Also, there is a For Sale area on the Web Page (http://www.semoarc.org/forsale.html) So if you have anything you want to post let me know at the newsletter address above. Write it as you want it posted, just as if you were putting it in the classified area of the newspaper (without having to pay by the word). Please don't expect me to write it for you. I already have enough to do. Include contact info.

The other night I met a relatively new ham who is not a club member and we had a rather interesting chat. The reason I mention this is that I think it gets to the heart of the question "Why is our club so much smaller than it used to be ?" Seems that the chief complaint was that nothing is happening of any interest pertaining to Ham Radio. No presentations, special events, classes, fox hunts, you name it. Even Field Day is looking shaky. Now I could make a few guesses why, but first let me give you a few stats. We have 27 members and the average age is around 60 years old. As near as I can figure, seven are in their 40's or less which makes twenty 50 or above, fourteen above 60, and seven above 70. If you add six who were members last year but haven't renewed [yet] that number above 70 goes up to 13. Now I realize that most 70 year olds aren't as spry as they were 20 years ago but for the most part that doesn't matter. After all (as one of my favorite sayings go) "Age and treachery beat youth and speed any day". How many of you who have children haven't told them the proper way to raise theirs? (Don't lie) You were probably told how by your parents too. Transfer that to Ham Radio. If you were indifferent as to what your children were doing when they were young, chances are they are behaving about the same. Indifference breeds more indifference, lethargy breeds lethargy. There are many of us who are "just kids" when it comes to some of the more arcane facets of Ham Radio. "Children" need role models and they find them in the people who are the most influential in their lives (good or bad). You wonder why the Club (and Field Day) seem to be withering on the vine? A lack of enthusiasm! How much energy/stamina does it take to key a microphone or operate a key? Is it any wonder nobody wants to do the work of preparing for Field Day? Why work all those hours when there might (possibly) be three operators (if you're lucky). If each person in the Club were to operate one hour total, and not necessarily all at the same time or continuously, we would have Field Day covered. For those of us who would probably work several hours, if you could take fifteen minutes to give us a bathroom break, or even just sit there and give a bit of moral support...... but that's probably [not] just my opinion. De John, WØAVQ

Old Business:

The web site is up and running. John Clark is taking pictures of members for the web site.

The 146.685 repeater popped a breaker but has been repaired. It was also moved to the lower antenna pending repair of the high antenna. While at the site the 440 repeater was also repaired and is working.

Willie reported that he has a rack mount for use at the site. He advised that he still has the splitter pending repair of the high antenna.

The 146.820 repeater is operating well.

The Memphis Hamfest was a success, Joe Lorberg won a prize.

New Business:

The MO-ARES web site has a new emergency management radio course from NIMS. It is a short course supported by Homeland Security.

Willie suggested we become an ARRL club. It will require 13 members.

Steve Hay gave a report on Broadband interference and the research he and Gerald Litner did and reported to ARRL and Ameren UE. Steve and Gerald could not hear the noise reported in QRZ.

The club had a guest, Phil Nash, who is interested in joining.

Richard Piper is interested in running a Sky Warn net at 8:00 PM on Thursdays.

John Frye suggested that Echo-Link be put on the 82 repeater.

John Frye made a motion to adjourn which was seconded by Ernest Chiles.

The meeting adjourned at 8:45.

Once upon a time, there was a giant sandbox. It was so big and deep that thousands of children could come to play. Each child and his playmates had plenty of sand. It was that way for several generations.

As time went on, the community grew and many more children came to play in the sandbox. They met and made new friends. Even though they didn't always speak the same, each knew how to play and build things with the sand. They made sandcastles and mud pies and they showed their creations and methods to each other. Not all their things were beautiful, but each was original.

Some children were content just to play and have fun. Others learned techniques to build better sand things. Some built big things to get the attention of their playmates. Big things take more sand and space and sometimes, that meant that not every child had enough sand to play with any more. Children could move to open parts of the sandbox; but soon, things got a bit crowded. The children with good upbringings learned to share the sand with their neighbors, even though they had different playmates. Other children were not so considerate-some were even bullies-and demanded their favorite spot in the sandbox, even when someone else was there first. Still others didn't care whether they took someone else's sand: They said it was theirs just as much as anyone's. Yet, there were distant parts of the sandbox where almost no one wanted to play because it was too far away.

Things got bad enough that children complained to their parents about the fighting. The parents got together and hired a sandbox monitor, who made some rules. When children abused their privileges, the monitor would punish the unruly children, sometimes even sending them home. That worked fine because the monitor was always there, watching the sandbox.

