Chatter: Nov 2015

Last month our club was neck-deep in revising our by-laws. The by-laws, last revised a couple of decades ago, needed upgrading. A team did this after much research and thought. I recall, circa 1989, when we first put them together. I believe that Leon Fletcher, AA6ZG, was president. He and the club officers wrote them to fit the times. We had a couple of active lawyers helping, I believe. Maybe not. At the November meeting, there was need shown for further discussion prior to final implementation of the new revisions.

After several decades of meeting in the Dominican Hospital Education Building, we were relocated to the conference rooms in the main building. We met there on other occasions in these smaller rooms. Now, Dominican Hospital is closing their conference rooms to outside groups, including our Santa Cruz County Amateur Radio Club. Prior to the Dominican Hospital site, we met in the conference room of a bank on 41st Avenue. After the 1989 earthquake, we moved to Dominican. A couple of our members were in the Security Department and vouched for our need as Emergency Communicators. This certainly worked in our favor.

Boy am I happy! The HF bands are opening up. I can work the Baja Maritime Mobile Net stations once again. Mother Nature is cooperating by giving us some good propagation. A couple of days ago I was very, very happy that I have the habit of grounding my antennas. Lightning struck close by in my Westside neighborhood several times during our “big” rain. I think I will recheck my ground connections at my grounding rods to make sure all is well. I may as well clean up all my antenna connections before the El Nino rains get here in full force.

I waited until last week to turn my home heating system on. We were getting cold at last. It seems like only a couple of days ago that we had a battery of fans blowing hot air around. I did shut my furnace off and called PG&E to relight my pilot light. They perform a free inspection of gas heaters when they light the pilots. They check for gas leaks, cracked liners and good vent systems. I also have to mount my carbon monoxide detector.

A couple of weeks ago I visited Wayne Thalls, KB6KN, club past president. He is in room 210 of Sunshine Villa and would like visitors. He can be called at 466-4643. Wayne and I have long been contributors to Short Skip. In the early 1980s, we used to drive out to Aptos to deliver our column material to Northe Osbrink, N6KO. Northe served as editor for several years when he lived on Arthur Road.