THE SQUELCH TALE – October, 2003
A newsletter for NoBARC
The Northern Berkshire Amateur Radio Club, Inc.
P. O> Box 2097
Pittsfield, Ma. 01020 – 2097
Calendar
of Events:
NoBARC Meeting on Sunday October 26th (7:00) at the Red Cross Building 480 West Street Pittsfield. Meeting room is on second floor but handicap accessible via elevator. The building is non-smoking. The Meeting is open to all interested amateurs.
Coffee and donuts will be served. You can bet there will be more discussion on the upcoming election. Also a short film from the ARRL on The old-time spark gap will be shown, if time permits.
LAST MONTH’S MEETING – We had a no way of accessing the Red Cross building last time because our contact had problems and could not show up. We adjourned the meeting to Pat & Joe’s house, instead. Bill Chandler was also away from the Berkshires doing Red Cross duties in Maryland. Polly Mann wrote us to apologize and say how sorry she was that this happened. This will not happen again, as she has made sure we can get in now. NOBARC MEETINGS ARE ALWAYS ON THE 4TH Sunday of the month.
A FUND RAISING OPPORTUNITY – The Pittsfield Office of Emergency Management has offered us a chance to help them with their HAUNTED HOUSE PROJECT. Each year they raise money by building rooms for Halloween in the old Fire Station on Tyler St. and charging admission for the Scare. Joel Miller, N1WCF asked Nobarc to help with ideas and building and the actual scare. They are working almost every night to get this project up and running. If you would like to help out – call Joel at 4422609 in Pittsfield.
November 23 – NoBARC elections. All officers and Board Members are up for election. Be thinking how you can serve the club. If you don’t offer to help out – you have no reason to complain. I am sure there are many people out there who could do a good job. Those who have been serving for a long time have done so because they are dedicated to keeping the club together and running smoothly.
Early December is the time for the Nobarc Holiday party.(No date yet) At that gathering we will have the pleasure of giving out the The WB1HIH award to the person who did the most Community Service for NoBARC. Any suggestions will be very welcome.
NOBARC SILENT KEYS. As is our custom when a ham in our club dies, we affix a small brass plaque to the inside door of our Repeater Room on Mt. Greylock --(the bunker) containing the call sign of the SK. Recently, when Joe and I were attaching the one for Milt George, W1BKG – I took a moment to reflect on those who were commemorated there. There are now 35…and so I have been asking around for names to go with the calls. About half of them we knew personally. With Veterans Day coming up here are the names we have come up with. Our old veterans of ham radio…and maybe also the military.
Please remember: Holly Nuttall – W1COI, Jim Szewczk- WB1EYM, Harold Babcock- K1CUX, Joe Goguen- N1TDY, Angelo Gazzaniga –Wb1EKC, Don Harris – KA1HFN, George Pierce – KA1EKQ, Ray LaSonde- W1LEA. Jack LoMonaco- WA1YYK, Roger Hoebeke-W1MEJ, Ed Halpin- W1DWT, ??- KB1JN, Dick Goodman – WB1HIH, Charlie Benoit- WB1EWM, James Hannahan-W2PGG, Frank Woodstock- K1DWU, ?? ND2F, Roger Harris- KC6TFI, Norman St.Cyr – KA1FDU, ??W1VWC, Lou Brown – WA2LAI, Kurt Gable-N1NMN, Dave Meyers- AA1LA, Cecil Oxford- N5PNM, Jack Fitzpatrick – W1UBZ, Gurdon Arnold- N1MDF. Dick Watham-K2JXU, Steve Konopka- WA1WMN, Harold Taskin-N1FBP, Bill Scully- W1FGV, Bob Dunn-W1KSD, Dawn Cummings- K1TQY, Will Bridgham- W1WF, Don Horton- N1ISB, Milton George – W1BKG. We have not forgotten you old friends……
Note: K1DWU and WB1HIH callsigns have been re-issued to their sons. - --so they live on. (If you know the names of the 3 ??? ones, please let me know. TNX.de Pat, N1LZH.
Hopefully
the gremlins of the past that have prevented us from holding our
meetings at
the Red Cross Building have been removed and we will be able to get
into the
building on Sunday Nights with out incident. We have had four meetings
scheduled at this location thus far and have had trouble getting inside
on two
occasions because of locked door problems. Five hundred % is super for
baseball
but is way out of line for building access for club meetings. We now
have an
entry key and should be able to hold the meetings without any problems
(Thank
you Polly). I apologize for all the
inconvenience it has caused to the club members.
Remember
that November is election month and we still need to assemble a list of
candidates for all officer positions. Some names have been assembled as
the
result of the list generated at the last meeting but most of the key
positions
are still open. Come on guys we can’t all be on the board of directors.
Please
come to the October meeting with your nominations for the key positions
or give
me a call with your suggestions for likely candidates. Election night
is
typically auction night; therefore, with approval by the board, we will
conduct
the annual auction in November while the votes are being counted. Dig
out those
goodies you want to dispose of and have them ready by November.
A
thought occurred to me while listening to the Sunday Morning Nets. That
is some
of the stations that check in are quite weak and are a bit difficult to
copy
but if the call letters are received the station is acknowledged with
out
further comment. It seems that if there were a disaster situation these
weak
stations would not be of very useful to pass traffic. In some cases,
the weak
stations are totally unaware of how badly they are making it into the
repeater
and should be made aware of their status. A comment after each station
is
acknowledged relative to their signal quality should be made. The
thought here
is not to discourage that person but to make them aware that they need
to work
on their setup, i.e., more power, better antenna system or different
location
for the antenna or a combination of these things. It could be that
week-to-week
conditions might dictate how well a given station is doing into the
repeater.
But again this is useful information to the marginal stations. We want
all
people to check in from, as many locations as possible but in times of
a
disaster the net should run as smoothly as possible. Just a suggestion
to the
people that are net control.
The
lodge on top of Mt Greylock is closed; as of The 20th of
October
therefore the alarm system will be activated after the building is
secured for
the winter. If you hear the alarm be sure to call Al K1SAV so that he
can alert
the DEM of any possible break-ins.
This is one of the functions that we provide
to the
State to justify our existence on the hill.
73es Joe W1BS.