Author: Richard - KE0QYA

August Meeting Re-Cap.
At our monthly meeting today held at the Sedalia-Pettis County EMA Headquarters several exciting things took place. We started out by having our 34 members in attendance take a look at our totally upgraded ECOM trailer. Mark (K0NYE) gave us a report on what he did. Our trailer is ready for deployment anytime/anywhere if ever heeded. With various radio equipment available to use including Moswin we or any first responders can utilize this important asset. This is something that all members can be proud of. Other than our committee reports, several items were discussed. In the next few months we will have training on DMR and CW for our members. The ladies are very excited about getting ready for our entry in this years Christmas parade. They are also planning on entering some other parades in the surrounding areas. We will have a SPARK POTA at Bothwell State Park Saturday August 13th beginning at 9am which all members are encouraged to attend. We will have a special announcement regarding our Sunday Night 2m net in the next couple of weeks. We will have a separate post for that later. Lifetime membership was awarded to a couple of men who have indeed done so much to promote ham radio and our club. They both exemplify what Ham Radio is all about. Not only their time, knowledge, and yes sometimes $$ to promote SPARK and the hobby that we all love. Congratulations to Paul (KD0ETL) and Mark (K0NYE) who now are Lifetime Members. The biggie of course is SPARKFEST. With 2 months till its here, we are already bigger and better than before. With 2 groups wanting to hold their meetings there, SPARKFEST is indeed on the map now as a premier Hamfest. We have become Central Missouri’s biggest Hamfest of the year. Lots of exciting things are happening with SPARK. Our next couple of meetings will be important due to our activities and Sparkfest. If you haven’t been to be able to attend because of summer activities, we would encourage you to attend and see all the exciting things happening with SPARK. 73’s until our next club post

SPARK’s August Parks on the Air will be Saturday August 13th at Bothwell State Park. We will set up at 9am and be using our clubs call sign WA0SDO for the event. It shouldn’t last more than a couple of hours. Club members are encouraged to come out and have some fun making a POTA contact. Bring your lawn chairs and favorite drink for the time you are there.

A awarded lifetime membership of any organization is something that isn’t done often. It’s awarded to those who have given so much of themselves to promote ham radio and the Sedalia-Pettis Amateur Radio Klub. Today at our August 6th meeting our membership voted for 2 individuals who have indeed done just that. These men have given of themselves their time, energy, and yes their own money at times to our hobby and our club. We as SPARK are happy to have such a amazing group of members who exemplify what our hobby is all about.

Congratulations to:
Paul (KD0ETL) and Mark (K0NYE)

We at SPARK are blessed to bestow this well deserved honor to the both of you.

7th Richard (KE0QYA)
14th Joel (KE0WJX)
21st Renda (KB0UVW)
28th Don (KF0ARQ)
September 4th Connie (WA0QCJ)

We will have a major announcement regarding our Sunday Night Net in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

Today we held a POTA event at Bothwell State Park. In the short time we operated our station “wa0sdo” we made 29 total contacts. Conditions were perfect as we made contacts from both coasts, Canada, and Mexico. Special thanks to Scott (kj4mfw) who organized our 1st ever club POTA event. We plan on doing a few more before the weather gets too cold to do so.

The next meeting of SPARK will be August 6th at the EMA Headquarters located at 1511 N. Ohio in Sedalia beginning at 8:30 am. We will have several items to discuss including Sparkfest 2022. Sparkfest is is going to be here in just a couple of months. It’s indeed going to be bigger and better than before. Who knows, we might even discuss Sparkfest 2023🤔🤔🤔. Also on the adjenda will be updates on the Ecom trailer, reschedule our POTA, and the perhaps a report from the Christmas Parade committee.

After the meeting we will conduct a testing session for local hams in our area. If anyone would like to test please pre-register by email to Bret (W0VK) at hota2@hotmail.com. We are excited about the opportunity for those who are testing for a new license or a upgrade.

This will be a exciting day for ham radio. We look forward to seeing everyone there.

Our POTA event scheduled for this Saturday is postponed due to the excessive heat. We will reschedule it for a later date.

The tablecloth made it’s debut at the WAARCI Hamfest this weekend. We received many compliments about it. Was also a successful outing for the club. We signed up 4 more additional vendors for SPARKFEST.

WOW. With 41 in attendance for the meeting we set a record. What a great group of members we have. We discussed several things at the meeting. We had several good ideas brought up by our members regarding upcoming training opportunities for future meetings. The ECOM Trailer is going to be gone through to make sure that all the wiring is grounded and in good shape. For the 1st time in club history all of our 2m Sunday Night Nets will be run by our clubs YL’s, thank you ladies. We had a report on this years Field Day, many thanks go out to the committee and members who participated. We will be operatering a POTA event at Bothwell State Park on July 23rd beginning at 10am, all members are encouraged to attend. We will put our ECOM TRAILER in this years Christmas parade and a committee will be working on ideas to decorate the trailer for it. SPARKFEST is growing leaps and bounds. We have already sold the same amount of tables as we did last year. We have acquired 30 more tables that we can sell to vendors thanks to Brad (kf0gsx) and Duke Manufacturing. We will be looking at moving SPARKFEST to the fairgrounds next year. We will have a information table at Warrensburg’s Hamfest on June 16th promoting SPARKFEST.

Lots of exciting things are happening in SPARK. We are blessed to have such a strong group of members who exemplify what Ham Radio is all about. Our next scheduled meeting will be held at Sedalia-Pettis County EMA Headquarters located at 1511 N. Ohio on August 6th beginning at 8:30am. Look forward to seeing everyone there. 73’s