Author: AE9MZ

The Ozaukee Radio Club presents its 44th Annual Spring Indoor Amateur Radio, Electronics & Computer SWAPFEST featuring TOWER ELECTRONICS, Saturday, April 27, 2024 from 8 AM to 12 PM at the Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s Center (Milwaukee Curling Club),
W67 N890 Washington Ave., in Cedarburg, WI. Vendor setup begins at 6 AM, doors open to the public at 8 AM. Talk-in on 146.97 MHz – PL 127.3 Hz. Door Prizes! Free WIFI. Food sold by Cub Scout Pack 516/586

Admission is $7.00 at the gate, with children 12 and under FREE, with a paid adult admission. Want to clear out your shack to make room for your new finds? 6 foot tables will cost $12.00 in advance, $15.00 at the door, if available.

Help support your local ham clubs AND have fun at the same time! For more information or to download an order form, visit https://www.ozaukeeradioclub.org/ or https://www.facebook.com/orcwi

Quick Links for this story:

• Buy tickets or reserve table space to sell your stuff here
• Questions? Email us here

So, what is a SwapFest?

You might be new to Amateur Radio, so let me introduce you to the idea of a SwapFest. Most are short, half-day events, but some national events (such as the Dayton HamVention) can last for several days. Our Fest is one of the half-day-long variety, but we pack a lot into that day!

The biggest component of the event is the “swap” part. Early in the morning, about 100 tables are filled with the widest range of products. Some tables are manned by local dealers who can introduce you to the latest in digital communication tools. Others sell antennas that allow you to connect to everything from the friendly ham up the block, to satellites in orbit in space. There are vendors offers study guides which can help you take the next step in your radio journey. Others have high-quality used equipment to help you stretch your dollar. Others offer parts for the hobbyist, and controls to help run your smart home.

Then we have tables with the weirdest range of stuff you might find interested. Some have called it “Rummage-O-Rama with a power cord” and you’ll find stuff you just don’t get to see anywhere else. This is what you’ll often read about when a reporter stumbles through an event like this for their first time: “I bought a World War II tube radio!”

Headlines like this miss the more important parts. We’re sponsoring “Club Corner” again this year, a place to meet up with local ham clubs to learn more and have fun. Ham radio attracts people from all walks of life, because it provides tools to carry on when everything falls apart. We’ve all felt those helpless moments when power takes out the power and the cell phone. Ham radio gives you the power to communicate to get help, even at moments like that.

TCARC operates a local ham radio repeater, a radio network that allows you to use a very small, hand-held radio to communicate to other hams over a very wide area. In our case, we cover the bulk of three Wisconsin counties: Jefferson, Rock and Walworth. When you hear severe weather has been reported in our area, very often this information has been reported by volunteers communicating over a “weather net” on a repeater like ours.

SwapFests also fill one very important role: they help pay for the equipment we as a club use to make that possible. Under FCC rules, hams can’t get paid to do what we do. Fund-raising events like this provide a year-round benefit for our community. Linked with the hundreds of hours of time our members volunteer for community event, severe weather events, and other local emergencies, your attendance ticket empowers us to make these vitals services to our community possible.

How do I get tickets?

If you’d like to join into the fun, you can show up after 8 AM at the Jefferson County Fair Park, located at 503 N Jackson in Jefferson WI (maps and directions here) where tickets will be $10 per person. Kids 10 and under are free. If you’d like to save time waiting in line AND save 20%, you can order your tickets using our online ordering system or by clicking the ticket symbol at https://www.w9mqb.org/SwapFest/. The Fest is open until noon, but the best deals come early.

See you on March 17th!

Questions? Drop a comment below or send us an email at HamFest@W9MQB.org.

The Madison Area Repeater Association 2024 Hamfest will be on April
13th and features vendors of new and used equipment for Amateur Radio, Electronics, Computers, computer parts and software. Come their huge Flea Market in the Mandt Community Center’s spacious 26,000 sq ft main hall. VE testing starts at 10:00 AM. Vendor space is sold on a “first come, first served” basis.

Location: Mandt Community Center (same location since 2000)
GPS: North 42.91157, West 89.21647
Address: 499 Mandt Parkway, Stoughton, WI
Directions: Take US Hwy 51 S from Madison to downtown Stoughton, WI. Turn South on 4th Street and the Mandt Center is 3 blocks ahead on the left.
Talk in: MARA’s Wide Area Repeater 147.150 (+600) pl 123.0
Parking: free
Tickets: purchased on the website $8 per person; $10 at the door, cash only
8′ Vendor tables: Purchased by March 25th, $20; after 3/25: $25
Chairs: $5
AC Service: $30
Admission tickets are NOT included in the price of tables

Hamfest tickets, and vendor table space can be purchased at the MARA website: www.w9hsy.org.

