News from the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club (SPARC)

Hi,

It is time for the last club meeting of the SPARC year before we break for summer.  Wednesday, 3 June, at 7PM at the Sheriff's Station in Sterling.

We had a good month.  SPARC just finished supporting the Herndon Festival 10K/5K races with 9 members operating a net and stationed at all the milestone markers.  Most unusually, all the radios were working after a little effort.  We will post a group picture on our web site in a day or so.

Gordon, NQ4K, will provide refreshments.

We do not have any presentation for this month. So if anyone wants to bring something in to demo, please feel free to do so.

We do have a few items of club business to cover.

First, Field Day is coming up at the end of the month.  Based upon the discussion at the last meeting, we will be a 3A station again this year.  We still need to coordinate volunteers for several things.  We will post a draft plan tomorrow for all to look at before the meeting.

Second, The awards ceremony for the Virginia QSO Party is coming up on 14 June, at the Manassas Hamfest at 0830-0950.  Bill, KJ4VTH, has the plaques and the certificates have been printed.  Hope to see you all there.

Finally, this will be the meeting where we elect officers for next year.  Most urgently, we need a person to volunteer to be vice-president. The vice-president coordinates for facilities and arranges for the speakers to give presentations at the club meetings.  Anyone who wants to volunteer, please speak up.

Also if anyone wants to be president of the club, I will be glad to relinquish the title to you.

See you at the meeting,
73, Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

We are looking for a volunteer to be the new SPARC Vice-President.  Jim, KF4PQL (SK), had been the vice-president for several years, but is no longer with us.

The duties are fairly light:
  Coordinate for any facilities that we need, i.e., meeting room at Sheriff's Station among others.

  Coordinate for a speaker at our monthly meetings. This is for 8 meetings per year.  The other meetings are booked with other events (show and tell, gift exchange, etc).

  Run meetings with President is not available.

If you are interested, please email back.

73, Gordon, NQ4K

Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club Monthly meeting minutes

Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Time: 7pm - 9pm (actually ended 8:30pm)
Location name: Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, Eastern Loudoun Station, community room
Location address: 46620 East Frederick Dr., Sterling, VA 20164
Facilitator: Gordon, NQ4K
Attendees: 18

Refreshments were provided by: Dick, W2YE

We had a round of introductions where each person shared their recent amateur radio related activities. Eric, AJ4LN, passed around an antenna launcher that he assembled from a $30 "Hyper Dog" Tennis Ball Launcher and a $10 fishing reel.

Kevin, W4KLS, gave a presentation on a hardware device for interconnecting radios from different emergency services to make them interoperable and also to allow connection to a cell phone, and to be able to create an ad hoc repeater.

We plan to participate in Herndon Fest on May 30 and 31. We plan to have a booth on Saturday, and help with the 5K and 10K races on Sunday morning.

The VA QSO Party awards ceremony will again be at the Manassas Hamfest on June 14.

We briefly discussed Field Day, which is the last week in June.

Dick, W2YE reported that the QSL Bureau has had the slowest 6 weeks in the last 20 or more years.

The next meeting is at the QTH of Tom, WA2BCK, at the regular meeting time.

- Eric Carlson, AJ4LN, Secretary

Hi,

It is time for the May meeting of the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club.

This meeting will be held at the QTH of Tom, WA2BCK.

Tom says to tell everyone to go all the way down the lane and pull straight in to his driveway.   People should not to park on the right side of Schreiner Lane before his driveway.

Refreshments for this month are by Mike, WB2QOK.

This will be a busy meeting.

Tom, WA2BCK, will give us a tour and perhaps a demonstration of his Station.  It should be interesting to see.

In addition, Monte, KV4KS, will give a talk on ham radio antenna restrictions.  This is a current issue that many of us face and ARRL is encouraging its members to contact their congressional representatives expressing support for the current congressional bill.

We also have a few items of club business.

The Herndon Fest and Race is on Saturday and Sunday, 30-31 May.  We need people to help with both events.

Field day is coming up on 27-28 June and we will talk about what we want to do for that event.

Finally, the end of the year is approaching and we should nominate people to be officers for next year.  We need a new Vice-President and The president indicates he would willingly step down.

73, Gordon, NQ4K