THE INDIANAPOLIS RADIO CLUB - FOUNDED IN 1914 (The oldest continuously meeting Amateur Radio Club in the United States) THE AMACHEWER FOR FEBRUARY 2001 NEXT MEETING IS FEBRUARY 9, 2001 @ 7:30 P.M. AT THE INDIANAPOLIS TRAINING CENTER, 2801 NORTH MERIDIAN 2001 IRC Officers: Pres. Bill Goodall (K9DBY) 255-4749 V. Pres. Chuck Crist (W9IH) 787-6674 Director Bruce Woodward (W9ZY) 251-5606 Secy. Tom Chance (K9XV) 783-1093 Treas. Wade Kingery (W9JGZ) 255-5191 Chief Op. John Lee (W9GRE) 251-3793 Editor Gale Wuollet (AA9WU) 849-8449 ** Our January Meeting Minutes: 1. The meeting was called to order by President, Bill Goodall (K9DBY) at 7:30 PM. 2. Introductions of attendees - 26 people attended. 3. Treasurers Report Wade Kingery (W9JGZ) reported that the financial balances as of December 31, 2000. Wade also passed out a detailed report of the current financial position and current membership list to the executive board. Four (4) new memberships were paid on this night. 4. The American Red Cross is having a code class for those with the Technician license. The class will start in March and, as you may know, the current code requirement is only five (5) WPM. Please contact John Lee (W9GRE) at (317) 251-3793 or Gale Wuollet (AA9WU) at (317) 849-8449 for more details. 5. Jack Parker (W8ISH) gave an excellent talk regarding sailing across the Atlantic with ham radio. His trip was to follow the path of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Thanks Jack. 6. Bruce Woodward (W9ZY) had announcements on the following: - Bob Kryter has test equipment that is to be given free of charge. He is located at 6830 N. Delaware and it will be available from at 9 to 10AM on Saturday, 1/13/01. - William Fleming (WA9VPU) has an estate 40-45 foot tower to sell. - Gene's Vansickle's wife has various vacuum tubes for sale. 7. Chuck Christ (W9IH) made a motion to repair the ham station It was seconded and passed. Chuck announced that Mike Wetzel will do a session to discuss contesting. Chuck also announced that we will have a meeting at the Butler Observatory for our March Meeting. (See coming meeting notes below) 8. Dave (N9FOZ) commented that he has the replacement antenna for the beam to be placed on our current meeting site building at the Training Center. 9. The meeting was adjourned at 9 PM. Thanks, (signed) Tom Chance, Secretary ** Our February Meeting: Our speaker will be Mr. Mike Wetzel (W9RE). He is one of the leaders in world contesting and has some new tricks to show off to our club membership. All hams are bound to find his activities interesting, even those like me that don't find the time to spend in that area of amateur radio. ** Our March meeting: What: A trip to the Butler University observatory. When: THURSDAY, March 8, 2001. Location: On the Butler University campus at the corner of 46th St & Sunset Ave. GPS users data: N39 deg. 50.361' / W 086 deg. 10.166' Help/Talk-IN frequency: 146.70/r Details: This is a special TOUR event and the Day of the week is Thursday for this meeting only. Everyone should arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM so our group can enter together. Butler University is home of the Holcomb Observatory & Planetarium; where the largest TELESCOPE in Indiana is housed . There is a $1.00 per/person charge for this event, Children under 12 yrs. of age are free.(pay at the door) There is plenty of Parking right in front of and adjacent to the Observatory. ** Local News: CODE TRAINING CLASS The American Red Cross Disaster Radio Group has scheduled a code training class. The class will meet each Thursday evening starting on March 22, 2001 and ending on April 26, 2001. Class hours each night will be from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. An official test session will be held on Thursday evening, May 3, 2001. All sessions will be held at the Red Cross Chapter House, 441 East Tenth Street near to downtown Indianapolis. The only charge for the class will be for the ARRL audio code CD that sells for $14.00. The CD is required as it is the basis of the class instruction. Sign-up for the class can be made by contacting one of the following individuals: John Lee (W9GRE) at (317) 251-3793 - email - jjlee@prodigy.net or, Gale Wuollet (AA9WU) at (317) 849-8449 - email - aa9wu@arrl.net. ELMER HELP NEEDED: Jim Rinehart (K9RU) knows of a gal that is disabled and homebound that could really use some occasional Elmer help. She wants to earn her Technician ticket. She has been helped by another ham that is moving from Indianapolis. If you think that you can help please call Jim at the office, (317) 587-4030. Leave a message if he is not there at the moment and he'll call you back.. COUNTY HUNTER GETS HIS: Jack Reynolds (AA9BO) has just completed his USA Counties Award (USA-CA) for contacting all 3076 counties in the 50 States. How long did it take? I forgot to ask Jack, so if you see him at our next meeting you might just ask him yourself! CONGRATULATIONS are certainly in order since I'm not sure that I could do it in one lifetime ... how about you?? ** News from the ARRL: DUES INCREASE: Directors voted to increase membership dues from $34 to $39 annually for full members younger than 65, and from $28 to $34 for full members 65 and older. The dues hike goes into effect July 1, 2001. The last ARRL dues increase was in July 1997. The dues increase resulted from a need to fund initiatives to expand the League's advocacy activities on behalf of Amateur Radio--including the defense of amateur spectrum--and to enhance ARRL Headquarters' abilities to serve members during a period of projected deficits. The Board okayed a $1 greater increase for seniors in an effort to narrow the dues gap, as more and more ARRL members fall into the senior category. At the same time, the Board approved the hiring of development and