Location:
John, W2GW, the LIDXA President, called to order the meeting
of January 18th at 8:10 PM. John welcomed all members and guests back for
the first meeting of the New Year.
Members present (per sign-in on the blackboard) included W2GW and XYL
K2MAU, W2PNJ, KC2OPX, AB2NT, W2VZQ, W2FGD, N2DXJ and XYL Tanis.
The club
welcomed to the LIDXA meeting guest, Tony, WV2C.
In terms of DX, specific activities were highlighted:
·
A new DXpedition to Cocos Island (TI9) is expected up in mid February.
·
A group will be headed out to Ducie Island in the South Pacific shortly
·
The weekend of February 16
is the annual ARRL DX Contest–CW mode.
Quite a number of multi-group efforts are planned to be active from rare
DX countries during the contest.
·
Plans are well underway for a DXpedition to
·
A station from Bouvet Island, as 3YØE is presently
active around 14.260 MHZ. Bouvet Island
is top five on the most wanted DXCC list.
·
A recent report indicated that some sunspots were
recently noted, perhaps the start of Cycle 24.
Several members reported that conditions on 20 and 17 meters were
improving; even afternoon openings on 15 and 12 meters were noted. However, the solar flux numbers are still
very low.
John
mentioned that about thirteen members and XYLs showed up at the Holiday Party
meeting on December 13, 2007 at Star Diner restaurant in Plainview. The food was excellent and all participants
had a good time. Although Ed, K2MFY,
LIDXA Secretary, could not be at tonight’s meeting, the club thanked Ed for his
work in setting up the party. Karen,
KC2OPX, offered to take tonight’s meeting notes and then forward them to Ed for
final editing and distribution.
Since
we had the Holiday Party in December 2007 there were no minutes to be accepted
for tonight’s meeting. Thanks to the
efforts of KE2LJ, Pat, the minutes appear in the LIDXA web site at: http://www.qsl.net/lidxa.
W2GW gave
the monthly Treasurer’s report. The dues
for the 2008 year are currently due.
About six members have already paid up.
John urged all members to give him or mail him the $20 yearly dues for
the club.
John spoke briefly about the
success of this year’s Ham Radio University (HRU) 2008, held on Sunday, January 13, 2008 at the Briarcliffe
College in Bethpage. Featured were almost
25 different forums covering all areas of ham radio. Members of the club, W2GW, K2MFY, and W2FGD,
presented the following topics for our 1-1/2
hours “DX Program” presentation,
hosted by W2GW:
·
Introduction, Overview of DXing–What’s DX?—W2GW
·
DX Propagation–How Do We Get From There to Here—K2MFY
·
QSL Checking & Criteria—W2GW
·
LIDXA/General DX Information—W2FGD, W2GW, K2MFY
·
Question and Answer Period—W2GW, K2MFY, W2FGD
W2FGD, reminded the membership to
check-in at the LIDXA weekly nets on Sunday night at 9 PM local time on the
Grumman Hauppauge repeater at 145.330/144.730 MHz (with 136.5 Hz PL), to get
the latest information on club matters and events.
A brand new DVD was
then shown on the April-May 2007 international DXpedition to Scarborough Reef, as
BS7H. The DVD traced the history of the
reef, difficulty in activating ham radio, and the political intricacies of this
remote speck of land in the South China Sea.
This meeting concluded at around 9:35 PM after all the scheduled
business and entertainment had finished.
______________________________________
Ed
Whitman, K2MFY
LIDXA
Secretary
(from
notes compiled by KC2OPX)