Minutes of the Regular Meeting on February 04, 2014
The meeting was held in the Kanata Room in Sobey's, at the SW corner of Hazedean and Terry Fox Drive in Kanata.
The following people were present (table presents status at beginning of meeting):
Name | Call Sign | Position | MH Grid | RAC | WCARC |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Peter Jago | VA3PJ | Member | FN25ag | Yes | Yes |
Bert Zauhar | VE2ZAZ | Director | FN25bk | Yes | Yes |
Graham Ide | VE3BYT | Member | FN25ch | Yes | Yes |
Clayton Smith | VE3IRR | President | FN25ai | Yes | Yes |
Clare Fowler | VE3NPC | Member | FN25dj | Yes | Yes |
Andy Hart | VE3NVK | Treasurer | FN25bh | Yes | Yes |
Paul Boltwood | VE3PLE | Member | FN25 | Yes | Yes |
Christopher Murphy | VE3TIS | Visitor | FN25 | ||
Doug Leach | VE3XK | Member | FN25bf | Yes | Yes |
Glenn MacDonell | VE3XRA | Secretary | FN25dj | Yes | Yes |
Opening:
The
meeting was opened by President Clayton Smith VE3IRR at 19:30 hours. He welcomed one visitor, Christopher Murphy VE3TIS, newly arrived from New Brunswick. Chris joined the club at the meeting.
Secretary's Report:
The Secretary introduced the minutes of the January meeting as posted to the club website. Members identified a typo. The Secretary agreed to correct the posted minutes.
Moved by Glenn MacDonell VE3XRA that the minutes as corrected be approved. Seconded by Doug VE3XK.
Motion approved.
Treasurer's
Report:
The Treasurer reported that at present the club had $735.68 in the bank and that so far this year (which began in January) 12 members had joined or renewed their membership. Wehad ended the previous year with 22 paid up members.
Vice President's Report:
The President, who is also carrying out the duties of Vice President until the club fills the position, reported that the regular meeting room is booked for March and April and the meeting room for the following month should be booked shortly. He noted that there were openings for speakers and asked those interested in presenting or who could recommend speakers to let him know.
President's Report:
The President reported that he had posted more SDR radio examples and expects to continue adding. These Gnu radio flow graphs can be found at: https://github.com/argilo/sdr-examples.
Old Business:
The President noted that there was a vacancy for the position of Vice President and called for nominations. He opened nominations. Doug VE3XK was elected by acclimation and thanked by all for joining the executive.
Reports
Beacons
Doug Leech VE3XK reported that all beacons continue to work well.
D-STAR
Some software engineers have recently developed a proper D-STAR demodulator. Clayton VE3IRR has integrated this in a GNU radio block available at the site listed in the President's Report.
He played a recording of a D-STAR conversation he had decoded with GNU radio.
2304 MHz Transverter Conversion
Bert VE2ZAZ brought his finished transverter and described a simple addition to interface the transverter with a transceiver so that the transceiver does not send RF into the transverter before the swiching between the receiver and transmitter sections are completed. He can provide further detains to anyone who needs them.
Presentations:
Rather than a major presentor for the meeting various members shared information on ecent delelopments or their projects.
Glenn VE3XRA gave a short presentation of the 60m (5 MHz)
band showing the increasing access to it in countries arounf the world over the past years and describing the authorization to use 5 channels in 60m given to canadian radio amateurs 13 days before the meeting.
Bert VE2ZAZ showed an add on board for the Raspberry Pi, The Pi Plate, that serves as an expansion board allowing you to add electronics to the board. He bought this from China for $10 delivered and used it for a thermostat for home heating controlled by a web page.
He also showed off a $50 Android tablet from China (Hypertab 7) he uses to control the thermostat.
Peter VA3PJ
showed a power amplifier tuned for 2.4 GHz sold by Pyrojoe that will provide 40w our for 1w in. It could be used as
Paul VE3PLE decribed what he had done to put together a 10 MHz frequency reference using an oven controlled crystal oscilator (OXCO) to improve frequency stability on the Flex 1500 he uses for WSPRr.
Adjournment
The President stated
that there being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 21:30 hours.