Florida Repeater Council, Inc. Minutes of Business Meeting February 12, 2005 Orlando, Florida The business meeting was called to order at 4:00 PM on February 12, 2005 by President Ray Kassis, N4LEM. The Acting Secretary called attendance and determined that a quorum of qualified Directors were present: Directors in attendance were: District 1: Nilo Hernandez, W4HN District 2: Mark Filla, KS4VT District 3: Karen Power, KD4DJX District 4: Mike Fletcher, NI4M District 5: Ralph Betts, KC4SGG District 6: District 7: Ben Dickerson, K4EL District 8: Frank Butler, W4RH Staff Members in attendance were: President: Ray Kassis, N4LEM Vice President: Ira Bickham, K8HRR RE-ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND STAFF: President Ray Kassis, N4LEM was nominated to for another term as President. The Board of Directors unanimously approved him as President. President Ray asked for a motion to re-appoint the Directors of Districts 1, 3, 5 and 7 and the current Council Staff members. Director Frank made the motion which was seconded by Director Mark. Motion approved. REPORTS OF DIRECTORS: District 1: All quiet. If a club license expires, do we de-coordinate repeaters? Will ask Riley Hollingsworth and report back to everyone. District 2: All quiet District 3: All quiet. 146.775 under repair. District 4: Upside-down repeater is being worked. 444.000 being negotiated. Motion to extend construction time for 60 more days on 442.975 and 443.000. District 5: All quiet District 6: No report. District 7: 146.985? 145.410 moved to district 5. Wrong coordinates? District 8: All quiet. OLD BUSINESS: Expiration letters will continue to be mailed until February 2006. Respectfully submitted Nilo Hernandez, W4HN, Acting Secretary ÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑ Meeting re-convened at 9:30AM on Sunday, February 13, 2005. The secretary re-checked the roll call and we have a quorum. President Ray reported what happened during the Saturday half of the meeting. SECRETARY'S REPORT: Six hundred forty (640) newsletters were mailed in late January and some were returned undeliverable. The minutes of the December meeting have been posted on the web site and were emailed to all FRC staff. Director Mark made a motion which was seconded by Director Mike to waive reading the minutes and approve them as posted. Motion passed unanimously. TREASURER'S REPORT: The FRC Secretary/Treasurer reported the following accounting: Opening balance, 12/04/04: $8,203.96 Income: $485.28 Expenses: $974.14 Balance: 2/11/05: $7,715.10 Director Karen made a motion publish a detailed list of income and expenses in every July newsletter for the previous calendar year. Motion seconded and approved. WEBMASTER'S/DATABASE MANAGER/COORDINATOR'S REPORT: Database was submitted to ARRL on January 1, 2004 for the next repeater directory and Travelplus CD. They want the repeater directories to be available at the Dayton Hamvention hence the early deadline for submittal. The database was updated with the new ARRL boolean feature summary for easier parsing. Also including repeater coordinates for the Travelplus CD. On-line and paper applications have been expanded with all of the ARRL feature types. Director Nilo suggested that all directors try to update link frequencies in their respective districts. Considerable discussion followed including database exchange with FADCA. Director Mike suggested that we may become a spectrum management organization. President Ray will contact FADCA. Since December 4, 2004, there have been 20 new coordinations or transfers, 5 de-coordinations, 1 approved relocation. The Coordinator would like to update a Frequently-Asked-Questions list. George Jones, W4AQR offered to prepare a PowerPoint presentation but the Coordinator declined due to lack of time. The Database Manager would like to purge uncoordinated repeaters from the database. NEW BUSINESS: Before a pair is coordinated that was coordinated in an adjacent District, should the Director losing that pair to the other District be notified? Considerable discussion followed. A motion was made, seconded and approved to require the Coordinator to submit a notice of proposed coordination (NOPC) or de-coordination (NOPD) to all Directors for approval before it is issued to the applicant. At least five Directors must approve, including the affected district. The NOPC or NOPD will be sent to FRC staff only, not the applicant. Should the Directors provide updates on behalf of repeater trustees? Considerable discussion followed. If a Director submits and update, who is responsible when the next update is due? What if that director is no longer with the Council? Director Nilo made a motion to allow the Directors to submit repeater status reports if requested by a trustee. A copy of the report must be returned to the trustee that includes the new expiration date. It was seconded by Director Mike and approved unanimously. Who should we accept updates from? Trustee only? Sponsor? Club officer? We may need to collect contact information for all parties (trustee, sponsor, owner) and include it in the database. A sub-committee will work this issue before the Melbourne meeting. Change the by-laws and coordination policy so that no one that lives so far away from his/her repeater as to not being able to monitor and control repeater to be a sponsor and/or owner of a coordination. Maybe an exception shall be if he/she has a trustee in the jurisdiction. Considerable discussion followed. We may need a by-laws or policy change. If the trustee lives far away from his coordinated repeater, the trustee needs to prove to the Council how he maintains control of his repeater. The Board decided that it will consider these situations on a case-by-case basis and not make any policy changes. We must consider many changes in ownership to repeaters. Amateurs are using coordination to profit in the selling of equipment (doing it as business) even though our rules state that coordinations are NOT TRANSFERABLE. We must start enforcing this. The directors will all be notified of new coordinations through the NOPC, so the affected director can veto the proposed coordination. The applicant can appeal the veto at the next Board of Directors meeting. A motion was made, seconded and approved. Several of the coordinatorÕs questions about procedures to coordinate & de-coordinate repeaters were clarified. The database manager presented a list of repeaters whose coordination has expired and the required update was not submitted by the end of the grace period. The Directors voted to de-coordinate the repeaters in the following list: http://www.florida-repeaters.org/decoordinations_04_13_2005.pdf Select UHF frequency for use by emergency-only portable repeaters. The board recommended tabling this until the Melbourne meeting after we have consulted with FADCA. The meeting was adjourned at 12 PM by President Ray Kassis. Respectfully submitted Dana G. Rodakis, K4LK, Secretary