October 5, 2017 Club Meeting

Thursday, October 5, 2017 at 7:00 PM Red Cross Building, 60 Hawthorne St., Medford, OR (across from Hawthorne Park)

Program: American Woodpecker (Over the Horizon Radar), Scott Cummings, NA7OM

This is not a program on ornithology, but rather radio over-the-horizon radar. During the 1980’s the Soviet HF radar was nicknamed ‘The Woodpecker’ due to the sound it made on a single sideband receiver. It was loud, it was obnoxious, it aggravated many hams.

We will be having the annual election of club officers at the October meeting.

Announced in the October 2017 issue of The Repeater.

Meeting Notes

From the November 2017 issue of The Repeater.

The RVARC October meeting was brought to order at 7:00 PM by President Scott Cummings. He had four items of interest for the club:

Announcement of the California QSO Party this coming weekend. The club will be entering the Small club version of the club competition for the highest aggregate score. All are urged to join in the fun, use some sort of logging program, submit a Cabrillo file to the contest, and report back to Tom N5EG. Some are planning small-scale QRP field operations to nearby Siskiyou county.
Scott proposed the club pursue the call of recently deceased club member Ellis Feinstein for the club’s call. That call is K7MFR and suits our location based in the Rogue valley. This motion was dutifully approved by the membership. Mike Bach had already been in touch with the family and will now proceed with the paper path with the FCC.
New club officers! Scott presented a teaser solicitation for nominations. None were made. Selection of officers was temporarily tabled until later in the meeting. (see below!)
Various payments are due now or soon to be due. These are the annual club insurance, anticipated to be about $200, and a donation to the Red Cross to maintain access to their building for our meetings. Both were voted on and accepted by the membership. Scott noted that the Red Cross folks are anxious for our club to assist in renovating and updating the radio room in their building.

Bob Deuel gave the current club account balance as $4727.88.

Visitors and newly-present members:

Ed Johnson, KI7PQB
Mark Roberts, AI6EV
Amy Haptonstall, AG7GP
Dan Ferris (has a call, did not catch it)
Matt Hinds, KI7ONN

Finally, the agenda returned to new officers. The slate of officers solicited by the search committee (N5EG!) were presented with option for nominations from the floor. Joseph Clarke flinched and was temporarily nominated for an office, but declined as he is acting president of the CARES club. Ultimately the slate of officers was presented and voted upon:

Secretary: John Armstrong, KF7UMK
Treasurer: Mike Bach, WB6FFC
Vice President: John Laybourne, W8WOM
President: Allan Taylor, K7GT

The new officers will assume their role in January 2018

The presentation for the evening was given by Scott Cummings, NA7OM on the American woodpecker. Many were surprised (but not all) that one of the two Over The Horizon radar systems was formerly sited in Oregon and northern California. Transmit site: Christmas Valley, OR and receive site: Modoc County, CA. The very expensive system was in service for only a few months before being decommissioned. Scott had a lot of great photographs of the facilities and antennas.

After the presentation, the meeting was formally closed at approximately 9PM

Allan Taylor, Secretary RVARC

Tags: meeting