News from the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club (SPARC)

SPARC’s monthly meeting was held October 5th at the Eastern Loudoun Station of the Sheriff’s Office. There were 20 members present. This was our first meeting at the new location and many thanks go to Jim, KF4PQL, for making the arrangements. This is an excellent facility for our meetings.

Following member introductions, we discussed upcoming activities. It was confirmed that Chris Patton will provide a SKYWARN presentation at our November meeting. We also finalized plans for SterlingFest which take place on 8 Oct: the club will operate a battery-powered HF station to demonstrate amateur radio capabilities to the community.

The club also agreed on dates for licensing classes and exam sessions in 2012. The Technician level class has been scheduled for 11-12 Feb (exam on the 12th) and the General class will take place 28-29 Apr (with the exam on the 29th). A final location for the classes and exam sessions hasn’t been determined yet, but we will try to use the new club meeting location if it is available those weekends.

We had preliminary discussions on rules and possible revisions for the 2012 Virginia QSO Party. No specific changes have been proposed and discussions will continue at the next meeting. Presentations to other Virginia clubs are being scheduled and Gordon is seeking volunteers to help with the briefings. Don, K7CS, volunteered to manage the plaques and sponsors for this year’s contest.

Henry, K2BFY, provided a discussion of his scoring software for the VA QSO Party. He described the many conditions that need to be examined as the log files are processed. For 2012, Henry will be upgrading the scoring application to a database system. The system will provide more flexibility and improved accuracy and Henry showed some comparisons of scoring results with the previous software. Just for fun, Henry showed some recent photos he took at the WV Road Kill Cookoff and the Bikini Bike Wash.

The next meeting will be on Nov 2nd at 7:00 PM, in the Eastern Loudoun Sheriff’s Station (46620 East Frederick Drive, in Sterling).

73,
--MARK KI4OBT