Amateur Radio Committee Meeting - 03.09.14

Attendance

• Greg (KF5QMG)
• Pat Hykkonen (NT5PH)
• Benjamin Groves (KF5WYZ)

Events

• As this is the first meeting of the DMS Amateur Radio Committee in a period of time, there are no previous minutes to review or discuss

• Introductions / any projects that people want to share

• Greg - General license - Interest in electronics and SDR
• Pat - Guru and legend - Emergency communications services RACES / Skywarn
• Ben - Recent acquisition of license - Enthusiastic about committee and reviving it

• Wiki Page Update

• Ben would like to remove the constraint that members have to have license

• Part #97 of rules & regulations states that we have to have a minimum of 4 members with regular meetings and a roster
• We decided to adjust Rule #1 of Amateur Radio Committee rules to state "includes Amateur Radio licensees"

• This allows additional members who are unlicensed to participate

• Should we transfer club call-sign KD5MS from the Pat Hykkonen to the Amateur Radio Committee head (Benjamin Groves)

• We are able to change our leadership every 6 months, according to DMS bylaws
• A license transfer every 6 months may be cumbersome and annoying
• Trusteeship of the FCC Club License is who FCC comes looking for if there is an issue (the responsible party)

• Pat has experience in handling these issues
• In case of issue on site, Pat is easily accessible

• DECISION : Leave trusteeship of the KD5MS Amateur Radio Club Call-Sign with Pat Hykkonen

• An offer of a repeater parts donation from friends of Steve Adams

• The repeater nice, but seems to be a future project in scope

• Start small

• DECISION : Decision to respectfully hold for now

• Discovery of amateur radio masts in DMS storage

• 6-8 sections originally donated

• We got rid of 4 - (munged)
• We kept 4 that are in decent shape

• They are not heavy duty

• Not a good idea to combine them all into one 40 foot section of tower
• DECISION : Hang onto them till we get to the next Dallas Makerspace location

• See what we can do with them with proper roof access

Upcoming Activities

• Amateur Radio Technician class

• It is on for April / May 2014

• Civic Hacking - Amateur Radio Hackathon

• Steve Wylie's request (in absentee)
• Positive response

• Maybe an opportunity for two committees meet together
• Pat is interested as our efforts can help serve his spotters, people in the metroplex and radio in general

• Field day is 3 months away

• Past couple of years DMS Amateur Radio Committee has participated with Dallas Amateur Radio Club at Flagpole Hill

• Dallas Amateur Radio Club - 100 years old now
• They have expressed interest in continuing to work with DMS

• Considered inviting them to DMS or us going to Flagpole Hill

• We should go to flagpole hill, considering available space and impending move

Future Activity Discussion

• Follow up with more Amateur Radio classes

• General Class this summer
• Or if interest, another tech class and a General Class
• Study group for extra level this fall

• Program your radio night
• Hack your own RTLSDR seminar / class at the space

• Working for mid-to late may
• Radio is Receive only

• Radio software followup to the RTLSDR seminar

• Software as a part two of the thing

• Software is complicated, hardware is not so complicated
• Probably best to focus on the software aspect

• ISS communication party

• Timing - Line of sight above us

• APRS as it goes over
• 2-way communications is a rarity

• Other ham radio satellites in orbit

• FM repeaters in the sky
• Maybe build an antenna to talk through these things

• Lets build a proper shack in DMS

• Flexible design
• A portable unit is not really all that, we don't need to really work with this consideration in mind
• Hold till next Dallas Makerspace location emerges

• HF antenna setup

• Wait till next DMS location

• Balloon Launch (?)

• High altitude balloon project
• Dallas Makerspace may have equipment

• APRS digipeater (?)

• Not a bad idea
• Will consider