Dixie Amateur Radio Club
E‑Newsletter

In This Issue:

Please help support the club!

Dues for 2006 are now being solicited. Dues are $15.00 per member ($20.00 per family for multiple ham families). Check the Club's membership ROSTER to see that you are shown as current. We will even accept your tardy dues for 2005 if you feel the slightest bit of guilt.  If you know you were negligent in 2005, you are on the honor system.  To pay your membership dues, please make a check or money order payable to "DARC" and bring it to the meeting or mail it to the club address:

Dixie Amateur Radio Club
P.O. Box 422
Santa Clara, UT 84765

The Club Callsign of the Dixie Amateur Radio Club is:

Longtime Club member Bart Anderson, K7EDU, will be providing the club members in attendance with an special slide presentation entitled:

    "How the Great Salt Lake Affected Southern Utah"

This presentation was originally scheduled for last month at the Christmas Dinner and now we are pleased to be able to have Bart's presentation.  Bart us one of the original fonding members of the Dixie Amateur Radio Club. As we develop the "History" page of this web site, we will hopefully be able to get some additional information from Bart and others to better understand the earliest years of the Dixie Amateur Radio Club.

• Emergency Communications Committee
• Technical/Repeater Committee
• Educational/Volunteer Examination Commitee
• Public Affairs Committee
  

There will be a ARRL Volunteer Exam Session held at 6:00 P.M. at the same location as the Club Meeting.

If you are a person desiring to take an Amateur Radio test or a currently licensed ham wanting to upgrade this month, or are a Volunteer Examiner who would like to help out at a session, please contact please contact V.E. Coordinator Ron Sappington, WI7Z, via e-mail or telephone (435) 673-4552; or Board Member Dan Farwell, W8EQA,  via e-mail or telephone at (435) 668-1609. Please contact no later than Tuesday, January 17, 2006.

December Holiday Dinner Wrap-up

The Dixie Amateur Radio Club held its annual dinner and elections on Friday, December 2, 2005. The location was in the Garden Room of the Cottontown Village in Washington City.

The dinner included traditional holiday menu. The fun and games were followed by the ever popular prize drawings.
 
This year everyone in attendance who purchased a dinner was entered in the grand prize drawing for a brand new Alinco DJ196T 2 meter handheld transceiver. The winner of the transceiver was Bob Palambo, K9ZWH.

Election of 2006 Board of Directors

During the December Banquet an election was held to elect the Board of Directors for the Dixie Amateur Radio Club for the upcoming year.
Elected were the following:

PRESIDENT:  Hal Whiting, KI2U

VICE-PRESIDENT:  Dave Owens, K7VNH

SECRETARY:  Gary Zabriskie, N7ARE

TREASURER:  Lee Case, KE7DZJ

BOARD MEMBER:  Casey Lofthouse, KD7HUS

BOARD MEMBER:   Dan Farwell, W8EQA

BOARD MEMBER:   Ken Head,  KD7FGP

This past year was certainly not without its own level of excitement to begin the year.  Just as the Spectrum Newspaper is doing some retrospective reporting this week on events of the Dixie flooding of January 2005, I am doing some retrospective reporting of my own for my final President’s Message in the DARC Newsletter. 

The Dixie Amateur Radio Club has such a proud history of some of the most capable and willing  Amateur Radio operators I have ever had the opportunity to know. Our local hams pull off every fall, without fail, communications for the St. George Marathon, which is one of the most complicated marathons in the country for hams, given its unique terrain. We can only improve in the future, perhaps using new technology such as Packet Radio APRS or Fast Scan TV to enhance our capabilities. Since our goal is in helping ensure the runner’s and the public’s health and safety during the event why not try one of these, or both? It will take MORE volunteers. Any takers? What can be said about the Huntsman World Senior Games? One of the largest, if not THE largest gathering of gray-haired folks who can likely kick most of our butts anytime in any event we could contemplate going up against them in. But we are smarter than even trying. The response and feedback we receive from these agencies assisted has always been complementary and that is simply a reflection on how we as Club members present ourselves when faced with an assignment.

We will now be embarking on public service communications much more formally through ARES so that we are more fully recognized as an “officially recognized”, capable, trained and ready organization in regards to Emergency Response Communications.

Another thing is the Boards commitment toward the establishment right away of some formal and other more flexible committees to further efforts in the above and several other key activities: Emergency Communications Committee, Technical/Repeater Committee, Educational/Volunteer Exam Committee, and a Public Affairs Committee.

We need YOU as local Amateur Radio operators to step up to the plate and volunteer your time, your knowledge and your talents to the Club and to our hobby. This is a participant hobby/public service. If we can add one more cliche in here: There is NO “I” in team.  We need to conduct the Club as a truly team effort and share the responsibilities for what transpires. Come to the meeting ready to put you self in one of these roles for the coming year. You know we will likely all learn something in the process.  I am especially asking for any newly licensed hams to step up and say: “I want to help”.  We were ALL new at one time and felt perhaps embarrassed to participate for fear of possibly exposing our “newness”. To that I say, have you ever watched some of us more seasoned hams try to put up a large antenna mast at Field Day? ‘Nuff said.  We NEED everyone, ESPECIALLY newcomers to the hobby. Some of us “seasoned” (sometimes crusty and crabby) hams might just learn something and we can all have some fun at the same time. 

I have enjoyed serving as your President this past year. I especially appreciate my very good friend Dan Farwell and the help he has provided me as the past president. I will give my utmost support to Hal as he assumes the office of President.  If there is anything I can do in my roll as Secretary (including webmaster and the newsletter editting) for the coming year, or if you have any concerns or complaints, please fell free to contact me and discuss them.

Let’s all put our support behind our newly elected President, Hal Whiting KI2U, and the rest of the board in making 2006 a banner year for “OUR” Club.

P.S.: No natural disasters this year. We can make due just fine with simulated disasters for our preparations.