Later, the parents decided that they couldn't afford the monitor's salary any more and they cut his pay. The monitor curtailed his activities and told the children to watch themselves. To boost his income, he started selling parts of the sandbox, especially in the faraway corners where no one played. Some complained that it wasn't his to sell, but he sold it anyway and pocketed the money.

In the crowded part of the sandbox, the rules said that you could build certain kinds of sand things only in certain areas. Those rules were supposed to put compatible playmates together, which they did. But the well-mannered children wanted to build all kinds of things, too, and play with new things that no one had ever built before. Some teenagers came along and wanted to build big, new elaborate sand things and charge money for people to come see them. The monitor gave them huge chunks of the sandbox for free because he thought the parents wanted him to do that. He installed ashtrays and lounge chairs with drink holders there. The children's part of the sandbox was only a small fraction of the whole but they did their best to prevent losing more sand and to organize what they had.

The children got together and proclaimed that the old rules were holding them back. One part of the sandbox for building certain things wasn't nearly so crowded as the other part. They decided to allocate sand by size of thing, rather than by kind of thing. They put their proposal to the monitor, who asked all the children to comment.

One lonely child pointed out that once you leave the sandbox and go home, another child can come to play in your spot. The longer you stay in the sandbox, the longer you prevent another child from using that spot. Since the sandbox is deep, you can build a very tall sand thing without encroaching much on your neighbors, even though you're using a lot of sand. That child suggested that the valuable commodity was not just sand itself or space in the sandbox, but the product of sand and time divided by space. He went on to a different sandbox: engineering school.

Moral: Grow up. Yield to your neighbors by using as little sand (power) and space (bandwidth) as possible. The sandbox monitor didn't make a rule about time, but it's equally important-73, Doug Smith, KF6DX

Well it is that time of the year when postings turn to grounding and lighting protection.

So much information has been posted on lightning protection in this fourm you could spend hours going through all the information listed and I would recommend doing so. Use the search engine in eHam and by all means forget the naysayers of grounding. Go to the PolyPhaser site and read their tutorials on lightning protection. Go to Lyncole, Hagar and ICE (Industrial Communications Engineers) and read their tutorials on grounding. There is no short cut to lighting protection. Your whole station and home needs to be addressed as a complete solution. Now if you live in the Northwest you can skip the rest of this article for your chances are very slim you would even see a thunderstorm. For the rest of the county this is an aspect of the hobby we have to deal with. This article is a reader's digest version of what must be done for surge protection and I hope it start you thinking about your home and station.

Every other year on average my station gets hit by lightning. This was not a problem when I lived in LA; I had a greater chance of being hit by stray bullets. I live in a very high lightning prone area called the Palmer divide in Colorado. June through August we have thunder storms every day with up to 40,000 strikes a day on average during those months. I am on my 3rd GP-9 antenna at the top of the tower. When a storm has gone by and I find what's left of a GP-9 in toasted shards all over the ranch, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what happened. I have lost no base station equipment to a lightning strikes but I have spent considerable time putting in proper grounding and surge protection on my station. As for the tower top fiberglass omni sticks, they're sacrificial and that just the cost of doing business where I live.

Proper grounding and surge protection works and works very well. The key is setting up low resistance grounding and the proper installation of grounding material. Disconnecting you equipment and putting it into a Faraday Shield box will work well but if you live in an area like my QTH you would be off the air for 3-4 months every year. Some hams like my self have more than one radio and going this route would mean my hobby is station assembly. I can't speak for most hams but after doing that a few times it looses its novelty.

The cell phone industry looses less then 20 sites a year to lightning. There are approximately 500,000 sites between Verizon, Nextel, Cingular, Sprint and others. Generally it is because the DSL line is struck and not the radio equipment. In the cell phone industry we ground at the top of the tower, base of the tower and where the cable goes into the facility. The facility has a ground halo inside and the all equipment is grounded to NEC code. Surge protectors are connected for all incoming and outgoing lines at the ground demarcation point. Site ground resistance is generally below 3 ohms. Four 20 foot deep ground rods is a grounding minimum. The AC entry panel has surge protectors (95% of all lightning damage comes in through the AC panel) and most importantly all the facility grounding is bonded together.

Power lines take by far the greatest hits and the pole flash-over-rods pass any surges below 10,000 volts. That still leaves a lot voltage coming down the power line. The primary and secondary portion of the pole transformer can arc over and your home is next in line. Your home AC panel should have a surge protectors connected to the panel. You worry about your ham equipment but what about your expensive entertainment and appliances not to mention the possibility of fire. You can protect your home and panel for under $100. Intermatic makes the Panel Gard model number IG1240RC surge protector for $60 not including the two additional circuit breakers. This unit has LED's to indicate the units status and wither you have taken a power surge. Installation is just three wires into the panel.

