History
According to my notes, the first official meeting of the Murray Amateur Radio Club (MARC) was around 15 August 2018. On 27 August, I approached Dan about setting up a web site for the club. He was excited about the idea and gave me the go ahead.
I poked around with a few different frameworks before settling on WordPress. I figured it was the most mature solution for the type of site I had in mind (mostly a place for information to be presented, plans to be discussed, and radios to be shown off). I set up a test site on one of my Linodes and started fiddling. Soon I had identified a core theme and a set of plugins to help make the site more effective. I registered the domain name in January 2019 and the site went live.
Tour of the Site
The site is quite simple to navigate. At the top of each page, you'll see the masthead, which includes the club logo and main menu.
There are several elements of the masthead that are important. You will see the MARC logo on the left, the site menu in the middle, and a search button (looks like a magnifying glass) on the far right.
In the menu, you'll note that some entries have a downward pointing triangle... this indicates that these have a sub-menu (if you mouse over them, you'll see an additional menu drop down). The main item is still a menu item that can be selected (you don't have to select something from the sub-menu). For example, if you mouse over the Meeting Schedule and Location menu entry, you'll see this:
You can not only select "Meeting Schedule and Location", but also "Events Calendar", "Club Membership", etc.
What's Happening (or Happened?)
See that menu "News" up there? That's your key to the latest information about the club, what we're going to do, what we're doing, and what we've recently done. You should probably check that link often. Other items you'll find of use in the menu are the "Meeting Schedule and Location", which will take you to a page that describes where we meet and when. There is also a list of future meeting topics on that page. If you're interested in "Club Membership", check that page. It describes the various types of memberships we have. Finally, "Club Mailing Lists and Other Communications Platforms" will give you information about other ways we stay in touch, including the Utah Amateur Radio Slack system and the various e-mail mailing lists that we use. Information about joining those lists and using the other communications methods are also there.
That "Events" link? It takes you to our calendar of events. Unfortunately, this calendar is not maintained very well. We're looking into alternate calendar packages that support better automation. For now, don't trust it when you look here and don't see anything.
Resources
On the main menu, the next item is the "Radio and Other Resources" menu. Again, that top item is not just an introduction to the drop down menu, but you can click on it and it will take you to a page full of (hopefully) useful resources. On the drop down, you'll find a link to our "Club Repeaters" page, which talks about repeaters owned and/or used by the club, a page that describes the "Standard Load" (a list of frequencies and their names and purposes that has been standardized across Salt Lake County (at least) by the ARES organization, and a page dedicated to our neighboring amateur radio clubs.
Become an Amateur Radio Operator
The last item on the main menu is a link to a page about becoming an amateur radio operator. If you are curious about the hobby and interested in getting started, you'll find a lot of good information on this page. Check it out!
Founder's Message and Left Hand Side
When you first come to the site, you'll be on the main introductory page where you'll find a message from Dan (N7XDL) our club founder. It talks about the history of the club and why we even felt a club in Murray was necessary. This message fills the "content area" of this page, also known as the "left hand side" (or LHS) of the page. As you explore other pages, you'll note that the contents of the "content area" change to reflect the page you are on.
Right Hand Side
You'll also have noticed a column of information on the "Right Hand Side" (or RHS). This area contains a few important items, including the Admin menu, Recent Posts list, and a list of upcoming Events (if any).
Page Footer
At the bottom of every page, you'll see the "Page Footer". This section includes some basic information that is important to get out there, even if it's not super important to you. Let's talk about the various parts of the footer...