MINUTES OF LIDXA INC. MEETING— February 21, 2003

 

Location: Briarcliffe College, Bethpage, N.Y.

 

The LIDXA President, Marty, NN2C, called the meeting of February 21 to order at 8:10 PM. Members present (per sign-in on the blackboard) included K2MFY, W2GW (and XYL), NN2C, N2TU, W2FGD, AG2A, AB2NT, AB2OL, KC2JOC, and KC2HLI.

 

 

OLD BUSINESS

 

Starting the business portion of tonight’s meeting was the approval of the January 17, 2003 meeting minutes.  Except for two minor editorial changes, these minutes were accepted as presented.  In addition, these minutes were prepared in advance by the club’s secretary, Ed, K2MFY, and sent out to the membership with the February meeting notice.  Marv, W2FGD, stated that Ed should be complemented for his preparation of these detailed monthly LIDXA minutes and the monthly meeting notices to the membership.  The membership affirmed Marv’s comment.  In addition to Ed’s e-mail mailing of these minutes to the members, thanks to the efforts of KE2LJ, Pat, they also appear (unapproved) in the LIDXA web site: http://www.qsl.net/lidxa.

 

Club treasurer, John, W2GW gave a Treasurer’s report.  Present dues for club membership, in the amount of $25, are now due for the year 2003.  Several members attending tonight’s meeting gave John their checks.  Marty reminded all the members to forward their dues to John ASAP.  A new membership list, with members’ phone numbers, e-mail and home addresses, would be issued shortly.  Ed and John would be finalizing this effort in the next month.

It was also suggested that a blank LIDXA membership application be uploaded to the LIDXA web site.  In this manner, prospective members could download the form and submit it with their check at a meeting, or by mail to W2GW.  Ed said he would contact Pat, when he returns from vacation, about implementing this task on our web site.

 

In terms of DX, specific activities were highlighted:

·         The station, A51B, operating from Bhutan has been active recently on 14 CW.  The operator, Glenn, WØGJ, normally prefers the lower HF bands of 40 and 80 meters.

·         A second DXpedition to Ducie Island is scheduled for early March.  Three stations are planned with operation from all HF bands, 6 meters, and satellite.  QSL manager is to be JR2KDN.  Further details are provided at www.qsl.net/wd4ngb/ducie.htm.

·         Monk Apollo, SV2ASP/A, in Mount Athos, has been reported to be active again on the bands.  He had a good signal in the mornings on 12 meters.

·         The 2003 ARRL DX Contests are coming up very shortly.  The CW portion is starting this weekend, while the SSB portion is the first weekend in March.  Many min-DXpeditions are planned for this contest.

·         The very popular DX logging program, DX4WIN, has just come out with a major release (Ver. 6.02).  Present Users can upload this new version for a modest fee.

 

The LIDXA has use of the Grumman repeater for its Sunday night at 9PM local time.  This frequency is normally 146.745 MHz, however due to the cable maintenance required for the Bethpage repeater, the net has been temporarily moved to the Grumman Hauppauge repeater on 145.333/144.730 MHz (with 136.5 Hz PL).

 

 

NEW BUSINESS

 

Marty updated the membership on the status of the HRU 2003 conference that was held on January 19 in Oyster Bay.  Many ham radio clubs and organizations set up tables with information about their group.  In addition eighteen different technical forums were held on all aspects of amateur radio.  Members of the LIDXA; namely, KE2LJ, NN2C, K2MFY, W2FGD, KD1F, and AG2A participated in the 3-1/2 hour DX Seminar Forum.  Marty reported that at various times we had up to thirty attendees at our session.  He thanked all participants for their efforts.

 

At tonight’s meeting the LIDXA accepted applications and dues for three new members into our organization: KC2HLI, Peter; AB2OL, Pat; and his XYL, KC2JOC, Tonya.  Welcome aboard!

 

            At least six members of the LIDXA will be attending the annual HamVention at Dayton this year.  Pat urged any LIDXA member who would be attending the HamVention, to obtain tickets to the DX banquet dinner in advance so that we could all be sitting together.

 

Ed read a nice acknowledgment he received from George, N2GA, the ARRL section manager for NLI.  Ed had earlier sent George an update to the information that appears in the monthly “ARRL NYC/LI E-Happenings Newsletter” (available at http://www.arrl.org/sections/?sect=NLI).

 

The business portion of the meeting then concluded at 9:00 PM.

 

At this time, a video was shown on the April 2001 DXpedition to the “Russian Lost Islands” up in the Russian central arctic.  These islands, once active polar stations involved in military operations, are now abandoned.  The DXpedition team was made up of amateur operators from the “Russian Robinson Club,” who activated a number of these Antarctic islands (RSØB–Srednij Is.–ASØ42; RUØB–Uedineniya Is.–ASØ57; RIØB–Ushakova Is.–AS156; and RSØB/p–Mona Is.–ASØ68).  This excellent video traced the team’s successful trip up to these islands by ship and helicopter.  If we thought our winter was cold, after viewing this video we were glad to warm up in the frigid air of the school’s parking lot!

 

This meeting concluded at around 9:45 PM after all the scheduled business and entertainment had finished.

 

 

                                                                        ______________________________________

Ed Whitman, K2MFY

LIDXA Secretary