Oakland County Amateur Radio Public Service Corp (ARPSC) Weekly Net Thursday at 8 pm on 146.900 MHz/100pl Hospital Radio Net on the last Thursday of each month Web Site: http://www.arpsc.com (new web site) Meeting Minutes for 6 December 2006: On 6 December 2006 at 7 pm, Joel Goldberg, W8HIU, Emergency Coordinator (EC) for the Oakland County ARPSC, called the meeting to order in the County Emergency Operation Center (EOC). The order of business included: (I). Comments from the Emergency Coordinator (EC) – Joel Goldberg, W8HIU: New Oakland County ARPSC ID cards will be passed out to members, beginning at this meeting. Old ID cards must be returned with members signing for their new ones. Our new booklet, "Pocket Checklist for Oakland County Emergency Communications Personnel – 2007" is now complete and is being passed out to members. There is a new EC member in District Two Michigan Section ARPSC. Paul Reinhardt, KC8BDK has become the new EC for Macomb County. Paul wants to set up joint efforts between our counties and with the St. Clair County which is the 3rd member of District Two – North. The next District Two Coordinator's Meeting will take place on 21 January 2007, which is the same day as the Hazel Park Amateur Radio Club Swap. Ideas are needed for coordinating activities, which can be submitted for possible funding. On Thursday, 18 January 2007, Macomb County ARPSC has invited us to see a presentation on damage assessment. This starts at 7 pm at Freedom Hill. CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) is looking for volunteers to be trained to assist community emergencies. The training program will take place sometime after January 2007, details not yet known. If interested. please let us know. Skywarn training begins again in March 2007, and one class will be hosted by us the same night as the regular ARPSC meeting on Wednesday, 7 March 2006. Dates and times of other meetings will be announced by NWS and held elsewhere. Gary Rogerson, N8NTC has volunteered to assist the digital group, i.e. packet. Lloyd Suter, N2NGO is our National Weather Service (NWS) liaison. Jim Poehlman, K8ABZ volunteered to be AEC for membership. (II). Comments from Steve Iannucci, Oakland County Emergency Response and Preparedness (ER&P): Members who obtain their new county ARPSC ID card should check to see that their call sign and name are correct. New two-way county sirens will soon be installed, reducing the old Thunderbolts to a handful. Amateur operators are still needed to check both the older and newer sirens. Larry Hornsby, KB8POD noted hams recently helped to supply information when the EOC's siren monitor suddenly went blank. (III). Comments from Larry Hornsby, KB8POD, Assistant Emergency Coordinator (AEC) and Net Manager: Our nets take place on 8 pm every Thursday night with an average of 20-25 people participating. All these check-ins are appreciated. If you have a question to ask about the ARPSC or amateur radio, please call in. Shannon Richardson, KD8ATI is now back as a net control operator and Bill Wallace, KC8JAY is now working with the nets. A training booklet is being compiled to assist net control operators. We need more volunteers. There are two qualified blind radio operators who would like to work on net operations, but need a volunteer to assist them. Copies of "American Radio Relay League Radiograms" were passed out to members. Larry wants to use these for future instruction on the weekly nets. (IV). Comments from Larry Hornsby, KB8POD, AEC on Sirens: Over 100 different volunteers have been identified working the sirens during this year. Thirty-five to forty persons checked-in each month. In the future, OCARS (Oakland County Amateur Radio Society) will be responsible for one of the siren subnets. (V). Comments from Barry Kaufman, WD8JWM, AEC Administrator: Barry is going through older ARPSC documents in order to save pertinent ones before throwing out the rest. (VI). Comments from Bill Bond, W8WRB, Hospital Radios: Thirteen out of fifteen hospital radios checked in during the November monthly net, with two forgetting to come. Hopefully, they will check-in during tomorrow's regular W8OAK Net. Members are taking non-ARPSC members into the hospitals for net operations. Do not take non-members. If there is a problem, county insurance won't cover them and may fail to give coverage to such members. Having two ARPSC volunteers at the hospital for a net is okay, but not more. Several hospitals haven't gotten their headsets and should remind Bill. The last Hospital Net of the year is scheduled for Thursday, 28 December 2006. This last net is optional for hospital radio volunteers, but the net will still be held for those who can participate. Gale Novak recently talked with Genesys Hospital about installing an amateur radio for Oakland County ARPSC use. It is possible that Bill will be installing a radio there as early as next week. (VII). Comments from Gary Bouwkamp, N8HMP, W8OAK Web Master: Our former website was hosted by qsl.net and relied on donations for its operation. It frequently went down and was slow. Mike Vander Veer, KD8ATK arranged for us to get commercial web space. Gary obtained a new domain, http://www.arpsc.com, formerly used by a Georgia ham group. The old http://www.qsl.net/w8oak address will continue until various links can be changed. (VIII). Comments from Gary Sklar, K8IKA, Information: Up Coming Events Thursday, 14 December 2006: Milford Radio Club Annual Christmas Party. Nine dollars for members, $12 for guests. Friday, 15 December 2006: Major Revision of HF Bands. i.e. 10, 40 and 80 meter bands expand voice coverage. Wednesday, 20 December 2006: Hazel Park Amateur Radio Club Annual Christmas Party. Price of admission is a donation in the form of money or check placed in an envelope to the Salvation Army. (IX). Comments from Randy Love, WF5X, AEC, Computer and Repeater Operations: All the computers now have wireless access (with the right ID) to any of the machines. For example, all can access a shared packet program, or from another computer in a nearby car. Eventually, this access will be password protected. All computers can print to a printer. Software programs include DigiPan, MMTTY, MMSSTV, and Hamscope. DigiPan supports PSK31; Hamscope interfaces amateur radio with PSK31, RTTY, Packet, CW and logging; MMTTY assists RTTY; MMSSTV supports SSTV – slow scan television. The Oakland County campus security system prevents networking these to other sources. (X). Comments from Randy Love, WF5X, AEC, on Skywarn Recognition Day: During our recent Skywarn Recognition Day event, thirty-two NWS stations were worked and 9 others heard for a total of 42 points. Reception to New England was poor and we did not hear WX1CAR in Caribou, Maine. A G5RV antenna was hung from a nearby tree for HF use. Thanks go to Joel Stanley, - KC8DQH, Gary Sklar - K8IKW, Don Jahncke, N8AO, Larry Hornsby - KB8POD, William Nebel - N3BEL, Bill Wallace - KC8JAY, Joel Goldberg - W8HIU, Mike Vander Veer - KD8ATK, Joe Miller - KD8DLU, and Randy Love - WF5X. (XI). Questions from a Member: Query: When will the Oakland County wireless internet service start operation? Answer: Possibly this coming summer. Respectfully submitted, James R. Murphy, N8SML Secretary, Oakland County ARPSC 7 December 2006