Spokane DX Association

At the recent October 5, 2006 meeting:

Gary K7OX presented his 40 meter 4-square antenna array. Nestled in the pine trees in his back yard, it took a lot of work to lay down the radials.

Gary was first licensed in 1953 at 13 in Phoenix, AZ as WN7UXP. Upgraded to Conditional 9 months latter as W7UXP. For the first 4 years worked exclusively CW with a homebrew transmitter which was a 6AG7 – 807 built on one of my Mothers Pie tins and a BC-348 military surplus receiver. Upgraded to Extra in Honolulu Hawaii in 1961. In addition to W7UXP have held various calls and operated from many DX locations. Some of the calls held where:

CN8FH – VQ4EER – KM6CB (Midway Isl) – KH6ECD (Kure Isl) – KH6HCM – DU1ZAB – K4IRQ – W7MRS – W7OX –

In the spring of 1975 obtained my present call of K7OX.

Became interested in Contesting in 1959 and the ARRL DX CW contest was my first venture and haven’t look back since. I have been a active contester and DXer for 47 years. Active on all HF bands 160-10 and hold :

DXCC Honor Roll
5BDXCC
5BWAS
WAZ ( AM Phone )

Published in CQ – QST – and 73 Magazines – Enjoy building HF amplifiers and Antennas. Share hamming with my wife Barbara KE7AJ.

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WORKING DX?

AFRAID TO ENTER A CONTEST?

WONDER WHICH ANTENNA YOU SHOULD USE?

HOW HIGH SHOULD YOUR ANTENNA BE?

WHERE DO I GET HELP IN SETTING UP A HF STATION?

Then you are a candidate to join the Spokane DX Association (SDXA). Meetings are held on the first Thursday of each month. Information on the next meeting is listed on this web site at the upper right corner. We have two types of memberships: Associate and Full. The purpose of the organization is to promote working DX stations; the industry standard of achievement is the ARRL DXCC award which is given for proof of working 100 separate countries (entities) on the DXCC list of over 330. If you have a DXCC award or have submitted it to the ARRL, you are eligible for Full membership with voting rights. Our meetings are populatew with Fulland Associate members. Contesting is one easy method of getting that DXCC certificate.

We are honored to have Chris KL9A as our guest speaker at the September 7th meeting . He was a participant in the recent WRTC 2006 contest in Brazil. He and Ward N0AX finished 8th as a team from the USA. Chris will give a PowerPoint presentation on the event. Be sure to make this special meeting and bring your prospective new member friends.

From Chris:
I got my no-code tech in 1993 when I was 10 years old. That got old real fast so I upgraded to a tech plus and spent about 2 or 3 years in the novice bands getting my code speed up. Eventually I upgraded to general, then shortly after that, Extra at age 14.

My first contest was SS CW from KL7, while my code speed was just barely at 13wpm. I got on and after one CQ, had a roaring pileup that was about 20wpm too fast for me, so I gave up and quit. After I calmed down a bit I got back on and slowly worked a few guys. I was very active during high school as WL7KY, getting my code speed up.

I was invited to KL7Y for CQWW CW in 1997, and after that it became my permanent contest home. KL7Y (SK) was a fabulous contest elmer, and I spent many hours helping him put up antennas and learning as much as I could. In 2000 I came to the University of Idaho and hooked up with the gang at W7UQ. For most of my contests I end up traveling to big stations. The last few years I regularly go to NK7U for big SSB multi ops, or CW single ops. For CQWW CW and ARRL CW I go to K3LR and have been on 40m with N2NC the last few times.

As far as WRTC goes, 2006 was my first one. N0AX emailed me one day out of the blue and asked me if I would be his partner, and of course I said yes! I am currently a produce manager at Rosauers, and a student at the U of I. I like all aspects of ham radio, particularly contesting. But VHF weak signal is a lot of fun, even if there isn’t a lot of activity in the NW!

More information about the WRTC event is at their web site:

http://www.wrtc2006.com/site/home.asp