Your Electronic Newsletter from MARS
The Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society
Babe's Night (Fiesta Style) and ELECTION INFORMATION
Due to the unexpected cancellation of the April Monthly Meeting, we will combine our Quarterly Babe's Night Dinner (Fiesta Style) on Thursday night April 24, 2008 at Nicos Cocina, 3065 N JOSEY LN #24 Carrollton, TX 75007 (972) 395- 3663 from 1900-2100, with a modified club meeting.
Click here for a map to Nico's Cocina
We will conduct some necessary club business at that meeting and have dinner together, a brief meeting, and socialize, in lieu of a speaker. So please come and plan on eating while having our short business meeting, and spending the rest of the evening having a great time with each other having fun and fellowship.
There will be no minimum price to attend unless you order food and beverages. You will be responsible for the cost of your own food and beverages.
I highly recommend that you come and sample the cuisine since we are holding our Christmas Party at this location...unless everyone hates the place and food.
If you plan on attending, please RSVP to Gary Sundstrom 214-537-7421 or via email at sundstrom1201@tx.rr.com so we can get an estimate on how many people we will need seating for at the dinner meeting.
Please also be checking your email for a list of minor changes to the By-Laws which the BOD has recommended to correct discrepancies in the By- Laws.
We will be voting on the changes at the May Monthly Meeting on May 8, 2008 at the library. At that meeting, the nominating committee will also announce their recommendations for a slate of qualified officers to serve for the ensuing year, and nominations will be taken from the floor for anyone interested in running for office. Membership in MARS for one full year is required to hold any officer position and will not be waived.
The election will be conducted and announced at the June Monthly meeting. The new officers will assume office at the conclusion of the June meeting.
Per 11.1.A,of the MARS by-laws, I would like introduce to you the individuals I have chosen to comprise the 2008 Nominating Committee for the upcoming MARS Election which will be conducted at the June 2008 Monthly meeting at the Hebron Branch of the Carrollton Library at 7PM CDT. These members are:
KG5E Darrell Crimmins
N5ZW Jerry Mabray
W5WZY Randy Johnson
K5MET Tom Brewer
W5NOA Hugh Springfield
W5IG Lee Cheever
Our duties per the by-laws are as follows:
11.1 Nominating Committee
A. The President shall, at the regular monthly meeting two months prior to the
annual meeting, appoint a Nominating Committee.
B. The Nominating Committee will compile a list of qualified candidates and
submit those names at the regular meeting one month prior to the annual
meeting.
C. The President will accept additional nominations from the floor and submit
the complete slate of candidates to the voting membership prior to the
conclusion of the meeting.
D. The Nominating Committee shall act as the tally committee, count the
ballots at the annual meeting, and announce the results.
E. The Nominating Committee shall, between the date of its appointment and
its action in submitting a slate of officers for the ensuing year, speak with all prospective candidates; explain the duties and responsibilities of each office; and determine, by majority vote, the slate of candidates recommended to be recommended by the Nominating Committee.
You are Cordially invited
to attend the
Eagle Court of Honor Ceremony
honoring
Aaron L. Batteiger (KE5FYF)
March 30th 2008
5:00 pm
Crossbend Christian Church
901 Crossbend Rd
Plano, TX 75023
Reception following the Ceremony
Attire: Business Casual
RSVP 972-473-3052 or arb@rtsi.com
Click this text to view the full invitation.
Click here for more information on the Jamboree On The Air
The third weekend of every October is the annual Scout Jamboree On The
Air (JOTA) event which is a world-wide sponsored by the World
Organization of Scouting. Typically, there are close to 500,000 Scouts
that participate around the globe. The ARRL is also involved and the
attached information sheet will provide nearly all the details any
operator might need to know. The weekend of October 20th marks the 50th
anniversary of JOTA….a marriage between the Scouting movement and
Amateur Radio.
As a Scoutmaster and as part of the Circle Ten Council, myself along
with operators from the Plano Amateur Radio Klub (www.k5prk.org) are
advertising and staffing a JOTA station in far west Plano. In the past
few years, we have enough operators to staff this event. This year, the
CoCo BEST (Collin County Boosting Engineering Science & Technology)
event is on the same weekend and many of PARK’s members are committed to
that event so we are very short handed.
Our JOTA stations, therefore, are in desperate need of some additional
HF operators and even a couple of VHF operators.
JOTA Event Date: Saturday, October 20th
Setup beings at 7:00AM
Scouts will be participating from 9:00AM until 4:00PM
Location: St. Andrew United Methodist Church
5801 West Plano Parkway
Plano, TX 75093
Talk-in 146.48MHz
What we need: 2 HF Operators to work from 7am until noon. (Setup from
7am until 9am, event from 9am until noon.)
1 VHF Operator to work from 7AM until noon.
3 HF Operators to work from Noon until 5pm (event from noon until 4pm,
teardown from 4-5pm).
1 VHF Operator to work from Noon until 5pm (event from noon until 4pm,
teardown from 4-5pm).
