Location:
John, W2GW, the LIDXA President, called to order the meeting
of February 15 at 8:20 PM. Members present (per sign-in on the
blackboard) included W2GW, W2PNJ, K2MFY, KC2OPX, N2KA, W2FGD, KC2KY, N2DXJ and
XYL Tanis.
In terms of DX, specific activities were highlighted:
·
The weekend of February
16–17 is the annual ARRL DX Contest–CW mode.
Quite a number of multi-group efforts are planned to be active during
the contest. The SSB portion will held
the first full weekend in March.
·
The current operation from Ducie Island as VP6DX, is quite active. Several stations are operating simultaneously
on different band/modes and the propagation has been good. Quite a number of
members have reported working this DXpedition, and verifying their contacts via
their on-line link at their web site http://ducie2008.dl1mgb.com. They are expected to be operational until
late February.
·
Plans are well underway for a DXpedition to Clipperton
Island in early March. For further
details look at their website at: www.clipperton2008.org.
·
With the initial activity of YU8/OH2R in the newly
declared “country” of Kosovo, a number of other stations from that area have
been signing with their YU8 prefix; however, it is not certain if they are really
in Kosovo, or Serbia, but most importantly the YU8 entity is not yet recognized
by the DXCC community.
·
A recent report indicated that some sunspots were
recently noted, perhaps the start of Cycle 24.
However, the solar flux numbers are still very low.
Starting
the business portion of tonight’s meeting was the approval of the January
15th meeting minutes. These minutes were accepted as
presented. In addition, the minutes were
prepared in advance by Ed, K2MFY (including notes taken by Karen, KC2OPX), and
sent out to the membership with the January meeting notice. 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 11 members have already paid up.
John urged all members to give him or mail him the $20 yearly dues for
the club.
Neil,
KC2KY, Chairman of Ham Radio University (HRU) 2008 (which held on January 13), thanked the club for hosting
the DX Forum. In particular Neil thanked
members W2GW, K2MFY, and Marv, W2FGD for
their individual presentations.
Certificates of appreciation were distributed.
John mentioned that the LIDXA
will be holding full elections for all officers and Board of Directors for the club (years 2008-2010) in May. He asked Ed to head a Nominating
Committee. All members were requested to
contact Ed if they were interested in running as a LIDXA Club Officer or on the
Board. A slate would be prepared in
April, with elections in May.
Ed mentioned that the U.S.
postage rates were going up on May 12.
In particular domestic postage will be 42 cents per ounce and most Air
Mail will rise to 94 cents per ounce. Ed spoke on the good turn around with DX QSLs he has obtained using DX
foreign stamp postage supplied by William Plum.
Besides mint foreign stamps (to use on s.a.s.e Air-Mail envelopes back
to the
It was pointed out that the next
meeting, which falls out on March 21, is Good Friday. According to the Club’s Constitution, this
meeting should be rescheduled for another weekend. It was then decided to hold the March meeting
a week earlier, on Friday, March 14.
Members will receive the meeting announcement a week earlier.
It was announced for the March 14
meeting that Tom, KA2D, NLI Section Manager, will speak about the common thread
between DXers and Contesters. Tom is
representing the “Yankee Clipper Contest Club” (YCCC).
In the upcoming ARRL DX Contest,
CW mode, George, N2GA, ARRL Local and State Government Liaison, along
with other operators, will be putting the United Nations station, 4U1UN, on the
air.
Ed reported recently working ex-LIDXA
member Larry, K2LS, as 4X/K2LS, while he was vacationing in Israel.
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 new DVD was then shown
on the October 2006 DXpedition to Raoul Island, ZL8R, in the Kermadec Island chain. This island contains the world’s tallest
active volcano, rising nearly 30,000 feet out of the Kermadec trench. The
island rates very high on the most wanted list simply because it is extremely
difficult to get permission to land and even more difficult reach.
This meeting concluded at around 10:10 PM after all the scheduled
business and entertainment had finished.
______________________________________
Ed Whitman,
K2MFY
LIDXA
Secretary