Spokane DX Association

SPOKANE DX ASSOCIATION
Minutes of Feb. 03 2005 Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 7 PM by President Randy Foltz K7TQ, Feb. 03 2005 at the North Spokane County Library at E. 44 Hawthorne Road. There were 12 members and one guest present.

COMMENTS
*W6AEA-F- George says he’s been looking for Somalia; he’s got 297 countries, going for # 300. Good Shootin’ George!

*WU7X-F-Dale is now officially retired after a fine retirement party Jan. 29th. He said that several hundred dollars were donated will go to the Tsunami Relief Fund. He plans to work the Spartan Sprint CW contest, Mon. Eve. Feb.7th; says it’s a short, fun contest. Dale now has a Butternut HF2V antenna up at 14 ft. on 40 and 80 m and working good with radials.

*N7ER-F-Earl hasn’t been hearing much on the bands in the limited time he’s been able to get on. (Lamar suggested to try Daybreak and Sunset.) Earl has 317 current countries and 329 total confirmed by receipt of ARRL certificate.

*WA7LT-F-Lamar said he hasn’t been doing much with radio recently. He recentl received a 50 year membership plaque from ARRL. He’s been visiting Bud Barenchi W7BUD during Bud’s serious illness.

*K7AWB-F-Steve asked for folks who might be able to help provide rides to meetings for those who might need them. Steve is gradually solving his background noise problems with the aid of Inland and Avista power companies. Inland Power bought 2 MFJ-852 powerline noise locators after trying Steve’s.

*KC7QGV-A- Marybeth had no radio activity to report (too many other activities).

*AC7MV-A-Dave has been on 10m on Saturdays.

*WA1PMA-F-Wayne worked one Asian DX station, but barely, he said. Randy commented “no sweat, the card wouldn’t say barely (hi-hi).

*K7EKM-A-Kirk worked 2 Antarctic Islands on PSK-31.

*N5AR-F-Dan has mostly been busy helping Jim NE7F get a military surplus linear amplifier going; trying to get biases reset etc. Dan also suggested that maybe a weekly 2 meter DX roundtable would appropriate.

*K7TQ-F-Randy worked the 160m WW CW contest Jan. 29-30. He logged 120 contacts including Alaska and Hawaii, some Ontario and Virginia stations as well as other Wash. stations. Randy has a pretty effective full wave 160 m antenna. Basically it goes up 45ft then over the house and around the area between trees and drops to about 10 ft. Obviously it’s working very well!

*KD7OCT-A-Loren worked Slovakia, Taiwan, So. Korea, Japan and the Philippines this month,nothing really exotic, he said. He’s getting tired of lights dimming when he transmits at 200 watts, so he added a couple of dedicated #12 110 lines for radios and a heavier line for a linear.

*W7BUD-SK. I am Sad to report that Bud Barenchi, our good friend and fellow SDXA member passed away after a short bout with cancer on Thursday February 3rd. Bud was a long time Ham. Bud had many friends and was a very good-natured person, and he will be greatly missed by all who knew him. Our thoughts and prayers go with our good friend Bud and his family.

I am including a very recent letter from a long time friend of Bud’s, and SDXA member – Elvin Miura – JA3CZY, who knew Bud well, that was sent to Lamar, WA7LT, and tells an interesting story about Bud. The Letter appears near the end of these Minutes.

TREASURER’S REPORT
Bank Account on Feb.03-05 $737.18
Cash on Hand $143.20
Balance $880.38

Dan shows that 17 members have paid 2005 Dues.

Thank You Dan.

OLD BUSINESS
1. Corrections

a. Under “New Business”, it was Glenn Moore N7VFW who was nominated, seconded, and approved for Honorary Membership due to his continued work and support with the K7SDX packet node.

b. Gary K7OX has obtained the audio tape of the “T33” operation from Honorary Member KH6GMP-Gary.

c. Dale-WU7X worked the VU4 in the Andaman Islands- not India.

