President's Message
Last summer, we distributed a survey form to our members to find out some general information about our membership and what we can do to keep WARC responsive to the needs of those who belong to to the club. At the November meeting, we made copies available of the information we obtained from the surveys (additional copies will be available at our December and January general meetings). Here's a brief summary:

· We received 59 surveys back, representing a little less than one half of our total membership
· Length of club membership: More than 10 years - 17%; 6 to 10 years
· 37%; 2 to 5 years - 20%; 1 year or less - 12%; not indicated - 14%
· Of the 52 responses to identify current license class, 37% are
Extra's; 21 % are Advanced; 12% are Generals; 12% are Tech w/HF; and
19% are Technician
· Although 59% of 41 respondents (after netting out those who joined the club as an Extra) upgraded since joining the club, all the upgrades were obtained by those who have belonged to WARC for more than five years
· Operating capabilities of members was 68% HF; 68% 2 meters; 50% 440; 26% 6 meters; 26% 220; and 10 % microwave (903 mhz and up)
· Average (median) monthly operating time was 40 (14) hours; 24 (35) hours for HF, 43 (13) hours for VHF/UHF (non repeater), and 14 (7) hours for repeater
· Almost everyone (92%) felt club business should be conducted at all
(except Holiday Dinner) meetings and 77% prefer to have the business
session before the program.
· Meeting programs for the year should include outside speakers (4),
member speakers (3), be purely social (3) and other- e.g. workshops,
demonstrations- (2)
· The consensus was that the current time allocation (40 minutes
for business, 15 minutes for social break and 40 minute program) is
appropriate- but there were comments that we should start promptly at
7:30 PM and "side conversations" should be reserved for the break or
take place outside the meeting room.

We also received some insight on why you joined and stay a member of WARC and the kind of programs that are desired. If you didn't participate in the survey, the best way to make your thoughts known is to come out to a Board meeting or send an e-mail to a club officer.
If you haven't already done so, contact Doug (N3RJE) or George (N3HBT) for a reservation (space available basis) for WARC's December Holiday Family Dinner. Doug Mahoney (N3RJE) and Berni Lindinger (N3RJE) always do a great job coordinating the food and beverages, and Burt Ludin (N3YVH) has put together a great program that includes music and an extensive list of door prizes, entertainment for our younger attendees and raffle items. This is always one of the most enjoyable club activities we have and provides us with a great opportunity to socialize with club members and their families.
I want to take this opportunity to wish all members of WARC and their families a peaceful holiday season and a joyous and healthy new year.

de Bill , K3MFI

UPCOMING PUBLIC SERVICE EVENTS
Thursday November 26, 1998 @ 9am-12 noon (20 operators needed)-
Thanksgiving Day 5 Mile Run (Newtown)- benefits Bucks/Montgomery
Counties Women's Shelter (bring non-perishable food item) contact Doc
Whitticar (W3GAD) at 968-0641

Club to Elect Two Directors In January
In accordance with the club's constitution, the membership will elect two Directors who will serve one year terms on WARC's Board at the January 7, 1998 general meeting. This is an opportunity for any current WARC member to be part of the club leadership at the Board level- please contact Steve Larson (KA3ZLY) and Marty Squicciarni (NR3Z)if you would like to be on the slate of candidates. Ballots will be mailed with the January FEEDBACK and nominations from the floor will also be accepted at the January meeting.

UPDATED MEMBERSHIP LISTING
Available at the December 3 General Meeting- please check for accuracy and give additions and corrections to Membership Chairperson Don McCunney (N3VHU) or reach him by e-mail dmmccunney@njaost.ml.com or by telephone (215) 364-7891. If you have a new or updated e-mail address, please let him know. An updated listing will be distributed at the January 7 general meeting.

UPCOMING BOARD MEETINGS
December 17, 1998- Constitution Review Committee (Tom Michaud,
WA3TQJ) Our current constitution is on the club's WEB site (if you're
not "internet capable"- contact me for a copy) and a copy is always
on the back resource table at our general meetings.
January 28, 1999- Financial Review (AL Folsom, KY3T) Here's a chance
to find out where the club spends its money and where we get the funds
to support club activities.


SCHEDULE CHANGES

It's hard to compete with Christmas Eve or New Years Eve, so the next
Board meeting will be held on Thursday, December 17.

The December ARRL VE License Testing session administered by the club
will be held at 7 PM on Wednesday, December 23; the normal testing
schedule (last Wednesday of the month) resumes on Wednesday, January
27, 1999.


