Club meeting - SATURDAY, 3-11-23 @ 6:00 p.m

Saturday 3/11  we have a great presentation planned with training in severe weather and severe weather spotting.  Steve Runnels, the National Weather Service Warning Coordinator for the Springfield, MO office, will be at our club meeting ready to give us lots up great information on spotting, severe weather, and how we can help.

If you haven't been able to attend one of the local spotter talks, this will be a good alternative and also get some additional information that you won't get at the generic training.

We'll have some updates on club repeaters and projects and as usual we'll have a Q&A about the repeaters as well as after the weather presentation.

If you haven't had a chance to renew your 2023 Nixa ARC dues, I'll be at the meeting and ready to add you to the roster.

If you are unable to join us in person for tonight's meeting and would like to still join us virtually, click on the link below and register for the meeting this evening.  


73,

James Adkins, KB0NHX
Treasurer & Repeater Trustee - Nixa ARC, Inc.

December club meeting update

We had a great turnout at the December club meeting - doing a quick head count we had 30 people in attendance for some good BBQ and to hear some exciting news about the club.

First, I withdrew my name from the nomination for the club President position.   As some of you know I am already the President of the Missouri Repeater Council and it had been brought up that it would look bad if I won the election and was the President of Nixa who has the most repeaters of any club in the state.  The more I thought about it the more I was concerned that it might not portray the positive image on the club that we have worked hard to keep.  Therefore, Shawn Roesslet, KE0JGI, will remain on through acclimation as President of the club.   

As you know the Treasurer role has been open for about a year with the other club officers splitting those duties.  I did volunteer to fill that spot if they felt comfortable appointing me to fulfill the remaining term for that position.  Therefore, I will be acting as Treasurer for the club - the only officer position I had yet to fulfill - and I’m looking forward to being more involved as our youngest graduates from High School this spring.  He is going into accounting and claims he can teach his OM some tricks with Excel and Quicken.

In other news, Shawn, KE0JGI, applied for and received a grant from the Nixa Community Foundation for close to $2200 to replace the 6.0 dBd gain DB-224E antenna we installed in 2003 on the 145.270 with an 8.5 dBd gain Comprod 874F-70TM antenna.  The repeater is now used by Christian County ARES for their weekly net as well as for severe weather spotting in Christian County.   The repeater performance has been degrading the last several years and we are counting on the new antenna system to get us back to where we were previously and even better with the higher gain.   Also at this site Jeremy, KC0UJZ, of Verizon let me know they replaced the 48vdc battery plant last week and shut off both 3G cabinets of equipment so our power source will have a longer life during power outages.  We plan to take advantage of the backup power and move our Quantar repeater from a 120vac to a 48vdc power supply and be grid independent for normal operations in 2023.  

The other hot topics regarding club repeaters revolves around the Crane 442.150 - we found it to be 6.332 kHz off frequency on transmit while receive is right on frequency.   James, KB0NHX, has seen this one time before but it was another person’s repeater and they opted to replace it instead of troubleshoot.  We are looking for a Motorola MSF-5000 CXB Uniboard for the UHF repeater currently.

We also talked about the 53.270 and the Queen City Digital projects - we don’t have any updates but will try to get an update by the January meeting for everyone.   As of now, it’s still a go but the timeline is not set yet.

Randy, KC0UKB, and James, KB0NHX, gave everyone some unexpected and neat information about the club’s new website that is under construction.  We hope to unveil it at the January club meeting and the designer is planning on being at the meeting.  He is a college student that attends MSU majoring in web design.  He was discovered by Jim, KC0IYI, when he worked the same rest stop at the Tour de Bass.  He is very interested in amateur radio and from what we’ve seen so far it is very neat!  What is really cool is one of his scholarships requires him to have a certain number of volunteer hours for a 501c3 and we worked with his sponsor to allow him to use his education and volunteer requirements to count toward his scholarship hours - a win for us and him both!  The online membership process is going to be great as once you pay you will get a receipt automatically and it will add you to that year’s roster on the website.  We are super excited to give our website a huge refresh!

