July 2022 Meeting Minutes
Snoqualmie Valley Radio Club
Monthly Meeting Minutes
July 7th, 2022
I. Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order at 6:16 p.m. at Duvall Fire Station 66.
Members in attendance were:
Tom – President, Kirt – Vice President, Lindy (Zoom) – Treasurer, Rowland, Shawn, Ken, Paul Butzi, Paul Zoba, Konstantin Ostrovsky, Mike KJ7JNG (Zoom), Ralph (Zoom), Bob KI7RMO (Zoom), and others.
II. Approval of Board Meeting Minutes
The meeting minutes from the meeting that occurred on June 2nd 2022 were approved.
III. Treasury Report and Financials
Lindy presented the June 2022 financials to the members in attendance. Currently there is $7,507.00 in the treasury and SNOVARC has 34 paying members. Lindy explained that the large drop in the treasury funds from last month were due to the expense of the new Cougar Mountain repeater ($7,719.00). The Treasurer’s report was approved by the members.
IV. Old Business
Myers Repeater – The Myers repeater has been working extremely well. Tom mentioned that the exercise on the repeater with several SNOVARC members proved that the new location is working well, with good coverage including the crossband repeater.
Cougar Mountain Repeater – The new Kenwood hardware has been received. A “gentle burn-in mode” is currently in progress. Shawn mentioned that there was a commercial power outage about a week ago. Everything rebooted and the repeater was back in service in about 15 minutes after commercial power was restored. There have been some software issues discovered that need to be resolved.
Education and outreach – Nothing new to report
Marketing – Tom mentioned that he has access to a program that lists the addresses of Ham Radio Operators in our area. The club could possibly send a postcard to each local HAM inviting them to join our club.
Rookie Roundtable – Kirt reported that there is nothing really new and that new Hams are not joining the net. Tom mentioned that even though the net is not drawing many new Hams, the discussions during the Rookie Roundtable Net have been interesting.
Carnation existing space – The space where the Carnation repeater is currently located is needed by Carnation City Hall. Anna (City Manager) has more people joining her team and she requires people space. The Carnation Repeater will be placed temporarily in the KCS room. It was decided to give the A/C unit that was being used to cool the repeater room to the City of Carnation. A suggestion was made to remove the non-working antenna from the roof of Carnation City Hall and move the working antenna to a new location on the roof.
Shirts and badges – Sandy from DUVALL DAZZLING DESIGNS (www.duvallsdazzlingdesigns.com) was present at the meeting and was able to show all attendees the types of shirts, jackets and hats she had available. She mentioned that individual orders would be less expensive if SNOVAC designs were placed on apparel via a heat transfer. Creating a design that can be applied with a heat transfer is less expensive than creating a design with a screen because creating the screen and printing on apparel with a screen is cost effective when printing a design on higher volume of apparel. Embroidered patches and embroidery on shirts and hats will be more expensive. The club needs to make a decision on which type (heat, screen, embroidery) of process they want to use for club apparel.
Note: Rowland will be starting the King County re-badging process early to avoid any delays in obtaining new badges that are scheduled to expire January 2023. Rowland expects that King County will be overwhelmed with new requests, so it is better to start now rather than wait and have too many applications submitted closer to the expiration date. Rowland will be sending emails out to folks to see if they still want to be active before issuing the new badges.
June 16th exercise – Myers repeater and cross band repeater tests went very well. Tom said it was a “smashing success”! Everyone could hit the repeater and VHF cross band.
V. New Business
Regional Net – Rowland reported that he really has not received much traction getting any significant interest in this type of net.
Tom suggested we restart the social gatherings at Duvall ball field where folks can bring their equipment, coffee, and chat.
Tonight’s Elmer session will be a presentation by Scott Honaker in which he will talk about disaster recovery after the OSO flood and mudslide that occurred on March 22, 2014. Scott was deployed to the tragic scene and will provide an eyewitness account of all the things that went right, and wrong and explain to the attendees the lessons that were learned by first responders and disaster recovery teams.
The third Thursday mini-drill for July 21st has not yet been planned. Tom will send out a group e-mail when the plan has been completed.
Mike will distribute a map to all members that will show the exact location where Hams were stationed while using the Myers repeater on the Trilogy “Trek-a-Thon” on June 25th, 2022 between 8 am and 1 pm. Mike reported that the repeater was clear and worked flawlessly during the Trek-a-Thon. Meeting adjourned at 7:00 p.m.
