, meeting minutes as e-mail distributed by Fred were accepted by motion from Theresa (KB9KXE) and second by Ken (K9HAG). 

  Signup sheets were routed for the following events (please contact the named individuals to volunteer);

1. USS Cobia activation, June 3-4 (W6BSF, KA9WYK, and K9WL)
2. 2006 Field Day, June 24-25 (W6BSF, NZ9Z, KA9WYK, and KB9YRC)
3. Brat-Fry fundraiser at Manitowoc Rob’s Market, July 1 (N9FVZ, KB9KXE NZ9Z and KB9GOY)
4. 2006 Kewaunee Trout-fest Dual-a-thon, July 15 (KB9GOX)
5. 2006 Leukemia Scenic Shore Bike Tour, July 22-23 (KB9VLS)

  Fred thanked the club members who participated in the clubshack cleanup last Thursday; KB9KXE, KB9GOY, K9HAG, N9NCU and W6BSF. Where were the rest of you?

  Fred also thanked those club members who participated in last weekend’s Cobia submarine amateur radio activation; K9HAG, KB9GOY, N9NCU, KC9JGE, KC9JFZ, W6BSF, KB9YRC, KB9VLS, KC9HYD, K9WL, KC9FVR, KA9WYK, KB9INK, KC9HQV, and KC9HBA. There were few, however, operators available to man the rigs on-board; this has to improve in future Cobia activations, or some other kind of plan needs to be developed.

  The June Mancorad meeting will be held at Lakeshore Technical College in the Public Safety Training Building on Wednesday, June 14, 2006, at 7:30 p.m. in Room P115.  The feature presentation will be by KB9YRC on severe weather spotting.

  Fred announced that on Monday, June 19, Mayor Crawford of Manitowoc will issue a proclamation recognizing Manitowoc County amateur radio operators at the city council meeting  - be at the City Hall at 6:45 p.m.; please support this proclamation with your personal turnout. Also, new Manitowoc County Executive Bob Ziegelbauer will issue a similar proclamation at the county board meeting at UW-Manitowoc on Tuesday, June 20; time to be confirmed – please also support this proclamation with your presence.  Fred said that effective with this year’s proclamations, it will now be the duty of the prior year’s Ham of the Year Award recipient to accept the proclamation(s) and make a speech accordingly.

  Marty, KC9JGE, has many technical books that he would like to give away to club members because they need a good home.  He had them in the back of his vehicle for this evening’s meeting; contact Marty for more information.

  Fred gave an update on the May 3, 2006, ribbon cutting ceremony and amateur radio station W9LTC at the Lakeshore Technical College training building. W6BSF, NZ9Z and KB9YRC represented Manitowoc Co. ARES/ RACES for the event.  The operational equipment worked very well, but a problem with room speakers picking up radio transmissions on 75M needs to be followed up on.

  Dan (N9NCU) gave the following ARES/ RACES update:

1. ARES/ RACES members wishing to become Red Cross volunteers in order to be covered under their volunteer insurance umbrella; get in your volunteer applications as soon as possible to N9NCU.
2. Saturday, June 10, 2006, will be the orientation and training session for new amateur radio station W9LTC at the LTC Campus at 9:00 a.m.. This will be a joint meeting with Sheboygan Co. ARES/ RACES.
3. In June, work party(ies) are going to be required, joint Mancorad and ARES/ RACES, to implement antenna improvements, antenna coax replacement and grounding upgrades to the clubshack.  When approval from Manitowoc Parks Department has been received, material will be purchased and further communications will be made. This project needs your support!!

  The club continues to need a historian; no one volunteered again at tonight’s meeting.  Our President, Fred, has been shouldering this responsibility and should be relieved. Someone needs to stand up and do this; the job is really easy – clip out an article and file it.

  On May 8, 2006, Fred sent by email a list of Mancorad Club owned equipment that is not being insured.  Much of this equipment is candidate for liquidation because it is not being used, and is unlikely to ever be used in the future as loaner equipment to club members. Hard copies of the list are available on the clubshack desk for those who do not have email.  In June, this topic will be addressed again, and every member is asked to express his/her opinion on whether or not each individual piece of equipment should be retained, or liquidated.  The club will make excess equipment available to club members for purchase before releasing to the outside for sale or donation.

  The Mancorad clubshack (new) computer now has an email address; mancorad@mpu.org - make a note for your email address book. 

  The final topic of discussion for tonight’s meeting involved the purchase of an overhead projector (PC driven) by the ARES/ RACES communications upgrade implementation team for joint use by ARES/ RACES and Mancorad. This purchase ($899.99) was made with the understanding (by upgrade team) that cost would be 50/50 shared between Scholten Foundation Grant moneys and the Mancorad Treasury.  This understanding proved to be a misunderstanding when request for reimbursement was made from Mancorad at the Board Meeting that preceded this evening’s club meeting, even though the agreement in principle was known to several of the board members.  Nonetheless, the BOD agreed to bring forward to the membership in attendance at tonight’s meeting a recommendation to accept the 50/50 cost sharing for vote. After initial motion acceptance and second to accept the cost sharing had been made, discussion prior to official vote motion eventually resulted in a decision to indefinitely table the topic.  The Scholten Foundation Grant will accept the full purchase cost even though the overhead projector will be used much more for Mancorad purposes than for ARES/ RACES purposes; the push to purchase the projector was to get it in hand for last weekend’s use on the Cobia activation, a Mancorad event. Several members of the ARES/ RACES emergency communications upgrade implementation team expressed their disappointment with this action. 

  Tonight’s feature presentation, Winlink 2000 by Chris (KB9VLS), was made after the meeting was closed.  A big thanks to Chris for making this presentation; WL2000 will be introduced into Manitowoc County as part of the ARES/ RACES communications upgrade project.

 The monthly 50/50 raffle was conducted.  $27.00 was collected, and the winner of the drawing was Marty (KC9JGE). The treasury will increase by $13.50 from this raffle, and Marty’s pocket did too. 

  The meeting was adjourned at 8:35 p.m. to receive the WinLink 2000 presentation by KB9VLS.

  Lunch was served, including a Birthday cake for Fred; thanks again to Theresa and Gene for bringing in the treats!  Happy Birthday Fred!  Fellowship and socializing broke out spontaneously.

  Respectfully submitted,

  Dan (N9NCU) Secretary

  Meeting Attendance (20):

Dan (N9NCU)             Dan (N9JKX)                    Dan (N9FVZ)               Chris (KB9VLS)

TJ (KC9HYD)             Dick (N9QFY)                  Walt (K9WL)                John (NZ9Z)           

Fred (W6BSF)             Bob (KC9HBA)                Gene (KB9KXF)           Theresa (KB9KXE)

Ken (K9HAG)             Mary (KB9GOY)               Marty (KC9JGE)           KB9KEM (Dick)

KC9HQV (Mike)       KC9FVR (Winston)           WB9MCJ (Steve)          WB9DQD (Gene) 

Board Of Directors Meeting Attendance: Present – W6BSF, N9NCU, N9FVZ, NZ9Z, N9QFY and K9WL: Absent – N4WGK.