The July club meeting was held at the Isom IGA.
Meeting was called to order at 18:05 by club President Roland Brown AF4Y
Members Present
Roland Brown – AF4Y – President
John Back – WJ4PB – Vice President
Ellen Brown – KY4CAT – Treasurer/Secretary
George Deas – WD9GIT
Jerry Ison – KQ4DFF
Debbie Back
Visitors Present
Frank Belcher – KS4XL (New Member)
Frank’s friend (sorry we missed your call and name, but will update if provided)
Jeremy Paul Wright – KQ4ADS (New Member)
Tanner Warf
Jason Smith
Treasurer’s Report
Beginning Balance: $3162.80
Expenses: $592.54 for FT-891 from GigaParts for Hamfest raffle
$33.87 for raffle ticket printing from Avery
$50.00 to sponsor Kentucky QSO Party Plaque
Receipts: $90.00 in dues
$280.00 in raffle ticket sales
Ending Balance: $2856.39
Old Business
- Roland Brown AF4Y gave a report on Field Day.
- Discussed Search and Rescue class. Awaiting date for prospective class from Pine Mountain Search and Rescue.
- Discussed hamfest date. Hamfest will be on September 9th 2023 at the Mountain Shrine Club in Whitesburg, KY
New Business
- Frank Belcher KS4XL gave a discussion on the repeater linking project he and Paul Combs AK4U are working on. They have been working to get the Big Sandy area repeaters linked back together with repeaters in Letcher County and other area repeaters. The club was in favor of getting back into the link system and it was discussed that Frank should work directly with club members Tim Webb KK4WH and Roland Brown AF4Y. We look forward to hearing Daniel’s Net again in Letcher County, as well as having QSOs on the repeaters with our friends in the Big Sandy River area.
- It was decided that the next club meeting will be a Parks On The Air outing at Carr Fork Lake. Club members discussed scheduling and it was decided that a Saturday outing would be preferred. The decision was made to rent a shelter at the lake on a Saturday in August. More details to come.
- Roland Brown AF4Y discussed the potential of the club buying a box trailer as a project to fix up and outfit for events and emergency preparedness. The idea was well received by the club, with an upward limit on the budget of $2000. Final decision to purchase will require a vote of all club members. This is in the very early stages and we welcome all club member’s feedback and input.
- Roland Brown AF4Y discussed the new APRS Station that was placed into service on 7/13/2023 atop Pine Mountain outside Whitesburg, KY. The station is operating as AF4Y-5. The station is using the standard APRS national frequency of 144.390. The APRS station fills in a large gap in Southeast Kentucky and Southwest Virginia that previously had no APRS coverage. Several services are available via APRS.
- Here is a good presentation on APRS for those it may be new to https://kk4gq.org/pdf/FCARC-March-2022-Fun-and-Interesting-Things-with-APRS-webcopy.pdf
- Roland Brown AF4Y discussed the idea of adding a buy/sell/swap page to the club website.
- Two visitors joined the club, let’s all give a big welcome to Frank Belcher KS4XL and Jeremy Paul Wright KQ4ADS. They bring our membership number to 18 members spread across 7 counties in two states.
