CQ, CQ, CQ………..calling all GCARA hams………
I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the “shut-ins” in our club. These are people who can no longer navigate to go to the meeting’s under their own power but support the club and use the radio every day. Life and circumstances are not always kind to people but thanks to those who notice our situations and jump in to help, we are truly blessed. Ham radio cultivates this desire to help others and attracts such people in our midst. Such is the case of our favorite little ham, WB3ANE, Hope Smith.
Hope lost her significant other of 50 years, Donald Search W3AZD in March of 2020 and I happened to witness the tragedy of a cared for woman left alone to navigate all of her business by herself. I made sure Hope got to the hospital and Rehab, as did fellow ham Ricki Witte KJ4FSJ, or where ever Donald was while he suffered a bleed on his brain which ultimately took his life. He had a series of falls in 2019, the last one being at a restaurant in December of 2019. Up to then, their lives together was rich in friends, club meetings, club events and traveling. Don was Hope’s everything and her care giver. To lose him was devastating both for emotional reasons as well as practical ones. They had successfully navigated life as a team. Hope would make the phone arrangements and Don would drive and take care of the little things for both of them.
Everyone was familiar with the couple because they went everywhere together, including to Field Days when Don would stay up all night long making contacts while Hope patiently and lovingly watched him. We hams loved seeing them and tried to make their days comfortable when they joined us. In fact, it was hams who came to her rescue when Don was stricken down and unable to care for his personal business. Hams like Silent Key Roy Neiman KJ4EGN and his wife, took Hope in while Don was hospitalized and ultimately got her established at an upscale ALF in Tamarac where Hope would reside for 2 years after that. Roy had asked me to help care for Hope as he and his wife were about to travel so I took over from there, finding her an elder attorney and settling her personal matters. All was shaky at first because Hope was understandably depressed at her loss of her life partner and she resumed her activities in Ham radio by joining the 6 pm Traffic Net every day. She did so with the help of another ham, David Warner, KB4ICU who custom built an indoor free standing antenna which could be moved to wherever reception was best for her. Hope was in seventh heaven and I admire the antenna that David provided her and am thankful that he cared enough to do it.
Other hams in other clubs, collected funds and bought Don’s equipment so that Hope could reside in the new ALF until the financial assets were awarded. Don had put together a financial retirement package for he and Hope and his sister, Renna Reed, and the elder attorney helped Hope access those funds. For two years she lived in a fine ALF with comforts before that were unknown to Hope. She and Don had lived in a manufactured home of some age and recently partially destroyed by Hurricane Wilma. Being older and somewhat helpless in those matters, the home was never repaired and Hope and Don resided there in privacy, others never knowing the disarray of their situation. When Don passed away, a group of hams, Kenny Hollenbeck KE4NC, Jeff Stahl K4BH, Jerry Deitch W4LST, Carol Sjursen KJ4AWB and Roy Neiman KJ4EGN went to the home and recovered their “treasures”, coins, cash and equipment. All was collected and cataloged for Hope’s financial security as each item was sold. Mike Spivak WB4RFC was instrumental in marketing some radios and equipment and passed the funds onto Hope, as was Kenny Hollenback KE4NC.
The ham community came together to lift Hope out of a sad and desperate situation and she was and is still full of gratitude.
Hope is now living in a Pompano Beach ALF called the “W” on SW 4th AVE. in a shared room with a woman that has since become her best friend, Betty. Betty shares Hope’s joy at joining the 6 PM Net at night and at other times, she gets on the radio to talk to both of their friends, Mike Wolf K2HXC and (Abe) Abraham Betesh W4FTL (faster than light). Hope always has some radio action going on in her room as she solicits others to join ham radio. She has talked up ham radio to EVERY EMPLOYEE, visitor or casual attendant. She proudly wears her badge labelling her as PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER. It is quite cute to see Hope talk to her physicians about Ham radio and give them her press clippings from a recent article in the June Pelican paper about Field Day. Hope is proud and delighted that the reporter chose her to interview there.
