The July meeting of the Iola Amateur Radio Club was held on July 9th, 2024
In attendance: Steve, Jeremy, Randy, Stan, Donna, Gale, Dale, Doug, Jeff, Bruce, Jarrod
Introduced Bruce Symes, who works at the Allen Community College. He was present at field day and is
now interested in becoming licensed.
Mr. Symes had determined that few amateur radio groups in nearby counties have any sort of emergency
services, including storm spotting. Our club has not had any emergency service management in over a
decade. Chuck Magaha, Emergency Management Director for Leavenworth County, said it would be
beneficial for the IARC to provide storm spotting services, and the commission was favorable to the idea.
In this case, grants would be available for the equipment and repeater tower space.
Randy pointed out that there’s a big difference between actively chasing a severe storm and just being on
hand if the county needs assistance. Jeff said we could show up later rather than during the storm,
possibly to help with cleanup or rescue efforts. Bruce would like to speak with the county as to what
services exactly would be expected of us.
Steve said that when the club did storm spotting in the past, the repeater was reserved for the spotters.
Each spotter was contacted and asked about his conditions (“KD0JLE, what’s your status?”).
Mr. Symes reached out to the sheriff, who estimated the price to put the antennas on the tower at $5,000.
Steve stressed the importance of getting the 2 meter machine running as soon as possible and leaving the
70cm repeater as a secondary concern. The possibility of linking the repeater to a network was raised –
Craw-Kan can run fiber optic cables to the repeater for no charge. An Internet connection could be used
for remote control operation or repeater linking.
Dale made a motion to approve the minutes. Jeremy seconded the motion, and the motion carried.
— Treasurer’s Report —
Gale, the club treasurer, gave his report – the club’s funds currently total $582.43. Gale would like to buy
a club banner, which will cost $152.15 and leave the funds at $430.28. Jeremy made a motion to purchase
the banner. Steve seconded the motion, and the motion carried.
— Field Day —
Pretty good turnout! 5-6 operators running at once. Jarrod made his first HF contacts!!
1360 total points were scored for the club.
— Miscellaneous —
Touching on backup power, Randy has offered to use his 100-watt solar panels to power a battery backup
solution for the repeater. A 100 Watt-hour battery will be more than sufficient to power the repeater in the
event of an outage. No official decision was made regarding backup power.
Doug brought up the subject of Farm City Days coming up in October. It would be a great opportunity to
demonstrate Ham radio to the public. We could bring VHF/UHF and possible some HF radios, as well as
handouts from ARRL. If we were to rent a space (15’x15′), it would be about $75 for an electric spot and
$50 for a non-electric spot. It would be on Saturday, sometime around 7:30 or 8:00pm; the vendors will
set up on Jefferson and East Street. Doug would like to get as far away from the band stand as possible to
avoid interference. Steve put Doug in charge of researching how we might go about this.
After some discussion on a few minor topics, Jeremy gave the motion to adjourn the meeting. Steve
seconded the motion, and the meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Jarrod Powe KF0NKK