Spokane DX Association

It has been hard to navigate though all the past Meeting Minutes for 13 plus years. They have been reorganized so first pick your year and then your month. Usually twice per year there were no minutes for the Summer Picnic month and the Awards banquet month. The minutes for years 2003 and 2004 are missing, but under investigation. Also, some of the characters (‘, $, #, etc.) in the text of some older minutes somehow mis-translated throughout the years so they will be fixed as time permits.

The first ever minutes for our first official meeting are for April, 2002. Here is a quick APRIL 2002 LINK to those to see how we started. Also, an article on how the organization started was written by one of our founders Lamar Ray WA7LT and it is in the Articles section; here is a quick LINK to it.

I’m happy to announce that Emmett McCormick (NA7EM) with the Idaho DX Association (IDXA) has stepped up to the plate to be our chairman for the 2021 Pacific Northwest DX Convention! It is really nice to have members from IDXA take the lead on this and I’m looking forward to a great convention!
I wanted to know a little more about Emmett and the IDXA so I sent him a few questions to know a bit more about our chairman and the club:
How long have you been DX’ing and what is your main interest?
I’ve been DXing for 27 years. I love CW and the older digital modes.
Do you do any contesting, and if so, do you have a favorite?
I contest anytime I can. I’m not a big name contester using full power and large antenna arrays, I just enjoy the thrill of making contacts. I’ve always run barefoot or QRP.
I’m a SOTA participant and active goat packer….I’m on the board for the North American Pack Goat Association to actively fight legislators threatening goat access to public lands……so WG0AT is not the only one out there playing radio with goats.
What kind of equipment and antennas do you have at the QTH?
I run a Yaesu FTDX-3000 barefoot into a 6-BTV currently. I’m in the process re-erecting a 70’ Rohn 45 tower with a TH7DX beam. More antennas are planned for the future but I just recently moved to my new QTH on some acreage.
When was the IDXA first formed, and who started it?
The Idaho DX Association is a fully incorporated, non-profit, ARRL Affiliated, amateur radio organization formed in 2011 by Emmett McCormick, NA7EM. With a passionate interest in DX contesting, the IDXA club mission is to create unity among Idaho contesters, promote the spirit of amateur radio through respectful contesting, and to contribute to the overall goodwill worldwide.
How many members does the club currently have?
We currently have 40 members, although with any club, only a handful are actively submitting scores.
Do you have monthly meetings? If so, when and where?
We meet quarterly, usually in Lewiston, but also run a teleconference during the meeting to include all of our members statewide. The meetings are announced on the website and via our groups.io page.
I had the chance to chat with Emmett a bit during the convention in Everett a couple of weeks ago and I believe our convention is in good hands! But like I mentioned at the start of this article, Emmett and the IDXA has “stepped up to the plate”, meaning this is a team effort for it to be a success. Emmett and Randy Foltz (K7TQ) will be attending our September meeting to talk to us about the 2021 convention and the initial planning.
Article by John Gager – K7KB

The 2019 Pacific NW DX Convention was hosted by the Western Washington DX Club in Everett, WA. The attendance was the highest ever. A number of members of the SDXA participated.

Dr Joe Taylor (K1JT) whose work in Astrophysics led to a Nobel Prize for his study of gravitational radiation of binary pulsars. He was a professor at Princeton and is the creator of the incredible popular WSJT-X and FT8/FT4.

Dr Tamitha Skov (WX6SWW) is a research scientist at the Aerospace Corporation in Southern California. Her specialty is Geophysics and Space Plasma Physics.

Gary (AD7XG) and Del (WA7AQH)
Del won one of the Grand Prizes, a SteppIR Urban Beam.
(Photo by Bob Hallock)

John (K7KB)
(Photo by Bob Hallock)

The July/August 2019 issue of National Contest Journal (NCJ) has an excellent article by our own Geoff Howard (W0CG/PJ2DX) titled “A Pictorial Guide to Corrosion-Proofing for Seaside Antenna Systems.”
Geoff is certainly an expert on this (and many other things) and we are so glad to have his as part of the SDXA. Enjoy the article thanks to the ARRL and NCJ. You will pick up ideas for your own station, even though you are not near salt water. The article reminds us of how labor intensive this process is, but necessary if you want your towers and antennas to last.
Congratulations Geoff on an excellent article with great pictures as illustrations.