If anyone has an interest in helping, please contact me at:
Tom Yenny – K5LOL
Home: 972-732-7907
Cell: 972-345-7380
K5LOL@ARRL.NET
Thanks for your help and best 73’s,
Tom – K5LOL
ARBONET-2 High Altitude Balloon Flight Set for an October 20th Launch
Members of the ARBONET (Amateur Radio Balloons Over NorthEast Texas) organization are making final preparations for the October 20th launch of ARBONET-2. Originally scheduled for launch last spring, ARBONET-2 is being dedicated to the memory of Kim R. Miles, N9IS SK, a long time contributor to the central Indiana Windtrax Amateur Radio High Altitude Balloon team who passed away March 27th at the age of 51.
ARBONET-2 will be launched from the JD Trissell Airport in Clarksville, TX which is located in the northeast corner of the Lone Star State. Launch time is scheduled for 9:30 AM CDT on Saturday October 20th. Current winds aloft forecasts indicate the ground track of the flight will carry the amateur payloads towards the Texas - Louisiana state line. If ARBONET-2 reaches its expected altitude of 96,000 ft, radio amateurs in parts of as many as seven states should be able to monitor the beacons and communicate through the cross band repeater onboard the near space vehicle.
The compliment of payloads aboard ARBONET-2 includes:
A plain language homing beacon that will transmit navigation data to the ground on 146.560 MHz in plain English thus allowing anyone with a scanner or 2 meter hand-held in the coverage zone to follow the progress of the flight without the need for additional equipment to process the data.
An APRS beacon operating on 144.390 MHz to report vehicle location data throughout the duration of the flight and to aid in the recovery of the packages following descent.
A 70 cm Up / 2 meter Down Cross band FM repeater (445.800MHz Up 147.560 MHz Down) will support two way communications during the duration of the ARBONET-2 flight.
A 10 meter CW beacon experiment produced by the Richardson Wireless Klub, K5RWK will transmit a 500 milliwatt signal on 28.061 MHZ.
In addition, ARBONET-2 will carry a number of secondary payloads that will perform remote data collection functions for analysis once the payloads are recovered. These payloads include a 4 mega pixel digital camera configured to capture images every 30 seconds through the duration of the flight, a self contained balloon burst video system designed to capture images of the balloon burst event and other environmental data loggers.
Operators are encouraged to submit reception reports from the ARBONET-2 flight to team members via the ARBONET web site: www.arbonet.net. A special commemorative QSL card will be made available to everyone who submits reception reports to the ARBONET team.
An ARBONET Launch Information HF net will be held on 3.910 MHz ( +/- 10 KHz) beginning at 9:00 AM CDT to report the progress of flight preparations and to provide real time coverage of the expected two and a half hour flight.
The ARBONET team encourages radio amateurs throughout the flight’s coverage zone to make use of the payloads aboard ARBONET-2.
Additional updates will be posted to the ARBONET web site in the days leading up to the mission. In the event weather conditions cause a postponement of the launch, the next launch attempt is scheduled for the following Saturday, October 27th.
Click here for a slideshow of picture from the first
Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society Babe's Night get-together!
Click here to download a copy of the World Radio
about Rachel's (W5WZX) trip to Dayton.
Here's some information on how modern
electrolytics are manufactured and other information.
http://electrochem.cwru.edu/ed/encycl/misc/c04-appguide.pdf
An Internet Remote Base (IRB) consists of an
Amateur Radio tranmitter / receiver attached to
one or more antennas, connected to the internet.
Both audio and control commands are transported
via the internet. The location is remote to the
operating position, from many feet to thousands of
miles.
The operating position consists of a PC / laptop
connected to the internet, transporting both audio
and control commands to the remote base.
This presentation focuses on an integrated
solution presented by Ten Tec in the form of the
Omni VII transceiver with a built-in Ethernet
connection and remote base firmware installed. Ten
Tec refers to this as their "One Plug" solution.
The presentation and demostration was given to the
Ko'olau Amateur Radio Club at the monthly meeting,
April 14, 2007 by Bev AH6NF and Jim WH6GS.
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Here are a couple of links:
http://aditl.com/ham/irb/
and
http://www.w4mq.com/
Click here for some prose by Tom Brewer about the testing session on Saturday
the 24th. There's also a link to some pictures of the testing session.
We had 24 attend, 3-4 passed extra, 5-6 first time hams passed, lots of generals,
and one ham who took the technician and general and passed, almost passed his extra.
Everyone passed in one form or another.
Everett Simonds, KE5MMT won the screwdriver antenna.
Mike Berry, K2MIC won the Travel Plus CD.
Click here to view a copy of the ARRL welcome letter to new licensees.
Click here to view a copy of the latest Band Plan.
To learn more, visit the CCE Course Listing page http://www.arrl.org/cce/courses.html
We have a video of the 2006 Christmas Party.
Click here to view it.
You can also right click and download it to your machine for later viewing.
The FCC has released the documentation on changes to
Part 97. These changes are not yet in effect, but will be soon.
Click HERE to open a copy of the changes.
We have a site with picture albums
from various M.A.R.S. events.
Click one of these lines to view the pictures.
Click here for pictures of the September 2006 meeting.
Click here for pictures of Goliath,
the Emergency Mobile Operations Command Center.
Click here for Field Day 2006 Pictures!
Click here for pictures of the June Meeting.
Here's a picture of the training class held on
March 4th at the Senior Center in Carrollton.
