| NIHRAC (K3YGG) NIH Building 13 Room G-903 Bethesda, MD 20892 |
Emergency Communications Center NIH Building 11 Room 308 phone: 301 496-5311 |
NIHRAC Web site http://nihrac.od.nih.gov
The next meeting will be held at noon on Thursday, December 3, 1998 in the Emergency Communications Center (ECC) located on the third floor of Building 11. We will recap our participation in the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Chase public service event and make plans for the coming year.
The meeting was called to order by Secretary-Treasurer Albert Lock at 12:10 p.m. The minutes of the October 1, 1998 meeting were accepted after making the following corrections. To the minutes of the October 1 meeting change the callsign of new member Gary Shipley to read N5GQD. To some copies of the October 3 Clinical Center power outage report change "Administrative Summary" to "Executive Summary" and in the list of participants change Quin Marsh's post to 2-West CCU and Harold Simon's to the 2-W Bone Marrow Unit. .
Members attending the meeting included Akihiro Hashimoto AA3RV, Bill Hook W3QBC, Albert
Lock KA3WCF, John Muller W3QF, Chuck Sherman N3WTO Trent Smith KQ6ID and Tom Vegella
K1FEX. Visitor Ed Gordon KB3DBX was welcomed.
Jim Hobbs performed a full reset on Tom Vegella's PK232 Multimode Communications Processor (MCP) and it will now communicate with the DMAT laptop computer and their ICOM 2 meter transceiver. Jim has used this setup at the ECC to access the K3YGG packet mailbox and the system is now ready for use in training members in VHF packet radio techniques. Tom will move the equipment to his office at Twinbrook for first efforts.
Bill Hook described some of the complexities he encountered in his efforts to communicate by packet on the 40 meter band. The opinion was expressed that the 2-meter band may be the most practical for DMAT operations within 100 miles of our area. Messages may be effectively digipeated through intermediate nodes with less equipment, less operator training and with more reliability than HF may offer.
John Muller reported that Trent Smith, Bill Hook and he were again on board at the NIHRAC ECC to operate K3YGG and MEMA Unit 48. Contact was established with MEMA via the Davidsonville, MD 147.105 MHz repeater. Several messages from MEMA Pikesville were accurately copied by Trent. John invited members to drop by the ECC after 7:00 pm on November 10 to participate in the next exercise.
Additional warning tape streamers should be attached to the guy ropes to make them more visible to those working on the roof.
Akihiro Hashimoto AA3RV/JI5NGS who recently joined NIH to work in Building 8 was unanimously elected to full membership. His home station consists of an IC-756 HF rig, wire antenna, TNC and SSTV converter. Akihiro was welcomed to NIHRAC and we look forward to his participation in club activities.
Edward Gordon KB3DBX submitted his application for full membership after the meeting. At the December meeting we will vote on his application.
This year the meeting of the Middle Atlantic FM and Repeater Council will be held in Alexandria VA at 2 pm on Sunday, November 15. A volunteer is sought to represent NIHRAC at the meeting. Please contact Bill Hook for further information if you are able to attend.
Several months ago NIHRAC was informally invited to participate. Accordingly, a letter formalizing our willingness to help out with radio communication has been sent to the B-CC YMCA by NIHRAC president Walter Stewart.
Larry Martin has volunteered to act as liaison with the YMCA. It will be necessary to us provide the YMCA with names of prospective NIHRAC volunteers prior to the event. A minimum of 12 operators are needed to give full coverage of the race course. If you can volunteer please contact Larry or Bill Hook as soon as possible. The NIHRAC VHF repeater will be used for the primary frequency and our UHF repeater for backup. For those without an HT a few will be available for loan.
John Muller reported that there were no parking spaces available for visitors in the MLP-8 garage just prior to the meeting. Chuck Sherman made a motion that if a NIHRAC member without on-campus parking privileges is unable to find a space in a facility where our parking vouchers are accepted, then the NIHRAC treasury will compensate the member for parking in a metered space. The motion was seconded and passed.
Tom Vegella again invited NIHRAC to hold its monthly meeting at the Center for Devices
and Radiological Health in Rockville. Accordingly, it was agreed that we will meet there
on January 7, 1999.
The meeting was adjourned at 12:45 pm.
de w3qbc