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SouthEastern
Repeater Association, Inc.
Summer 2011 Board Meeting
Roger
Gregory, SERA President, called the meeting to order on June 11th,
2011, at 13:05.
Those staff members
present were: Roger Gregory,
W4RWG, President, South Carolina Director, & Repeater Journal Correspondent;
Frank Lynch, W4FAL, Vice President &
North Carolina Vice Director; Alex
Hedrick,
N8FWL, Secretary, Treasurer, & West Virginia Director; John
Ghormley,
KJ4UFG, SERA Publications Chairman; Ron
Johnson, WB4GWA, Georgia Director; John
Davis, WB4QDX, Georgia Vice Director; Harold
Bullard, K5WHB, Mississippi Vice Director; Danny Hampton, K4ITL, North
Carolina Director & SERA Executive Committee Member-at-Large; Jim
Cantrell, WJ4C, South Carolina Vice Director; John Crockett,
KC4YI, Assistant to the South Carolina Director; Mike Fariss, K4EZ,
Virginia Vice Director; Don Williams,
W4VT, Assistant to the Virginia Director; John Farler, K4AVX, Kentucky
Repeater Journal Correspondent; and Bob Gault, KD4NEC, Tennessee Repeater
Journal Correspondent.
Roger
Gregory welcomed Jim Cantrell, WJ4C, our South Carolina Vice Director, who has
been very ill and is recuperating after two transplants.
Everyone was glad to see him back! Roger
also welcomed Don Williams back to the staff that was only “retired” for
four months. Roger also discussed
new staff shirt distribution and asked if any other shirts were needed.
Alex
made an announcement concerning our dinner meeting at 18:00, and took a head
count of those who would be in attendance.
EXECUTIVE
STAFF REPORTS
VICE PRESIDENT:
Frank Lynch spoke on the
success of the SERA On-Line Membership Renewal program.
The statistics from the time we started the program are: 2004 = 244, 2005
= 239, 2006 = 207, 2007 = 249, 2008 = 279, 2009 = 228, 2010 = 202, and for 2011
= 134 have joined as of today.
SECRETARY:
As Secretary, Alex reports that he handled the Results of a Motion & Vote for Don Williams to be re-elected as
Assistant to the Director for the State of
|
In
Favor |
15 |
|
Against |
00 |
|
Abstain |
00 |
|
Did
Not Vote |
02 |
Alex
also compiled an official copy of the minutes for the January 2011 meeting, posted
the same to the SERA web page, and made numerous updates to the SERA web page.
One Saturday was completely devoted to our ISP owner where he re-arranged
the SERA FTP site location and made it easier to access.
Further, Alex changed the passwords for the FTP site, web site, and
strongly urged all staff members to change their e-Mail box passwords,
regardless of whether they were an actual mailbox or an alias address.
Alex now has remote access to change the server passwords as needed.
He also handled countless inquiries by phone
and e-Mail from SERA members who didn’t receive a Repeater Journal, for one
reason or another, or those wanting to know the status of their SERA membership.
He researched those matters and responded as necessary.
TREASURER:
As Treasurer, Alex reports that he spent approximately thirty afternoons
or evenings conducting an audit for past fiscal years trying to figure why our
IRS Returns for 2008 and 2009 did not match our actual bank balances - to
the penny. When Alex spoke with our
former CPA, she advised she only had “relative numbers”.
After his research and working with H&R Block our 2010 IRS Return was
prepared & submitted and is accurate to the penny.
H&R Block does not feel that we will be scrutinized, since we are a
non-profit group with such little income and assets.
Every month, since he has assumed the
treasurer’s post, Alex has prepared a Profit and Loss Statement for the SERA
to make sure that we balance our books to the penny.
This takes about two hours each month.
Copies of those P&L Statements are here today and you are invited to
review them. If you want a monthly
copy, Alex asks that you make that known to him by e-Mail.
Through the regular course of deposits made by David Ward, we have
received three bad checks and Alex has successfully collected $118.50, which
represents those checks and the bank service charges.
Alex has also secured meeting dates and executed the contract for our
Winter 2012 Meeting. Alex briefed
everyone on a mistake in the projected interest of one of our annuities and
added that our IRS non-profit status problem has been dealt with, re-instated,
and is now a closed matter. In
closing, Alex advised everyone that as of January 05th we have
$8,789.84 in our BB&T main checking account, $10,527.35 in our BB&T Fund
#1, $14,018.04 in our BB&T Fund #2, $22,098.62 in our CD at the Bank of
Bartlett (TN), and $13,326.00 in our ANICO Annuity, for a total of $68,759.85.
