Location:
The LIDXA President, Marty, NN2C, called the meeting of March
17 to order at 8:10 PM. Members present (per sign-in on the
blackboard) included K2MFY, NN2C, KE2LJ, W2FGD, N2ZN, AG2A, KB2HK, W2VZQ, and
W2GW with XYL KC2MAU. We also welcomed
back guest Pete, NA2P.
In terms of DX, specific activities were highlighted:
Starting
the business portion of tonight’s meeting was the approval of the February 17
meeting minutes. These minutes were
accepted as presented. In addition, the
minutes were prepared in advance by the club’s secretary, Ed, K2MFY, and sent
out to the membership with the club’s March meeting notice. Thanks to the efforts of KE2LJ, Pat, the
minutes appear in the LIDXA web site at: http://www.qsl.net/lidxa. Pat also indicated that there was a problem
with some of the archived LIDXA meeting minutes on the web; however he assured
us the problem will be rectified.
Club Treasurer, John, W2GW, gave the monthly Treasurer’s report. Dues for the 2006 calendar year are now
due. For the year 2006 the annual LIDXA
dues is $20. John indicated that all but
five present members had already paid their dues. John said would contact those individuals.
It was also mentioned that
LIDXA member Emil, KD1F, President of the Radio Central Amateur Radio Club, and
also ARRL DXCC Card Checker for the Hudson Division, would be shortly moving up
to
Marty
mentioned that due to health reasons his doctor recommended that he not travel
to the Dayton Hamvention this year. Pat
will still be attending.
NN2C played
part of an old LIDXA meeting that Ed had taped back around 1982. Although the recorded portion of the tape was
general DX business, it lasted for almost 30 minutes. A number of the old LIDXA members whose
voices heard on this tape were the net control station, K2TV, also heard were
K2BS, W2IYX, W2HAP, WA2BGE, KB2RV, W2PD, K2EYJ, etc. Unfortunately many of these members are
silent keys now.
Ed mentioned
that he had just received a certificate and pin from the ARRL for 50 years of
continuous membership. The club
congratulated Ed on this milestone.
All members
were urged to contact LIPA and their political representative about
the pilot program BPL LIPA hopes to conduct in the Hauppauge/Commack in the
near future. (http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzlipa0215,0,51795,print.story?coll=ny-top-headlines). Also from the ARRL: http://www.hudson.arrl.org/nli/BPL.LIPA.htm. See the Frank Fallon’s (N2FF) monthly Hudson
Division newsletter on the ARRL site regarding sample letters.
On the subject of LIPA, Ed
mentioned that late last year he had noticed some continuous line noise present
on all bands at his QTH. It seemed to be
worse in the evenings. After several
months of hearing this QRN, Ed contacted the local LIPA customer service. Eventually he was told that someone from the
Interference Division would call him back.
About one week later, Mike Malinowski, LIPA Investigator, Special
Services (direct telephone number: 631-758-5006), called Ed to discuss this
line noise problem. It turns out that
Mike is a ham (N2QOY), and was most cooperative to eliminate the reported QRN
source, and stated that he would be shortly doing an investigation in the
area. In March, tests were made in Ed’s
area, and LIPA found a nearby electric pole where arcing was present. Mike informed Ed that additional testing
would be performed in the future to determine if any additional noise sources
were present in the area. Eventually
repairs would be performed by a LIPA crew.
Ed said he would keep members aware of progress on this QRN problem.
The business portion of the
meeting concluded at 9:20 PM. Due to the late time it was decided to hold off showing the video on the January 1997 DXpedition to
The next regularly scheduled meeting for the LIDXA
is on Friday, April 21, 2006.
______________________________________
Ed Whitman, K2MFY
LIDXA Secretary