JANUARY VHF CONTEST

The ARRL sponsored January VHF Sweep Stakes contest will be held the
weekend of January 23-24, 1999. So let's all start thinking about our
equipment, antennas, new bands and computerized logging. The last two
years have seen great participation from club members and as those who
have operated this event know, you don't have to be a die hard
contester, have a "power" station or stay on the air for the entire
contest period to have fun participating. Virtually everyone in the club
has the ability to be involved- so let's try to have even more club
members give it a try.

Everything you need (logs, dupe sheets, activity hour clock, frequencies
and hints) will be available at the January 7 meeting. If you want to
try computerized logging, bring a preformatted (PC) 3.5" floppy disk.
Any questions- give me call on '09 or send me an e-mail at
jbagnick@aol.com.

Joe Bagnick ,N3EMA
WARC January VHF SS Chairperson

NEWS RELEASE
The Delmont Radio Club is pleased to announce that our December speaker will be Derrick Pitts (KA3NQN), Chief Astronomer for the Franklin Institute. Derrick will talk on "ET'S in our own back yard". Included in the talk will be information about little known life forms on earth as well as life forms in our solar systems. The dinner meeting will be held at Williamson's Restaurant on December 16th at 7:00 PM sharp. There is a $17 per person donation to cover the cost of the meal. Cash bar opens at 6:30. Reservations may be made by calling Keith McCallum N3PQZ at 215 884 4226 before Monday the 14th. of December.
The November 8th 1998 Fox Hunt
Stations everyone. The transmitter beacon is now transmitting. Well everyone got " transmitter beacon is now transmitting". The first clue "stations everyone" got stuck in my head and never made it to the mike to be transmitted. Oh well, what event ever goes off as planned? But that only makes it more fun.

This foxhunt started on Saturday with some last minute testing. I've never tried to activate the beacon from more then a few hundred yards away. This time I was planing to start it from five miles away. So I set it up in the back yard and drove off to see how far away I could activate it. TWO MILES! O'boy, and I don't have any more time today to test it. I'll just make some adjustments and hope for the best.

Saturday night. Change of plans. I'll get a good friend of mine Jeff to sleep over. Then Mary, Jeff and I can get up early, go set up the transmitter, and then meet Hugh (N3SOQ) and his wife Cathy for breakfast. So the plans are to be out of the house by 8:00. NOT! 8:20 we're heading for the car and the phone rings. O.K. Give Hugh directions to the restaurant and jump in the car.

Revised plan number 2. We'll set up the transmitter and then meet Hugh and Cathy at 9:00 for breakfast. Breakfast shouldn't take more than a half hour. Then we'll start the hunt and if the beacon doesn't start up we'll drive over and start it manually. Then leave Jeff there to watch over the thing. Oh no, the waiter can't write and the cook can't read. 9:30 STARTING TIME and we haven't Even got our coffee yet.

Revised plan number 3. Hugh and I go out to the cars and get the hunt started. And return to our table hoping that our food would be there. " This is KA3VKU Fox net control. I'll start by taking check-ins. Etc. etc. etc.". Time to start the beacon. The adjustments worked! The beacon is up and working. O.K. Hugh let's go see if our food is ready. Well some of the food was there. And it only took till 10:00 o'clock to get it all. Have you ever watched five people try to rush through a meal that came to them a little bit at a time. We managed to get out of there by 10:20. Hugh went looking for the doughnuts. And I headed for the transmitter sight to drop off Jeff. "It's 10:30. I hope no one is moving to fast or they're going to catch us here". Drop off Jeff and head for the finish point at a nearby park. And who does Mary and I find not but a ½ mile from the transmitter? Doug (N3JRE) And Bernie (N3RJD). Did we make this hunt too easy? Where the Morse code messages too simple? " I guess we should stop and see how they are doing". Because they are doing better than I expected. O.K. with a little bit of conversation I think we confused them a little. That should give us some more time to get set up at the park. After all they have to find the transmitter to get the directions to the park. Well things are starting to work right now. But what are Al (KA3YCG) and Randy (N3LJE) doing here at the Park. They couldn't have found the transmitter already. Could they? ……….
Nope, just stopped here to take new bearings. Well that takes care of two teams. Let's check up on Bills team. "K3MFI, KA3VKU hissssss Click." "K3MFI, KA3VKU hissssss Click."
Oh 'boy we've got Bill and his team lost out in the countryside again.
It's now 11:00 o'clock and still no sign of any hunters coming in for coffee and doughnuts. Looks like the transmitter is hidden better than I thought. 11:15. Finally, Doug and Bernie are on their way to the park. With all that went wrong at the beginning I think the hunt worked out just great.

Here are the cw messages the beacon was sending:
1 ding ding ding wooo wooo wooo ding ding ding
2 this is a warc transmitter hunt.
3 Lat 40 20 27
4 Long 75 00 85

Here are a few of the things that I got at the park as the hunters slowly showed up.