Their fest flyer can be found at: https://w9hsy.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/MARA-Hamfest-Flyer-2024-1.pdf.

As a Club, we know that this is a difficult time for many ham clubs. The costs of running a swapfest or repeater increase every year but the funds we have to work with don’t. It’s hard to keep current members, as many move to new digs (in warmer locations!) and even harder to connect with new members. As a club, TCARC shares in your pain and decided we wanted to do something about it this year, through our Swap Fest.

As a result, at our January meeting, the Club voted to provide a free table to area Ham clubs that want to attract new members to their club. The rules are simple:

1. You must represent an area amateur radio club, with active members, looking to add new members.
2. We will provide a free table in “Club Corner”, located close to the donuts and coffee to encourage traffic to your tables. We want new hams to be able to find lots of local options to connect, all in one place. If you wish a table elsewhere in the Fest, you may purchase one separately online.
3. You may bring any number of people to staff your tables but you pay admission for each. Make it a club-supporting club social event!
4. Feel free to enjoy the Fest, but plan to continuously staff your tables from 8 AM to noon. No tables with a stack of literature out and no one to represent your group, please. Our goal is to help clubs connect with new members; empty tables don’t do that.
5. Set up will be between 7 and 8 AM, to allow other vendors with large amounts of stuff to get through the doors first.
6. You may sell things at your table and buy from other tables like any other vendor. Please abide by the usual rules of no-pre-8-AM-sales to give the attendees (who pay to make this event possible) the same chance to make great finds as you. See #4 above.
7. Your club info will be available online, as we post a “what’s at my table” entry which can be searched online. You can post any information that might help draw people to your group’s table (subject to approval).
8. At present, we’ve purchased 12 tables for clubs and tables are first-come, first-served. Respond soon.

Here are answers for what we expect will be Frequently Asked Questions:

• How do we reserve a table? Simply send an email to TCARC (at) W9MQB.org with the Club name, mailing address, email, any website or social media (i.e. Facebook, etc), contact person with telephone numbers (only used if we have any unexpected problems. Remember March 2020?), and a club contact email address (which may not be where this message was sent). We’ll follow up with you using that contact information to process your request. Your table reservation information will be emailed back to you at that email address once processed.
• How do we get admission tickets? Order online at https://www.W9MQB.org/SwapFest/ or download the Fest Flyer from that page and mail it in with a check. Pre-sales tickets are offered at a 20% discount of day-of-Fest tickets.
• How many people can we bring for our table? At least one and as many as you’d like. Simply purchase tickets for the number coming.
• How many people attend the Fest? The Fest typically draws around 400 people and we expect the same this year. Most are current hams but some will have just passed their tests to become hams, so be prepared for a mix of both, in addition to interested hobbyists and the general public.
• Is a Fest Flyer available? Yes, download a flyer on the SwapFest home page at https://www.W9MQB.org/SwapFest/. If you want printed copies sent to your club, drop us an email.
• What happens if you run out of tables? This is the first year we’ve tried this. We thought about it last year but couldn’t get organized in time. This year, we’re organized earlier, so we’re starting with 12 tables for clubs. Honestly, we haven’t decided what to do if those run out so tables are first-come, first-served. If this is a popular idea this year, we may improve on this next year. We’d like to include as many area clubs as possible but the cost of these tables come out of the income that we use to fund our events year-round, so we’re starting small.

Questions? Drop an email to HamFest@W9MQB.org and we’ll do our best to help. Hope to see you on Sunday, March 17th!

Our rescheduled January 2024 meeting of the Tri-County Amateur Radio Club will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at 6:30 pm in the upstairs meeting room at the Dwight Foster Public Library, located at 209 Merchants Avenue in Fort Atkinson (map and directions). Given the snow last week, we took whatever we could get; that includes -14 degree weather and the smaller room.

For those of you who can’t make the meeting in person, we’ll also be on Zoom (Meeting ID: 468 502 4089, Passcode: 36061741) with a link to the meeting here: Link to Join Zoom Meeting.

