Florida Repeater Council, Inc. Minutes of Business Meeting February 11, 2006 Orlando, Florida The open forum was opened at 3:57 PM by President Ray Kassis, N4LEM. President Ray welcomed all present at the open forum. He explained the meeting format. The following Directors and Staff 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, Dan Babilla, KA0OXH District 6: Dave Armbrust, AE4MR District 7: Ben Dickerson, K4EL, Scott West KG4VWD District 8: Frank Butler, W4RH Staff Members in attendance were: President: Ray Kassis, N4LEM Vice President: Ira Bickham, K8HRR Secretary: Dana Rodakis, K4LK Steve Wilkins KT4AZ reported that his interference problem was solved by securing new pair 147.12. ItÕs a new coordination. He is not relinquishing 145.21. Steve will be submitting an application for new coordination. Received letter of relinquishment from Jim Maloney, K4AJM. Paul Toth, NA4AR reported an interference problem to the 145.290 repeater in St. Petersburg. An uncoordinated repeater is transmitting on 144.700 MHz and receiving on 145.300 MHz and is linked to 444.300 MHz in Lakeland with a callsign of WP3BC. The coordinator received the email and forwarded it to the District 4 director. Riley Hollingsworth has been notified and has responded. Paul also reported that AH6AT is transmitting APRS on 144.830 MHz. Ed Allen, WA4ISB reported interference on 145.130 due to uncoordinated co-channel repeater in Valrico The callsign of the uncoordinated repeater is either KB4BS or KD4BS. Database manager will send Ed an email reporting who is coordinated for FCC enforcement action. Orlando Rojas, WJ4N reported that there is a list of the UHF pairs on www.pbcares.org that were allocated for emergency portable use by the FRC and subsequently recinded a year ago. Director Mark will contact the site webmaster and copy all other Directors. John Deanne, KD4MGR reported his 146.850 was revoked. He has sent updates but never received an acknowledgement. Update was recently resubmitted. The database manager will re-instate the coordinations. Director Mike explained the current status of a process to allocate low-power portable backyard repeaters. Ray Crepeau, K1HG inquired about the UHF emergency pairs. Director Mike explained that we allocated some but later rescined due to existing links. The issue will be worked in the future. Director Mike reported that the upside-down repeater in Tampa is now right-side up. President Ray Kassis explained that he attended the FADCA meeting, reiterated his message in the newsletter and addressed the FADCA board. He challenged FADCA and our board of directors to step up and manage our spectrum in the digital age. George Jones, W4AQR reported that in Texas 145.600, 145.610 and 145.670 have been allocated for D-Star. The channels are 6.25 kHz wide. The open forum was closed at 4:37 PM by President Kassis. The annual business meeting was called to order at 4:37 PM on February 11, 2006 by President Ray Kassis, N4LEM. The 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, Dan Babilla, KA0OXH District 6: Dave Armbrust, AE4MR District 7: Ben Dickerson, K4EL, Scott West KG4VWD District 8: Staff Members in attendance were: President: Ray Kassis, N4LEM Vice President: Ira Bickham, K8HRR Secretary: Dana Rodakis, K4LK RE-ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND STAFF: Vice President Ira Bickham took charge and opened nominations for President. Director Karen made a motion which was seconded by several other directors. Director Mike called for the nominations be closed. Ray Kassis was re-elected President. The directors of districts 1, 3, 5 and 7 are due for re-election. Director Mark made motion, director Dave seconded. Motion passed. Directors of districts 1, 3, 5 and 7 were re-elected. Director Mark reported that Marshall Paisner, N4BIF expressed interest in serving as Secretary. President Ray asked for a recommendation from the board. President Ray appointed Marshall as secretary with concurrance of the board. President Ray re-appointed Ira Bickham as Vice President with approval of the Board. Director Ralph expressed interest in serving as Second Vice President. Director Nilo pointed out that the FRC By-laws may prevent it. Director Mike proposed that we consider a change to section section 6.4(a) of the By-laws at the Melbourne meeting to allow the President to appoint a Second Vice President. Director Ben seconded. The Melbourne meeting is scheduled for October 14 and 15. Director Karen will secure a meeting room. President Ray appointed Dana Rodakis, K4LK as Coordintor, Treasurer, Database Manager and Webmaster with the approval of the Board of Directors and Matt Bush, KA9RIX as 6-meter coordinator. SECRETARY'S REPORT: Reading of minutes was dispensed with. 617 newsletters were mailed, 26 came back. TREASURER'S REPORT: Balance 9/3/05: $7,759.23 Income: $658.51 Expenses: $1,145.49 Balance 2/8/06: $7,272.25 A detailed financial activity report for 2005 will be published in the July 2006 newsletter. Our available balance has been slowly declining over time due to the FAX phone bill, the internet hosting and the increasing costs of printing and mailing 2 newsletters per