Good afternoon!
Our April 9th regular meeting is one to not miss!
At the February meeting, sent an amendment back to the board for some edits to strengthen our bylaws. Not due to any incidents – we’ve put this off for 4-5 months, but just to update with the times to be similar to other clubs in an unlikely event. Please be sure to be at the April meeting if you are a voting member, if you would like to bring any further discussion items regarding the amendment.
Link below is the most recent amendment/edit for the upcoming vote!
https://alertalabama.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/Eaa9CRDN7x9MoGuUvM2b_lQBrd9ZJXJVXqqFixkRbhP_Ug?e=F8RgKn
The April meeting is when the nominating committee reports the result of their research for the next year of ALERT Officers! If you are interested in serving as ALERT Officers, and have been a voting/operational member in good standing for over a year, you may qualify! Let Justin Glass or Bill Rodgers know! May will be the general election for ALERT officers for the next year, and nominations can occur from the floor from any Support/Operational member.
Due to recent/rapid technology changes, I’m thinking I need to focus more on that training and tech side of the house, so I and the new year’s President-elect (once the election happens) will need the full support of the membership, to fill our ALERT Officer positions and call-outs!
I thoroughly enjoyed presenting to Tuscaloosa Amateur Radio Club this month, as well as the rest of the meeting. Cool seeing some 3D printed stuff! We look forward to May 4 2019, Black Warrior Hamfest. http://www.blackwarriorhamfest.org/
After recent meetings and discussions, it’s apparent that we need some station materials to be updated. I’ll be taking down a 20 year old piece of paper with an old policy, as well as putting up a station startup/shutdown checklist for K4NWS. This should be an operational aid, so that we are covering our bases in callouts – such as logging into bmxspotterchat and NWSchat, or what to do if the PC isn’t behaving as we’d expect.
The only other thing top of mind, is to keep promoting DMR/D-Star contact for our counties, as we have had little contact with them for too long in my opinion. 🙂 If we can’t hear/be connected to the 39 counties of the warning area, it makes it hard to collect spotter reports. Lee County came to mind for me.
Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend.
Casey Benefield, NZ2O
Update: we have removed due to hardware issues.
If you have been following the Peanut Project by David PA7LIM then we have some great news for you!! If you haven’t, read up!
http://www.pa7lim.nl/peanut
You can now get on D-STAR without a radio! DMR might be coming soon as well.
The ALERT D-Star Reflector has been added, all you have to do is connect to XRF334C from the Windows or Android app!
Buckle up! An active start to spring is ahead. No, we’re not talking about weather, but it could be. I’m talking about events! What a list!
March-May in Alabama is our prime time for severe weather, and that means it’s a great time to BE READY. Here’s a few events that will help with being ready, and responsive!
- February 22-24 – Alabama Severe Weather Prep Sales Tax Holiday
- February 28 6:30PM – Online Skywarn Spotter Basic Training
- March 1 4PM-7PM, March 2 8:30AM-4PM – BirmingHAMfest
- ALERT will have a table at this event and will be presenting to a forum.
- More info: https://birminghamfest.org/?fbclid=IwAR0TQGjrEzVnR3hlIaYOxN4hUY6zNZYIMMf0RvM84awMTSSW2kzLGiFpEps
- For more info on the host, the Birmingham Amateur Radio Club, check out www.w4cue.com or www.facebook.com/w4cue
- March 5 6:30PM and March 7 1PM – Online Skywarn Spotter Basic Training
- March 6 1PM – Skywarn Spotter Training @ Auburn University Dept of Campus Safety & Security – EM Office
- March 11 7PM – Tuscaloosa Amateur Radio Club Meeting
- Robby, AC4RW, with the Tuscaloosa Amateur Radio Club has invited ALERT to do a talk/presentation at their regular meeting at DCH Northport.
- For more info on Tuscaloosa ARC, check out www.w4xi.org or www.facebook.com/TuscaloosaAmateurRadioClub
- March 12 6:30PM – ALERT Quarterly Board Meeting
- All ALERT voting members are welcome to attend to listen to the board proceeding.
- March 12 7PM – ALERT Monthly Meeting
- Vote on Constitutional Amendment
- Per bylaws, new officer nominating committee to be appointed by president.
- Officers must be with ALERT 1 year in good standing. If you fall in this category, and interested in being an elected officer, or appointed officer, let us know! We’ll share that info with the nominating committee.
- March 14 6:30PM, March 26 1PM, and March 27 6:30PM – Online Skywarn Spotter Basic Training
- April 2 6:30PM – Online Skywarn Spotter Basic Training
- April ?? – More April events TBA!
- May 4 8:30AM-4:30PM – Black Warrior Hamfest
- ALERT has reserved a table, and will have a presence at the first annual Black Warrior Hamfest! Check out this facebook page for more info: https://www.facebook.com/bwhamfest/
- June 14 4PM-7PM, June 15 8:30AM-3PM – Helena Hamfest (NEW)
- ALERT plans on having a presence at Helena Hamfest.
- New date, new location! Indoors, will have forum rooms.
- Check it out! http://www.helenahamfest.com/
We had another successful Skywarn Recognition day and with our new digital assets we pulled in even more contacts via DMR, EchoLink, and IRLP.
Thank you to our volunteers who made this another great event!
On site we had Ron Arant N4PHP, Stephen Moss KB4KKN and Bill Rodgers K4FSO. Offsite we had Russell Thomas KV4S and Rodger Parsons KK4UDU.
Ron setup the R9 6m thru 80m antenna. The 3 onsite members operated HF and D-Star.
Due to hotspot issues on site, Russell handled the DMR/Echolink contacts off site.
Rodger handled Winlink for us.
Hope you all had fun and we look forward to next year!
Here are a few pictures:
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