Doug and Bernie got to the transmitter site first. But it took Doug 30 minute to discover that the transmitter wasn't a weed. And the train station would like to thank him for knocking down and pulling out all those weeds. It will save them a lot of work in the spring.

Al (KA3YCG) and Randy found it next. And it only took them 20 minutes. They may have found it sooner but Al was worried about some man around Mary's car. How he determined that it was Mary's car, we don't know. There are six or seven cars that look just like it in that area.

The third team on our list was Bill K3MFI and AL WI3Z. ("Bill take a good look at the pictures on the web site. One of them is the transmitter. See if you can figure out which it is.") But I must give their team some credit. As time ran out for Bill they recruited Joe N3EMA to pick up where they left off. So their team did find the Transmitter. ("But Joe, that first place you looked is for more advanced hunts in the future.") (see web pics)

And there was a fourth team I forgot all about. My apologies to you. You checked in when we were back at the breakfast table. The only paper we had was a napkin. You can guess what we did with our napkins then left in a hurry. They found the transmitter before Bills team. It may be good for them that I did forget them. They were having enough fun explaining what they were doing to people at the Apple Festival in Peddlers Village. How long they were there I don't know. But had I known I would have contacted a few friends and relative there to make their visit to Peddlers village more fun. (contact me team 4. So I can get you back on my logs).

If you would like some more laughs. Just ask any of the hunters above. Ask them if " THE SEAT WAS WARM ". If they say "No" then tell them to check the fuses next time.

Bob KA3VKU
Fox net control

The following article will appear in the December issue of the Bucks County Boy Scout news letter.

KB3BOY Operating at Webelows Weekend
During the weekend of Oct 10th Joe Bagnick (Pack 133) and Steve Larson (Troop 133) who are amateur radio operators (HAMs) and members of the Warminister Amateur Radio Club manned KB3BOY (the radio station) at Camp Ockanickon for 10 hours of hands on demonstration with the Webelows. A scout can get requirement 9 signed off for communication by visiting. The radio demo had been a last minute arrangement, but could not have happened at a better time. The PA QSO Party was also scheduled for that weekend. This would allow the scouts plenty of opportunities for communications with HAMs.
The PA QSO Party is an amateur radio contest held on the second weekend in October every year. During this contest HAMs try to contact as many other HAMs as possible (especially PA HAMs) from noon to mid-night Saturday and nine a.m. to six p.m. on Sunday. When contacting these other stations the radio band, call sign, and State, or Pennsylvania County if inside PA, is logged. To calculate a final score for the contest the number of contacts logged, are multiplied by the combination of the number of counties in PA, and the number of States and Provinces that were contacted.
The equipment at KB3BOY was powered on after lunch on Saturday at 1300L (1:00 p.m.). Prior to any Scouts showing up the first contact was made on 10 meters (28 MHz) with a HAM from Colorado, followed by a contact with a HAM in South Texas. This was promising to be a good radio day. The radio was then tuned to 40 meters (7 MHz) and another 20 contacts were logged from HAMs inside PA and in other states. As the boys and leaders arrived in groups, the operators broke from their contacts to address the a wide variety of questions ranging from "what's the most distant contact made today (?)" to, "can I talk to a Viking (????)". each question was addressed as best as it could and then the mike was handed over to the scouts one at a time to say "CQ CQ CQ, this is KB3BOY, PA QSO (pronounced Q so) calling CQ". Though everyone couldn't have a turn, about thirty scouts made contact with other stations in the contest. The station operated with scouts going in and out of the station continuously until about 1930L (7:30 p.m.) when power was lost to the radio. After troubleshooting the problem to a 20 amp. fuse, the radio started up again only to blow the fuse again. Since the station was going to close soon any ways it was shut down for repair at another time.
In all KB3BOY made 86 contacts, 39 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties were reached and 14 States and Provinces were logged for a grand total of 4558 points in the contest. The station made contacts as far away as Alberta Canada, Maine, and Georgia. Nice Job Scouts!

Note: If you would like information on when you and your Scouts could visit KB3BOY or how to become a licensed amateur radio operator, contact Steve Larson at 215-822-1511.

Just a quick note to let you know that this years turnout for the PA QSO Party was great. I have logs from N3FKR, K3MFI, WI3Z, K3TPM, KY3T, N3HBT, N3VPG, N3AAT AND KB3BOY. It's great to see so many people using computer programs to do the logging. It sure makes my job easier. There were three scores over 30k with the top two only seperated by 4 points. Way to go Als (WI3Z and KY3T). Once again I would like to thank everyone that participated and lets see if we can get to double digits next year.
'73, Marty; NR3Z
Warminster Amateur Radio Club
General Meeting Minutes
November 5, 1998

Meeting called to order by Bill K3MFI at 7:36 PM

Guests
Kay Craigie WT3P ARRL Director, Atlantic Division. Tonight's speaker
Jack Jones W3NTD Official Observer, Eastern Pennsylvania Section

Round of introductions.

