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Sunday, January 29, 2006

January meeting of TRAMA 

We held the monthly meeting of the Three Rivers Area Monitoring Association yesterday and despite the fact that the weather was unseasonably warm and more suited to working outside putting up antennas we had a good group present. Due mostly to my poor health we canceled the last meeting of 2005 so this was out first get together of the new year.

I'm not going to try to give you a running account of the meeting but I will say that we have decided that in the next few months we will be planning a “field trip” to visit one of the areas 911 dispatch centers. We also are planning another “learning session” meeting where we will make a presentation on the inner workings of a trunked radio system. In addition we will offer some hands on training for those that wish to bring their scanners and learn first hand how to program a trunked system in their radio. There are a few other projects in the works that I will be telling you more about both in future postings here on the blog and during the Sunday evening net on the 147.09 repeater.

Another topic that came up was that we have had comments from some that they just can't make the Saturday morning meetings so we discussed several alternatives. In order to avoid confusion I won't repeat all of them here just the one that we decided on. We will continue to hold our monthly meeting at the O'Hara Township location. In addition we are planning a Wednesday evening get together every other month at Kings Family Restaurant in Waterworks Plaza. Thus resurrecting the meeting of “The Oblong Table” that was enjoyed by so many prior to our becoming a formal group. Watch the TRAMA group mailing list on Yahoo for a schedule to be posted in the near future. If you are not a member of that mailing list now would be a good time to sign up. Follow this LINK if that is what you would like to do.

Rich, K3RWN, always seems to be on the leading edge of scanners and gadgets in the group and today was no exception. He found a very nice voice activated digital voice recorder on sale at Radio Shack and demoed its use recording signals found with the search function of his BC-396T hand held scanner. I was so impressed that I am heading for the Shack tomorrow to pick one up for myself. I will write a full report on which model I get and how it works out with the PRO-97 after I have had a chance to play with it. Stay tuned.

In addition to all of this there was the usual good round of conversation about happenings on the local two way systems, exchange of frequencies and passing around the latest magazines and books that member of the group have accumulated since the last meeting. A very enjoyable few hours at least for me, followed by several of us heading down to Kings for lunch afterwards. I'm already looking forward to next months meeting. Hope to see you there.

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