May 2025 Meeting Minutes
Snoqualmie Valley Radio Club
Monthly Meeting Minutes
May 6th, 2025
I. Call to Order:
The meeting was called to order by Tom at 7:00 pm on Zoom.
Members in attendance were:
Tom (WA7TBP), Kirt (K7KDW) – Vice President, Mike (KJ7JNG) – Secretary, Ken (W7ECK), Rowland (K7RWB), Colin (W2COL), Larry (AF7RW), Konstantin (KK7KO)
II. Approval of Board Meeting Minutes
The meeting minutes from the meeting that occurred on April 1st, 2025 were approved.
III. Treasury Report and Financials
As of 4/25/25 there is $7,031 in the treasury. The club just purchased ARRL Liability insurance. Membership is now at 29. Membership is down seven members since last year at this time.
IV. Committee and Task Force Reports
Repeater Task Force:
Shawn (K7ATA) has moved further away from the Cougar repeater and will be stepping away from being the lead for the Tech Committee. Shawn still wants to be involved as much as he can from his new home in Snohomish County. Tom mentioned that he and Ken will be doing more of the maintenance duties that Shawn was previously performing.
Cougar Mountain Repeater – Replacement repeater is still under test at Tom’s (WA7TBP) home. Tom is not at home as contractors are working inside his home. The new repeater will be installed once Tom gets back in his home and can access the repeater. Tom would like to hold a repeater workshop at the Lake Joy fire station before installing the new repeater package at the Cougar site. Tom would like to get several Tech Committee members to have a copy of the repeater software installed on their computers. Tom will contact Ken from ARCOM so Tom can verify how the repeater software can be loaded onto numerous computers.
Myers Repeater – The club is planning to link Cougar and Myers together over IRLP. Ken said the internet is there and Shawn has the equipment in hand. Since Shawn is stepping back from his maintenance role, and he has the Raspberry Pi that is needed to link the two repeaters, the club will purchase a new Raspberry Pi and associated equipment to link the Cougar Mountain and the Myers repeaters together. Ryan can assist to complete to link the Cougar and Myers repeaters together. Cost to the club: Approximately $400.00
Carnation Repeater – The plan is to move the repeater to Chuck and Lindy’s home. Tom and other interested parties will perform a site survey with Lindy and Chuck to decide where to place the repeater, and what hardware will be needed. Other tenants from the Carnation City Hall building have moved to other locations. We will need to move out the repeater equipment soon because the existing Carnation Town Hall building is being shut down. No changes since last meeting.
Emergency Planning and Mobilization:
EYEWARN – Greg Bawdon has taken over leadership of the project and Greg held first EYEWARN meeting on 4/28. Rowland was not present and could not provide an update.
Education and Community Outreach:
Thursday Night Roundtable/Ham Development – The Roundtable Net has changed into a “check-in” Net since many of the Hams that do check-in are seasoned ham radio operators. No changes since last meeting.
Equipment Inventory Status – No changes since last meeting.
V. Old Business
Status of Club Shirts – Mike followed-up with Sandy about purchasing a baseball hat with the club logo embroidered on the front and his call sign embroidered on the back. Mike is still waiting to hear back from Sandy about the hat. Tom will follow-up with Sandy.
Field Day – This year Field Day will be at Valley Camp. Issaquah and Eastside Fire and Rescue will be attending. Tom will need some assistance getting antenna lines hung on some of the trees in Valley Camp. Attendees will need to pay for their RV parking spot. A meeting(s) will be held to ascertain how food items and other issues will be paid for.
Unused Equipment Sale – We have a lot of equipment we no longer use or have plans to use in the future. An off-site meeting will be held on how to sell/donate/dispose of the used equipment.
VI. New Business
The club wanted to recognize and thank Rick (KB7CIN) for distributing, via email, a weekly reminder of who is scheduled to run the weekly net. Tom thanked Mike for filling-in when the scheduled NCO is not available.
Larry represented the SNOVARC ham radio club among about ½ dozen other radio clubs and organizations to test communications between clubs. Radio clubs from Redmond, Eastside Fire and Rescue, Mercer Island, Bellevue, and Issaquah joined to determine if each represented team could reach each other through the designated repeaters and simplex channels.
VII. Open Discussion
Elmer Meeting Feedback – Tom mentioned that the information presented to members of SNOVARC by Scott Honaker (N7SS) was a success and enjoyed by all. Scott’s photos of different types of “go bags” in different type of containers demonstrated how “go kits” can be designed and created. This was the first Elmer meeting at the Redemption Church in Duval and everything worked well and everyone from the church was welcoming and friendly.
CONGRATULATIONS to Konstantin (KK7KO)! Konstantin passed the FCC test and is now a licensed Amateur Extra.
Meeting adjourned at 8:00 p.m
