W5SFA

The Stephen F. Austin Radio Club, Inc.

An Association of Amateur Radio Operators in the Austin, Fayette and Waller County Areas

Mailing Address: 12172 FM-949

Cat Spring, TX 78933

Meetings: Last Wednesday of each month

Repeaters: 145.410 (W5SFA – PL 100.0)

444.875 (W5SFA – PL 103.5)

2001-02 Officers: President, Carl Hickman, K50WC

Vice President, Dennis Alexander, W5KU

Secretary/Treasurer, Dan White, W5AOV

Newsletter Editor/Publisher, Dave Jenkins, K5KX

June 27, 2001 Meeting

The meeting of the Stephen F, Austin Radio Club was called to order at 1900 hours by the president Carl Hickman, K5OWC. Carl called for the reading of the minuets of the last meeting. The minuets were read by Dan White, W5AOV. A motion was made by Dave Jenkins, K5KX, to accept the minuets as read. It was seconded by Wade Eilers, W5TEN. They were approved as read.

Carl Hickman called for the treasurers report. The balance in the bank was $384.89. A motion was made by Wade and seconded by Linda Pleasant, N5LXG, to accept the report as read. It was accepted.

Old Business:

The slate of candidates for the 2001 – 2002 year was voted in with a vote of 7/0 in favor. Congratulations to the victors?!

New Business:

Dave presented the 2001 Field Day score for W5SFA. We had a rousing, but not winning, score of 720 points which was higher than last year. A lot of work went into the setup. The food was the highlight of the evening. Everyone brought goodies and the club provided the Ribs, Chicken and Sausage.

Dan suggested that we send out a survey to all amateurs in the area. Current members will send questions for the survey to Dan and he will present the compiled questions at a meeting for approval. Then he will send out the survey by email for those who have it and by post for those who don’t. We will use the QRZ database to find the Ham’s in our area.

Dan is to advertise in the local papers, Bellville Times and the Sealy News, in the “coming events” section.

The antenna repairs are completed. A new phasing harness was installed on the modified DB224A converting it to a DB224E. The SWR is less than 1.2:1 from 138 MHZ to 150MHZ. At the repeater frequency it is 1.1:1. A motion was made by Linda to pay for the phasing harness. Wade seconded the motion and it was approved. The cost of the harness was $161.85.

A discussion of where to put the “New DB224” followed. SBEC, San Bernard Electric Coop, had said we could use their tower for free. Dave made a motion to have Dan check with SBEC to see if they were still willing and find out where on the tower we could put the antenna. It was seconded by Wade and approved.

Wade presented a very interesting program on a weather balloon he found while at deer camp on field day. He did a show and tell on the instrument. We wrote “W5SFA RC” on the package before Wade shipped it back to the government. Hope we don’t get in trouble.

The meeting was adjourned after the presentation.

Submitted by:

Dan White

Secretary/Treasurer