Minutes of the East River Amateur Radio Club
June 7, 2010
Ryan’s Steakhouse, Bluefield, VA.
http://www.erarc.com 
  The June meeting was opened at 700pm by Lonnie Underwood KI4EED, ERARC President. 
 There were 14 members and guests in attendance.
  Hooger Fisher W4OF, ERARC Secretary, read the May minutes.
Roger Stefancic KC8LGR, ERARC Treasurer, gave his report which included paying an $18.84 phone bill, $315.00 for equipment insurance and $321.76 for our liability insurance policy. 
Gary Kadar gave his ERARC VE team report and bank balance. He had one person to take and pass the Technician exam on May 8. 
 Rudolph Jennings N8ZIS came by to ask if the Club would be interested in helping to clean out the remaining Amateur equipment of the late Jim Jones N8WRJ-SK. Lonnie got Rudolph’s contact information and said that he would be in contact with him as soon as tomorrow. 
 Lonnie has two 440 4el beams that he is willing to donate to the Club and has donated an 11el 2M beam to Mercer Co. ARES. He also mentioned that Bland Co. ARES and the ERARC have been approved to use the grounds at Boy Scout Camp Roland for ARES purposes and training. Permission was given for the installation of a 10-20M vertical, a 2M/440 vertical and a 10-80M wire antenna. He has the use of the room in the bath house (on the opposite side of the pool) for storage and deployment as needed by ARES. 
 Don Anderson WD8OOR gave a repeater report. He said that the ’49 is back on the air and in fine shape. The power supply on the ’06 was in bad shape and has been repaired. Don said that both the ’49 and ’06 buildings need to be swept and cleaned out; the grass needs to be weed-eated and fertilizer needs to be spread. We will get a work party assembled in the near future. 
Lonnie said that he is going to check with the Bluefield, WV Rescue Squad re: the 2M radios they were to receive from the Dept. of Homeland Security once their people passed the Technician exam.
ERARC’S FIELD DAY 2010 WILL BE HELD AT BOY SCOUT CAMP ROLAND, BASTIAN, VA. JUNE 26-27 FROM NOON SATURDAY TO AROUND NOON ON SUNDAY. (site locator: http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator .... search “W8MOP”). The camp is on Rt. 614/Grapefield Road and is about 2.5 miles from U.S. Route 52 after taking the Bastian exit off of I-77. Gary Kadar would like to work 15M and use the Club’s smaller beam, Roger Stefancic would like to use the Club’s radio and the Club’s large beam and Ben Mill’s N8XXA trailer tower and work 20M voice, Randall Hash WB4BBF would like to work 40M CW, David Bailey N8DMB would like to work the digital modes on whatever band is open at the time and we’ll see who may want to work other radios/bands on the 26th. THERE WILL BE A POT-LUCK DINNER AT THE CAMP AT 6PM ON SATURDAY THE 26TH. Ginny Fisher said that she will bring 50 pieces of fried chicken as she has in the past.
George Leedy KJ4BXS said that he’s been thinking about long-term ARES deployments, generator usage and the availability of gasoline in the event of power outages. He’s been reading up on solar power panels and thinks that these panels will be more than sufficient to charge a battery or battery bank in the event of no fuel for the generators. We agreed that this is something to really consider and think about.
Hooger passed around a donation sheet from the WV State Amateur Radio Council for the August ARRL WV Convention booklet. They are asking for $1.00 donations from Amateurs to have their name and call sign included in the booklet under the “Booster’s” pages.  $12.00 was collected tonight.
 (Forgot to revisit tonight: Don and Jay had talked about the remote base equipment at the ’49 site. The Doug-Hall interface (http://www.dheco.com/rbi1.htm ), a Kenwood 2M radio and a Kenwood 440 radio have not been used in over three years. Discussion. It was decided to find pricing for the units and try to sell them as a package deal to someone who may be looking for a remote base package for their repeater system. Don is looking into pricing on these items.)
The meeting was over at 0740pm.
Respectfully Submitted, George E. “Hooger” Fisher III, W4OF