THE UPLINK THE NEWSLETTER OF THE JOHNSON SPACE CENTER AMATEUR RADIO CLUB Vol. 15 No. 6 May 2010 The next club meeting will be held at 6:30 PM on Thursday, May 27, 2010 at the “StarFire Grill”, 2412 Bay Area Boulevard in the meeting room of the restaurant. A scheme is to arrive at 6 PM and have dinner before the meeting. Our normal meeting schedule is the last Thursday of each month except for the combined November/December meeting held the second Thursday of December. ***************************************************************** JSCARC April Meeting Minutes The meeting on April 29, 2010 was called to order at 6:35 PM by President Kyle Brewer, AE5IJ. Round table introductions were made of the ten members and three guests in attendance. The Secretary/Treasurer Ken Goodwin, K5RG reported the combined JSC Federal Credit Union accounts have a balance of $2,470.29 The only expenditure in April was for the w5rrr.com domain registration of $9.95 for the year. There are currently 30 full members for GFY’10 (32 in GFY’09). Since the Secretary-Treasurer had an early commitment, the meeting minutes will only cover the significant items discussed at the meeting. NEW BUSINESS: Thomas Campbell KD5TIO and Shaun Stewart KD5SZV were in attendance to discuss W5RRR supporting FASTRAC, the two University of Texas nanosatellites (http://fastrac.ae.utexas.edu/). The desire is to have W5RRR as a back up ground support station when the nanosatellites are launched from Kodiak, Alaska in August. Since this request syncs with the Club’s current activity to bring the satellite station to operational status, it deemed more than acceptable by the club members in attendance. Since the meeting in April, there have been two weekend work parties at the shack which resulted in the new satellite antennas being assembled (primarily by Dale KG5U) and progress on getting the shack ready for the VHF and probably two HF stations. The next work party goal will be to get the antennas erected on the satellite tower with their az-el rotators. A good portion of the console wiring has been completed, thanks primarily to Kyle, AE5IJ. John AB5SS has made arrangements for a Gov’t surplus computer to be transferred to the Club’s property list. John has also just about completed getting some of the Ethernet outlets ‘moved’ outside of the JSC firewall. Ken K5RG sold one the club’s surplus keyer on eBay netting $55 for the Treasury. COMMITTEES: Repeater – Larry, WD8KUJ reported that the repeater was operating. The new controller is in the shack but the old controller has not given up to date. Skywarn – The Skywarn Net is at 8 PM every Thursday on W5RRR. David KB5PGY had no further inputs. JSC EOC – fully operational. Jerry Steward N5FWB and Larry WD8KUJ have each been doing the check-ins on the SHARES and NASA nets. VEC – The VEC exams are on the second Saturday of each month in the Brazos Room of the Gilruth Recreation Center conducted by David, KB5PGY who is a member of the ARRL VEC Volunteer Examiner Honor Roll with over 278 testing sessions since 1991. ARISS – School contacts are being made at an average of 2 per week now that ISS has a full crew compliment. The majority of the contacts have shifted to ones outside of the US with the makeup of the ISS Expedition crews. Astronaut Don Pettit, KD5MDT has been training with the ARISS amateur radio equipment for Expedition 30. OLD BUSINESS: Shack – Nick, KC5KBO and Ken, K5RG are still working on the electronic lock for the shack. The specs of the Schlage AD-200 Offline Electronic Lock that will use individually programmed proximity key fobs has been sent to JSC Security for approval with the intent of having Aramaco Services donate the lock system to the Club. Nick has also been discussing installation of this system with the JSC locksmith assigned to the Gilruth Center. With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:35 PM. Agenda Items for the May Meeting: 1. Shack Work Party Dates 2. Support of the UT FASTRAC satellite project 3. Configuration of the new station computer 3. Schedule for the HF equipment installation at W5RR CLUB OFFICERS, APPOINTEES & INFORMATION President: Kyle Brewer, AE5IJ (w) 281-483-9831 Email: kyle.brewer@nasa.gov Vice-President: Larry Dietrich, WD8KUJ (w) 281-483-9198 Email: wd8kuj@verizon.net Secretary/Treasurer: Ken Goodwin, K5RG (h) 281-333-2636 Email: krgoodwin@comcast.net Station Mgr: John Maca, AB5SS (w) 281-483-8802 Email: john.j.maca@nasa.gov Property Custodian: Larry Dietrich, WD8KUJ (w) 281-483-9198 Email: wd8kuj@verizon.net W5RRR Trustee: John Maca, AB5SS (w) 281-483-8802 Email: john.j.maca@nasa.gov Repeater Trustee: Nick Lance, KC5KBO (w) 281-483-0386 Email: nlance@hal-pc.org QSL Mgr: Vince LePar, KA8UDO (w) 281-335-2334 Email: vincent.r.lepar@nasa.gov Webmaster: Dale Martin, KG5U (h) 281-484-4465 Email: kg5u@hal-pc.org VEC Coordinator: David Fanelli, KB5PGY (w) 281-483-4833 Email: kb5pgy@flash.net Club mailing address for both business and QSLs: NASA Johnson Space Center Attn: AW7 / JSC Amateur Radio Club 2101 NASA Parkway Houston, TX 77058-3696 Repeaters: Voice W5RRR: 146.64(r)/146.04(t) MHz and 1292.3(r)/1272.3(t) APRS W5RRR-1: 144.39 MHz Website: http://www.w5rrr.org ***************************************************************** DE Ken K5RG