PUBLICATIONS:
John Ghormley spoke about the
overall quality of the Repeater Journal, the color cover quality, some minor
issues with our printer, and his mistakes. John
has also been working on an enhanced repeater index format with David Ward,
hoping to make it easier to read by increasing the printed font size.
He also researched the increase in cost to add red font to designate
uncoordinated repeaters. The cost
estimate for a single color is a maximum of $4.00 per page.
The May,
2011, issue had a twenty page index which equals approximately a 2.5% increase
in printing costs. John’s
financial goals for the Repeater Journal is to make it self supporting within 5
years; but, we must increase circulation, advertising, and quality to achieve
this benchmark. John added that we
are printing 3000 copies of the Repeater Journal now and mailing around 2200.
He would like to see mail circulation increase to 2500 by the end of
2011. John is attending as many
hamfest as possible and would like to see our staff members attend more hamfests
or club events, to assist in the growth of the SERA and the Repeater Journal by
selling memberships. John
added his thoughts about obtaining the services of an advertising contractor, in
order to increase our Repeater Journal advertising revenues.
Since our by-laws do not permit a salary to be paid, it was John’s
thought that the contractor could keep a percentage of any sale made.
The contractor would help us cut our losses by recovering lost
advertising space. He suggests a 20%
commission on new business and a 5% commission on repeat business.
We would have to provide an IRS-1099 statement to this individual.
There was discussion and thoughts offered by Frank, Roger, Alex and John.
Frank Lynch made a motion
to “advertise in the Repeater Journal
for the services of an advertising contractor”.
Seconded by Jim Cantrell, the motion passed unanimously.
FCC LIAISON REPORT:
Frank
Lynch advised that he answered e-Mail questions of not much significance such as
rule interpretations, questions about SK repeaters, vanity calls, etc.
He also replied to John Papay, from
At this point Roger
Gregory interjected and asked Ron Johnson to bring Frank up to date on a
possible FCC complaint surrounding a
The January 2011, meeting minutes had previously been circulated to all staff members by e-Mail as well as being posted on the FTP site. A motion to “accept and approve the minutes” was made by Frank Lynch. Seconded by Mike Farris, the motion passed unanimously.
DISTRICT DIRECTOR REPORTS
GA by RON JOHNSON:
Ron
reports that he has coordinated the following analog
repeaters since January: three
repeaters on 440 MHz, three repeaters on two meters (which largely replaced
“paper repeaters”), and one 902 MHz repeater.
Ron re-coordinated two repeaters that had to re-locate and added that
GA-Digital by John Davis:
John reports 36 D-STAR repeaters are currently in operation in
NC
by DANNY HAMPTON: Danny
reports that he continues to work with trustees where repeaters have been sold
or trustees have been changed. He
also is attempting to help those who have lost tower space, which seems to be a
growing problem.
NC
by FRANK LYNCH: Frank
reports that consulting April 17th data,
SC
by ROGER GREGORY:
Roger reports he has handled
two new analog frequency coordinations since January, and they are:
443.450 in Pickens and 444.825 in Greenwood.
SC by JOHN CROCKETT: John
reports no D-Star activity.
TN
by RANDY BENNETT: Randy,
Mike, & Brent were unable to attend, but Randy sent his report and it was
read by Alex. From January 09th
to May 31st, Mike
Bishop de-coordinated one VHF repeater, coordinated one VHF repeater,
coordinated 3 UHF repeaters, answered 15 NOPC's, and mitigated two interference
complaints. Brent DeSalvo
de-coordinated one 10 meter repeater, coordinated
one VHF repeater, coordinated 1 UHF repeater, answered 7 NOPC's and mitigated
one interference complaint. Randy
Bennett coordinated two VHF repeaters, coordinated two UHF repeaters, answered
10 NOPC's, and mitigated 2 interference complaints.
VA-W by MIKE
FARISS:
Mike reports that he
coordinated four repeaters on 440 MHz and handled seven NoPC’s.
He additionally declined two requests for repeaters, one being in
WV-S
by ALEX HEDRICK:
Alex reports he responded to 26 NoPC’s from adjacent coordinators and he has not
conducted any frequency coordinations within his area of responsibility.
Alex reports he received one “threat” of a formal complaint from the
OARC for an uncoordinated repeater in
WV-N
by RICHARD DILLON:
Richard was unable to attend and Alex read from his report.
