MINUTES OF THE NAPIER AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
Meeting on Wednesday 7 June 2017 at the Clubrooms 123 Latham Street
Chair: Dave ZL2MQ, the meeting started at 7:30 pm.
Present: Laurie ZL2TC, Revell ZL2SS, Rob ZL2US, Peter ZL2CD, Dave ZL2DW, Wally ZL2MO, Paul ZL2HB, Mike ZL2VM, Ray ZL2RB, Michael ZL2MY, Stan ZL2ST, and Karl ZL1TJ. Apologies: ZL2IT.
Special presentation: Dave ZL2DW, having attended the NZART annual conference presented on behalf of NZART the Arthur (Jumbo) Godfrey Memorial Award to Laurie ZL2TC. A copy of the Submission to NZART in support of Laurie’s nomination is attached to these minutes.
The Napier Amateur Radio Club, Branch 25 of the NZART, nominates Laurie Winton ZL2TC for the Arthur (Jumbo) Godfrey Memorial Award.We submit the following in support of our nomination:
# Laurie has given his full support to Branch 25 for 35 years# He was a tutor for the ham licencing exam at the local Technical Institute for some years (1980’s)# He built and maintained the club’s repeaters since 1982# He was the club’s Repeater Trustee for most of that period# He was Branch 25 President for 12 years (2003-15)# He was the Branch Conference Delegate on many occasions# He was always active within the club, ran the Hawke’s Bay Hamfest (2016), a number of construction projects, regularly presented technical talks, active in contesting, Dx-ing etc..
Minutes of previous meeting: Read and confirmed to be correct: ZL2HB, ZL2VM.
Arising: Karl: the licence for the new 2m beacon frequency has now been activated. Our proxy at the NZART AGM was Steve ZL2UCX. Dave 2MQ: The newly re-built beacons are now soak testing on dummy loads, awaiting aerial installation.
Correspondence: Outward: Thank you to Morris ZL2AAA for building our 40 and 80m bandpass filters, email to Steve Fogerty re beacon licence, email to Debbie NZART re power account.
Inward: responses to these emails, also email from Laurie 2TC re beacon aerial connections and email from Dave 2DW re using a a drone to install aerials over large trees at next open day.
Finance: Accounts presented for payment: Wally for building materials, Dave 2MQ for parts for the band pass filters and Karl for replacement parts for the FT1000 powersupply.
General Business: Dave ZL2DW: reported on attending the Rotorua NZART annual conference and AGM. Proceedings were civilised and ran smoothly. Remits 1 and 2 passed, remit 3 was defeated. Various workshops attended by Dave were well presented and interesting.
Also: the July meeting of Branch 13 will feature the annual donated equipment and junk sale.
Karl: the club made second place in the recent Jock White field day contest. Our score being close to the winners, our regular foes Patea.
Rob ZL2US: the next weekend licencing course will be end of August or beginning of September. There are 10 or so interested at this stage. A switch to using laptop computers instead of books is being considered. All interested to contact Dave 2DW or Rob 2US.
Karl: The club’s most recent fix-it day did not produce the desired outcome due to adverse weather.
It was agreed to give this another go on June 22. To do: install beacon aerials, fix the gutter and some painting (soffits and windows).
The meeting closed at 8 pm.
Followed by Dave 2MQ presenting the enclosure with completed front and rear panels for the club’s project, the ‘Mega’ SWR meter. Dave explained the concept and execution of what is going to be a fairly amazing piece of gear with the aid of block diagrams. Also a brief introduction into the programming of the Arduino micro computer. Some very versatile electronic wizardry that can be bought for a few dollars on Ebay. A great presentation.
Karl ZL1TJ Sec. NARC.