Shawn, KE0JGI, gave us the numbers for the Hamfest and we had 218 people in attendance and after all bills were paid we netted $1543 in profits to go into the SMLRS fund to support the link system which is generally enough to replace an antenna or pay for a tower climb.  It can also be used to replace or buy replacement parts for repeaters like the 442.150 in Crane we spoke about earlier.  We greatly thank all that came to the Hamfest and for the Hamfest committee for their hours planning this year’s event.

Lastly, we are working with the Aurora club and SMARC along with other clubs in the region to hold a new years net on the 145.270 Nixa repeater.  Exact time will follow soon.  The goal is to get a lot of people on the air that night and checking into various non-linked repeaters in the region.  We hope you will support this effort and fire up your rig on New Years Eve this year - when we have a schedule we’ll let you know.   Anyone that wants to be net control should email me asap - it will be first come / first served for NCS for the net.

If you would like to continue running the NARC net on Thursdays at 7:30 pm or if you would like to give being a Net Control a try, now is the time to let us know - it’s just a once per month obligation and we send out the announcements for the net so all you have to do is simply read them and run the net.  The repeater linking is all automatic so there are no crazy codes to enter or to worry about.  Again, email [email protected] and let us know if you want to run the net one night a month in 2023.

 73 & we’ll see you back at the fire station for our January 2023 meeting!

James Adkins, KB0NHX
Treasurer & Repeater Trustee
Nixa ARC, Inc (K0NXA)

December 2022 Club Meeting - Note new location and time

Continuing a club tradition, we have changed the location and time of our club meeting so we can get together and eat.  This month, the Nixa Amateur Radio Club will meet at Dickey’s BBQ - 111 N Massey Blvd in Nixa, MO from 7:30pm to 8:30pm.   We will address club business concerning the President and Treasurer positions and will provide an update about the clubs Hamfest. We’ll also discuss what is in store for 2023.  Mostly though we’ll just have fun talking about Ham Radio and eating some great BBQ.  We hope to see you there.

Nixa ARC Hamfest - Saturday, November 12, 2022

We are expecting a GREAT hamfest this year!  Last week the last of our tables sold out - we have 42 tables sold for the event!!!   


One of the only complaints we heard last year was how hard it was to get around the hamfest.  Without divulging any trade secrets, and with the masterful mind of Jim Adkins, KC0IYI, we have done several things with the arrangement and we should have more room for everyone to get around AND make it easier to get in the front door.  We've added a B-Tech 6X2PRO dual band analog / DMR handheld radio to the prize give away bundle in addition to the (2) Yaesu FT-70 dual band analog / Fusion portable radios and the Yaesu FT-891 HF mobile radio as the grand prize.  We also have several awesome license study guides to give away to those testing at the test session as well as an abundance of gift certificates to the ARRL, Alpha Antennas, and DX Engineering..


The Barnhouse Event Center is located at 5484 W Sunshine in Republic, MO - Doors open at 8:30 a.m.  Come check out all the great equipment we'll have for sale and whet your appetite to enhance your test equipment abilities by attending our Nano VNA presentation at 11:30 a.m. and adding to your operating appetite by learning about the Parks on the Air (POTA) program and how you can activate a national park and enjoy working your own pileups!


With the hamfest just 12 days away, we are ready to see you all at the event!   Tickets are $10 at the door and if you want to really enhance your chances of winning the superticket price of $20.00 gets you 20 chances to win.  Remember - ALL proceeds go to support the Southwest Missouri Linked Repeater System (SMLRS) which will be used for talk-in for the event.


Breakfast and lunch will be available on site  for your convenience.


If you have any questions, feel free to email [email protected] and we'll get your questions answered ASAP.


73, 


James Adkins, KB0NHX

Nixa ARC Hamfest Committee

www.smlrs.info