January 8, Larry KF4GRA took advantage of the early testing date in Ft. Walton and passed his Genaral Theory exam. Also during the first week of January, Bart filed the change of trustee for the club and received the new license which was granted January 22, 2000. January 29th several club members attended the Greenville Hamfest where Bart WA8YPX passed his Extra theory exam.
Gary Beeler from the NWS office in Mobile, conducted a Weather Spotter class at Andalusia Public Library. It was well attended.
The river gauges were placed at Lightwood Knot Creek and Yellow River. These two gauges will assist EMA officials in Covington County Alabama and Okaloosa County Florida to get an indication of how fast river levels are rising. John (KE4HIE) passed the 5WPM code test at the Pensacola testing session. Congratulations John!
During the month of May, John (KE4HIE) and Larry ( KF4GRA) took advantage of the testing session in Ft. Walton and upgraded their license after passing the respective theory test.
Field Day was a great day again this year, as SARC members gathered at Lake Frank Jackson State Park near Opp, Alabama for Field Day 2000. .
During August several changes were made concerning emergency communication. The Covington County EMA office was moved to the new E-911 center. The antennas are in the process of being installed on the tower and hopefully will be in place within the next week. Some necessary maintenance was done to the repeater. New receive crystals were ordered to replace the ones that are drifting off frequency during the extremely hot summer days we have experienced this year. Hopefully the crystals will be installed soon. The callsign on the repeater was changed on August 31, 2000 to the club call sign. (KF4YXB) Lehn and John will be testing the access codes to activate the controller.
A nominating committee will be established in September to present a slate of
candidates for the ballots in December.
September 30th club members gathered at the repeater site for necessary repairs
to the repeater antenna. James KD4BWQ climbed
the tower and replaced the transmit antenna with a DB Products 4-Bay Array at
225 feet on the southwest corner of the tower. From signal reports
with lower power settings in the area, the repeater is definitely doing a better
job on area coverage. Thanks to all those providing signal and power
setting reports.
On October 20th a 100 HZ tone was added so tone squelch capabilities can be utilized for the transmit signal of the repeater. Some additional modification will need to be done so this tone squelch capabilities can be used with the ICOM 2100H that is currently experiencing problems with the current settings. Another work day has been put on the calendar for November 4th to replace the repeater house with a different one that will hopefully solve the excessive heat problem experienced during summer months.
The Christmas Party took place at the Crowe's nest on US 29 North. The last Club meeting took place at the Andalusia Public Library Solon Dixon room where Board members held their meeting in conjunction with the regular meeting.
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