What can you do about people in HOPE’S situation? First, tell Melanie of the person who needs support and she and Hope will reach out to them to see if they are in need of technical help or just company. Hope loves to operate and talk on the radio as well as the phone and will keep in touch with people. We want our club to be a family oriented club with people to reach out to. Life is sometimes cruel and lonely but no one should ever have to be alone who is in our club.
Today, we covered Hope, next month someone else will be profiled and their phone number published so if you want to make contact with them you can. To reach Hope, or to make arrangements for a visit, please call her at 954-647-5713. She loves to talk and has a past rich in ham radio history, including her days at the ARRL. I, myself, have learned a lot more since meeting Hope.
Remember, a life filled with good people is a quality life. Amen.
Submitted by Melanie Fernandez KJ4VCT
CQ,CQ,CQ Calling all GCARA Hams:
Our next meeting will NOT BE AT IMPERIAL POINT HOSPITAL!
The administration there refuses to allow us to use their AV equipment as they had in the past so we cannot use Power Point presentations or ZOOM
at the hospital as we had planned. We had done that in the past without a problem and always left the room clean. While we do not understand their
policy, we will continue looking elsewhere for a place to meet in person.
Our next meeting will be on Zoom at a new address BELOW. Please change your Zoom address to attend.
Our present Zoom address was owned by Erik Olmer W3EJO and he will be leaving the area and closing it down. We are sorry for the
inconvenience and hope to facilitate the meetings in a similar fashion each month. Thank you for your support of GCARA!
Melanie Fernandez KJ4VCT
President
Topic: Melanie Fernandez’s Personal Meeting Room
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CQ, CQ, CQ, Calling GCARA Hams………..
August has been a hot month for us and thankfully, our Field Day exercises were held in June, which believe it or not, was about 5-6 degrees cooler!
Your Executive Board have made some changes so they could best operate in the club’s interest. As most of you have probably heard, our fearless President, Erik Olmer W4EJO, “AKA Cookie Monster” had an opportunity to move up in his organization at work and he will be relocating to England. In the past several months, he has successfully juggled his volunteer life with his work life and when it became evident that he would have to make changes to better serve his work life, he resigned as our President. As sad as that is for us, we wish him continued success in his new position and know that he make as many friends in London as he made here with his understanding, volunteer heart and even tempered approach to problem solving. Although his tenure with us as President was short, he managed to impart many good lessons to me personally and added quality to both my volunteer life and my personal life. I learned things that I can only learn when someone teaches by example. He has been a wonderful, thoughtful and dedicated leader for the club and although he will be physically away from us, he will remain in the hearts of many here in the club.
The Board met this past weekend on August 20, 2023, and we came to an agreement about several items. First, we are changing our mailing address
as we felt the fees for a Post Office Box were too exorbitant for the club to support. It requires $250 to $350 a year to keep a box with the Post Office
or similar Postal store. { That waylays about 8-12 single membership dues and creates unnecessary work for some individuals.} It requires several people have keys to access the box and that it is checked several times a week. In order to streamline the process, our Treasurer suggested we use a mailbox that is available in his building and pay nothing for the service which he can then monitor and collect mail more conveniently. The Board is
in agreement that this was a win-win situation for everyone concerned.
The new mailing address will be:
2200 South Ocean Lane
#1607
Ft. Lauderdale, Fl 33316
We keep the mailbox as a physical place to receive notices from the IRS, SUNBIZ, and other entities important for running this club. We need the physical address for legal reasons and therefore, we must provide one. Thank you, Dirk for offering us respite from postal costs during the next year.
Speaking of Dirk Basting N4AN, did everyone see the fascinating article on him in the Member Spotlight of this month’s QST? The author did a wonderful job describing Dirk’s accomplishments in life and in radio. Good job, Dirk, and thank you for being our Treasurer and one of our best assets in the club. Your generosity to us is appreciated beyond measure.
