Present (15): W1IP, AI1V, W1SMS, W1PPL, KC1AUH, W1LYZ, K1CYW, KC1TX, N1ZD, AA1XV, N1DPD, K1WYQ, KC1KSO, KB1OIE, K1RF
Meeting opened 7:30 by W1IP
July minutes approved.
Department Reports:
Finance: Checking and savings both good. We were able to sell a number of pieces of donated equipment at good prices.
Communications : No communications of note.
Board : No Board actions.
Technical Committee: No problems noted.
With Curt’s imminent move to North Carolina, we need to find a chair for the Technical Committee. Please contact any of the Board members if you are interested. You don’t have to be the world’s greatest techie, you just need to be someone who will work with the club to find the right person to fix things when they need fixing.
Because of rain getting through the roof of the Comm Center, the router we were using for open internet access was destroyed, which took away both our wireless internet at the Comm Center and also our Echolink access. We have offered the Fire Dept a replacement router, but so far they have not installed it.
Public Service:
● Lighthouse to Lighthouse is coming up 9/14. Due to other commitments on our parts, we have asked Jeff Cronin from GFARA to head up the coverage.
● The Parkinson Walk is coming up Oct 5. It’s a short (1-½ hour) operation where we cover the route of a 1-½ mile walk by Parkinson Disease victims who are raising money for research. Parkinson is a horrible disease since it slowly robs people of their ability to walk, talk, digest food, and think clearly. We were shocked last year to discover how many Parkinson victims we individually knew. Pizza and tee-shirts.
Although not quite public service, we did a Lighthouses on the Air (LOTA) deployment at Sheffield Island Light House on August 18. We activated on both 40 and 20 meters, and despite generally bad propagation managed to get contacts well out into the mid-West. Many thanks to KC1GBZ who just happened to bring along a “spare” antenna that we wound up needing to use when we couldn’t get the club’s end-fed to work.
Education Committee: Tech Class scheduled to start 9/26. We have 18 people signed up for the class. About half of them are CERT, the other half are just people interested in getting their licenses.
VE session last Saturday. Two new techs. One upgrade from tech to general. Candidates came from as far away as Middlebury CT (near Waterbury). We remain one of the most active testing centers in CT.
Holiday Party: The annual holiday party will be held on Wed Dec 11 at 6pm at the Laurel Athletic Club in Norwalk. Pricing details to follow.
The meeting was closed at 7:52 pm.
Thank you to Steve, W1SMS, for a very interesting AND eye opening discussion of antenna
tuners – or as he called them “antenna couplers”.
Meeting opened 7:30 by K1TA
June minutes approved.
Department Reports:
Finance: Checking and savings both good. Spent $710 on Field Day, including some supplies for the summer picnic.
Communications: No communications of note.
Board: The Board met to discuss FD trailer situation. The trailer itself is old and cannot be licensed. The tower is welded to the trailer. The Board wants to put together a committee of interested parties to explore options – including moving the tower to a different trailer, replacing the existing beam with a smaller and lighter beam, mounting a flip-up tower to our equipment trailer, and whatever else comes to mind. Please contact K1TA if you are interested in participating on the committee.
Read More →The Greater Norwalk Amateur Radio Club (www.gnarc.org) will be offering an amateur radio
licensing class that will get you your entry level technician amateur (“ham”)
radio license.
The classes will run for six weeks starting on Thursday September 26.
Class is 6:30 to 9:30 at GNARC’s communications center at 100 Fairfield Avenue
in Norwalk (convenient to I-95 and Route 7). There is no charge for the
class, although you will need to buy the Amateur Radio Relay League’s training
manual ($25). We suggest that you purchase an entry level radio so you can
begin to listen to things right away. They cost about $35 on Amazon. Details to
be provided.
At the end of the class, you will be able to take the FCC exam at GNARC and get
your license.
Getting a ham radio license requires learning some rules and regulations, the
basics of how radios and antennas work, and simple electronics.
