Location: Town of Oyster Ice Skating Center, Community Room 1, Bethpage, N.Y.
John, W2GW, the LIDXA President, called to order the meeting of Tuesday May 17, 2011 at 8:08 PM. Members present included John, W2GW and XYL Louise, K2MAU; Bob, N2DXJ and XYL, Tanis; Tom, KA2D; Ed, K2MFY; Steve, N2AJ; Andy, W2VZQ and XYL Marilyn; Marv, W2FGD; Karen, W2ABK; Bob, W2PNJ; Mark, WB2QJ, and ex-member Bob, W2SF.
Several members reported that the solar flux has been dropping slowly. Flux had dropped below 100 and band conditions the past month was quite noisy.
Through a recent vote in the country, the Northern part of Sudan will be claiming independence from the South Sudan. A name for the new country has not yet been determined; however, a DXpedition is already planned for July 2011 once DXCC status has been assured by the ARRL.
A May DXpedition to Afghanistan as T6PSE has been cancelled, due in part to the recent death of Jim McLaughlin, WA2EWE/T6AF, an American Army Lieutenant Colonel working as a civilian contractor serving in Afghanistan as a flight instructor.
A DXpedition to Malpelo Island has been scheduled for early 2012. The tentative callsign will be HKØNA. Further information is on their site: http://hk0na.com/. The Colombian authorities have been contacted on permits and licenses for the expedition. It is expected that there will be eight Columbian and four international operators.
Starting the business portion of tonight’s meeting was the approval of the April 21, 2011 meeting minutes. These minutes were accepted as presented. In addition, the minutes were prepared in advance by LIDXA Secretary, Ed, 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.
John, W2GW, LIDXA Treasurer, presented the Treasurer’s report. Current LIDXA membership is 21.
NEW BUSINESS
John notified the club that the ARRL informed him that they have a new insurance broker for ARRL affiliated clubs. The broker is the Hays Affinity Group who will be representing the Hanover Insurance Company. John said that a preliminary investigation indicated that the new yearly liability insurance for the club would be much less than with the previous carrier. Since the club does not carry any property insurance (such as for a repeater), the membership urged John to file the necessary forms to get this carrier and perhaps save the club some money. Our current annual liability insurance is due in December.
Ed stated that he would make a copy of the 1994 LIDXA Certificate of Incorporation papers for John should they be required for insurance purposes.
It appears that the ARRL DXCC desk is about two months behind on processing DXCC updates/applications. This is probably due to the heavy influx of paperwork in the beginning of the year following the breakup of the Netherlands Antilles, etc.
The last weekend of June is Field Day. Several members mentioned that Field Day operations would be held in the following locations:
Grumman Amateur Radio Club
Grumman Radio Club will be operating one station, WA2LQO, Class 1A, in the park building at the Haypath Road Park in Bethpage. Plans are to set up Saturday starting around noon.
Radio Central Amateur Radio Club & The Order of Boiled Owls of New York
Radio Central Amateur Radio Club and the New York Order of Boiled Owls will be joining forces this year for Field Day at the Long Island Maritime Museum in West Sayville, New York. They will be signing KW2O and running Class 2A, SSB and CW 80-6m plus satellite with GOTA signing W2RC running PSK31.
Wantagh Amateur Radio Club
The Wantagh ARC will again conduct Field Day on the grounds of the Wantagh Railroad Museum, located on Wantagh Avenue at Emeric Avenue.
Great South Bay Amateur Radio Club
GSBARC FD will be at Babylon Town Hall in North Lindenhurst. Setup is 7AM Saturday. W2GSB will run Class 5F using SSB, CW and PSK31, VHF, UHF and satellite along with a GOTA station.
For further Field Day details check activities posted on the site of ARRL NYC/LI Section Manager Mike, N2YBB, at: http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator.
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 this meeting concluded, John presented a DVD on the November 2007 DXpedition from the Hotel Camayenne, Conakry, Guinea, West Africa. The US/UK team members (from “The VooDoo Contest Group”) made nearly 15,000 QSOs and 40 million points in the CQ WW CW contest 2007.
This meeting concluded at around 9:40PM after all the scheduled business had finished. The next scheduled meeting of the LIDXA is Tuesday June 21. This will be the last meeting of the club before our summer hiatus.
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Ed Whitman, K2MFY
LIDXA Secretary