Richard reported that he has a pending request for coordination for
a frequency pair currently coordinated to KE8MR, Harold Heaster. The pair is
147.075/147.675 located in
Meeting
break from 14:535 to 15:10
Upon returning from break, Frank Lynch briefly spoke about the ARRL filing a Petition for Rulemaking and a Request for Temporary Waiver with the FCC, in March, seeking authorization of the use of single-time-slot Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) emissions in the amateur bands at and above 50 MHz, wherever multiple-time-slot TDMA is authorized. The FCC has designated the Petition as RM-11625 and solicited comments on the matter. Through this rulemaking, the ARRL seeks to facilitate the use of and experimentation by radio amateurs with existing narrowband spectrum-efficient digital voice and data technology. The Petition asks the FCC to allow those amateurs who are presently using a Motorola narrowband (12.5 kHz) digital land mobile system -- commercially marketed as “MotoTRBO” ® - to be used legally. Because of some restrictions in the Part 97 rules, the TDMA repeaters (which are multiple-time-slot devices) are legal, but the mobiles and portables are not because the emissions used (single-time-slot TDMA) are not authorized anywhere, due to the emission designator.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
ELECTRONIC
DATABASE COMMITTEE REPORT:
John Crockett told
everyone that Shaun Bennett is continuing to work on software that will
hopefully replace our “paper system”. The
project is at implementation stage now and the software part of the project is
believed to be easier than the implementation.
The software will have the ability to put a positive spin on this entire
project and will correct some deficiencies in our record keeping systems.
The new changes will be made public and the date the changes will take
place will be forthcoming. John
believes that there could be some information released in the November edition
of the Repeater Journal. We may also
need to issue a bulk mailing in order to touch each repeater owner/trustee to
make them aware of the changes, because not every owner/trustee is a SERA member
and therefore they do not receive the Repeater Journal.
Frank added that we may be at a point where we need to shift
everyone to the on-line process of confirming all repeaters that are in
existence.
John Ghormley added that we need a time line or implementation
calendar for project management since this affects many SERA staff members.
Danny Hampton asked if we can get this time line together in about
2½ weeks so John Ghormley can get everything ready for the upcoming edition of
the Journal. John said he could do
that if someone provides him with the information.
Ron Johnson agreed to write an article on our new de-coordination
policy and Frank Lynch agreed to write an article about the implementation of
the upcoming on-line system.
REPEATER DATABASE PRINTING OPTION: On
the matter of investigating any increase in printing
costs for “red” or “bold black” ink to highlight de-coordinated or
uncoordinated repeaters listed in the SERA’s published database, John Ghormley
reports that the printing costs would increase about 2½%.
It will be up to the Board of Directors as to whether we want to incur
this cost.
MAKING FREQUENCY DE-COORDINATION EASIER:
Ron Johnson has followed through with his amended proposal and motion to make
repeater de-coordination easier by presenting his final draft.
Ron’s original motion was made during the January 2011 meeting and
seconded by Alex. We put off the
vote until a thorough scrubbing and rewrite of the policy change, and we are
prepared to vote today on the final draft as presented by e-Mail on May 08th.
The delay was agreed upon by all to allow for review and consideration of
the final document. The new Policy
reads:
Policy
17 – Repeater De-Coordination
To
preserve the integrity of the coordination process and to maintain accurate
records, the SERA provides certain rules that shall be followed by all repeater
owners/trustees as a condition of their frequency coordination.
If these requirements are not followed, de-coordination of the assigned
repeater frequencies shall occur.
Each
SERA Frequency Coordinator is responsible to carry out the policies of the SERA
listed below: Repeater
de-coordination shall occur
,
1.
If the FCC orders the system to permanently cease operation, or
2.
If the amateur radio license of the owner, trustee, or the club
(whomever is the
“holder of record”) is suspended, revoked, or expires,
or
3.
If the licensee fails to maintain a current address on file with the SERA
and the FCC, or
4.
If the existence of a working system cannot be confirmed; or, if the
holder cannot comply with the request of the Frequency Coordinator
to
demonstrate the operation of such system within thirty (30) days of
a
request to do so; or, if a working system is not on the air and the
owner/trustee has not filed a written request or a SERA Form 09
requesting a construction extension, or
.
5.
If the trustee of the system consistently violates good engineering or
amateur radio practices by:
a. operating his/her system
with excessive deviation, spurious
emissions, or off
frequency as to cause harmful interference to
adjacent channel
users, or
b.
having been found to be responsible for interference to another
system, and refusing to cooperate with other owners/trustees
involved and/or the SERA Frequency
Coordinator, or
c.
operating remotely controlled transmitters and/or receivers for
the purpose of repeater linking, which utilize any allocated
SERA repeater input and/or output frequency, which cause
harmful interference to coordinated repeater operations, or
6.
