RARC April 2008 Meeting Rewind

The April monthly club meeting was held on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, in Room EH 109, Endicott Hall, at the UCR/RCTC Campus, in Rochester. This was the first meeting to be held at the campus meeting location. The room was very nice, and there was plenty of room for the 37 members and guests that attended the meeting. The room is also "smart room" with wireless internet access, and a projector. It is a very nice facility. Thanks go to Stan KDØBQ for arranging such a nice meeting location for the club!

After the regular part of the business meeting, there were two important topics covered as New Business:

• Dave KØVH presented the Field Day committee report.
• The RARExpo committee chairs gave an update on the RARExpo event.

Field Day Committee Report

Dave KØVH presented the findings of the Field Day committee's investigation of what should be done at Field Day, and where it should be held. Dave mentioned that Scott KØMD and Pat NØADQ had been working on Field Day planning for the past few months. The committee was now in charge of presenting options to the club for a vote. Dave also mentioned that we need to publicize Field Day better. We need to get the word out to the media before the event happens to make the public better aware of what we do.

The options that were presented for the 2008 Field Day event were:

A. 4A station at Pat's farm
B. 2A station at Century
C. RCTC as an alternative
D. GOTA in A or B.

A motion to go with option A with a 4A or 5A station was presented. Ballots were distributed to club members to vote on a location. After an 8 minute break, the ballot count was announced. The Kasson location at Pat's farm was chosen "27 or 28 to 5". The motion passed to have Field Day at Pat's farm.

Dave KØVH passed a sign-up sheet around for people to choose what activites they would like to be involved with during Field Day.

Some interest in getting an optimal call sign for Field Day was voiced. A motion was passed that the Field Day committee decide whether the club should obtain a call sign for Field Day by next club meeting.

RARExpo Committee Report

The RARExpo committee chairs gave a brief update on the RARExpo event.

Stan KDØBQ addressed the cost of the expo. He reported on several steps that had been taken to help reduce the costs. Those included the college agreeing to co-sponsor the event, and moving the hamfest from the arena to the 15000 sq. ft. performance court space. That drove our costs way down since we no longer are required to pay for the space used. Even more cost savings have been achieved by moving the banquets to the college cafeteria.

Scott KØMD presented the program for the WØDXCC convention part of the expo. He went over the speakers that are attending and the presentations that they plan to give. He also described the numerous workshops that will be held by Yaesu, ICom, and many others on a wide variety of topics.

John NØHZN presented the latest news on the hamfest part of the expo. He asked that anyone that has contacts with vendors to please get that contact information to him so he can go after them to get them to attend the hamfest. He also talked about the hamfest logistics and setup. John also asked that anyone attending area hamfests or swap meets to please pass the word around about the RARExpo. He has some handouts that you can take to distribute at those locations so talk to him before you go.

KariAnn KCØWIP presented what is new on the Dakota Division portion of the expo. Jay Bellows and other ARRL people will be presenting. There will be more on that on the web site at a later date. Bob ABØBW will be putting the ARES portion of the program together. There are also some public service demos planned with the EM50. KariAnn's main goal is to make this portion of the expo interesting and appealing to the non-ham portion of the public.

Program: RCTC Campus Tour

For the meeting's program, Stan KDØBQ gave a tour of the RCTC campus facilities. He showed us room SH 210 in Singley Hall which is a larger room that we could have the club meetings in if needed. He then showed us some of the class room space that will be used during the RARExpo. We were also directed to the large space that will be used by the vendors during the hamfest portion of the expo.

Photos by Bobby KCØNXB and Rob KCØFOW

Officers hard at work KDØAFG and KØVH using the wireless access	Setting up the projector for the next presentation Presentations are so much nicer now!
Story taken from the April 2008 Meeting Minutes

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