OFFICER REPORTS

President's Report - Bill K3MFI
Tonight's business program will be after the break to allow our speaker to go first.
Bill gave an overview of the survey results.
A handout with the survey tabulations is available and will be gone over in detail.
The next Board meeting will be 11/19 and not Thanksgiving day. Feedback deadline will be strictly enforced this month.

Vice-President's Report - Rocky N3FKR
Holiday dinner is coming up. You must be a paid-up member of the club to participate in the dinner.
Kay Craigie donated a ARRL Circular Frequency Chart for tonight's 50-50 drawing.
Upcoming programs
· December - Holiday Dinner
· January - HF operating
· February - Annual club auction
· March - We will try to have a presentation about contesting.

Treasurer's Report - Al KY3T
Al presented an overview of the club's finances.

Secretary's Report - Mark N3GNW
Presented a thank-you note from the Craven Hall Historical Society for our support in their 5K run.
Read minutes from October meeting.

Motion to approve October minutes. Seconded. No discussion. Passed unanimously.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Membership - Bill K3MFI for Don KA3N
Don KA3Nwas not present to give a detailed report. Bill K3MFI asked that all members renew when their copy of Feedback indicates their membership is expiring.

January VHF Contest - Joe N3EMA
Dust off the rigs for the January VHF contest. Contesting software will be available. The club can submit for a combined score.

Fall Classes - George KA3WXV
Two students in the current classes. Spring classes will start on the second Tuesday in March. Please let people know that it is available.

Holiday Dinner '98 - Berni N3RJE and Doug N3RJE
Our December meeting (12/3) is our Annual Holiday Dinner. Seating starts at 6:15 PM and dinner starts at 6:45 PM.
We will be updating the Silent Key Plaque. Please let Bert N3YVH know if their should be any additions.

Constitutional Review Committee - Tom WA3TQJ
Committee met last month to discuss the constitution. They will meet next week to finalize the updates. Final results will be presented at the December board meeting.

PA QSO Party K3MFI for NR3Z
Eleven logs submitted and over half had more than 100 QSO's. The club will buy the commemorative mug.

Club Station - George N3HBT
Some ground rods need to be installed. They will be done on Sunday 11/15 at 10:00 AM.

Club Packet Station - Rocky N3FKR
We will be converting the club packet station into an APRS staion by installing the APRS software and changing the frequency to 145.390 MHz. This is the standard APRS frequency. George N3HBT noted we need a reliable computer. We need a 486 class computer to run Windows 95.

Youth Groups - Steve KA3ZLY
Steve and Joe N3EMA manned K3BOY for the PA QSO Party and had 200 kids come through.

Fox Hunt - Bob KA3VKU
Sunday, November 8. You may start from any location to search for the fox. It promises to be well disguised. Clues will be given at 9:30 AM on the repeater. The beacon frequency will be announced at the next meeting.

PUBLIC SERVICE EVENTS
· Two public service events on October 17. Craven Hall 5K run and a Hole-in-One Competition at Five Ponds Golf Course. Both events went well George N3HBT
· Thanksgiving Day 5 Mile Run Thursday Nov 26 @ 9:00 am-12:00 pm in Newtown / 20 operators ( Doc W3GAD for information and sign-up) (benefits Bucks/Montgomery Women's Shelter- bring a non perishable food item to donate.) We will attempt to track the run using APRS.

Adopt-a-Highway - Al WI3Z
There are no highways available for adoption in Bucks County. We are on the waiting list.

Social Bike Ride - Al KA3YCG
Held last Sunday. There is also talk about a social golf outing.

OLD BUSINESS- none

NEW BUSINESS

Nominating Committee - Steve KA3ZLY
Steve KA3ZLY We have one person running for our two elected director positions. If you would like to run please let Steve know. The election will be in January.

Ten-Tec Kit Buy - N3FKR
We get a 10% discount if we have a group buy of over $500 of kits.. See Rocky for the catalog. We will try to schedule a kit building night after the new year.

Special Event Station - AL WI3Z
Al is looking for ideas for our next special event station. We will discuss this in more detail at the January meeting.

Dxpedition - Doc W3GAD
Doc is looking for any interest in another Dxpedition. We will discuss this in more detail at the January meeting.

GOOD AND WELFARE
Fred K3QBT passed away.

Motion to adjourn at 9:34 PM. Seconded. Several free and for sale items are available. Passed unanimously.

Respectfully submitted,
Mark Kempisty - N3GNW
WARC Secretary