Greater Norwalk Amateur Radio Club (GNARC)
Meeting Minutes 02/13/2025
Present (8): Hugo AA1XV, Toy K1WYQ, Steve K1RF, Pete KC1PWH, Rusty K4SAA, Jon AI1V, David N1DPD, Steve W1SMS
Meeting opened 7:00 by AA1XV
Jan minutes approved.
Department Reports:
Finance: Checking and savings both good. However, we have had only 32 paid renewals so far this year which is running behind last year at this time. Please don’t forget to renew.
Communications: No communications of note.
Board: No Board actions.
Technical Committee: Steve W1SMS continues to work on getting the new repeater and new antenna ready for the hospital site. Once the hospital site has been upgraded we will then address the Strawberry Hill site.
Public Service: No items of note this month. Nothing in the immediate future.
Education Committee: Nothing new.
Other Old Business: We still need to deal with the trailer at the firehouse since we are going to have to move it. We either need a place for the trailer itself or at least a place for the equipment in the trailer.
New Business:
We are doing a survey of what club members want out of the club. The survey has been put on-line and a link has been sent by email to everyone on the reflector mailing list. Please respond to the survey so that the board can better plan club activities and meetings.
We will try a hybrid meeting next month – both in-person and on-line. Apparently there are a number of club members who prefer to not be driving at night, especially given rush hour traffic in lower Fairfield County.
We discussed Field Day 2025. Hugo AA1XV would prefer a more traditional Field Day than going to the Westport Astronomical Society, but so far has not found a suitable place. While Vets Park is probably available, it is a tough place given the lack of trees for antennas and lack of shade. Rusty K4SAA suggested that we look at Waveny Park. Hugo has also suggested that if we cannot find a place of our own that we consider combining with another club such as Stamford.
We also discussed the desirability of a remote HF operation. We do have an Icom 7300 that was set up for remote operation but was not used very often. It was suggested that we talk to the Norwalk Senior Center to see if we can get room in there as a permanent shack and also for a permanent remote HF operation, perhaps with a 40-10 HF vertical which would probably be more practical to implement, especially if we’re going to be someplace like the Senior Center. It was pointed out that as good as the 7300 is for remote operations, it’s a lot easier to set up a Flex Radio for remote operations.
We also talked about re-implementing the formal member database that was allowed to get out of date over the past year or so.
The meeting was closed at 9:00 pm.
Next meeting is expected to be WEDNESDAY March 12.