year. The possiblity of not sending hardcopy newsletters or increasing the donation amount was discussed. President Ray queried the audience as to preference of receiving hardcopy newsletter versus a download from the Council web site. The vote favored soft copy. The July 2006 will be published and the issue will be considered at the Melbourne meeting. COORDINATOR: In 2005, there were 105 new coordinations and transfers, no frequency changes, 16 de-coordinations (not including the big list of 4/13/05) and 1 approved re-location. DATABASE MANAGER: The database was submitted to the ARRL on January 10, 2006. The report included 957 repeaters. WEBMASTER: WeÕve been getting hit with transfer overage charges lately. We have a limit of 2 GB per month and need to open a new web hosting account with sufficient limits and suffer the usual transition problems like the form-to-mail scripts used in the on-line application submissions. REPORTS OF DIRECTORS: District 1: no problems District 2: no problems District 3: KD4DJW 442.400 will be getting a new trustee, Vice director will be moving to Georgia District 4: 444.600 is now right-side up; Valrico 145.13 is back on causing interference to Venice; interference to NI4CE 145.29 in St. Petersburg District 5: Steve Wilkins is on 147.120; N4SA relinquished 147.090 at Melbourne is pending Dick Fess, SARG, repeater has been active about a month; District 5 directors are performing a complete audit to determine repeater status. William Caldwell, KD4JYD appointed by Ralph as a second vice-director. Email is kd4jyd@orlandouhf.com, phone book 407 808 5454 District 6: Valrico is interfering with Venice District 7: 146.910 is active in Gainesville remove from list; 145.47 in High Springs is suspected as being down. Another amateur has requested the pair. District 8: no report OLD BUSINESS: The Coordinator will 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. This approval procedure was subsequently changed so that only the affected and neighboring districts need to vote, it must be anonymous and be a minimum of 3 Directors. If there is any dissent then the request will go to the entire Board of Directors for discussion. The Treasurer will publish a detailed report of financial activity in the July newsletter for the previous calendar year. The Board of Directors voted to uphold the Paisner 145.270 coordination. The following change was made to the on-line application process: verbiage was added to on-line applications: applicant should hear something from their director within 15 days and a subsequent email from the Database Manager or Coordinator. An additional change was made to the on-line application process: Demand a street address or ASRN (antenna structure registration number) on long form updates and applications for new coordinations. If a Director updates a repeater on behalf of the trustee, then he/she must return a copy of the update to the trustee with the new expiration date. NEW BUSINESS: Who do we accept updates from? Considerable discussion followed. The Board of Directors will discuss via email and define the procedure by the Melbourne meeting. Change coordination policy to reserve 146.940 MHz for emergency use and no new fixed coordinations be issued. Considerable discussion followed about how these portable repeaters can be used under what circumstances existing 146.940 repeaters maintain coordination. Director Mike presented a proposal to form a coordinating sub-committee with representatives from Florida ARRL sections (north, west and south). The coordinator would perform the initial research and pass the information on to the committee, who will then secure the required approvals and return it to the coordinator for issue. Directors Mark, Mike and Dave were appointed to serve as coordinating sub-committee Š Director Mike is chairman. Director Mike proposed the President appoint a sub-committee to study the future direction of the Council. That sub-committee would study and propose at the Melbourne meeting and voted upon at Orlando: (1) adding directors from FADCA, weak-signal and emergency management, (2) expanding our role to include spectrum management above 30 MHz within the guidelines of FCC part 97, (3) decide on the future of the hardcopy newsletter, and (4) changes to the web site and email. President Ray appointed Director Dan, Mark and Mike to the Technical sub-committee. President Ray appointed Director Dave, Nilo and Ralph to the Policy sub-committee. Director Mike suggested we schedule open forums at the Tampa and Miami hamfests. Approved. The choice of UHF pair for emergency portable repeater use was tabled until Melbourne. Will be discussed via email. Database manager will search the database for the least-used UHF pair. Database manager needs to create new fields and move the sponsor name, address, phone, callsign, and email address. List of expired repeaters for decoordination was reviewed by the Directors. Database Manager authorized to decoordinate anything on the list 90 days from today (unless updated). The meeting was adjourned at 6:10 PM by President Ray Kassis. Respectfully submitted Dana G. Rodakis, K4LK, Secretary