Spokane DX Association

The picture is in the Clearwater National Forest near Elk River, ID on
February 2, 2001 during the annual FYBO contest. FYBO (Freeze Your Butt
Off) was dreamed up by a bunch of Arizona hams who thought it would be neat to
have a FD operation in the winter. Multipliers are based on the temperature
you operate in. Colder temperatures have a higher multiplier. The multiplier maxs out at 20 degrees F.

Info on the 2006 event can be found at :

http://www.azscqrpions.org/ScQRPion_OPERATING_EVENTS.htm

Randy says, “I’ve operated like that from a snow pit in 2000, 01, 02, and 04. There
wasn’t enough snow in 2005 so I operated from the ground. I’m hoping for snow
for this year’s event.” More of Randy’s history in this contest is at:

http://mysite.verizon.net/rbfoltz/fybos.htm

ARRL President Jim Haynie has appointed William J. Sawders, K7ZM, of Bend, Oregon, to fill the remaining year of the current term of Northwestern Division Vice Director.

Gary K7OX and Dale WU7X operate under call KE7AJ in the ARRL RTTY Round-Up with a live web camera. Here is what the duo looked like. Good luck Guys.

SPOKANE DX ASSOCIATION MINUTES
JANUARY 5, 2006
7:00 P.M.

Officers: Steve Sala, President; LaMar Ray, Treasurer; Dale Avery, Vice President; Marybeth Snyder, Secretary

Steve called the meeting to order and introduced the officers.

The program for this evening will be “Danger! Solar Storm”.

The dues for 2006 are now due. LaMar is now accepting dues. The dues are $20.00 per person with an additional $10.00 for a family member.

Members Present this Evening: (21)
Bob, AC7GP
Dave, AC7MV
Steve, K7AWB
Bill, K7EFB
Gary, K7OX
Chris, KB4ZIG
Marybeth, KC7QGV
Loren, KD7OCT
Barbara, KE7AJ
John, KE7CSF
Dan, N5AR
Earl, N7ER
Jim, NE7F
Corky, NQ7V
Doug, W3AS
George, W6AEA
Wayne, WA1PMA
LaMar, WA7LT
Mike, WA9PIE
Jay, WA0WWW
Dale, WU7X

Treasurer’s Report: Received from LaMar
Money received from the Hamfest was approximately $470.00
Balance in bank is $976.43

There were no minutes from December 2005 meeting as it was the banquet and 16 people attended. It was a really great meal with a really wonderful speaker, Ward Silver, N0AX. There is consideration of moving the banquet closer to Spokane and maybe even moving it to November rather than December.

Next months program will be “THE UNTOLD STORY OF 5 DXPEDITIONS” and “A VIDEO OF THE UPCOMING 3YOX PETER 1 ISLAND DXPEDITION”.

http://8.3.8.118/peterone/main.htm

If you renew your ARRL membership through the SDXA the club receives $2.00 from each renewal. If you join through us as a new member or after a lapse of two years without membership, we get $15.00 from the ARRL for the SDXA.

The new QSL Manager will be George Tuncil. Doug Brede will continue as the contest liason.

We are beginning to look at Field Day. The dates will be June 24th and 25th. Hopefully we will have enough people to set up on June 23rd during the day.

A Google Group has been set up for posting messages and for club use. If you were signed up and did not want to be, please notify Steve Sala and that will be taken care of immediately. THE LOCATION IS:

http://groups.google.com/group/sdxa

The Web Page has been revised and is looking good.

https://sdxa.org

Steve is also trying to get all the contest results on the Web Page (involving our members) from the first official SDXA meeting in April, 2002 to the current ratings.

We have pictures in the CQ Calendar of three of our Club Members or events. We are very proud and pleased. Gary and Barbara Elliott are featured in their “ham shack” and Doug Brede and Brandi Hammers are featured at “Field Day”, as well as LaMar Ray being featured at his home with some “big pines and a bigger tower”. They are very good pictures and a proud representation of all involved. Calendars are available from CQ Magazine for $12.95 including shipping.

The Hamfest in April is not going to happen this year as the President of that group is having some health issues and the September Hamfest is up in the air, due to issues of insurance. Steve is going to look into insurance for the SDXA to see if that is something we might want to do for all of our
events.

Upcoming Contests:
RTTY Roundup —– January 7th and 8th
VHF Sweepstakes —– January 21st and 22nd
CQ World Wide 160 CW —– January 28th and 29th

Report on B. R. Bear Carson, AC7HI by Bob AC7GP: Most of us know Bear and know that he had a life style change with the amputation of one foot and part of the leg. We all look forward to hearing him back on the air and look forward to his complete recovery.

Meeting adjourns for the program to begin.

Minutes Submitted by

Marybeth Snyder, KC7QGV

Several thanks are in order for SDXA events recently. These are are in no particular order.

Jim NE7F —– for his construction and maintanance of the web site in the past.

Ward N0AX —– for coming to our Annual Banquet in the middle of snow and telling us about his “vacation” on Kure Island.

Randy K7TQ —– for commanding the ship during the last two years.

Contesters —– for any SDXA members who entered contests AND sent in the results for the club competition

DXers —– for those SDXA members who phoned, emailed, or shouted the latest DX on the air NOW to other club members!

Dan N5AR , Lamar WA7LT, and Gary K7OX —– for starting the SDXA years ago, filling a void in Spokane.

Doug W3AS —– for arranging our Field Day site for three years, for the hospitality and equipment at the site, and being our “contest liason” for the club competition scores.

Oh, I probably missed someone and they are going to be mad; If you know you did something good for the club, YOU KNOW IT and no one can take that away from you!

Steve
K7AWB

A recent post to Tower Talk gave an excellent route for finding your magnetic declination. It also gives your latitude and longitude in decimal notation which I like.

Go to this location:

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/Declination.jsp

Click enter your Zip Code at Get Location.
Click Compute Declination.

or enter your Latitude and Longitude in the Enter Location for a more precise location.
Click Compute Declination.

This, with your compass reading, will give you true north once you subtract the declination from the compass reading to get true headings.

Of course, there are other ways to find true north. You can use the North Star or you can use my favorite method as follows.

Look in the newspaper for the times of sun up and sun down. Calculate the hours and minutes between. Divide this by 2 and that is the time of exact noon. At that time, look at the shadow of your tower or a vertical post and the shadow points to true north.

73, Dan, N5AR
Jan 1, 2006

Comments from Steve K7AWB Webmaster:
I did both ways. I entered my Zip Code and calculated; and then I entered my Latitude and Longitude from my GPS and recalculated. Both gave the same declination of 16 degrees 23 minutes East. Years ago, I marked true North at my house by finding the North Star at night. I saw that it was directly over my neighbors front door when I stand at the upper right corner of my front steps, with my feet together. So I can find true North in the daytime. hi hi