Minutes of Members Meeting on October 19, 2019

The monthly meeting of the CTRI Contest Group was held at the North Kingstown Free Library in idyllic Wickford, RI on Saturday, 19 October 2019, on a fall day that was far too nice to be indoors. Club president Charlie, K1ECU, called the meeting to order at approximately 0915.

In attendance were: Pat, NG1G

Chris, WB2VVV Andy, AB1BX John, W1XX

Mike, NG1M Rick, K1PAD John, K1JSM Kevin, NZ1I

Matt, WE1H Dean, K1HSY Charlie, K1ECU John, W1AN

Chuck, NA1CN Lars, KE1J Bill, WB1WBB

Donuts and coffee were provided by W1XX. Thanks, John! NG1G volunteered to bring them to the next meeting, despite the fact that he isn’t supposed to even sniff donuts, never mind purchase them.

K1ECU opened the meeting by announcing that the club had received a request from club member Andy, KA1VMG to have someone climb his tower to orient his tribander to the NE and remove his Butternut antenna.

K1ECU informed the members that we do not have a location for the 11 January, or 1 February meetings. NG1M said he would look into reserving the room at the Peace Dale library for the January meeting. NG1M, W1WBB, and NA1CN all said they would seek a venue for the other two, which means we might have to split our membership among three locations for those meetings.

K1ECU asked if, due to recent spam issues on the web site (the hijacking of, and unauthorized posting from, a member’s account, not the tasty canned meat adored by all), we should be disabling or deleting inactive users. At the time, the secretary did not think to mention that disabling users would likely violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, but deleting them almost certainly wouldn’t, leaving the latter as the best course of action. At any rate, K1JSM stated that he “deactivated” the member’s offending account, leaving the secretary to wonder how many verbs could be used to describe what we are willing to do to our members. After discussion, it was decided that K1JSM will warn all members that any accounts that have been inactive for 2 years will be deactivated within 60 days of the notice. This discussion led WE1H to inquire later about his member status, as the time elapsed since his last meeting attendance can be measured in geologic time. NG1G took the opportunity to point out that we do not enforce the club’s Bylaws with regard to membership (or anything else, for that matter). It seemed to be the sense of the membership that WE1H remains a member, despite having lived in Canada (ok, in the Burlington, VT area, which is close enough to Canada as to make no difference) for far too many years and may in fact not even be a US citizen at this point. Inquiries to ICE are forthcoming.

K1ECU asked what the ARRL’s Eligibility List is, and how it is being managed. W1WBB and NG1G, knowing the answers to both questions but being cagey about it, politely obliged each other to respond. To summarize what W1WBB said, the Eligibility List is a list (duh) of an ARRL-affiliated club’s members who are eligible (also duh) to enter League-sponsored contests and have their scores counted for their club. As such, it does not apply to CQ-sponsored contests, or anyone else’s for that matter. The two times it should be updated is either right before an ARRL-sponsored contest, or when there has been a change in membership, such as a member being added, or disabled, deleted, or deactivated (or any other “d” verb with negative connotations we might inflict upon a member). W1WBB edits the list from within an application on the ARRL’s web site, and then NG1G receives an email in which he clicks on a link to validate the list.

W1WBB then gave an excellent presentation on the half-square antenna, which led to many interesting questions and discussion, and to the secretary wishing he’d spent more time paying attention in geometry class. (“Isn’t half a square a rectangle?”)

K1ECU invited the membership to think about presenting topics at future meetings. W1XX mentioned that Richard, K1MD, will soon be presenting on a topic (that the secretary neglected to write down, but which no doubt will entertain and inform the members). NG1G volunteered to present something at a future meeting, but he has no idea what it will be about or if he will actually do it.

At this point, the secretary recommended to the president that at future meetings he (the secretary, not the president) should read the minutes from the last meeting, and warned members that he (again, the secretary, not the president) would be employing humor in the minutes (in order to direct the members’ attention away from the fact that the secretary doesn’t pay enough attention during meetings to accurately record what was said). K1ECU agreed that reading the minutes would be a good thing, apparently not realizing that one should never give the secretary an opportunity to read anything he has written. The secretary also reminded the members of the last meeting’s election results: K1ECU, president; W1WBB, vice president; NG1M, treasurer; K1SX, contest manager, and NG1G, secretary. W1XX is the immediate (and future) past president.

NG1M gave the treasurer’s report, in which he stated the club has $8,475 in its account, and that due to the recent change in the Bylaws, he can no longer afford to take a vacation to the Cayman Islands. As a reminder, the club is donating $1,000 per year to the ARRL’s scholarship foundation in memory of Chris, KA1GEU.

Due to K1SX’s absence, K1ECU gave the contest manager’s report. CQWW Phone is next weekend, and the ARRL Sweepstakes CW contest is 2-4 November. W1AN will have his station open if anyone wants to join in a multi-op effort, in which W1WBB expressed an interest. Anyone else?

K1PAD has graciously donated to the club a copy of the 24th edition of the ARRL Antenna Book. The members discussed raffling off the book to make money for the club. Various prices per raffle ticket were bandied about, with no settled amount. Canadian member WE1H recommended that rather than raffling off the book at the current meeting, we should notify the membership that we will do so at the next meeting. The secretary is unsure if anyone agreed to post that notice, because the secretary doesn’t pay enough attention during meetings to accurately record what was said. K1ECU put out a call for more donations. NA1CN, whose magnificent beard commands respect when he speaks, recommended that we hold a 50/50 raffle at each meeting as a way of generating more revenue. No doubt NG1M saw this as another opportunity to fund his vacation in the Caymans. NG1G volunteered to bring the club’s raffle tickets and fancy commemorative donation can to the meetings from now on, leaving members to wonder why we have a fancy commemorative donations can and what other CTRI club property NG1G has stashed at his house. K1PAD left the meeting with his book. Apparently, one can’t even give books away any more.

K1ECU asked to get a sense of the members’ feelings toward our now-usual Field Day site, and if we wanted to continue clearing the back 40 so that the Skyscrapers could eventually subdivide their land or perhaps go into farming. K1ECU pointed out that with our spider beam antenna and a couple of dipoles, we could do just as poorly at FD as we have in the past, but without all the heavy breathing and Lyme disease. It seemed to the secretary that the members agreed that this was not an enjoyable use of their time, perhaps reflecting the fact that the average age of our members is somewhere north of retirement age and they’re all set with yard work unless it’s officially on their “honey do” list.

At around this time, NG1G made a motion to adjourn the meeting. His motion was seconded by NG1M and K1ECU almost simultaneously (because K1ECU had another activity to attend and was anxious to be relieved of his duty) and approved by vote at 1105, proving that a meeting can be efficiently run despite hams’ proclivity for endless banter.

Respectfully submitted, Pat, NG1G
CTRI CG secretary