May 2018 Club Meeting Minutes

Officers

USDA building will not be available the meeting before Field Day
- Will discuss in New Business
KG5SDG antenna help
- Thanks, KM5TW for helping!
- Great membership like this is what makes W5BCS great!
  - help when we get in over our head
  - promote the hobby
Appreciation for Board Members
- “Iron Man” - Sly Kapchinski (N5GQB)
- “The Voice” - Matthew Barry (KG5LYE)
- “The Pusher” - Phil Gates (NZKF)
- “Never Says No” - Mike Wisby (KA5HIA)

Presentations
- We’ve had lots of great topics!
- If there’s anything you’re interested in, let us know!
- No presentation at next meeting (final Field Day prep)
Regarding club
- have a “elevator speech” for Ham Radio to promote the hobby to others
- Make a ham radio business card (email, phone, callsign, ARRL website)

Starting Balance: $4542.64
Checks
- $1465 for repeater antenna installation cleared
- $26.36 for March donut fund shortage
- $27.00 for April donut fund shortage
- $165 for repeater funding fee redirection
Deposits
- $40–$50 from leftover repeater funds
- about $600 from sale of donations from Marvin (WB5PWG)
Ending Balance: $3501.28

PO box renewal: $102 for another year
$900 budgeted for Field Day prizes
- will be purchased this weekend (Dayton Hamvention causes prices to come down)

Field Day is 28 days away (2018-06-23/P1D)
- need volunteers to help smooth operations
- everyone please give 15–20 minutes of air time
- Need sign-up sheet…
Location: Brian Bachmann Park
Raffle Prizes
1. Introductory HF radio: Yaesu FT-450D $679
2. Antenna Analyzer: Comet CAA 500 Mk 2 (works up to UHF) $374
3. Dual-band FM and DMR Radio: TYT MD-217 $150
4. Gift card: Academy
5. Gift card: Sam’s
Motion by KF5WGJ to purchase prize list despite over budget
- Seconded by K55SDG
- Passes
Door Prizes
- Please donate miscellaneous items
- Keep it in the $5–$20 range
- must be present to win
Raffle tickets available for purchase starting now!
- same tickets will be used for door prizes
- door prize winners will be put back into drum for raffle prizes
Dinner at 18:00
- BBQ meal: brisket, potato salad, sausage, beans
- Bring a dessert to share!
- $10 for meal tickets
- not ready for sale yet, but will be available day-of
VE Test session at 15:00
Swap tables
- you keep money
Silent Auction tables
- proceeds go to club
- usually not a good turnout for this area
- still available as an option for now

2018-05-26 08:00–16:00
- National Hurricane Center Amateur Radio annual station test
- http://www.arrl.org/news/national-hurricane-center-s-wx4nhc-will-be-on-the-air-for-annual-station-test
- WX4NHC
- 14.325
2018-06-02 and 2018-06-03
- Museum Ships Weekend: Battleships on the air
- http://www.nj2bb.org/museum/
- GI museum has patrol boat… might be on the air
New Ace Hardware Store at intersection of Southwest Pkwy and Texas Ave
- Owned by Randy Scott

All board members got nicknames, president needs a nickname
- KA5HIA: “El Jefe” … All in favor?
“I surround myself with good people, point them in a direction, and get out of their way.” – KG5EYV

Microcontrollers, and their ability to help mortals do cool stuff

First came microprocessors
- required lots of glue (clock generators, external memory, etc.)
- calculators started this whole thing
  - TI decided to make a chip that has everything built in
Microcontrollers
- Digital everywhere!
- extremely cheap in volume (cheaper than knobs, buttons, and mechanical things)
- cheap enough for everyone to get access to them
- Open Source revolution (hard to beat free price)
Arduino
- Precursors:
  - Processing Java-based language and IDE developed at MIT in 2001
  - Wiring library in C++ for microcontrollers targeted to non-expert audience
- Wiring library and Processing IDE became Arduino
- Open-source, so lots of people came up with various form factors
- Stats
  - 700K sold in 2013 to non-programmers
  - 8M devices in circulation now, but probably much bigger
  - 1K blogs
  - 10K snippets
- Moral: not always about best, fanciest, or highest quality, but accessibility to audience
- No barriers to entry
Ham applications
- books and blogs dedicated to Ham Radio and Arduino
- shields (expansion packs) for ham functions
Why use it?
- cheap logic to take analog signals and make digital decisions
- “afterthought engineering” can be done in code
- someone has probably already done the same thing and published their code
  - and gives you the opportunity to do the same for others
- “beat to fit, paint to match”
- 3 hours of time and $3 in hardware
demo!