Our Board also discussed the HF station which was initially embraced by many as a boon to those who could not transmit on rigs from condos and
apartments due to antenna restrictions. We saw it as an advantage to having in the past several years and supported repairs and attention to it faithfully. Ricky Eaton KD4HGR, Joe McGee NX4T, and Al Flapan AF4FA, carefully monitored, troubleshot problems, hosted and carried it into this year with great attention to detail. As it became more evident that club members were not availing themselves to its use, we decided it was too costly in time and efforts to continue to support it. Therefore, the parts will be sold and the money will be used for newer club incentives as the future evolves.
Many of you may not appreciate or realize this but it takes a dedicated team of technical people to support the repeater and all of the other items we offer as a club. It takes people, like Ricky Eaton KD4HGR, Joe McGee NX4T, Al Flapan AF4FA, Eric Rodriguez KF4LZA and others to go up to the repeater and address problems as they arise. What people do not think about is, Ricky and Eric, who share the majority of the problems are still working full time for a living. They are most generous with their time and talent and GCARA Board is very grateful to them for wanting to participate. Our club would not be if everyone just sat back and did not make a contribution to it. We are deeply indebted to our volunteers and lucky!
Thank you, gentleman, for all that you do that is unseen, to keep us on the air.
The Board is also supporting an effort to establish Winlink, Echolink and AllStar, in hopes of increasing use of the repeaters that sit idle and to increase our footprint on the tri-county area. We hope to be able to link our resources to better establish an emergency network to be used in times of
hurricanes or disaster. There is a need for redundancy to support other systems available, in cases of emergency. GCARA is proud to offer our goods and services to that cause.
We also collected a poll from those who answered the questions we posed. There were 44 respondents to the following questions and this is an
overview of the results. As to what format people preferred for the general meetings, approximately 85% of you would like to return to in person
meetings with or without Zoom capability. Only15% voted for Zoom presentations only. Of those 85%, approximately 26% want to return to Imperial Point Hospital and !2 % desire a new location to be determined as suits proximity to the member’s home addresses.
As to what program content people would enjoy seeing, approximately 88% desire a combination of both future technology and old technology with a small percentage being interested in practical skill building and how to projects and about 10% interested in new technology or highly technical
subjects.
When asked how often to have our Dinners, 51% voted for monthly dinners, while 41% voted for quarterly dinners and 8% for annual dinners.
Regarding Field Day exercises, 46% enjoy participating in it, while 32% will do it if their schedule allows, 15% do NOT enjoy it and the remainder (7%) are homebound and cannot participate.
Everyone who answered owns and uses a computer, theoretically overcoming the need for snail mail. Interestingly, we discovered 51% of our respondents were EXTRAs, 34% were holding a GENERAL license and 12 % were TECHNICIANs while 2% do not yet have a license. This helps to know as it will shape the type of programs presented in most cases. GCARA aims to please its members.
Our poll indicated that many of the hams live central to Coral Springs and adjacent locations while there are equal numbers both South and North of Coral Springs. This presents a shift in our past ham locations and must be considered in our planning.
Much to my delight this club remains interested in ALL aspects of ham radio, with a 92% interest in HF, 55% interest in VHF, UHF, Digital modes and DMR. This was a multiple choice question so the percentages were based on answers, not a total of 100%.
Now, I feel I must speak to a very serious matter of behavior at club meetings. I know that most people are trying to be helpful to others in distress, HOWEVER, it is highly inappropriate for anyone to interject themselves into a medical or behavior issue unless they are in LEADERSHIP or MEDICALLY EDUCATED AND TRAINED! To do so, (1) violates privacy laws, (2) impedes rendering certified competent care, (3) is extremely distracting to service providers and may result in negative consequences for the situation at hand. Please, please, no matter your intention (curiosity or wanting to help), DO NOT INTERFERE with a situation that is being handled. It is NOT helpful and often escalates the situation into a “frenzy” situation. THIS IS NOT HELPFUL nor appropriate. Remain calm and quiet and just observe situations occur again at one of our gatherings. STAY OUT OF THE WAY!! Your cooperation is not only being asked for, it is expected, so that the situation is calmly diffused or handled. On that note, I read there are TWO FULL MOONS this month, the last being a BLUE MOON. Sheeesh, I don’t know if I can handle it!