Did I mention lightning rods for the roof? Lightning is fickle and might miss your gorgeous tower and strike through the roof to the electrical wiring in the ceiling. The ground return in your home wiring connects to the master ground in your AC panel. Remember a lighting discharge is looking for the lowest impedance path to ground, i.e. earth. If your live in a highly lightning prone areas like Colorado, Florida and much of the mid west, lighting rods are a good investment. National Lightning Protection in Denver makes all the necessary material to install your lightning rod system. Their web site is a wealth of information.

In my own station, all grounding is bonded with a number "0" solid copper bonding wire. My ground resistance is less than 3 ohms. I have several deep (20ft. by 2 inch) ground rods for the tower, AC panel and shack location. I also have a surface ground field of 21 8ft. ground rods spaced 16 feet apart, spread out in radials from the tower. At the base of the tower is a lightning/surge protection panel for the coax, rotor cables and stepper motors on the beam. For the surge protection box I use 2 inch wide copper strap. Copper strap has much lower impedance than copper wire and much of lightning's energy is in the RF spectrum.

Coaxes are grounded at the top of the tower as well as the base. The AC panel has a commercial lightning protection panel to take care of incoming AC surges. The whole station is run on a pair of 3000 watt APC UPS systems to isolate the AC main from the equipment for minor surges. At the station, coaxes are terminated at a pair of grounded Alpha Delta coax switches and during storms the coax switches are in the grounded COM position. All equipment is grounded to a master ground buss bar on the back of the operating station. The master AC feed to the station has a commercial disconnect in the shack. I know many of you will this is excessive but proof is in the pudding. I have suffered no equipment losses due to lightning strikes.

Remember if the cell phone, radio, public service and computer industry disconnected equipment for every summer storm, you would not have communications coverage or internet service for five months every year. The communication industry is connected 24/7. As a result, proper lightning/surge protection with good grounding works. Is it 100 % full proof…NO, but it is infinitely more effective than sticking you head in the sand with denial. You don't plan on getting into an accident but you have car insurance. Lightning surge protection is an insurance policy and another tool in your station/home safety plan.

Many hams have their station and personal electronics insured but collecting and replacing equipment is tedious and would it not be easier to prevent the damage in the first place. Due the proper diligence and you'll sleep better at night.

Don't drill holes through your walls. Try this approach instead.

My wife and I have moved quite often. At each new QTH it has been a given that, in the process of installing my station and getting the cables outside to the antennas, I don't make any irreversible modifications to the house. In exchange, I can use an approach that's not the most attractive or low-profile. The only requirement is that it keeps the bugs out. If you have a single- or double-hung window in your ham shack, you might want to consider the approach described here.

The materials needed include a length of 1 x 3 pine or other wood, a roll of the foil tape used by HVAC installers, and a roll of adhesive-backed foam insulation. These are all available at any home improvement center. You'll also need one or more two-inch coaxial barrel connectors.

I use an SGC auto-tuner with my 130-foot inverted-L. It requires 12 Volts DC. I bought a 2-conductor weatherproof trailer light connector set from an auto supply store for the 12-Volt feed to the outside. The Anderson Power Pole connectors that I use for all my station's DC wiring are not suitable for continuous outdoor use. In the photo below, you see how I convert from the Power Poles to the trailer light connector. The identical other half of the trailer light connector is attached to the DC cable going to the SGC.

Start by opening the window and measuring the inside width of the window frame. Cut the wood to this length and verify that it's a good fit. Now you can drill the wood for the barrel connector(s). If you need to get other wires outside, you should drill the holes just large enough to pass a single wire through. I suggest drilling them at a downward angle to the outside so that water (from rain or dew) doesn't readily "wick" into the holes.

Once all holes have been drilled and the barrel connectors and any other cables have been installed, the board can be put into position. Then you're ready to install the bug proofing. I place foil tape all the way around the perimeter on both inside and outside (shown) so it contacts both the frame and the wood. DON'T use duct tape! It's not very weather-resistant, and it leaves a messy residue of adhesive when you remove it. The foil tape adheres well, yet comes off cleanly with only a trace of adhesive residue.

Since the window is partially open, you now have a gap between the glass in the lower sash and the frame of the upper sash (or the fixed frame of a single-hung window). Use the foam insulation to plug this gap, making sure you also plug any side gaps between the sash and the frame track. The actual strip of installed insulation is partly visible along the upper edge of the sash. I left the remnant of the insulation roll in the picture, resting on the sash, so you can see what the product is.

With this arrangement, air infiltration is minimal and bug infiltration is zilch. If you live in an area where it's really cold in the winter, you may want to better insulate that upper gap. But for the temperate climate of my upstate South Carolina QTH, I think the foam is sufficient.

