Alachua ARES/NFARC/NF4AC Clubs
MINUTES August 9, 2023
Attendance: 13. Meeting held in person at the Alachua County Emergency Operations Center and also via ZOOM.
Gordon Gibby KX4Z, Jeff Capehart W4UFL, Susan Halbert KG4VWI,
Eric Pleace KO4ZSD, Dean Covey, Earl McDow K4ZSW, David Huckstep W4JIR,
Mike Hasselbeck WB2FKO, Rosemary Jones KI4QBZ, Mike Shaffer KD4INH,
Wendell Wright KN4TWS, Lorilyn Roberts KO4LBS, Randy Carter N4AYS
Reporting of volunteer hours is done for some group activities, but individuals can report hours (links on both web sites) – by end of month if possible.
Nets (eg 8pm thursday) are reported by Jeff.
41 persons, 95 total hours for month. Many different activities, including research. ARRL wants this data. Categories displayed on the form.
Wendel is thinking about a local POTA group.
July Minutes: approved.
Thanks expressed for lots of work on the new NF4AC club website, nf4ac.club.
Gordon reported he has updated the menu bar and a couple of other items.
Susan needs $$ for the club insurance premium – small collection was taken at the meeting.
Technician License Class: More people are signing up and Gordon is following up with contacts. We had a good discussion about teaching vs teaching to the test. There was discussion about resources for learning – ARRL has several items.
Regarding Badging: The EOC asks that “badged” people actually show up. The consensus was that we understand the EOC, but we are volunteers and our availability varies.
A discussion followed: How do we know when people want to pull back from ARES here? Renewals are coming up next year & we will need to justify people’s continuing badging. The meeting approved a motion to send a polite letter to all badged people asking for their status.
Stewart is among many who contribute greatly but do not need a badge.
Lorilyn described great welcome at Waldo and referral to ARES.
Waldo GARS folks are doing a great job, good people.
Section News:
Monthly reports are improving, ARRL is working on a better way to report monthly checkins. The meeing recommended write grants. ARRL working on new ARES brochure, and an insurance program, Scott and Arc are willing to write thanks you letters to EOC.
EC001 is out of date – being worked on now; AUXCOMM course needed for in-State and out of state deployment. It is all a bit disorganized, but things are improving. It is at a high level…Individuals can find what’s needed and can take necessary trainings.
ALE (automatic link establishment)– the State asks us to use it. Gordon explained it briefly: It checks many frequencies with scans & pings. The software monitors and remembers what is active. Text message and/or voice are available. Windows free software is available to download. It is slow to load up, has lots of setting and can take 30 minutes to configure, uses many channels (including federal SHARES frequencies). It is a complicated system, we are scratching the surface.
MOBEC exercise: we were asked to participate, a little success. We contacted 2 MARC units, none others.
Winter field day: GARS already does this, we are interested in making this work. Last full weekend in Jan (27th & 28th ). Plan is to do it at Alachua Co EOC: 3 transmitters, suggests indoor. FT4/8 not allowed. Other digital calls 3 transmitters using a triplexer to a single antenna. Suggest many modes, Gordon has suggestions on how to multiply points. Gordon described the triplexer and how to make a quadplexer. GARS are ahead of us and provided the initial idea.
He has written an article for section newsletter about this.
We have a friendly competition with the GARS group for winter field day.
Our next ARES meeting will be at Queen of Peace – evenings are getting darker earlier.
Close to 9pm: Meeting adjourned.