NYU Amateur Radio Club News,  August 2010

Greetings to all alumni and club members.  This is just a brief update on the activities of the NYU ARC since the beginning of the year.  Our club-building efforts are still moving slowly, but since the last newsletter, we have added six new members. The club now has a total of 59 members.  Wow!

Welcome to -

·        Ignacio (Chito) Frondoso, DU1IF,  ’77 GBA

·        Alan Swiedler, WA2RUF,  ’73 WSC

·        Chris Rodriquez,  ’09 Stern

·        Alan Langsner, KC2YSH,  NYUMC faculty  

·        Joseph Levy,  NYUMC faculty

·        Matt Tierney, K1MRT,  CS grad student

Following the December newsletter we received several emails from members:  Dick McClure wrote: When I arrived at work today I was greeted by the latest edition of the NYU Radio Club News. I stole more time from my employer than I care to admit to read about what’s happening with amateur radio at NYU, read the obit for Yardley Beers (I think I took a class from him), look at the photos of the Heights campus (not in too bad a shape, but a lot of window air conditioners!) and generally catch up with your website. I applaud your efforts at obtaining the W2NYU call sign – great job!  It was a treat to read all of this. Thanks so much for your efforts at putting it together. Incidentally, I had lunch with Steve Aug a couple of months ago as a result of “finding” the Radio Club website last September. It was great to see him and I‘d be lying if I said we hadn’t changed, but we did recognize each other and it was great to see him again

Steve Leibholz wrote:  Thanks for the continuing maintenance of relationships. I  am living in the Phila area, and don't know how to spell "retirement".  Our company has occasional needs for a consultant who actually knows which end of a soldering iron is the pointy end.  Most of the engineers we interview have their EE expertise on Labview, MatLab, C++ and maybe Mininec.

Ruth WB4QZG’s picture appeared in May QST on page 20.  Ruth and her daughter Lori competed in the US  Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF) contest held near  Boston last year.  Ruth writes: That was the 2 meter day and I had been out for 2 1/2 hours.  I never look good coming in from a run.  Ruth and Lori will compete in the 2010 US championships in Ohio, and plan to go to Croatia for the World Championships in September.  Also congratulations and a welcome to amateur radio to Ruth’s newly-licensed husband, Joseph Huberman, K5JGH.

Gerry K1NY participated in the School Club Roundup (SCR) in February using W2DSC.  A small effort, only 23 contacts, but at least we got on the scoreboard.

Ron AE5NO wrote on March 3:  In about 30 days it will be a year in the Dallas Area.  Things have progressed a little further.  I did purchase a used IC-7000.  Thanks for all the advice on that.  So far I’ve only used it on VHF but this weekend I should be on 20 Meters.  I live in a CC&R restricted community so stealth antennas are my way of life.  My first HF antenna is an inverted “L” using my rain gutter and downspout.  I also picked up a G5RV Dipole for the attic and a Hustler 5 BTV Vertical The ver tical will be concealed in some PVC pipe and painted camo green.  I will lash it to a tree in my yard and set out some radials.  I‘ll send some photos later.

We now have 8 members at the NYU Medical Center.  Hopefully that should now be enough “critical mass” to get something started.  Unfortunately, more members seems to mean less likelihood of getting a meeting organized.  Doctors have such erratic schedules!  Congrats to Alan Langsner KC2YSH on his new license.

On March 1, we received a notice from AT&T Worldnet stating they would terminate their web hosting service in 30 days, and we should "go find another provider”.  So we did.  The NYU ARC web site has been moved to QSL.NET and the new URL is  http://www.qsl.net/k2ul/nyuarc/   The transition went very smoothly.  Please update your bookmarks/favorites as necessary, and please let us know if you find any broken links or other problems.  If  you haven't seen the NYU ARC home page recently,  please visit.

Our never ending battle with the NYU Alumni Association continues.  In the past, NYU ARC was listed as an official club on the Alumni web site with a hyperlink to our club site.  It was easy to find and all was good, but of course, nothing good ever lasts, especially in a funding-centric bureaucracy.  Earlier this year they completely revamped their system and eliminated links to most clubs.  Clubs are now called Affinity groups.  Our liaison person at the assoc wrote:  the groups on the Affinity pages are those that are supported by the University by allocation of staff, sponsorship of events and are tied to both participation and fundraising goals.  That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard and we told them so.  However, we did manage to get a short NYU ARC blurb published in the on-line Alumni News dated April 21.  Our article was at the bottom of the page.

Bob WB2NVR continues to do a great job of managing the QSL chores for the club.  He keeps the Logbook of The World up to date as he and other club members work new ones with the club call. Several new countries have been added to our DXCC countries list since the beginning of the year.  Check out the QSL gallery in the online museum for some of the latest exotic cards we have received.  Newer cards are added at the bottom of the page.

License renewed:  It’s hard to believe, but it has been ten years since Gerry K1NY and Dan K2UL resurrected the NYU ARC and reclaimed the W2DSC callsign.  We just renewed the license for another ten years, so get out there and work some more gud DX for the club.

Have a great Fall, and keep in touch.  Thanks and 73.

 Dan Ostroy  K2UL,  '71E