Local

• Daily: Roll call at 7:00 AM on 145.490 for coffee at Hy-Vee in Owatonna.
• Saturday: Breakfast (informal) at 7:00 AM at the Kernel in Owatonna.
• Sunday: Repeater Net at 9:00 PM on 145.490. Jeff N0GZK is Net Control.

• Daily: ARRL MN Section Phone Net on 3.860 MHz at 12:00 PM and 5:30 PM.
• Daily: ARRL MN Section CW Net on 3.605 MHZ at 6:30 PM and 9:50 PM.
• 10-Jan: St. Paul Radio Club Auction.
• 01-Feb: MN QSO Party (www.w0aa.org). 1400 UTC - 2400 UTC
• 08-Mar: Fargo/RRRA Hamfest.
• 08-Mar: St. Cloud Cabin Reliever Hamfest.
• 26-Mar: SKYWARN classes in Kasson.

• 04-Jan: Kid’s Day

Next Meeting
Saturday, 11-Jan, 9:00 AM at the Owatonna Hardee’s on South Oak Street.
Elections for club officers will be held at this meeting. If you do not want to be elected, be sure you attend this meeting (HI-HI).

14-Dec Meeting
A group of 13 (NV0C; KC0FBV; N0GZK; K0HNY; KA0KEL; KA0KEM; KC0KEW; WA0F; N0HMD; KC0LQJ; KA0PQW; KB0UCP; and Herb) attended the second meeting at the Happy Chef. Some of the topics discussed were:

• Web site needs a webmaster and assistant. Club minutes will not be posted on the web site.
• Repeater control functions will be supplied to future officers. Phone patch was discussed.
• Dues were established at $10 per calendar year. Payable at the January meeting.
• Future meetings will take place on the second Saturday of the month.
• Future newsletters will be handled as e-mail.
• License and testing will be one of club focus for Jan, Feb, and Mar.

Sunday Night Net
A Sunday night net on the 145.490 repeater is established with Jeff N0GZK as the net control operator. There were 8 check-ins for the first net on 15-Dec. We look forward to more check-ins for the net in the future.

Who We Are
When we first put together the list of Steele County hams, we pulled 64 call signs from the FCC data base. Of the 64 initial letters sent out, 4 were returned as undeliverable. So far, 16 hams (25%) responded as being interested in one way or another. A great start for the OSCAR. The breakdown of the 64 call signs by license class is:

• Novice: 4
• Technician: 24
• Tech Plus: 9
• General: 10
• Advanced: 5
• Extra: 12

ARRL E-Mail Forwarding
Last month we reported that forwarded e-mail from the arrl.net serer to juno.com addresses remained interrupted. For a little over a week, the forwarding service was blocked by juno.com and hotmail.com. The forwarding service is no longer blocked to juno.com (or hotmail.com).

From MN Section News
The statewide packet network for keyboard-keyboard and emergency comm's continues to grow. TwinsLAN recently donated $250 toward the project, and 6 more nodes are being built. Itasca County ARES reports their packet node is working and will be switching "on". Blue Earth Co ARES is investigating a packet node for Mankato area. Olmsted Co ARES is looking at a node on-air by spring. If your club or individual members have sites and/or packet equipment available, we still have holes to fill geographically. We seek your club or individual participation!

Also, Steele County does not have an ARES EC. If you have an interest, contact the MN Section Manager, Randy (Max) Wendel, via km0d@arrl.org.