Location: Briarcliffe College, Bethpage, N.Y.
John, W2GW, the LIDXA President, called to order the meeting
of May 15 at 8:20 PM. Members present (per sign-in on the
blackboard) included W2GW and his XYL K2MAU, W2ABK and OM Bruce, W2FGD, K2MFY, W2PNJ,
W2VZQ and XYL Marilyn, N2DXJ and XYL Tanis.
In terms of DX, specific
activities were highlighted:
A DXpedition
to Niue Island as ZK2V should be operational around May 16. The operator, ZL1CT/GM3WOJ, plans on being on
the island for five weeks.
·
The station
GJ/DL7AFS has been quite active on RTTY.
·
TLØA in the
Central African Republic has been showing up with a good signal on 17 and 20
meters SSB.
It was
reported that although the solar flux is low, good conditions are found in the
early evening on 20 meters and later on 30 meters.
·
The new sunspot
cycle of 24 should be starting soon, with a peak expected in the year 2013;
unfortunately, the maximum is expected quite low.
Starting the business portion of tonight’s meeting
was the approval of the April 17 meeting minutes. These minutes were accepted as
presented. In addition, the minutes were
prepared in advance by K2MFY, and sent out to the membership with the May
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. He reminded the membership that
the 2009 dues are now overdue and the club’s mailing list will be shortly
updated to drop ex-members. Also Ed
mentioned that Pat had just updated the membership/e-mail list which appears on
the club’s site.
It was mentioned that the present IRCs are valid
through December 31, 2009 and will no longer be available for purchase at the post
office after August 31, 2009. The new
type IRC should be available on July 1, 2009.
A good reference for how many IRCs or green stamps are required for DX
returns can be found at the site http://www.qsl.net/w9ol/IRC_Chart.htm.
Ed mentioned that he had received a QSL card via manager
Ralph, K9ZO, who wrote that he “had fond memories of the yellow Long Island DX
Bulletin from many years ago.” Also Ed
commented that if you want to hear a short transmission of CW (and other “old
time radio snippets”) on the commercial AM radio, listen to the introduction of
the Glenn Beck radio show on WOR radio (710 KHz) weekly at around 9:06AM.
Marv, 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.
With
the business portion of the meeting over at 8:50 PM, a video on the January 2002 DXpeditions
to South Georgia Island as VP8GEO, and South Sandwich Island as VP8THU was
shown.
This meeting concluded at around 9:25 PM after all
the scheduled business and entertainment had finished.
______________________________________
Ed Whitman, K2MFY
LIDXA Secretary