MINUTES
OF LIDXA INC. MEETING— May 23, 2003
Location:
Briarcliffe College, Bethpage, N.Y.
The LIDXA President, Marty, NN2C, called the meeting of May 23 to order at 8:10 PM. Members present (per sign-in on the blackboard) included K2MFY, W2GW (and XYL), NN2C, KE2LJ, W2FGD, KD1F, NX2F, and AB2NT.
In terms of DX, specific activities were highlighted:
·
A mini-DXpedition is
underway for about one week by JA1BK and JR2KDN, as 4W1BK and 4W2DN
respectively, to the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste. Effective May 20, 2002, the UN no longer was
in control of the former East Timor (UN Transitional Administration in East
Timor (UNAET)) country, and the new Timor Leste was created. The ITU has reassigned 4WA-4WZ to this possible
new entity as of April 23, 2003. It
may be that the ARRL will delete the 4W (UNTAET) and introduce this new
entity. A ruling is expected
shortly. Thor, 4W3DX (ex-4W1MM, also
TF3MM), who is stationed in Timor, is also presently very active, primarily on
CW.
·
A DXpedition is underway
to the Island of Mexiana (IOTA SAØ42) as ZW8M.
QSL to CS1GDX.
·
A station from Yeu
Island (IOTA EUØ64) signing TMØY is reported to be very active on the
bands. QSL via F6ANA.
·
It was reported that
Ron, ZL1AMO, was back on the air after his recent illness.
·
ZK1AYL (YL–Babs) and
ZK1SIM (OM–Lot) have been very active from IOTA OCØ13.
·
Conditions on the HF
bands have been very poor in the past month.
Besides the solar flux dropping there have been a number of magnetic
disturbances.
Starting the business portion of tonight’s meeting
was the approval of the April 25, 2003 meeting minutes. 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 May meeting notice.
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. An updated LIDXA membership list with members’ phone numbers, e-mail and home addresses, was handed out to the membership. This list corrected an e-mail address and added data for our new member John, NX2F. The membership welcomed John into the club. This list was also e-mailed to all paid-up members.
John also mentioned that he moved the club’s checking account over to the Roslyn Saving Bank. This bank does not have monthly service charges.
Ed mentioned that the latest 2003-2004 ARRL Repeater Directory omitted the listing of the LIDXA (as W2LDX) in the two-meter section. Ed said that back in November 2002 he had sent Metrocor our repeater coordination application, along with the Metrocor organization/repeater application fee. Ed said he would send an e-mail off to Metrocor and ask them about this oversight.
The main discussion of tonight’s
meeting was the recent Dayton HamVention. Club members NN2C, KE2LJ, K2MFY, and KD1F attended this annual
convention and presented their views on this year’s event. Of general interest were the following
topics:
Notable
attendees to the DX Dinner that club members personally met were mentioned;
namely, YT1AD, TA2DS, 5B4AGC, OH2BH, G3TXF, G3SXW, K3ZO, W3UR, and W8AH. In particular OM Al, W8AH, remained standing
during the “DX countdown” with 392 countries confirmed (one less then the
entire deleted/current list!).
At the DX Forum,
members were eager to hear the presentation from Don Miller, now AE6IY, on his
past DXpeditions and related controversies.
He also reported to be planning a trip to a “new” country in the
Fall. Also at the forum, Wayne, N7NG of
the ARRL, presented the release of the new “Logbook of the World” (LoTW). The beta release is now available for the
next 60 days. Wayne urged all DXers to
load their logs into the database (QSOs effective Jan. 1, 1998 to
present). Details and downloads can be
found at http://www.arrl.org/lotw/
A number of DXers
and friends were met at the NJDXA and Northern Ohio DX Association hospitality
suites after the dinner.
At the Vertex
Standard/Yaesu booth, Martti OH2BH, and Bernie W3UR, were available for
pictures and handshakes. In particular
QSLs (and check logs) were available for the recent AH3D DXpedition to Johnston
Island. NN2C obtained the AH3D QSLs for
a number of members who could not make this conference.
Ed reported that
he visited the Ten-Tec booth to check out their new Orion top-of
the line transceiver. Ed also passed
around a number of photos (digital) that he took at the HamVention. Pat will shortly be loading a few of these
photos on the LIDXA Web site.
Several of the
members purchased a new book on ham radio entitled “Hello World: A Life in Ham
Radio.” This book has excellent
graphics of QSL cards and ham operators, and traces the life of W2OJW from 1927
until his death in 2001. The authors of
this book also were at one of the forums.
On other issues, Marty mentioned that the Board of Directors would be voting next month for the twelfth annual “N2DTW Award.” It was recalled that past member Lenny Albergo, N2DTW, met an untimely death in an accident in 1990. Out of memory for this active DXer, a plaque was purchased by Lenny’s friends and has provisions for about two-dozen small-engraved entries. It was decided that the plaque would be awarded yearly on a revolving basis to one member of the club who best promotes the purposes of the LIDXA as mentioned in the club’s constitution. The present plaque holder is K2MFY, who was given the 2001 award in April of last year.
Pat mentioned that the Grumman Amateur Radio Club would be setting up at least four stations for the annual ARRL Field Day contest (June 28–29). The Field Day site is on the Grumman property just off Hazel Street in Bethpage. All interested parties are invited—just let Pat know of your attendance plans so that schedules can be arranged in advance.
The
business portion of the meeting then concluded at 9:15 PM.
It was anticipated that a video on the multi-national DXpedition to Heard Island (as VKØIR), down in the Australian Antarctic would be shown, but due to the late time the business meeting ended, it was decided to show this video at next month’s meeting.
This meeting then concluded at around 9:15 PM after all the scheduled business had finished. Marty reminded the membership that the next meeting would be held on the regular third Friday in June, the 20th of the month. This will be the last meeting before the summer hiatus during July/August.
______________________________________
Ed Whitman, K2MFY
LIDXA Secretary