PAARC Nominates and Elects 2020 Board of Directors

At the November 1, 2019 meeting we held nominations for the 2020 PAARC Board of Directors. The following members were nominated for positions, and since they were the only nominations, they accepted these positions on the board for next year:

2020 Officers with one year terms:
President – Wes Hammerschmidt,  N3HWH
Vice-President – Ed Leshinskie, K3BVQ
Treasurer – Nate Rosenthal, N2ADD
Secretary – Melody Bowers, KB3SJR

Executive Board Member Elected to a 3 year term ending Dec. 2022:
Jay Moyer, K3JY (finishing a term in 2019, and re-elected)

2020 Board Members who continue to serve their terms:
Executive Board – Pete Kobak, K0BAK
Executive Board – Steve Sobota, K3ALV
Club License Trustee – Bob Rex, K3DBD

We are grateful for all who served the board in 2019 including those named above, plus Bill Stauffer, KA3RMM (Club License Trustee) and Ben Trave, K3BJT (Vice-President).  Thank you all for stepping forward to lead the club. And thank you to all who voted at the 11/1/19 meeting.

Pottstown Area Amateur Radio Club (PAARC) is a 501(c)3 charitable organization focused on education.

6 Meter Magic Band Nets

We just had another new check-in on the Magician’s Net this week.  His name is John, and his call is W3KFT (Kentucky Fried Turkey).  For all you VHF fans John also runs a 6 meter net on 50.550 MHz (usb) at 9pm on Sunday evenings under the club call of W3AWA.  It’s called the Mobile Sixers Club.  As Magician’s we are always striving for new and better ways to explore the band.  To the beginning 6 meter op it appears at first that the band is dead, but we’re here to show you that you just have to know where the action is.  We’ve shared our discoveries with other clubs notably the Keystone VHF Club, the Packrats club, and now the Mobile Sixers Club.  Everyone’s invited to the nets!!  Being inclusive is one of our strengths!

Propagation Alerts:  As we wind things down heading towards the Winter months that doesn’t mean we have to hibernate, at least not radio wise.  There’s still a little life left in the 6 meter band, but again, you have to turn it on to find out.  At this time of the year up until the month of January we can sometimes experience some great Es openings.  Keep checking http://www.dxmaps.com/spots/map.php for updates.  For a closer look at what Old Sol (the sun) is up to please check out http://www.solarham.net/ for the latest happenings in the current Solar Cycle.  I know I hound you guys to death with this stuff, but if you’ve never worked Aurora you’re in for a treat!  Look for elevated levels in the A & K indexes.  The more uses you find for those radios, the more fun you’ll have.  Speaking of fun I just started preparing my station to work some meteor scatter using a relatively new digital mode called MSK-144.  It’s included with the newest WSJT-X software that’s been released.  It’s an Alpha version which means it could be buggy, but so far I haven’t had any problems that I can point to, or at least none that were caused by this program.  Time will tell.  Turn on those rigs during the week, and please use those two links I gave in the last paragraph.  I’ve found them to be indispensible when it comes to 6 meter propagation. (more…)

6M Nets from the Fire Tower – Aug. 31

 

Calling all PAARC members….  calling all

Yes, it’s that time of the year again when we run nets from locations other than our shack.

This year we’ll be running both the Magicians Net and the AM Mini Boat Anchor Net from high atop the Hopewell Fire Tower at French Creek State Park.  We’ll be testing out new antennas that a few of our members recently purchased specifically for 6 meters.  The antenna is called the OA-50, an omni directional antenna model made by Par Electronics.  From initial tests, this thing really works.  Let us know what you think.

Rigs & Antennas:  The Magicians Net will be running a Yaesu FT-991, and the AM Mini Boat AnMagician's Netchor Net will run a Gonset (Gooney) G-50 for the AM portion of the net.  Both stations will be sharing a Par Electronics OA-50 Omni Angle Antenna.

Times: We will start taking check-ins for the Magician’s Net at 8pm this coming Wednesday, August 31st rather than our regularly scheduled time of 8:30pm.  Thank you Ed/K3BVQ for your support!  The AM Mini-Boat Anchor Net will start at its usual time 9pm.

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