That about does it for the Board news, except we will be purchasing new banners for our outings, taking orders for badges and finishing the designs
for our new CLUB information cards. Please CLICK HERE order on the website if you want a badge or new badge. We have reduced the donation to
$10.00 per badge and that is a good deal for everyone. The website should have a new form for this order with a method to donate money for it.
I want to thank all of our supporters, young and old alike, for being good dutiful members. Without you, there is no GCARA, the friendliest club around!!
May God bless everyone who reads this. You have my gratitude and appreciation.
Submitted by
Melanie Fernandez KJ4VC
President of GCARA
gold-coast-general-meeting-minutes20230822If you have an account with the ARRL you should be able to click on this link and read the article about Dirk!
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Speaker: TBD
Subject: TBD
CQ…..CQ…..CQ….Calling all GCARA hams.
This communique is to bring everyone up to date on recent changes on the Board. Effective July 25, 2023, our President Erik Olmer W4EJO, resigned from that job to pursue a great job opportunity in his personal life with his company. Since it includes a move to England, Erik has had to make many adjustments in his personal life to prepare for this new adventure. Although we are sad to see Erik move to England away from us, we are excited for his future growth in his company. He is a tremendous asset to anyone’s organization. Erik will be around a little longer to say his goodbyes to us and share his news. Congratulations, Erik.
Although Erik’s tenure with us was shorter than I had hoped, he managed to build a strong Board and teach us some new things. With his strong leadership, he accomplished pulling off our two biggest events of the year, our Field Days, and both were successful in many ways.
Going forward, Erik felt the best thing for the club was to re-install me as Interim President to lead us into the next year. With a minor move to Vice President in July with the thanks and blessings of Ricki Witte KJ4FSH who occupied that position, I was made privy to conversations going forward. I am acting President until we get our movements on the Board in writing. Ricki Witte KJ4FSH will be Director at large in my place as I resume her duties. I asked Joe McGee NX4T to act as Interim Vice President in Ricki’s stead until the end of the term and we will confirm that at our 8-22-23 ZOOM meeting with a vote of acclimation hopefully. I have asked Barry Porter KB1PA to be our nominating committee once again and he has graciously accepted.
I want to thank all the members who have supported us in 2023 for that continued support and ask that if there are any concerns, problems or questions, that they be directed to the Board post-haste. We all stand firm in our dedication to the club and feel we will have a positive ending of the year long activities.
We have designed a poll to take the pulse of the membership and it will be coming shortly. Please do fill out and return to us asap. It will help shape the future workings of the Board.
Meanwhile, we are busy mapping out the future of our ability to communicate with three counties in times of emergency. Our repeater Trustee, Ricky Eaton KD4HGR, is working with his cohort, Erik Rodriquez KF4LZA, and the rest of the Technical Team, to determine how to best accomplish this project. We have been wanting to create a larger footprint for the past 5 years but for one reason or another, have not determined best how to do this, cheaply and efficiently. I am positive it will be accomplished this year providing we suffer no further setbacks.
GCARA has long been an amiable group, with people who love to care for one another and to share knowledge. Let us continue in that vein, bringing new ideas to our adventure in radio and keeping some of the older traditions that have served us well. All comments are welcome and remember, we are all hams first and foremost, with volunteer hearts and sharp minds. Let us use our skill sets to build a better future for our hobby together.
Thank you for being a member!
Submitted by Melanie Fernandez KJ4VCT
PLEASE RSVP using the form below so we can let the restaurant know roughly how many people are coming.
You do not have to be a member or a HAM operator to join our monthly club dinner!
Location:
Wings Plus
9880 W Sample Rd
Coral Springs, FL 33065
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Speaker:
Subject: Hardware Vision
