February’s meeting with Southern Kentucky Amateur Transmitting Society was held on Tuesday, February 4th at 6pm local time. Bob Harris was excited to announce that Winter Field Day was a success along with the statistics recorded. Our club made 863 contacts & hosted 20 licensed hams along with many visitors from the community. 138 CW contacts, 608 phone contacts, and 117 digital contacts were made. Top states/regions contacted were Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, & Michigan. Collectively, the total number of DX mileage reached was 38,677. As always, Field Day gave us the opportunities to learn, improvise, and improve as a team in various areas of setup and operation.
Our club also received a QSL card from one of the contacts made and Bob discussed different options for potentially creating or purchasing club QSL cards for future Field Days. Our Field Day Committee hosted a Zoom Meeting Thursday following the meeting to begin planning for Summer Field Day.
Our club was presented a recognition certificate from Solid Waste Management for our trash pickup efforts in Lewisburg. Mentions were also made on WRUS’s website and Facebook.
Corey Page presented a demonstration on ‘Net Control, Etiquette, and Proper Communication’ on our weekly club net. He made mention volunteers for net coordinator and alternate net controls are needed throughout the year to continue the consistent flow of hosting a weekly net. He explained different types of nets, from professional nets, emergency nets, and ‘rag chew’ nets. He also talked about a net’s purpose. Our weekly net is intended to relay current local events, talk about your day, exciting happenings during the week, etc. As many members are in or related to emergency management, Corey mentioned that being active during weekly nets would help give those members practice for in the future if they ever needed to operate their own emergency net. Nets are also good for gaining experience in logging practice, consistency and relevance, and learning the proper flow of traffic held during a net. Etiquette was also touched as a topic. Things like script following yet improvising as necessary, being respectful of repeater times and others on the net, and being sure to check in with your call sign first, preferably phonetically, before any other transmission were all noted and emphasized during the presentation. Emphasis was also made on all traffic being directed through net control during the active net times.
Corey also showed a demonstration of http://Ham.Live, a new software used for logging net traffic over the internet. While using Ham.Live, others can watch along while Net Control enters logging information. John Bruce also stated that using this software may help to transition new Net Control volunteers into the role by aiding in the role of logging or operating Control while another member logs through Ham.Live. A video of this presentation will be posted on the Facebook page for anyone who may want to view. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/919971942823692)
Next month’s presentation will be given by Bob Harris over soldering connections. He will show several examples of how to properly solder and why this is extremely crucial for proper operation and clear transmissions.
Please join us next month on March 4th at The Logan County Search & Rescue building on Thurston Drive in Russellville, KY. Meetings start at 6pm & testing begins promptly at 7pm.
If you are interested in testing for your Technician License or upgrading to your General or Extra Class, please contact Bob Harris at rharris283@att.net or (270) 776-5572 to reserve your space. Walk-ins are also welcome but are subject to limited space & cannot be accepted if arrival is not prompt to 7pm.
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