Call to order – 7:05 p.m. in Zoom Portal

Minutes of previous meeting on February 25, 2020

         Draft minutes on website. Approved by group

Treasurer’s report by Erik Olmer W4EJO for March and April 2020

Membership report. Joe McGee NX4T 75 Members

Members present on this Zoom Meeting was 39

COVID-19 REPORT by Jeff Stahl K4BH we still need to practice caution.

Call for old business.

There was no meeting in March 2020 due to the Coronavirus.

Our Spring Picnic was cancelled by the Pandemic Orders.

Announcements.

GCARA Board met to discuss the tentative start of planning of the June 2020 Field Day. We were going to wait to decide how the Field Day would run this year due to the Coronavirus until mid- May. That idea was only focusing on whether the Parks would be open and how we would be able to do it.

Since Sunday at the meeting, I had the opportunity to discuss this with some physicians, pour over the CDC site and read several WEB-MD and JAMA articles showing that this new virus  is extremely contagious, dangerous and if not fatal, leaves devastating injury to the body systems affected. The Coronavirus we are presently battling is insidious. People who have NO SYMPTOMS are testing positive. The CDC and the many articles I have read describe it as a “ticking time bomb” in our bodies and NO ONE KNOWS what health events will ultimately occur with the people who test positive without fever or apparent illness presently. The virus  is setting itself up in various body systems and at unknown times is coming out with a wide array of problems. For instance, the babies, once thought to be “immune” because they were not presenting with COVID-19 infections, are now succumbing to a SEVERE INFLAMMATORY Process that is killing them. It has been seen in Spain, Italy and Great Britain so far in large enough numbers for it to be noticed.

There has been another phenomenon noticed across the younger population ages from 30 to 50 years with NO CO-MORBIDITIES dying from blood clots, stroke, heart attacks and other problems, none of whom presented with fever, cough or any of the respiratory symptoms. One doctor described being in a 30 year old patient’s brain trying to remove the mega clots there and while he did so, he witnessed more clots forming in front  of his eyes. This is scary folks and more serious than we realize from the information we are getting. Some people are more afraid of going broke than of dying and they want to rush back to work. Our leaders are not GOD and none of them are researchers or doctors so at this time I personally do not feel it necessary to rush back to life as usual.

For that reason, and for the reason that most of our membership who involves themselves with Field Day outside in the park, are of an older age group and have co-morbidities, I have made a decision to cancel the June Field Day at Quiet Waters Park. The lengths we would have to go through to even pretend to try and make it safe (social distancing, disinfecting equipment, tables and chairs, masks, gloves and the like) is not worth it. The club cannot assume the financial liability in the event that someone gets sick from the event, not to mention the moral consequences.

Now, this does not mean that you cannot operate from home and if there is a strong desire to do that, the Field Day Committee will work on the ways we can do that and tally the club’s points in some manner. Hams are notoriously smart and have ingenious skills so I doubt this will be a problem.

NOTE as of 5/1/2020: The consenus of the Field Day Planning Committee was to not operate as a group due to the ARRL refusal to change any FD rules, especially the 1000 foot rule. People may operate from home according to the ARRL rules.

Ricky Eaton gave our repeater report and presented a new idea for the club. He and Eric can, with minimal expense install a remote HF station for members to use. Hopefully, some of the equipment required would be donated or purchased at a low price. In order to utilize the station, one would have to have Club Dues up to date and sign up on a list to operate. A show of hands indicated a high level of interest, so we’ll proceed with the

 project.

Our speaker tonight was Kai Siwiak KE4PT. He gave a presentation on  propagation, explaining that the Sun’s effect on the atmosphere, enabling long distance radio communications and ways to attempt to predict it for the various frequencies and modes of operation i.e. SSB, FM, RTTY, CW, FT8 and WSPR to name a few. His presentation is available on the website.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:14 PM

Respectfully submitted by Roy Neiman KJ4EGN, Secretary.

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