Spokane DX Association

Bob finished the tower/antenna installation today on his 6 meter antenna. It is an M2 5 element 6 meter Yagi, on which he modified the driven element into a folded dipole and then fed it with 450 ohm ladder line.

This tower/antenna is at one the peaks on his property and the base is anchored in a granite outcropping…all guy anchors are also in granite.

Picture 1: construction and mounting of the base plate…..extra heavy hinge is two telescoped pipes welded to the base and the tower base (standard Rohn backed with 1/4 inch steel plate.

Picture 2: Kubota delivering the top section from the shop 400 feet down

Picture 3: tower lowered

Picture 4 tower raised with the winch on the Kubota.

The tower is 30 feet but it is at the top of the property with steep drop-offs in most directions.

Looks like Murf’s (N7UVH) Hytower is putting out some RF

Field Day for 2020 was different than most years.

Jim (N7ESU), Bob (K7TM) and Murf (N7UVH) aka “Idaho Renegades” did Field Day from a Fire Station in Hayden Lake.

John (K7KM), Janet (WX7P), Mike (K7STO), Chuck (KI7DG) and Mel (N7GCO) used N3FJP Club logging to keep in touch.

Dale (AF7WH), a member of our user group from CDA, has an impressive Drake collection. Using his Drake radios he has achieved WAC, WAS and DXCC. He almost has WAZ. His new goals are 5BWAS all on Drake equipment of course.

Here is a photo of his Drake Tube Line (TR3, 4, & 6)

Here is a photo of his Drake Solid State Line:

Geoff Howard (W0CG/PJ2DX) was inducted into the CQ Contest Hall of Fame 2020 at Contest University. This is one of the highest awards any contester can receive. Those in the CQ Contest Hall of Fame are the giants of Amateur Radio.

Geoff, your fellow members of the SDXA add their congratulations. No one deserves this award more than you. Your accomplishments leading PJ2T are tremendous.

Geoff’s acceptance speech was outstanding. If you did not hear it, by all means, listen to it when it is uploaded to YouTube.

Congratulations Geoff! We all in the SDXA are honored to have you as a member and call you our friend.

Mike (K7STO) has added to his grounding/lightning protection for his tower. The enclosure box is 18x18x8 deep and includes two-line control devices and six coax devices. For the grounding/lightning protection, he used Morgan systems suppressors. Antennas routed through this enclosure include 3-element SteppIR, 80/40 dipole. 80m vertical, 160, inverted L and 2,/70cm vertical. Note the great labeling of the coax.

Did you know that the SDXA has a lending library?
Each month Jay (WA0WWW) brings these books in his truck and any member can check them out.
Up the Tower by Steve Morris, K7LXC ($35)
If you are thinking of putting up a tower, this is a great book.
Array of Light, 3rd edition: Straight talk about antennas and related subjects, by Tom Schllier N6BT ($35)
HF Vertical Performance and tests, by Steve and Ward Silver N0AX ($35)
Real tests on popular HF Vertical antennas
HF Triband Performance and test, by Steve and Ward ($35)
Real tests on popular HF Vertical antennas
RTTY Handbook, 73Magazine staff ($35) (donated by N7AU)
If you are interested in RTTY, check this book out.
The Care and Feeding of Trans. Lines by W1ZR ($35) (donated by AD7XG)
Vertical Antenna Classics by KU7G/ARRL ($15)(donated by AC7MV)
DXing 101x by AC6V ($25) (donated by AC7MV)
A great introduction to DXing.
NOTE: The Price after the book is what you owe the club if you don’t bring it back.

We are excited to announce that Gary Bytnar (AD7XG) has received appoint as an Official CQ Awards checker. This means you can get your CQ WAZ QSL cards checked locally.

Congratulations Gary! Thanks for serving the SDXA in this needed area.

The March/April 2020 issue of the National Contest Journal (NCJ)  included a wonderful article on PJ2T and our own Geoff Howard (W0GC/PJ2DX)

by Robert Ramirez (CE3CT). Thanks to the generosity of the NCJ and Editor Scott Wright, we received permission to post the article on the SDXA website. You will enjoy reading about it and the “Ultimate Contesters Man Cave”. You can read the article here: NCJ March 2020

We encourage all our members to subscribe to the NCJ.

