March 2005 Minutes

SPOKANE DX ASSOCIATION
Minutes of March 03, 2005 Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 7PM by President Randy Foltz K7TQ, Mar. 03, 2005, at the East Spokane County Library at 4432 N Argonne Road. There were 11 members present.

COMMENTS

*K7EKM-A-Kirk said he didn’t do any Dxing this month, just worked on his Yaesu 930. He spent tht CW contest weekend relaxing on the Coast with his wife, to which Randy reminded him, that earned him 3 “weekend radio credits”, ( HI-HI ).

*W3AS-F-Doug wasn’t on the airwaves this month because his radio was broken. He said he would have a table at Puyallup and be there Fri. night.

*W7JJL-A-John didn’t have any Dxing to report; too many projects with his teenagers.

*W7FCB-F-Rudy has been busy on 75m with the Country Cousins Net; no DX. He did say he acquired and repaired a Kenwood TS 130. He’ll be going to the Puyallup show looking for other “goodies”.

*K7OX-F-Gary will have a table at the Puyallup Hamfest. He’s been remodeling his station; setting it up for SO2R ( Single Operator 2 Radio Operation). He’s using a pair of 761 radios with a Dunestar Splitter plus amplifiers, and will put up a second tower soon. He says SO2R in difficult at first but skill comes with practice. He’s tried it on Phone, CW and RTTY (which is easiest). A very anonymous comment was made, that a good way to practice SO2R is to try to converse with your wife while watching TV!

*K7AWB-F-Steve had a couple of handouts for us on 6m propagation. Steve also got his 240 line into the shack and got his L4B fired up. He’s also continuing to work with the power companies on interference and got his noise level down from S9 to S6. He gave up serious contesting for the time being due to noise. He reports 6m has opened up for the summer for meteor scatter and other 6m DX. He also moved his Screwdriver antenna to a new vehicle.

*WA7LT-F-Lamar offered some comments concerning his venture into setting up an SO2R operation with his FT 1000 D and other equipment. Lamar worked the ARRL DX CW contest; said conditions on 10m were terrible; (about the same number of contacts on 10m as 160m). He did work about 1000 QSO’s however. He also worked the CQ 160m SSB contest and made about 600 c0ntacts. He was very pleased to QSO D4B-Cape Verde (quite a distance on 160), with his ant. only 68 ft. up! He was getting ready for the ARRL Inter. DX Contest, SSB next weekend.

*WA6AEA-F-George worked the ARRL DX CW contest mostly on 30 and 40m. George said Poland is big on SO2R and that he worked them some. George also set up his Ten-Tec rig on RTTY but has a problem; he’s transmitting but has no audio. He said it worked before, so he did something different in the set-up and has yet to solve the problem.

*KD7OCT-A-Loren got a call from Steve K7AWB one evening recently saying that Rotuma I. 3D2 was on 20m. He tried them but they were so weak he didn’t call. It was’t till later he discovered his ant. rotator had slipped and and was pointing Southeast. He fixed that and listened and heard South Cook I. the next night 5/9 and did work them.

*K7TQ-F-Randy didn’t have much radio activity but he did hook up a 5 watt solar panel to a marine battery to power his Elecraft K2 rig. An interesting situation occurred. With his Elecraft K2 only putting out 5 watts from a second floor of his home, he felt he didn’t need to ground the rig. However the power would indicate a steady 5 w. for a while and then start jumping around. As soon as he then grounded everything, it the fluctuations went away. So even at 5 watts there was enough RF running around loose and into the computer ground line to cause problems. Randy also reported that Gary K7OX, (who Randy said was too modest) made NCJ this month with a “Balloon Flyer” award.

*N5AR-F-Dan had fun chasing DX from Spratley I. One day he was “spotted” on 30m so Dan tuned in and there he was 5/9. So Dan decided he needed a 30m antenna. He used a 24ft tube and mounted it on the side of one of his two- 80m towers, got it to tune to SWR of 1:1 and worked Spratley on 30. He said there’s lots of DX on 30m! Dan’s also been working some 6m and plans to work more.

2 METER SDXA DX NET-Thurs. nights 7 PM
A DX net sponsored by SDXA was put forth by Dan as a way of generating interest in DX and contesting.

It was decided this evening to try it for a month and invite all hams to participate and see if it works. Dan N5AR has agreed to moderate it.

It wil take place on the 146.38 repeater, which has wide coverage, at 7 PM every Thursday except the first Thurs. of the month which is SDXA meeting nite.

It is hoped that a lot of folks will participate!

TREASURER’S REPORT –Dan N5AR
Bank Account on Mar. 03-05 $ 846.17
KBARA Hamfest Deposit $ 400.00
Hospice Donation $ 50.00
Steve reimbursement $ 49.15
Balance $ 346.98
Cash on hand $ 500.18

Dan shows 19 dues paid members for 2005 to date.

OLD BUSINESS
1. Corrections (Feb. Minutes)

a. Under WU7X: the donations were to the Vanessa Behan Crisis Clinic Fund

b. Under K7TQ: while Randy wishes he had a full wave 160 m antenna, it is really

a ¼ wave antenna.

NEW BUSINESS

1. The 2 meter SDXA Net was previously discussed.

PROGRAM

The program was an excellent video from Ten-Tec Corporation on their new Orion Transceiver provided by George W6AEA, showing its great operating features and how it works. Looks like a great piece of equipment. Thanks George for bringing it to us!

HAMFEST!!

Sat. April 9 ST. ANN’S PARISH HALL E. 2120 FIRST AVE., SPOKANE

9 to 5

Admission $ 3

I always attend and find some good deals. Don’t miss it !!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

SDXA 2 METER DX NET Thurs. nites at 7 PM 147.38. YA’AL COME!!

Visit our web site at www.sdxa.org for lots of information and links to other sites!

73 and Happy Dxing!
Loren KD7OCT
Secretary
Spokane DX Association