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Meeting report 05/01/09

Meeting Reports

This was the first meeting of 2009. Present were Laurent, Dessie, Jason and Paul.

The first topic of discussion was a membership fee. We all decided €20 is a reasonable some, and those present paid up. We talked about getting club qsl cards, and decided that each paid up member will get 100 club cards for their own peronsl use. We talked about the buro and how it could be more economical for all membver of the club to send off their cards in one package. We then shared our experiences from the new years day 80mk counties contest. This led to a discussion on antennas suitable for use on these frequencies. We then shared any dx we had recently chased. And finally the progress on getting a repeater up and running in the area was discussed.

Meeting report 1/12/08

Meeting Reports

As it was the week before Christmas, We decided to leave this months meeting informal. We had some guests including Willie Long EI6AI who shared their past experiences in amateur radio. Dessie brought along a hombrew transceiver he had recently made, and explained to all the inner workings. It was most enlightening.

Meeting report 3/11/08

Meeting Reports

Present at the meeting were Patrick Moore, Jason McGarrigle, Paul Sinclair, Daniel McGlashin and Laurent Schoummacher

After reading correspondence from the last meeting. We told about the Belgian amateur who is coming to Donegal to activate IO55 on the vhf band.

The minutes were read from the previous meeting, with no matters arising

The exam was then discussed again for the benefit of the new member - Patrick; along with the website, and an overview of the club and where we stand.

Some frequencies, those of the local repeater, a local 2m frequency to monitor and a few others of interest in the amateur community were exchange.

We then advertised the mayo rally, and suggested everyone try to make it down.

Recent DX on the bands was discussed, and everyone was brought up to speed on current propogational conditions

We then discussed echolink, after we were offered the equiptment to set one up by peter EI4JR

A membership fee of €20 to cover costs that were mounting was proposed by Jason and seconded by Paul. We explained the fees included our Irts affiliation, fees for comreg to maintain a club callsign, the possibility of club Qsl Cards and to hopefully have some funds left to take care of projects and the likes.

Daniel then gave a demo of the SBS an mode-S / ADS-B transponder receiver

We then started the first lesson, Theory.

Meeting Report 06/10/08

Meeting Reports

On Monday night past, the 6th of November, The Donegal Amateur Radio Club had its first meeting in the Mill Park hotel.

Attending the meeting were, Jason McGarrigle, Laurent Schomacker, Paul Sinclair, Daniel McGlashin, Martin Howley, Dessie Bonner, Stewart Stinson and Charles McHugh.

The night kicked off with the formalities, firstly, the constitution was proposed by Jason, and seconded by Martin. Jason was then proposed to fill the position of chairman by Martin, and was seconded by Dessie. Paul was proposed for position of secretary by Martin, and seconded by Daniel. Daniel was proposed to fill the position of treasurer and was seconded by Dessie.

With these formalities out of the way, our discussion began. We started by talking about the test for the benefit of those wishing to sit it. We gave a general overview of the test, the topics covered and the best ways to go about doing it. We came to the decision then that the three lads would sit the May/June test, and that we would structure a course towards it.

Paul then gave a practical demonstration on psk (Phase Shift Keying), showing some signals being received and describing how the actual protocol worked. The discussion then spread into the various digimodes, with some descriptions on how to decode various types.

Martin then brought up the topic of the motor club in the town, and how they were looking for some people to take care of the communications at their rallies; we all agreed it could be an interesting project for the club. This led (inevitably) to the topic of APRS, and its uses in such an event. The mode was given a brief description. The topic of emergency communications was briefly touched on as well, with the description of some of the efforts of fellow hams in America during hurricanes and other natural disasters.

The topics then came back around to interesting subjects for the soon-to-be hams, QSL cards, The Buro, Q-codes, contesting, logging, general operating procedures and ethics were covered.

At this stage, SDR (software defined radios) were discussed, along with their advantages and disadvantages over standard radios. A few descriptions of basic and indeed more advanced antennas were described, to show those with no current hf receivers set up how easy it really is to get onboard.

The night then was drawn to a close. A photo was then taken of the members, and we called it a night.

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