The National Weather Service will issue Test Tornado Warnings Thursday between 10:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., and again between 7:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.  It’s everyone’s job in these drills to test your tornado plans, seeking safe shelter areas.  Review your actions, and amend your safety plans if needed.

By unanimous approval the membership approved the purchase of a Yaesu Fusion repeater at the March membership meeting. The repeater will initially replace the analog FM repeater that is in service on the 145.480MHz frequency. The Yaesu repeater is a dual-band unit that could possibly work in place of either our VHF or UHF repeater as needed. The new repeater is also dual mode as well. It works both in analog, FM mode and Yaesu’s Fusion digital mode. It can work either analog, digital or be in “auto sense” mode working with either analog or digital traffic as required. More information will be made available to the membership at the next meeting regarding the operation of this new repeater. We expect delivery from Yaesu in about 2 months time.

After spending several hours of voting on amendments to the proposed Constitution and By-Laws, the documents were approved by unanimous vote. The biggest changes to the Constitution and By-Laws had to do with equal opportunity and disbanding policies. These two areas are important in order to secure a 501-(C)7 status with the Internal Revenue Service(IRS). Once we attain that status we will then be able to apply for Grant monies if needed in the future. Outlays of the Society’s treasury for replacement repeater equipment and other items could far exceed what is currently available. Local agency sources for Grant monies will only accept applications from non-profit groups that have official 501 status with the IRS.

There was also a change in the annual membership dues from $10 per person per year to $20 per person per year with adjustments for additional family members. Once the new Constitution and By-Laws were accepted, a motion was made to offer a special deal to current members that they could prepay their dues for out years at the current $10 per person per year amount for up to 5 years. This offer to current members expires at the January, 2016 dinner meeting.

The new Constitution and By-Laws will be posted on this website for ready reference in the future.

Word came to us yesterday that the “100 Years of Radio in Shelby County” and the W9S special event station will be highlighted in next months issue of the ARRL Indiana Section newsletter. We will be the feature article in the newsletter. Pictures of the display and the special event station will be included with the article. We are being noticed around the State for this event.

Bob Burns, W9BU, ARES District 5 EC, needs to find a person to be the Shelby County ARES Emergency Coordinator. If you might be interested in the position, please read Bob’s request below. Contact Bob directly, if you are interested. There is also a link to the ARRL website that describes the job description in detail.

Bob said in his email “Do you know anyone who might be interested? It’s not a difficult job,
but it needs someone who is dedicated to serving the public through
amateur radio. The job description can be found here:

http://www.arrl.org/emergency-coordinator

If you know of anyone, please ask them to contact me.”
Thank you.
Bob Burns W9BU
ARES District 5 EC
Indiana Section ARRL
phone 317-410-7721
email w9bu@arrl.net

• The Annual BRVARS Tailgate is currently in the planning stages. We are planning on having the Tailgate this year provided that there are no prohibitions regarding gatherings later this year. Please check back here or listen for updates on the BRVARS/ARES Net held on Monday evenings at 7:30PM on the Shelbyville 145.48 MHz repeater(88.5Hz PL Tone).
• There is a new repeater located in Southern part of Shelby County just East of Edinburgh. The repeater is on 443.025 MHz with a plus offset and a PL tone of 103.5 Hz. The repeater is sponsored by the Jennings County Amateur Radio Club and operates under the N9JWR callsign. The repeater seems to have wide area coverage and I would encourage you to program it into your radios.
• A motion was made, seconded and approved by the membership at the January Member’s Dinner Meeting to lower the Society’s annual membership dues to $5.00/Yr. Five years ago most members took advantage of the 5 Year member dues offer. That program expires at the end of this year. So, effective immediately yearly membership dues are $5.00/Year. This applies to both new and existing members.
• The 444.975 MHz Yaesu System Fusion repeater is now connected to Wires-X AmericaLink Room. There seems to be quite a bit of traffic on the AmericaLink Room most of the day. This is a Yaesu System Fusion digital voice connection and requires a Fusion digital capable radio in order to work. If you have a Yaesu System Fusion capable radio tune to the repeater frequency with the radio in digital voice mode and give it a try.
• The Yaesu Fusion repeater is back in service on the 145.48 MHz frequency. It is operating in FM analog mode only at this time.
• Both Rush County Repeaters are back on the air. There is a net held on the 147.00 MHz repeater on Monday evenings at 7:00PM. Please try to check in if possible. Both repeaters carry a 127.3 Hz PL tone.
• The Indiana Statewide DStar net is held every Thursday evening at 8:00 PM on Reflector 24B. Our local DStar repeater is always on Reflector 24B on Thursday evenings.
• You can catch up on your CW and Digital Slow Scan TV on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at 8:50 AM on 144.36 MHz. If you are not fluent in CW, then we invite you to cheat a little and fire up FLDIGI and join on in. After CW we then fire up the Digital SSTV program EasyPal and send pictures back and forth over the airwaves.
• There is a 2 Meter SSB simplex roundtable on 144.20 MHz on Sunday evenings at 8:30PM. They are on Upper Sideband. For further details about this roundtable and other simplex 2 meter activities, check out the Indiana Simplex Operators Facebook page. There is more and more 2 meter simplex activities going on these days. Don’t get left out of the fun.

The 2015 Spotter Training Class for Shelby County will be on March 3, 2015 at the Indiana Downs, 4200 Michigan Road, Shelbyville, IN 46176. Class begins at 7:00PM. All Shelby County Amateur Radio Operators are encouraged to attend.

With the special event now behind us, the fun of labeling and addressing almost 700 QSL cards is the opportunity in front of us. The cards are printed and ready for labeling. A few evenings the week of February 8th would probably work out just fine. We are able to use the large meeting room in the basement of the Grover Museum to setup and work through the labeling of the QSL cards.

I think the value in doing this whole special event project in association with the Grover Museum’s “100 Years of Radio in Shelby County” grew each time I got an email from a contact or opened the envelope containing their QSL card and read their recollections of years past spent with radios very similar to the ones in the display at the Museum. I think we did some real good for some folks out there who took the time to visit the Museum’s and the BRVARS’s websites to see pictures of the vintage equipment. Hearing from these folks that they had a radio just like the one in the display, or that they had built a radio like that with their dad when they got their first ham license was really great to hear and made all the work that went into the project seem small compared to the good that it did for a lot of folks.

Please try to help us out when we start processing the cards if you can. Send me an email at inprinter@att.net or just call me at 317.402.5000 if you can help out.

John Walker, Secretary BRVARS

Pictured is Pat Wagner, WA9AAV, working CW(Morse Code) from the lobby of the Grover Museum in Shelbyville. Numerous contacts around country have been made operating the CW mode of transmission.