Among the topics on the agenda (download a copy here) will be 2024 planning for events and committees, and approval of some long overdue changes to the Club Constitution and By-Laws presented at our last meeting. A ballot with a copy of the approved changes is available here and paper copies will be available at the meeting, if needed. If you can’t make the meeting but want your vote to count, simply return the ballot via mail or email, and your vote will be read into the official record. We need 2/3 of the TOTAL active membership — not just those present at the meeting — to approve the changes, so your vote matters. Please show up, or vote in advance! If you need information on how to vote if you can’t be there in person, check out this posting.

We’re also going to get organized for 2024. If there are events that you’d like to take part in planning (such as SwapFest, Field Day, Elections), drop a comment below or drop us an email and we’ll include you in the team.

Minutes for the November 2023 meeting are available here, Please reply with any errors or omissions or bring them along to the meeting.

See you tomorrow night!

Isn’t Wisconsin good at helping us stay flexible and open to change? By dumping snow on us when we least expect it? Yeah, sorry, that’s all the optimism you’ll get from me until the driveway is cleared!

Yes, it’s rare to hear to hear me tell you NOT to come to a TCARC meeting but, thanks to the incoming snow, the Foster Library announced that it was closing an hour ago, so we will NOT have a club meeting tonight. Yes, that’s correct: NO CLUB MEETING TONIGHT.

We’ve arranged for the upstairs meeting room next Tuesday, January 16th, at 6:30 pm, so same plan, just a week later.

Since some of you may have conflicts that prevent you attending the delayed meeting date, so here’s your chance to have your voice heard. First, we will discuss the Club’s activities for the year, including SwapFest, Field Day, Elections, Audit and more. If you’d like to serve in one of those roles, send an email message to the Club email (“TCARC (at) W9MQB.com”) with the events/activities/duties you’d like to be part of, and we’ll make sure you are included.

As important, if you wish to weigh in on the changes to the Club Constitution and By-Laws, you can download a copy of the suggested changes here. If you won’t be able to make the rescheduled meeting, and wish to vote to accept or reject the changes we discussed at our last meeting, simply create a new mail message to the Club email, copy the ballot below into the body, fill in the information, and send it. We need two-thirds of our total membership to approve the changes, so it’s important for us to hear your thoughts, either in-person, or in advance of next week’s meeting.

Here’s the ballot form:

---

BALLOT

I, (print name)_____________________________, certify that I am an active member of the Tri-County Amateur Radio Club, Inc. and hereby submit my vote on the proposed Constitutional changes:

SELECT ONE:

_____ I vote AYE to approve all of the proposed changes listed below.
OR
_____ I vote NAY to reject all of the proposed changes listed below.
OR
____ I wish to vote for each of the proposed changes individually, as shown for each item listed here: __ 1 | __ 2 | __ 3 | __ 4 | __ 5 | __ 6 | __ 7 | __ 8 | __ 9 | __ 10 | __ 11 | __ 12 | __ 13 | __ 14 | __ 15 | __ 16 | __ 17 | __ 18 | __ 19 |

---

If you choose the last option, just indicate if you are voting for or against each item. If we receive your vote by 6 PM on Tuesday, we’ll include it in the tally, under the terms of the old constitution.

Again, NO CLUB MEETING TONIGHT, but now a week from tonight, next Tuesday Jan 16th in the UPPER meeting room!

See you next Tuesday!

There have been a number of questions about the upcoming changes to the Club constitution, so I wanted to answer some of those questions.

What are we changing?

To read what we approved for consideration, the changes are listed here and a ballot form is included. For those of you who would like to see the original, what is being removed, and what is being added, we have a “revision marked” file showing the modifications to the Constitution and By-Laws.

Why does my vote matter?

Under the terms of our current Club constitution, any changes have to be approved by a two-thirds majority of the current membership. That’s a problem when less than half of our current members attend an average meeting. We appreciate your support of amateur radio through your membership; making your position clear on the changes is one additional way you can support the Club.

How long do I have?

Votes from active members must be received by meeting time on January 9, 2024, to be considered, so if you don’t think that you’ll be able to attend the January meeting, please submit your vote by another means before January 9th.

I can’t make the January meeting. How do I vote?