NEW BUSINESS
1. A motion was made by Lamar WA7LT to allocate $50 for a remembrance for deceased members. It was seconded and approved.

PROGRAM

“ An introduction to 6m “meteor scatter” was very professionally presented by Steve K7AWB, who is a Big 6m and VHF fan. In his oral presentation, accompanied by slides with graphs and pictures, he explained the various types of 6m long- range propagation, caused by Aurora, meteor trails, and other phenomena. Interestingly, he pointed out how exotic equipment wasn’t required and how exotic antennas weren’t necessarily the best, but that a 3, 5, or possibly 7 element beam was more than enough. It was a very informative and interesting dissertation for those of us not versed in 6m DX. Thank you very much Steve.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
ARRL Inter. DX SSB Contest March 5-6

10-10 Int. Mobile Contest March 19

CQ WW WPX Contest March 26-27

Please visit our web site at www.sdxa.org !

Letter To Lamar WA7LT from Elvin JA3CZY

Here is the story Elvin forwarded to the club regarding Bud,W7BUD, and the
sister-cities of Spokane and Nishinomiya. Elvin ask me to correct his
English and spelling, but I think it is very good the way it is, plus it
helps us to remember the real Elvin. He further asked that it be forwarded
to the SDXA mailing list as an attachment following the next meeting
minutes. You may want to copy and paste this at the end of your minutes.

73, LaMar
_______________________________________________________________

One old story of Bud Barenchi (ex WA7JZR, now W7BUD), In the spring of 1975, I had a call from the mayor’s office of Nishinomiya. They need my help that they recived a letter from a HAM in Spokane
who would like to making a contact with Nishinomiya’s HAM. The letter was writen by Mel K7AOZ. . I wrote him back and let him knows the freq and time as sked which might be have some opening for us.
We both tryied that so often for a several monthes but never made. yet I was so confused that I’ve used to worked with many of westcoast HAMs, ether 15 or 20 meter band, however I’ve never catch the signal of K7AOZ.

In late summer of 1975, It’s a accidentary happend that I heard a station calling CQ on 14.240 with 59+. I called him up and entering a QSO. The station was Bud WA7JZR and he said his QTH is Spokane., Wow! I told him that I’ve been looking for Mel K7AOZ and need his help. A few days later I had a call from Bud on 20m band again, he said there is Mel K7AOZ on frequency. No I can not hear him, sorry!
Mel had a Hy-Tower with Swan equipment. Bud had a 5el-big yagi 140ft with full regal limit of power (maybe more?!). Mel wrote me a letter, said so sorry and just barely copy me.

Another a few week past, I QSOed with Bud on 20m, another big station joined us that was Tom W7IBE. He also has an excellent signals as 59+. Ofcorse Mel with us but no copy him yet! Bud, Tom and I established a sked and we have had a many of nice QSOs since then..

On Nov-1st 1975, while on round table with Bud and Tom, we had a breaker, that was Mel and his sigs 59. At last we made a QSO with Mel He said he fixed a new 60ft tower with a TH-3mk2 on top. We both so excited to hearing each real voice on the radio first time.

We established our regular sked every weekend and we called “Sister, city QSO on HAM radio”. We all were so delight to continuing our sistercity gathering until Mel’s passed away 1983. As I remember over 200stations of Spokane’s and 50 of Nishinomiya’s been joined us.

Befor I closing this, Bud and I had a wonderfull reunion at Spokane Hamfest 2003. He always love to taliking about big antenna’s and big amplifier’s. I’m looking forward to hearing his big voice again on the radio soon. Good luck and hope everything be well with you Bud!

Merry merry Christmas and a Happy 2005 to all

73 & 88 FB-DX
====================================
“ELVIN” YUJI MIURA J A 3 C Z Y
10-14 IKEBIRAKI, NISHINOMIYA,
HYOGO, JAPAN 663-8137

A fitting rememberance of our good friend Bud by another good friend Elvin!

Thank you Elvin!

73’s and Happy Dxing
Loren KD7OCT, Secretary SDXA