MINUTES
OF LIDXA INC. MEETING— November 21, 2003
Location:
Briarcliffe College, Bethpage, N.Y.
The LIDXA President, Marty, NN2C, called the meeting of November 21 to order at 8:25 PM. Members present (per sign-in on the blackboard) included K2MFY, NN2C, KE2LJ, W2FGD, N2KA, KB2HK, NX2F, AB2NT and N2TU.
In terms of DX, specific activities were highlighted:
·
The expected January
2004 DXpedition to Peter 1 Island (3YØ) has been postponed for about one year.
·
A DXpedition to Europa Island, FR/E, is expected to be operational within
the week. This island, and its
neighboring island of Juan de Nova (FR/J) located in the Mozambique Strait,
count as the same DXCC entity. A French
team is expected to be on the island until December 15. Three stations will be operational. One station is expected be active in the CQ
WorldWide CW Contest next weekend.
·
A number of members reported working the DXpedition to Kerkennah Island
(AFØ73) as TS7N. The group has five
stations available and is quite active on all bands/modes.
·
Propagation reports
over the last week show that the recent solar flares have been very
severe. This is quite unusual as we are
in the downslide of the present solar cycle.
One scientist compared this to having a major hurricane in the month of
November. Even with these flares,
conditions on the HF bands have not been that poor. Propagation seems best on 17, 20, 40 and 30 meters; however there
have been some good openings on 15 meters and brief openings on 10 meters.
·
The weekend of November
29–30 will be the CQ WorldWide Contest–CW mode. For US stations the exchange is signal report (usually 599) and
WAZ zone (Ø5 for local stations here).
Starting the business portion of tonight’s meeting
was the approval of the October 17, 2003 meeting minutes. These minutes were prepared in advance by
the club’s secretary, Ed, K2MFY, and sent out to the membership with the
October meeting notice. Thanks to the
efforts of KE2LJ, Pat, these minutes also appear (unapproved) in the LIDXA Web
site: http://www.qsl.net/lidxa.
Club members
were delighted to hear that LIDXA member Frank Fallon, N2FF, incumbent Hudson
Division Director, had been re-elected as ARRL Hudson Division Director for
another three-year term, by a little more than a 500 vote differential
(or about 15% of total votes
cast). Frank was facing a challenge
from the current Vice Director and former Director, Steve Mendelsohn, W2ML, of
New Jersey.
Ed mentioned that the club had been reactivated with the ARRL. Somehow our affiliation had been deleted when the League moved the renewal/update operation to the Web.
Ed also noted that he had received a note from the ARRL thanking us for our recent donation of $25 for the League’s use in the Broadband over Power Line (BPL) threat to the HF bands. Several members also mentioned that they had given private donations to this fund.
The final release of the ARRL’s, “Logbook of the
World” (LoTW) has been launched as of September 15. Details and downloads can be found http://www.arrl.org/lotw/. Several members mentioned that they had
registered with LOTW and uploaded some of their logs. So far, the ARRL reports that nearly 5000 users have uploaded
logs containing over 25 million Amateur Radio contacts. This has resulted in
more than 1 million
QSL
records.
A brief discussion developed on the club’s annual
Holiday party. The party has been set
for Thursday, December 11 at 7 PM in Mary’s Backyard restaurant in
Bethpage. Details and directions would
be sent out to all members on the Sunday night net and also by e-mail about
one-week prior to the party.
HRU 2004
will be held at East Woods School in Oyster Bay, Long Island, NY, on Sunday,
January 18, 2004. As in previous years
the club will present a DX session.
This year our session is expected to last under one hour. Marty said he would ensure that we get a
better room for our presentation. A
tentative list of topics appears at the site: http://www.hudson.arrl.org/nli/hru2004.htm.
The next Ham Radio University 2004 planning meeting will be held December 8 at 7 PM in the ARES/RACES room (downstairs) in Babylon Town Hall, Sunrise Highway, North Lindenhurst. This meeting is open to anyone interested in helping with the logistics and planning of HRU 2004.
The
business portion of the meeting then concluded at 8:55 PM.
At this time, a video was shown on the November 2002 DXpedition to the American Samoan islands of Tutuila Island (as K8T), IOTA OCØ45, and Ofu Island (as K8O), IOTA OCØ77. The multinational team made about 10,000 QSOs from K8T and 60,000 QSOs from K8O.
This meeting then concluded at around 9:45 PM after all the scheduled
business and entertainment had finished.
Since we will be having the Holiday Party in December there will be no
regularly scheduled meeting next month.
A good holiday was wished for those unable to attend this party. The next regularly scheduled meeting for the
LIDXA is on Friday, January 16, 2004.
______________________________________
Ed Whitman, K2MFY
LIDXA Secretary