If the repeater owner/trustee significantly changes the previously
coordinated operating parameters of a repeater such as location,
power or antenna height above ground as specified in Policy 9
without
prior re-coordination or approval by the respective SERA Frequency
Coordinator, or
7.
If the repeater owner/trustee changes any information on the annual
datasheet (thereby altering the original coordination agreement, such
as antenna height above ground, latitude & longitude, power
output, or
any other change specified in SERA Policy 9) without prior
submission
and approval by the respective SERA Frequency Coordinator, the
repeater shall be transferred to an uncoordinated status, or
8.
If the repeater owner or trustee of record fails to respond to the annual
repeater survey
(datasheets that are mailed to each repeater
owner/trustee by
SERA) for a period of two consecutive years, the
SERA shall
automatically de-coordinate the frequency pair and list that
repeater as
uncoordinated in the SERA Database and Repeater
Journal.
Failure to return the annual repeater survey after a period of
one year shall
mean removal from the annual data provided to the
ARRL for its
repeater directory.
Should
the SERA de-coordinate a repeater pair, per the guidelines above, the repeater
owner/trustee may re-apply for coordination.
Re-coordination, however, is not automatic and may not be granted, if in
the meantime, another request for the frequency is in process or if the
condition(s) that led to de-coordination have not been corrected.
De-Coordination
Action:
Policy
17
violations of sections #1, #6, #7, or #8 shown above shall result in automatic
de-coordination. If violations of #2, #3, #4, or #5 of Policy 17 sections shown
above are brought to the attention of the respective SERA Frequency Coordinator,
the SERA requires its Frequency Coordinator(s) to proceed with the following
action:
1.
The Frequency Coordinator shall gather, document, and file their
research that indicates the frequency pair has not been in use for
a
period of ninety (90) days or that a policy of SERA has been
violated.
2.
The Frequency Coordinator will attempt to contact the repeater
owner/trustee through e-Mail, phone contact, or a personal visit.
Should these attempts be unsuccessful the Coordinator will
attempt
contact by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the trustee
of
record using the FCC database address and the last address supplied
to the SERA, if it should differ from the FCC record.
3. If no response is
successful within thirty (30) days using all methods
listed in point #2, or if any repeater owner/trustee refuses to cooperate
by refusing to discuss the matter with the coordinator, or if the
repeater
owner/trustee refuses a certified letter, the SERA shall empower the
State Frequency Coordinator
to de-coordinate the frequency pair.
4. Should the repeater owner
or trustee respond to the action in point #2
in a cooperative manner, the owner or trustee may request that the
coordination be maintained. Coordination
will be maintained for a
period of ninety (90) days
whereupon the repeater owner/trustee must
meet the requirements of a
working system as listed in the SERA
policies.
5.
Within ninety (90) days, the owner or trustee must write a letter to the
respective State Frequency Coordinator stating that the repeater is on
the air and working properly, or that other policy violations have
been
corrected.
Failure to comply with the above action after ninety (90)
days shall result in the de-coordination of the frequency pair.
After a short period for further consideration and discussion of Ron’s
proposed change of SERA CP&G Policy 17 the
motion
to “accept
and approve the newly drafted Policy 17”
was placed for vote and the motion
passed unanimously.
NEW
BUSINESS
PROPOSED BY-LAW CHANGE FOR STAFF OFFICE TERMS:
Mike Farris offered two changes in the operational
by-laws of the SERA and his thoughts behind the proposals for Section 24.
The proposals to be voted upon are:
Section 24
E.
Election – the terms of all newly elected
positions shall begin at noon on the
first day of
January of the year after that in which they are elected.
1.
One District Director and one District Vice Director shall be elected in
the
even
numbered years by votes from the Full Members of each district for a
term
of four years.
2.
All officers, being the President, Vice President, Secretary and
Treasurer,
shall
be elected in the odd numbered years by votes from the Full Members
of
the (SERA) association at large, for a period of four years.
F.
Failure to Respond to Designated Duties.
1.
Should the District Director fail to respond to his elected duties,
either
voluntarily
or involuntarily, and as determined by the Executive Committee,
the
Executive Committee shall designate that the Vice Director assist the
Director
with all of his duties, and will no longer serve in a role subordinate
to
the District Director in matters pertaining to coordination.