sales and marketing professionals on the Headquarters staff as part of an overall plan to augment revenues. ''The ARRL carries out a lot of activities that no longer can be fully funded by dues or publication sales revenues,'' ARRL Executive Vice President David Sumner, K1ZZ, explained. While voluntary contributions towards Amateur Radio advocacy are helping greatly, ''we need to professionalize these activities if we are going to sustain them,'' he said. MORSE CODE POSITION OF ARRL: The Board also revised its position on whether Morse code proficiency should continue to be an international requirement to license operation below 30 MHz. The Board approved a resolution that ''recognizes and accepts'' that the Morse requirement likely will be dropped from Article S25 of the international Radio Regulations at the 2003 World Radio communication Conference. But the Board held the line on retaining a domestic Morse requirement, saying that each country should be allowed to determine for itself whether it wants to have a Morse code requirement. The Board's Morse Code resolution declared that deletion of the Article S25 international requirement at WRC-03 ''should not automatically or immediately mean a similar removal of the Morse code from Part 97 of the FCC rules.'' Morse code, the Board affirmed, deserves continued support as an important operating mode as well as in terms of spectrum and ''should be retained as a testing element in the US.'' The resolution also called on ARRL Headquarters staff to ''develop a program designed to promote the use of Morse.'' The resolution supersedes all previous Board policy statements regarding Morse code and Article S25. The Board has adjusted the management structure at ARRL Headquarters. Publications Manager and QST Editor Mark Wilson, K1RO, will serve as the ARRL's Chief Operating Officer. In that position, Wilson will oversee sales and marketing, publications, field volunteer and membership services, the ARRL Lab, and other day-to-day Headquarters activities. The Board also established a committee to solicit membership input to update the ARRL's position on refarming the HF Novice bands ''in light of the 1999 FCC license restructuring Report and Order.'' The five-member panel will be named by President Haynie. It will report to the board in one year. ** From the FCC: FCC SEEKS TO REQUIRE FCC REGISTRATION NUMBER The FCC has proposed requiring that everyone it does business with obtain and use an FCC Registration Number -- or FRN. Many amateurs registered with the Universal Licensing System already have been assigned a 10-digit FRN by the Commission Registration System -- or CORES. The FCC has not made FRN use mandatory, however. The FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rule making (MD Docket 00-205) December 1. The FCC says requiring individuals and entities to obtain an FRN will help it to better track and manage the collection of fees. The FCC proposes requiring that FRNs be provided with any filings that require payment of a fee, such as the vanity fee for amateurs. The FCC is proposing to reject filings requiring an FRN that do not include the number. The Commission said its proposed rules "would make the use of the FRN mandatory in certain circumstances so that anyone not yet assigned an FRN or who has not yet obtained one must obtain one." An individual does not have to hold an FCC license to obtain an FRN. The FCC says the information collected by CORES includes the "entity name and type," Taxpayer Identification Number or TIN--typically a Social Security Number for an individual, contact address and e-mail address. CORES information is not made public. Comments on the FCC rule making notice are due 30 days from the date of publication in The Federal Register. Reply comments are due by 45 days from the date of publication. The FCC began implementing CORES earlier this year. CORES registration eventually will replace Universal Licensing System, or ULS, registration. The FRN will co-exist with the Licensee ID Number issued by the ULS, an FCC spokesperson said this week. More information on CORES is available on the FCC Web site, http://www.fcc.gov (click on the CORES registration link). ** From the archives: (The AMACHEWER of October, 1959 - text unchanged) Miscellaneous: Ads in this issue were for the following companies: (see if you remember of few of them) Radio Distributing, 1013 North Capitol Avenue Vansickle Electronics, 4131 North Keystone Avenue Frank Fitch - Commercial Photography, 4351 Crittenden Manning and Son, 4718 Bertha (Auto body work, etc.) Fine Flowers, 415 East 34th Industrial Air Equipment Co., 2047 East 46th Graham Electronics, 122 South Senate The teen age net meets on 3900 kc at 1630 EST. The net is primarily an operation for teen-agers, but they would like to have any 75 Meter station check in if your age is under 95, as that makes you a teen-ager at heart. Irvin Putt, W9EXT recently became the proud owner of a Collins 75A3 receiver. We don't have the new W9 call yet, but we know that Roger (ex K3EWN) has arrived in town and will be yacking over the back fence real soon. Our monitor reports the following new calls in the Indianapolis area. Kn9SIN, Kn9TXI, Kn9UIW, Kn9UIZ, Kn9UBN and Kn9UBP. Now, back to the manual and on to the fone ticket! For Sale at Graham's: Hallicrafters SX99 Receiver - like new $ 99.00 Hallicrafters SX101 Mark III Receiver - excellent cond. $315.00 National NC303 with crystal calibrator - excellent cond. $362.00 Elmac AF-67 Xmtr with AC Power Supply $110.00 Johnson Pacemaker Xmtr - like new $368.50 ** Miscellany: I continue to need your input so PLEASE send me your stories, ideas, etc. I can be reached at: Gale Wuollet 3423 Admiralty Lane Indianapolis, IN 46240-3566 Phone: 849-8449 Email: gaw3423@prodigy.net Thanks and 73, Gale AA9WU