Minutes of the SCRRBA Annual General Meeting
Saturday October 15, 2005
On Saturday, October 15, 2005 there was a Southern California Repeater and
Remote Base Association (SCRRBA) general meeting held at Harvey Mudd College in
Claremont.
Chairman Joe Saddler, WA6PAZ, called the meeting to order at about 11:20AM and welcomed
everyone.
Treasurer's Report - Mike Penrose, W6AP
Mike reported that 5 checks were written in 2004. The checks paid our
domain name, printing, and insurance bills. At the end of 2004, there was
$1971 in the bank account. After our 2005 insurance payment, we had $1545
in the bank. The 2004 dues income was about $740.
10 Meter and 6 Meter Band Report - Gary Gray, W6DOE
Only one of the four coordinated 10-meter repeaters could be found on a
recent check. The one found (29.66MHz) appeared to be linked to another
audio source. The W6KRW 29.64MHz repeater is down for repairs. No
reports were available for the other two repeaters.
One inquiry was made, today, about 6m coordination. At the last check,
17 active repeaters were found on the 6m band. Recent activity has been on
a decline.
There are still available frequencies on the 6m band, but they are in the
53MHz area.
420 - 450 MHz Band Report - Robin Critchell, WA6CDR
There's a moderate
amount of coordination work to be done in the 440-450MHz band. We need to
back up a few steps and look at what people are doing. It's been hard to
check existing radios because most were turned off due to jamming. Things
are coming back on and we need to find out who still has a real radio and who
might have given up. Some systems have taken their radios off their
coordinated hilltops because of high rent increases. These people cannot
retain their coordination since the terms of the coordination are for a specific
location. Many of those that we know have moved their radio, have not
filed any paperwork requesting a change.Our biggest problem right now is a
backlog of work. The tech committee needs to work together to get current
information on existing coordinations so we have something to work with in order
to help out those who filed new requests.
There are a few large systems that have a number of 420MHz coordinations and
who are now down to just two or so pairs. If we can clean up that old
information, we can accommodate a number of new requests.
When the database is updated to match reality better, it takes about 15 to 20
man-hours to find a 420MHz pair that works - at a complex site. This is
due to the complexity of odd splits, directional antennas, polarities, power
levels, etc.
Free time and drive has been slowing us down. A lot of that is due to
the problems caused by the Gerritsen jamming. Since he's been stopped, we
haven't gotten back up to speed yet.
If you have un-used 420MHz coordinations and know you aren't going to use
them, please email us so we can make those frequencies available to others.
Its much more difficult to verify 420MHz coordinations since there are so many
different ways that 420MHz radios are activated. Also, if you know that
someone used to be next to your radio (at a site) and they aren't there anymore,
drop us an email too and we'll check in with that coordinee.
If you send us an application and don't hear from us for a little while, send
us an email. When you do, summarize the application itself so we can
respond more quickly.
902 MHz Band Report
Dave DeGregorio (WA6UZS) was unable to attend todays meeting and report on
the 902MHz activity.
Dave Glawson (WA6CGR) reported that the 900MHz band has been quite active
lately. Dave says that there are lots of Motorola Spectra radios available
now (most of which can be found on eBay). There is still a lot of
non-amateur activity on the band that does cause interference.
Marshall Munoz (N6RTR) told everyone about his experience with the 902MHz
band. He reported that Chris Buchanan (N6LXX) has several repeaters
scattered on a number of hilltops.
1200 MHz Band & ATV Activity Report - Tom O'Hara, W6ORG
Tom reported that there's plenty of room for new repeaters or links.
Unfortunately, its become quite difficult to get amateur radio manufacturers to
make 1200MHz equipment. Icom makes an ID-1 mobile, but it's selling for
$1300.
A survey of the 1286-1288MHz segment found only about 1/3 of the radios
responding. Some of this is because the coordinees have moved out of the
area. In some cases, the callsigns have changed on the repeater but no
updates have been submitted.
The bandplan was recently changed to add a calling frequency for the Icom D-STAR
narrowband voice simplex at 1294.300MHz.
To date, no requests for D-STAR repeaters have been made.
For ATV, there have been no changes in the number of repeaters, but two
mountain top locations and coordinees have changed. Many of
the existing repeaters have linked with the ATN system. Southern
California has quite a bit of linked ATV activity using 2417MHz and 5.8GHz
between hilltops. Every Monday
night there's a net at 7:30pm on the ATN Mt. Wilson repeater and 8:00pm Tuesdays
throughout the whole ATN system
Many ATV repeater users have been switching from the 434MHz inputs to the
2441.5MHz input due to 434MHz interference - radar, wireless weather and other
digital linked wireless Part 15 devices on 433.97MHz.
Microwave Bands Report - Joe Saddler, WA6PAZ
Nothing new to report.
ARRL Report
ARRL officers are at the Pacificon Convention this weekend.
FCC Report - Robin Critchell, WA6CDR
The only thing to report here is the Gerritsen situation. The FCC
system only seems to work if people who get letters from the FCC actually agree
to do what is said in their respective letters.
BPL is not dead, but probably has some pretty good nails in the cofin.
Website Update - Gerry Walsh, KB6OOC
Last year we talked about the Northern Amateur Relay Council of California (NARCC)'s offer to share
their own web technology with us (for a fee). They have produced a pretty
impressive product that allows for online application filing, and for coordinees
to securely login and make changes to their system and contact information.
Thus far, we haven't made much progress in this area but we really need to have
a new database system and need to have a web interface for coordinees.
We'll be discussing this with NARCC in detail very soon and hope to have
something going in the next several months.
Open Discussion
It was reported that San Diego Gas & Electric has been experimenting with BPL
(with about 10 employees doing the testing). It doesn't appear to be a
real serious effort to test or deploy BPL in the region. Someone reported
that BPL noise is being heard all across the low bands and as high up as the 2m
band.
Southern California Edison is being "forced" to do some BPL testing.
They have a small test going on in the Rosemead area.
The ARRL has been testing a Motorola BPL modem and reports that it appears to
be quite clean. Someone pointed out that the testing they are doing is on
lower voltage power lines at the ARRL Headquarters and if they could test with
higher voltage lines (which BPL would normally use) the results might be quite
different.
Dave Glawson (WA6CGR) shared information about an upcoming microwave
conference called "Microwave Update". The conference will take place later
this month (October 2005) in Cerritos. For more information see
http://www.microwaveupdate.org.
There will be discussions about 47GHz moon bounce and there will be
demonstrations of 24, 47, and 76GHz SSB gear. There will also be
demonstrations on noise figure measurements, spectrum analysis, and laser
communications. All presentations will be in good technical detail.
Nominations
President Joe Saddler opened the floor for nominations of new officers.
A motion was made to carry the same officers
over to the next year. The motion was seconded and their was no
further discussion on the motion. After a show of hands, the motion
was approved and the current officers will continue until next year.
The Chairman, Joe Saddler, adjourned the meeting at about 12:41pm.
