Spokane DX Association

SPOKANE DX ASSOCIATION
Minutes of April 07 2005 Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 7 PM by President Randy Foltz K7TQ at the North Spokane County Library at 44E. Hawthorne Road. There were 15 members present.

COMMENTS

*K7AWB-F-Steve says he’s getting close to his DXCC on 12 and 17 meters. (Way to go Steve!) He says he’s spent lots of time on the air. Steve says he and Peggy (W7PEG) have been shopping for a house ( due to S7 radio noise at his QTH ). Steve also mentioned he’ll be attending the Northwest DX Convention in Portland.

*WU7X-F-Dale has gotten a lot of cards, mostly from 17 m CW operation. His new Steppir Ant. is working great, (which he will tell us about in his presentation). He got into the RTTY contest last weekend and enjoyed it. Dale’s also having a friend build him a Pentium II computer with Windows 98, Write-Log, MMTTY, etc. for the Ham Shack.

*N7ER-F-Earl hasn’t been on the radio much and hasn’t been hearing much when he’s on, except local 10m QSO’S.

NE7F-F-Jim didn’t have a lot of radio activity to report except he did work Swaine’s Island- got him 5/1, but it was good enough for a QSO. He also heard a TZ(Mali) this evening , but wasn’t able to work him.

*K7EFB-F-Bill has been on the air some on Saturdays on 10 m. He hasn’t been on the air much since he’s having problems with his vision, but doing OK otherwise. He said he may be moving in the future. Dale WU7X suggested we have an antenna party and raise a Vertical antenna for him after he moves.

*K7HRT-F-Pat has been on the air off and on, mostly on 20m, and he’s been working the CPN Net.

*W7FCB-F-Rudy has been teaching a “General” license class in the evenings at an LDS Church on the South Hill. He’s also Net Control on the Country Cousin’s Net on Sunday nights.

*K7OX-F-Gary got in RTTY contest last weekend and had a lot of fun with it. Conditions on 20 and 40m were good, 10 and 15 were bad. He made more contacts on 80m than 15m. Gary spent a lot of time getting set up for Logbook of the World, which took a little doing. He loaded about 18,000 RTTY contacts for Barb Ke7AJ and about 14,000 for himself. He found, after loading, that Barb’s DXCC credit jumped from 146 to 191, showing that a lot of Dxer’s are using LoTW.

*WA7LT-F-Lamar operated in the CQ WPX contest Mar.26-27 and said conditions werenot good, especially 10m which was horrible. He had 160 contacts on 160m and only one with ZL1B on 10m. Lamar along with Jay, Steve, Kirk and Randy operated “ Multi-Single “ in the ARRL SSB DX Contest Mar. 5-6 and conditions were not good, but they did manage 1000 contacts. Lamar also reported that the Packet system is up and running.

*WA1PMA-F-Wayne worked a new one last month-FT5XO- on both 40m CW and 20m SSB.

*K7EKM-A-Kirk has been looking for new countries; worked South Tome. He also worked French Guiana which was difficult and took about 45 minutes. Kirk also has his Kenwood 930 transceiver repaired and operating.

*WS7I-F-Jay worked the ARRL SSB contest at Lamars’ recently with the other operators and enjoyed it very much since he hadn’t done that for a while. I believe I heard him correctly (above the QRM in the room) to say that he had 84 QSO’S and worked 32 countries. Jay also said that the EWARG group has the packet system up and running on 144.950. He said the transmitter site is on Lookout Point, about 30 miles NW of Spokane at about 4800 ft., and should provide very good reception to the West, South and the Spokane area. Jay offered that he would be delighted to help if we would e-mail him with any problems. Jay’s Letter with the Packet Info. will be e-mailed tomorrow (4-08) to all concerned. A big “Thank You to Jay and the Eastern Washington Amateur Radio Group”!!

N5AR-F-Dan has discovered noisy bell transformers, which are continuously powered, can cause RFI. It was also mentioned that some some smoke detectors cause RFI – more things to check if problems occur. Dan also worked Spratly I. on 10105 (CW) if you need it. He also worked Somalia several times last month.

*KD7OCT-A-Loren was able to work Neth . Antilles (PJ2) last Sat. and also worked Aruba and a chap in Buenos Aires. He also went to the Puyallup Hamfest, as did about half of our club, and was looking for a small scope to use as a station monitor but all he found was a large Tectronics 7704 which was to good to pass up, being a 4 channel 150 mhz. Rig, so it found a new home. Loren missed the first SDXA 2m net, but was there last Thurs. at 7PM and thought it went very well with a lot of interesting info., and that Dan, N5AR did a great job as net controller/manager.

*K7TQ-F-Randy’s big item is that he finally got a Cuba QSL card in today’s mail. He also said that he’s finally going to Visalia which ought to be fun.

TREASURER’S REPORT
Bank Account on April 01 $346.98
Dues $ 80.00
Cash on Hand $153.20
Total $580.18

Dan shows 23 pd. Members presently.

Thank You, Dan.

OLD BUSINESS
2m Net. This net is a get-together for Dxers, and hopes to attract those who may be interested in DXing. Everyone is welcome. Dan would like any ideas for subjects for net discussion, and there are probably many topics possible of interest to new-comers.

Note: Please allow 2-3 seconds between transmissions for repeater switching!

We hope that everyone will participate, if possible.

DXCC Counts- Steve K7AWB would like you to send him your standings if you haven’t, to put on our web page.

NEW BUSINESS
Salmon Run (Sept) Steve K7AWB says he will try very hard to beat Gene W7WMO in the low power category who has won it the last 2 years, although they both had high scores.

Gene had 50 states and Steve 44, they both had 28 counties.

PROGRAM
Dale WU7X gave an excellent presentation with lots of good pictures and description of the raising of his new 50 ft. tower and his new Steppir antenna, which he says is fabulous. He was scheduled for a half hour, but due to the interest and many good questions it was extended for the hour. It sounds like a great combination for 6 thru 20 m and I’m sure he will enjoy it!

Thanks Dale for a very enlightening presentation.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

SDXA 2METER NET Thurs nights at at 7 PM 147.38 +600 offset. Ya’All Come.

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

73 and happy DXing
Loren KD7OCT
Secretary, Spokane DX Association