I live in a gated community of retirees, so I'm not particularly worried about break-ins. If that's a concern for you, it would be an easy task to cut a length of wood to snugly fit between the top of the open sash and the top of the window frame to form a sort of "charley bar." If your window is equipped with a security sensor (such as a magnetic reed switch), and/or home security is a significant issue with you or your family, then further effort or an entirely different approach may be needed.

For a very small investment in time and money, you can replicate what I've described here. And when the time comes to sell the house and move on, it will take just a couple of minutes to remove the installation.

Bill Savage, K3AN

The FCC has held up the license renewal of a New Jersey Novice ticket holder for failing to respond to a Commission field office Citation and a Warning Notice, both dating back several years. FCC Special Counsel in the Enforcement Bureau Riley Hollingsworth told Ronald A. Mondgock, KA3OMZ, of Burlington, that if he did not submit a timely reply to his February 6, 2006, letter, the Commission would dismiss his renewal application and issue a Notice of Apparent Liability for Monetary Forfeiture.

In February 2002, Hollingsworth wrote Mondgock regarding allegations he'd transmitted in the 75-meter phone band, which is unavailable to Novice class licensees. In July 2004, the FCC's Philadelphia Field Office cited Mondgock for allegedly failing to identify, making transmissions involving obscenity and indecency and operating on a frequency not authorized under his license.

On February 7, Hollingsworth sent a Warning Notice to Frank J. Fatigate, KB2YDO, of Hopewell Junction, New York, for allegedly failing to reply to a complaint the FCC forwarded to him nearly a year earlier. The FCC cited US Postal Service records indicating that Fatigate, a Technician licensee, refused delivery of the Commission correspondence. Subsequent attempts to reach Fatigate yielded no response. Noting that Fatigate had apparently changed his address, the FCC gave him additional time to reply or face a possible fine of up to $4000.

Hollingsworth said this week that he has yet to hear from either Mondgock or Fatigate.

In another enforcement matter, the FCC wrote Technician licensee Brandon M. Duke, KC0UWS (ex-KC0TKB), of Longmont, Colorado, January 9 advising him of a complaint alleging "deliberate interference and other rule violations on repeaters." Duke replied, pledging to change his ways.

In a January 26 e-mail, an apologetic Duke said he'd destroyed an audio CD containing apparently objectionable material he'd been accused of airing. He also said he'd "refrain from jamming, interfering, kerchunking and using any repeaters."

Hollingsworth cautioned Duke that the FCC expected him to abide by requests to steer clear of certain repeaters or face license revocation, a fine or other sanctions. In his e-mail response, Duke said he would refrain from using Boulder Amateur Radio Club repeaters, per the club's written request.

On January 24, Tracy Simmons of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau licensing operations in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, advised Duke that because he was "involved in an enforcement action," the Commission had set aside its earlier grant of a new sequential call sign, KC0VRS. Duke told Hollingsworth that he'd also filed for a vanity call sign.

Hollingsworth cautioned Duke that no matter his call sign, he remains obligated to stay off the repeaters as requested.

The FCC has offered a California licensee a deal: Give up your Amateur Radio license for two years or face further enforcement action and possible fines. Special Counsel in the FCC Enforcement Bureau Riley Hollingsworth wrote Steve L. Wingate, KG6TXH (ex-AE6QD), of Corte Madera on February 22 to review a history of enforcement correspondence to Wingate dating back to April 2004.

"The Enforcement Bureau has continued to receive complaints about the operation of your station since January 2005," Hollingsworth told Wingate. Conceding that while not all of the complaints were valid or recordings genuine, Hollingsworth said evidence the FCC determined was legitimate showed a pattern of similar alleged violations "for which you were warned twice, and for which you twice gave assurances of future compliance," Hollingsworth pointed out.

Complaints about Wingate's alleged misdeeds led the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau to set aside Wingate's vanity call sign and renewal applications, Hollingsworth noted, "and now warrant enforcement action against you." Sanctions could include license revocation and fines of from $7500 to $10,000 "or both," Hollingsworth warned.

Wingate's responses to Enforcement Bureau letters coupled with continued complaints, including recordings, and telephone conversations between the FCC and Wingate "indicate that by your own admission you have a serious problem with an impairment that prevents you from maintaining control over your station," Hollingsworth said.

Hollingsworth emphasized that if Wingate declines to "accept this opportunity to resolve this matter," the Commission would proceed with enforcement action against his Amateur Extra class license.

Wingate has not yet taken the deal, Hollingsworth told ARRL this week, but he did request copies of recordings that accompanied complaints of his most recent alleged on-air behavior.