This
designation
will remain in full force and effect until the Executive Committee
deems
that the designated assistance is no longer needed or until the next
district
election occurs. The District
Director shall be notified in writing and
by
return receipt mail, by the Executive Committee that assistance with his
duties
shall be provided by the Vice Director until the Executive Committee
deems
that the designated assistance is no longer needed or until the next
district
election occurs.
2.
Should an elected District
Vice Director fail to respond to his elected duties,
if
the provisions of Section 24, Paragraph 1 are in effect concerning the
existing
District Director, the Executive Committee shall notify the Vice
Director
in writing and by return receipt mail, and will name and stipulate a
qualified
district representative to represent the SERA and perform the
required
duties, until the situation is corrected or until the next district
election
occurs.
After some
discussion, Alex added that our rules require a thirty day comment and
consideration period. Further, Alex
must circulate these proposals to any member of the Board of Directors who is
not present today. Alex advised we
will vote by e-mail after Mike’s proposal has been received by all members of
the Board of Directors and aged for at least thirty days.
ADJACENT CHANNEL SPACING (10 KHz) FOR D-STAR & ANALOG TWO METER SYSTEMS AND
(12.5 KHz) D-STAR AND ANALOG 70 CM SYSTEMS
D-STAR REPEATER DISCUSSION & POSSIBLE ACTION ITEMS:
John Davis offered a written proposal for an official SERA Digital Repeater
Policy. We will review his document
and take up the matter on Sunday morning.
John
Ghormley asked that the Nomination Committee for SERA Executive Staff candidates
to report to him no later than September 25th instead of October 01st.
Roger Gregory advised he would make that happen.
v
The meeting recessed at 17:10 and is to reconvene at 08:30 on
Sunday.
Roger Gregory, SERA President, called the Sunday session to order at
08:33 on June 12th, 2011.
All of the attendees previously listed for this meeting are present.
Roger welcomed back all attendees and remarked that it was nice to see
100% attendance this morning.
D-STAR REPEATER DISCUSSION & POSSIBLE ACTION ITEMS:
John Davis discussed his proposal for an official SERA Digital Repeater Policy.
Repeater owners/trustees operating a standard analog FM repeater
coordinated by the SERA may want to convert their current equipment to one of
the available digital repeater technologies.
SERA’s current coordination policy requires them to move to one of the
frequency pairs designated for digital repeater operation.
As it is now, operation on the previously coordinated frequency will
result in a change in the repeater’s status to uncoordinated.
If another frequency pair is unavailable, as possible in the two meter
band, the repeater owner/trustee could continue to operate in uncoordinated
status, but risks the frequency pair being coordinated to another repeater.
The original repeater would then have to cease operation because of the
coordinated – uncoordinated situation being created.
Current coordination practices analyze for interference based on
location, antenna height, and effective radiated power.
Conversion of an existing analog repeater to a digital technology, with
all other parameters unchanged will not affect the propagation characteristics
of a repeater using digital modulation, with a bandwidth equal to or less than
the analog signal. John then
proposed four steps for an existing coordinated analog repeater that wants to
convert to a narrow band digital repeater operation using the same frequency
that it is on. He also added that
the SERA Database should be modified to include a designation for the emission
of repeaters, such as FM, MotoTRBO ®, D-Star, and P-25.
After John’s four steps were discussed Frank Lynch
and Danny Hampton had joint input stating that our existing policies and
frequency utilization plans prohibit a digital repeater operating in our analog
designated frequencies. The key
objective is to coordinate digital repeaters without interference to analog
repeaters and that the coordinations comply with our stated policy and band
plans. Further input was offered by
John Ghormley, John Crockett, and Alex Hedrick as they discussed further issues
of analog and digital modes existing together on our adjacent and co-channel
spacing guidelines.
Roger Gregory proposed that John re-write his
presentation and either send it out by e-mail or wait until the next meeting so
all frequency coordinators can be afforded the privilege to consider John’s
ideas and vote on the matter. John
Davis agreed to this suggestion. Alex
also added that the SERA Database, as it is compiled now cannot be modified due
to space limitations as it applies to the current database program and Repeater
Journal printing.
Alex reminded all present that our next meeting dates are set for January 07th and 08th, 2012, with overnight accommodations on the 06th & 07th. A request for reservations will be made by e-Mail at a later date.
Noting
all apparent business had been conducted,
Frank Lynch offered a motion
to “adjourn
the meeting”.
With no second required, the motion
passed unanimously.
The
President declared the meeting adjourned at 09:22 on January 09, 2011.
Given under my hand this
06th day of November, 2011.
H. Alex Hedrick, Jr., N8FWL
Secretary & Treasurer, SouthEastern Repeater Association
