May’s second meeting attendance found 10 hams circling the table. Those present from left to right were, Don Weber KA7QQV, Frank Nielsen KG6ELK, J.P. Rouland NQ6T, Rob Roberts KH7HN (visiting from Honolulu Hawaii), Warren Birmingham K6PHW, Max Malzkuhn K6MAX, Sam Borland AD6MZ, Larry McDonald K6ACE, Ralph Burr KG6BHP, and myself W1RDR.

Meeting Place: Larry McDonald K6ACE, found and arranged this month’s meeting location where we gathered at the Omega Restaurant in Milpitas.  Having a semi-segregated room made hearing what all the members were saying possible.  Getting a room to ourselves was probably the single biggest reason we had so much feedback yesterday.  Thanks Larry, this worked out great.

Our plan is to meet there next month and I’ll get the Calendar section changed to reflect our new location.  While yesterday’s meeting worked great, it isn’t centered geographically for all our members.  Larry McDonald K6ACE & Don Weber KA7QQV will take on the project of finding us a better location and will report back when they’ve made progress.

In a discussion I had with Ray Davis KD6FHN, he mentioned they struggled with the same issue and finally settled on staying with the location that provided the best service, food and facilities.

WVARA (West Valley Amateur Radio Assoc.): Our presentation is scheduled for July 18^th and our group’s response to Dean Wood should already have been published on our BA-MARC mailing list.

Chapter Organization: This is the first time we gave this subject any serious consideration and I really enjoyed hearing what each of you had to say.  The information flowed so continuously that I got lost in listening and didn’t make a lot notes about what was said.  This limited note taking on my part is the major reason why you should be quick about getting your comments on the list so we don’t loose the energy and the ideas that were presented. 

While we haven’t put anything in concrete, we did decide to deal with some form of an election and the terms of assignment at our September, 2001 meeting.  Over the next couple of months, I’ll put together an estimated budget of what I think we need to operate and we can decide what we want and don’t want at that time.

Here are the areas we will handle at the September meeting:

·              Leader Election:   Term & Election Process

·              Event Planning:    Group resource where Event planners go for support and direction.

·              Ride Planning:     Assignment of duties so we get socialization events in our activities (assignments can be rotational).

·              Treasury Control:  Whom do we give the money too and how are the bills handled.

Up-coming Events: Larry McDonald K6ACE presented information on the “Two Rocks & Roll” event in Petaluma on June 2^nd and the Sequoia High School Ride on June 3^rd.  Larry and I committed to doing the Petaluma event, but I can’t make the Sequoia event because of other plans that day. 

In anticipation for our ADA (American Diabetes Assoc.) event in Palo Alto in October, Ralph Burr KG6BHP has agreed to work as our event net control operator and will handle the details of getting net a control station established for us.  He will team up with Don Weber KA7QQV, Frank Nielsen KG6ELK and possibly others to get us an on-location solution to creating a net control. I’ll be meeting with the local ADA leader in July and will report back on whether the net control location will be in a building or in a parking lot.

Ride Training:  One of the main skills needed in supporting an event and in riding around any neighborhood are good slow speed skills.  Some people have had good training in this area and others have developed these skills over time.  To fill-in any holes that might exist, Warren Birmingham K6PHW will provide us training on an established motorcycle course so we can brush up on our skills.  Larry McDonald K6ACE will help us get access to the Sunnyvale Police course if possible.  If we can’t get this established course this time, we can always use the closed Alameda Naval Air Station parking lots.  Warren & Larry will let us know when we can schedule this training.

Radio Communication Training: During our last event, there was a non-MARC individual who had way too much to say about the technical details of how our communications links were developed and functioning.  I had a hard time understanding the relevance of all this chatter when there might have been a real emergency waiting for airtime.  Since that event, I’ve come to the conclusion we should all spend time getting some training from the communications handling professional in our midst.  Ralph Burr KG6BHP handles communications for various agencies and has agreed to put a small training class together along with a handout we can use to develop a good radio style for passing traffic clearly and quickly.  With all of us using good techniques in events, we can be an example for others to follow when they bring their QSO style of traffic handling to a MARC supported event.

Member Contact Information: J.P. Rouland NQ6T brought up an important issue of how do we contact each other when something comes up.  If we were on a ride, whom do we notify if something happened and what phone numbers do we call.  Expect J.P. to put a small form out on the mailing list that you fill out.  Please do not put the completed information out on the list because its security can’t be controlled that way.  Instead, click on the mail address that J.P. puts in his message and paste your answers into that message so that is goes only to J.P.  Once this information is complied, J.P. will provide us with a small handout we can use for contacting other members.  Try to respond to him quickly so he doesn’t need to follow up excessively.

Other Stuff: APRS: J.P. Rouland – NQ6T brought up the concern that maybe he wouldn’t be able to cover the subject of tracking as well as Don Weber KA7QQV and myself W1RDR given our experiences with tracking.  My comments to J.P. was that we can all participate in a separate segment of the APRS presentation so that nobody would get caught trying to do it all or need to cover an area where they were uncomfortable.  While this covered his concern, it raised another that might affect others who might consider doing a presentation on something they find interesting, but only have a piece of the knowledge pie.

This is where we can join with others to expand the potential and capture the synergy possible from collaboration.  If there is something you would like us to cover at one of the meetings, but don’t have all the pieces, please let us know.  With the breadth of contacts our group has, one of us might be able to find another member in group, or someone outside of the group to participate so the topic gets good coverage.  Our technical strengths lay as much with the resources we can tap outside of our group as they do with the resources we have internally.

I’m bringing this up because Frank Nielsen KG6ELK asked if we could have a topic presentation tied to our meetings.  Long time hams see this request as a main staple of the monthly meeting.  To date, we have been strongly focused with trying to build the organization and get all the members on the air.  As time progresses, we should be able to move away from pure team building too more interesting topics as our resources and assignment support expands.

73s,
Roger…
W1RDR