Present (19): K1TA, W1PPL, AI1V, K1WYQ, N1ZD, W1GIG, K1RF, N1DPD, KC1AUH, KA1NGF, W1TEG, AA1XV, K1CYW, KB1FBX, KB1UOB, KC1FB, KC1GBZ, W1CAH, KA1WBN
Meeting opened 7:30 by K1TA
May minutes approved.
Department Reports:
Finance: Checking and savings both good. Expect to spend about $1K between Field Day and club picnic.
Communications: No communications of note.
Board: No board actions this month.
Technical Committee: No problems noted.
Still in discussion with City about putting up some low band horizontal antennas at the Comm Center.
Public Service:
- Fairfield Half Marathon on June 2nd went well. W1IP was net control. Event organizers and Fairfield PD/FD appreciate our work.
- Bloomin Metric also went well. 22 hams from GNARC, GFARA, and SARA. Got slammed this year with calls for assistance (30+) but with good dispatch control at NCS and excellent work by our people in the field we were able to get to each call within 20 minutes (truly excellent for most bike rides).
MS Ride coming up on Sunday June 23. Conflicts with Field Day but we have staff for this.
Education Committee: All four of our General class students have now passed their exam. We expect to conduct a Tech class in the fall. No walk-ins for VE session because it corresponded with the I-95 closing in Stamford.
Field Day: See below.
The meeting was closed at 7:40 pm.
Field Day Discussion
We discussed Field Day plans.
- WE NEED OPERATORS. Our station will be up for 24 hours starting 2pm local on Saturday. We will be in Veteran’s Park across the river from the Maritime Center.
- Instead of a multi-band long-wire GOTA, we will be using a multi-band vertical that Hugo is providing. Also, K1TA expects to bring his Go-Box for GOTA use (Icom 7300). Other than that, the equipment is expected to be the same as last year.
- The situation with the tower is unclear. The trailer had a temporary license last year but has not been inspected. That raises issues about the legality of the trailer and about insurance coverage, especially if there is an accident or if someone is injured putting up/taking down the tower. Further discussion required.
- We prefer to not use the light tower/generator that Norwalk FD typically lends us because it usually fails at some point. PPL and IP are trying to get a similar unit from Wilton but don’t yet have approval. We will have two small Honda generators at the FD site to be put into use in case the big generator fails (regardless of which big generator we wind up with). Hugo is questioning whether two of the Honda’s are enough but everyone agrees that two should be more than enough.
- Hugo (AA1XV) and others have taken an inventory of all the equipment to make sure that we have everything we need.
- We again went through the checklist of Field Day extra points for our FD class to make sure that someone is assigned for each item to make sure we get the points.
- All members are encouraged to come and get on the air. If you are newly licensed or a technician class or haven’t been on the air in a year or more, we will provide an experienced operator to help you on Field Day.
- Please try to bring as many of your non-Ham friends, family, colleagues as you can to get them on the air – we get special points for that.
- We will provide lunch and dinner on Saturday and breakfast and lunch on Sunday.
- WE NEED OPERATORS!!!
Update: All three HF radios have been sold! Power supply sold!
Hygain CD45II Rotator system – New in Box – with control cable! – $300!
Please see the PDF attachment for the excellent presentation given by Steve, K1RF on end fed half wave antennas.
Today a group of GNARC members operated portable form Sherwood Island State Park in Westport. Attending were Paul WB2JVB, Joe KC1AUH, Jon AI1V, Paul W1PPL, Steve KB1YLQ and Curt W1FSM.
We had two antennas, an end fed multiband and a Buddipole set for 20m. The end fed was used on 40m.
Conditions were surprisingly good! We had no problems making contacts up and down the East coast, the mid West and into Canada on 40. When we switched to 20, we talked to several European stations (Germany was one) and out to Minnesota. Jon and Paul JVB did the operating.
This was a very fun day, perfect weather and good HF propagation. We plan to do this again, as Sherwood is now free to get in, and it is an official park, Z1715, so if you get spotted, you get lots of calls.
Here are a few pictures from the day.
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