Minutes for PARA Meeting of January 10, 2022
Club President Garry, KD4GCY presided and called the meeting to order at 7:10 p.m. by leading the membership in the Pledge of Allegiance to the US Flag.
Club Treasurer Roger, KC4WPS, read minutes to the November meeting and presented the financial report. ED, AC9OO, made a motion to accept the minutes as read, seconded by Jeff, KM4LDP. The motion was voted on and carried. Don, KC4DR, made a motion to accept the financial. It was seconded by Jeff, KM4LDP. The motion was voted on and carried.
The December 13, 2021 PARA Christmas Dinner meeting was attended by 25 at Casa Mexicana .
The first item was to assign Net Control operators for the next 5 nets.
Next, the floor was opened on the topic of electing PARA Officers for the coming year. Members who accepted the positions were: Garry, KD4GCY, continue as President. Don, KC4DR, as Vice President. Roger, KC4WPS, continue asTreasurer. Michael, KN4TIP, Scribe. Each position was voted on individually with all votes in the affirmative. No “No” votes were cast.
Several general topics were presented to the club, including:
Tech Q&A pool is to expire soon.
The New City 911 Board will be meeting on the second and fourth Mondays of each month at 1:00PM in City Hall.
Boy Scouts holding a Badge Fair at WKCTC Emerging Technology Building. A Radio Badge was offered to approximately 25 scouts. Many spoke over the repeater with Jim, AK4PS, an Eagle Scout himself.
If the Boy Scouts had access to WKCTC, then is it open for PARA to start meeting there again.
Garry, KD4GCY spoke of his recent drive through tornado ravaged Mayfield, KY in hopes of speaking with FEMA about Mitigation Grants.
The meeting discussion then centered upon the Paducah NWS Office the night of the tornado, December 10, 2021. NWS employee Mike, KI4NXF, contacted Garry, KD4GCY, at 5:33 PM requesting a couple of hams to operate the radios inside of the NWS Office. Jeff, KM4LDP, and Garry, KD4GCY responded and Jeff was able to pass critical WX information from Radar Interpretation Experts at the NWS to the Union City area of the impending storms. As power was lost to the NWS Office, the electronics continued to be powered by a very large UPS. Issues with the onsite generator kept it from starting and supplying the building. During that time, all unnecessary equipment was shut down, including the Amateur Radios. The radar system has a standalone generator that kept it up and running during that period until shore power was restored. But with the power issues in the main building, the radar data could not be distributed to users during that time.
In regards to The Weather And Traffic net on that December 10th. evening, Frank, KY4LDS, started the net sometime before 5:30 PM and started taking check-ins. As the night progressed more than 40 stations are listed in Frank’s log.