Presented by Richard J Martino Jr. KB2SNE
Richard is retired U.S. Air Force who worked on fixed satellite communications systems as both an operator and maintainer. He belongs to his local CAP: Civil Air Patrol Chapter NY-251 assigned to Long Island Group HQ as a Communications Engineer. He has resumed his USAF retirement rank of E7/MSgt currently appointed as the Air Force MARS 2nd Wing Commander for New York and New Jersey and has thirty plus DoD MARS radio operators under his command and guidance.
The evening started out and ended with Richard assisting some club members, who he had never met before, in setting up and working out some bugs in their current Winlink station setups. Richard gave the SCRC an excellent presentation on Winlink including Vara HF and Vara FM. Approximately 28 members were in attendance and all were very interested in the topic. Many members were very involved in the discussions during and after the presentation and asked lots of great questions. In the end the presentation turned into a great back and forth discussion about how the systems worked as well as the advantages and use case scenarios for Winlink in not only an ARES type situation but also in the Amateur Radio world as a whole. In the following days a few members have already started setting up their Winlink stations. Richard was not only professional but open to discussion as well as willing to help anyone who asked. Thank you to Richard for taking the time to spend time with the members of the SCRC. We hope Richard will come back to another SCRC meeting in the future for more great topic presentations.