There are three ways to vote. First, print out the ballot form and mail it to:
Tri-County Amateur Radio Club
PO Box 321
Fort Atkinson, WI 53538-0321

Alternately, if you wish to vote to accept all of the changes we discussed at our last meeting, simple send this message to the club email at TCARC (at) W9MQB.org:

---

                                 BALLOT

I, (print name)_____________________________, certify that I am an active member of the Tri-County Amateur Radio Club, Inc. and hereby submit my vote on the proposed Constitutional changes:
SELECT ONE:
_____ I vote AYE to approve all of the proposed changes listed below. 
OR
_____ I vote NAY to reject all of the proposed changes listed below.
OR
____ I wish to vote for each of the proposed changes individually, as shown underneath each item listed below. (If you pick this option, please list the items you wish to vote for or against individually here)

Signed (Your name): ________________________ Date: ______ Call Sign: _____

---

If you choose the last option, just list which items you are voting for or against. If we receive your vote by 6 PM on Tuesday, we’ll include it in the tally, under the old terms of the constitution.

Questions? Send me an email, or add a comment below, and I’ll do my best to answer.

Mike Zore (AE9MZ), Club Secretary

The next meeting for the Tri-County Amateur Radio Club will take place on Tuesday, January 9, 2023 at 6:30 pm in the Community Room (downstairs) at the Dwight Foster Public Library, located at 209 Merchants Avenue in Fort Atkinson (map and directions).

For those of you who can’t make the meeting in person, we’ll also be on Zoom (Meeting ID: 468 502 4089, Passcode: 36061741) with a link to the meeting here: Link to Join Zoom Meeting.

Among the topics on the agenda (download a copy here) will be 2024 planning for events and committees, and approval of some long overdue changes to the Club Constitution and By-Laws, that were presented at our last meeting. A ballot with a copy of the approved changes is available here and paper copies will be available at the meeting, if needed. If you can’t make the meeting but want your vote to count, simply return the ballot via mail or email, and you vote will be read into the official record. We need 2/3 of the TOTAL active membership — not just those present at the meeting — to approve the changes, so your vote matters. Please show up, or vote in advance!

Minutes for the November 2023 meeting are available here, Please reply with any errors or omissions or bring them along to the meeting.

See you next Tuesday!

Forget the agendas and Zoom credentials: next week is the TCARC Christmas Party, and we’re all about cookies, chips, pizza, and snacks! We’ll be meeting in the Community Room (downstairs) starting at 6:30 at the Dwight Foster Public Library, located at 209 Merchants Avenue in Fort Atkinson (map and directions). Join us to celebrate a year of acceptable propagation, good friends, and a great impact for good on Jefferson, Walworth and Rock counties!

For those of you who can’t make the party in person, we’ll post a picture of the tasty looking food online, so you’ll become jealous and will drive over to join into the fun. (Just kidding. If I did that, you’d see me chomping down on these mint chocolate chip cookies. Really, they all just evaporated. Really!)

If you’re coming, feel free to bring a a snack to share. The Club will be providing pizza, and beverages. Anything else that would be fun to munch on while having great conversations about our favorite hobby would be welcome.

Since I’m passing along bits of “digestive” news, let me also include some of the “supportive” kind as well. Please remember that member dues are due at the end of the year. Support the Club by updating your contact information and renewing online at https://www.W9MQB.org/Membership/ or download the paper form and mail it — with your check — to PO Box 321, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538-0321. Email to the Club at TCARC@W9MQB.org if you have any questions. 2024 dues for the first Ham in a household are $10 with other family members getting the discounted rate of $5 each.

See you next Tuesday!

Reminder: Our next official meeting is at 6:30 pm on January 9, 2024.

At our last Club meeting, we tackled some long-overdue updates to the TCARC Constitution and By-Laws, which were last changed in April of 1985. The dawn of 1985 opened in the era before email, websites, packet, APRS, AREDN, National Incident Management System (NIMS), ICS-213, heck, even before the Internet existed. In January, a first class stamp only set you back $0.20 (although it would rise later in the year). Back in this era, we had mandatory attendance to meetings AND events (or you could be dropped from membership), 5 member repeater committees (with four sub-committees!), and a requirement to physically mail minutes to every member (how else could they possibly get a copy? FAX?!?!?).

To bring us into the 21st Century (before it runs out), we voted for some changes at last night’s meeting. Under the terms of the current Constitution, at our next meeting we will vote to approve or reject these changes. Any active member of the Club is invited to vote, and we will need a 2/3 majority to approve. To read what we approved for consideration, the changes are listed here and a ballot form is included. For those of you who would like to see the original, what is being removed, and what is being added, we have a “revision marked” file showing the modifications to the Constitution and By-Laws. Votes from active members must be received by meeting time on January 9, 2024, to be considered, so if you don’t think that you’ll be able to attend the January meeting, please submit your vote by another means before January 9th.

If you have questions, please feel to drop a note to the Club email.

Mike Zore (AE9MZ)