In the March QST magazine, our own Bob (W7SX) has the feature article “Building Your Own Open-Wire Line” on pages 30-33. It is also featured on the magazine cover.

In the article, Bob shares the step-by-step construction of his incredibly efficient feed line. His rugged open-wire line holds up in difficult weather and works great even under high SWR conditions. This is the feed line he is using on his new antenna farm.

Congratulations to David (WA7TNT) for achieving DXCC.

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We all have enjoyed and recognized the features of Club Log as a valuable resource.

For several years the SDXA Club Log Administrator has been Chuck Williams (KI7DG). Chuck has done a fantastic job of helping SDXA members become active on Club Log and provided monthly reports on our progress for club meetings. Chuck is also the author of a great article on the SDXA Website at this
ClubLog 101 LINK that I would encourage everyone to read.

Chuck (KI7DG) at his station

Chuck has felt now was time to pass the barton on the leadership of ClubLog. He will continue to serve as a second administrator, riding along as assistant to the new administrator.

Murf (N7UVH)

President Gary (AD7XG) has appointed Patrick Murphy “Murf” N7UVH as the new SDXA Club Log Administrator. Murf is a very active DXer and will do a great job leading the use of Club Log for the SDXA.

Jeff Banke (NZ2S) got his tower and antenna up. The tower is Rohn 25 with a Hexbeam antenna.

UPDATE: In the November meeting the club voted to procure a new business quality projector for future presentations and conventions. I’m happy to report that we now have our new projector shown above. This is a commercial quality Panasonic PT-VZ580 projector with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 and a brightness of 5000 lumens. It also has two HDMI ports, 2 Computer RGB ports, Ethernet input, plus a few other audio inputs. Mel did a great job of finding a good buy that was under our budget we had allocated. To top it off, a anonymous donor added a waterproof Pelican 1610 case to keep it safe in transit. I don’t think we could have done better for our members and we hope you will enjoy the benefits of this new addtion for our club.

At this time, the specific link for the Projector donations are now closed. We managed to raise almost half of the total cost of the projector which really helped our treasury 🙂 So I want to extend a big THANK YOU to all of those who donated to make our club great and progressive.

List Of Donators:

Del Morissette WA7AQH
John Gager K7KB
Mel Ming N7GCO
Gary Swartout K7GS
Pat Murphy N7UVH
Bob Hallock K7TM
Bob Rosie W7GSV
Mike Buettner K7STO
Chris Pritchard WX7B
Gary Bytnar AD7XG
Jay Holcomb WA0WWW
Chuck Williams KI7DG
Bob Zavrel W7SX

Thanks so much for your donations!

Mike Buettner (K7STO), with the assistance of Bob Lee (N7AU) and Woody Jacobson (N7HCJ) lowered Mikes 60 ft tower down. Performed yearly antenna and tower maintenance (checked every thing over) then added my first 160m antenna (inverted L) to the tower. Mike has a wonderful setup for raising and lowering his tower.

Jeff Banke (NZ2S) along with Greg Preuses (N6WCN) helped Gordon Olsson (AA6TQ) remove a dipole off Gordon’s roof and tighten some bolts on his yagi.

David Wilhelm (WA7TNT) is working on putting up his tower. David is completely rebuilding a Mosely TA-33 and hopes to install it at the top of 3-4 sections of Rohn 25. The hole is dug, rebar, tilt base plate bolts, and gin pole are in place. Base and first sections are in.

Bob Zavrel (W7SX) has been busy putting up wire antennas on his antenna farm. All are center fed wires with lengths of 50, 90, 110 and 220 feet and tree supported.

Mel Ming (N7GCO) just put up a Butternut HF2V vertical to give him another option on 40 and 80 meters. Put out 40 radials. Also added radials to his 160 meter inverted L antenna.

Jeff Banke (NZ2S) and Dave Lehman (WA7F) put up Dave’s 60ft tower. Jeff did the crane work and Dave the climbing.

Bob Hallock (K7TM) put up an 160 meter inverted L for Jim Monroe (N7ESU). They went up in the tree about 70-80 ft and then horizontal close to 100 ft.

Del Morissette (WA7AQH) received his SteppIR Urban Beam he won at the DX Convention. Hopes to get it up for winter.

I am sure there are others I have missed.