LINK to NCJ Article

Here is the LINK to the most complete listing for the NW by Lynn N7CFO

Mel N7GCO gave an introduction to the newest digital mode by Joe Taylor and friends called FT4.

In Show and Tell,

Several hams showed off their projectile air “guns” to launch a weight with a fishing line over tall trees to eventually be able pull up a dipole, inverted V, or other wire antenna. A fly fishing rod was even shown for those who know how to manipulate the skill. Among the presenters were:

1. John (K7KB) “Serial rotor control box” – but the internet connection at the library was not behaving.
2. Mike (K7STO) “NON-Tennis Ball Antenna Launcher”
3. Harold (AD7QJ) “Tennis Ball Antenna Launcher”
4. Bob (K7TM) “Antenna Launcher #3”
5. David (WA7TNT) “ICOM AH-4 Modification” – He showed his modifications to the ICOM AH4 remote tuner so one can disconnect the control cable and coax from the unit without going inside it, which is a feat due to the number of small screws and a very thin formed gasket.

LINK TO ARTICLE

(Article reprinted from April-May, 2019 issue of Health & Home magazine published by The Inlander)

Jeremiah offers a tower climbing service for local hams.
JP Telecomm
tower climbing, running coax/heliax, installing antennas, connectors, solid state and tube repairs, selling refurbished equipment, etc.

phone 509 998-2865
[email protected]
has rate sheet for hams

The first meeting of the SDXA was held on April 11, 2002

Happy 17th birthday to the SDXA!!

Spokane DX Association
13010 S Short Rd
Cheney, WA 99004

1. K1TTT David Robins: BUILDING A SUPER STATION

The history of building the K1TTT amateur radio super station in Peru, MA. You purchase it at $0.00 which means free! 713 pages.

Free PDF download to your computer at this K1TTT LINK.

2. G3TRP Trevor Preece: THE THE VHF/UHF DX BOOK, 2017 Replica Edition

The VHF/UHF DX Book was written in the early to mid-1990s by a team of experienced VHF/UHF DXers and equipment developers, in an effort to pass on our knowledge and stimulate further developments. Looking back, that plan worked very well… for a time. But as we entered the digital age, information of lasting value became trapped on the printed pages and was lost to the next generation of VHF/UHF DXers.
This digital replica of the Second Printing dated 1995 has been released by permission of the copyright owner TRPublishing and its proprietor Trevor Preece G3TRP.

Free PDF download to your computer at this G3TRP LINK.

3. PVRC 2015 ARRL DX CONTEST COOKBOOK

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Free PDF download to your computer at this PVRC COOKBOOK LINK.

Thanks to Mike Buettner K7STO and his friend Woody Jacobson N7HCJ for the March 7 meeting presentation on “Operation Salmon Run and other Contests in the Field”

Today, March 14, is commemorated as international PI day in honor of one of the most important numbers used in our understanding of the physical universe.

Pi is an irrational number, which means it cannot be represented as a simple fraction, and those numbers cannot be represented as terminating or repeating decimals. Therefore, the digits of pi go on forever in a seemingly random sequence. It is the ratio of the circumference of a circle and the diameter of a circle.

Circumference = pi times D where D is the diameter of the circle.

The first hundred digits of PI are:

3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 …

And I see that the restaurant Shari’s is offering a free piece of PIE for a ten dollar purchase on Pi Day to existing signed-up customers. A fancy play on words there.

This setup belongs to Del WA7AQH. The monitor is a 48″ LG 4K UHD TV at 3840×2160 resolution. Was $329 at Costco. This is the same screen space as four 24″ monitors running 1080P resolution.

Windows open left side from the top:
N3JFP’s AC Log
WSJT-X
WSJT-X bandscope

Windows open on the right:
XR12 Mixer (background)
Elecraft W-2 power/swr meter
JT-Alert
PSK Reporter in a browser window

Antenna Modeling Orientation — Another great presentation by our local best selling ham author and ARRL Technical Advisor W7SX Bob Zavrel. It was an introduction to “Antenna Modeling”. He focused on EZNEC, which is by far the preferred software program tool for amateurs.

There will be a free follow-up workshop on EZNEC when the weather is better and more safe. We will let you now ahead of time. This now gives you more time to obtain your EZNEC software.

For those that want to use EZNEC, you can purchase it and install on your computer and bring to the workshop. Here is a link to the NW site that sells it:

Bob is the author of the ARRL published book entitled “An Introduction to Antenna Physics“, available from the ARRL or Amazon.com.