MINUTES OF LIDXA INC. MEETING—
September 20, 2002
Location:
Briarcliffe College, Bethpage, N.Y.
The LIDXA President, Marty, NN2C, called the meeting of September 20 to order at 8:20 PM. Marty welcomed all members and guests back after the summer break. This meeting was held in our new meeting site in Briarcliffe College, 1055 Stewart Avenue, Bethpage, NY. The original room scheduled for tonight’s meeting was #10 in “Huntington” hallway; however, due to a class make-up session, this room was occupied for tonight’s meeting, so we met in an adjacent room along the hallway.
Members present included K2MFY, KE2LJ, W2GW (and XYL), NN2C, N2FF, KB2HK, and W2FGD.
The first order of business was to thank Pat, KE2LJ,
for finding the LIDXA a new meeting site for our monthly meetings now that the Polytechnic school in Farmingdale has
closed down. The membership warmly
applauded Pat for all his efforts in the selection. Essentially the setup for the room is the same as in the Polytechnic location. The use of any VCR
equipment, etc. can easily be arranged by letting the college office staff know
at the time of our meeting.
In terms of DX, specific activities were highlighted:
· With the approach of Fall conditions, propagation on the 10 and 12 meter bands have started to improve. Although we are in a sunspot cycle decline, conditions on the higher HF bands should be good until the early Spring.
·
Most of the members
present reported that they have received the QSL card from the new DXCC entity,
VP6DI, Ducie Island. The deadline date
for DXCC submittal to the ARRL (to be listed on the 2003 Honor Roll) is
September 30.
·
Recently the operation
from P5/4L4FN, (Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea) has been mainly on
RTTY. Some members reported that the
operator, Ed, has started to come up on 10 meter SSB (28.530 MHz) around
2200Z. Ed plans to be in North Korea
until June 2003.
·
It was rumored there
may be a DXpedition to Scarborough Reef in the near future.
·
Ed, K2MFY, reported
that he has gotten very good results with direct QSL card returns, by using the
special airmail return envelopes and foreign mint stamps obtained from William
J. Plum in New Jersey.
Starting the business portion of tonight’s meeting was the approval of the June 21 meeting minutes. These minutes were prepared in advance by the club’s secretary, Ed, K2MFY, and sent out to the membership with the club’s September meeting notice. In addition, thanks to the efforts of KE2LJ, Pat, these minutes also appear in the LIDXA web site: http://www.qsl.net/lidxa. As a result of the elections at the June meeting, the new club officers (years 2002-2004) are as follows:
·
President: Marty, NN2C
·
Vice President: Pat,
KE2LJ
·
Secretary: Ed, K2MFY
·
Treasurer: John, W2GW
·
Directors: Lou, N2TU;
John, N2QW; and Lew, W2BIE.
Club treasurer, John, W2GW reported that he is almost completed reviewing the club’s financial records. It was also noted that the following members have still not paid their 2002 dues: AA2VG, K2ENT, KA2NRR, KE2UK, KG2T, N2JE, N2NB, W2SF, W2TE, and W2VZQ. Marty and some of the other club members said they would contact the aforementioned members and inquire if they still wished to remain in the club, and request they forward their dues ASAP to John.
Marty
commented that he had not heard anything new on the status of Millennium Tower Corporation’s
application for a tower construction permit with the Town of Babylon. In the meantime, the LIDXA has use of the
Grumman repeater, on 146.745 MHz.
During our Sunday night nets, the LIDXA also then switches over to our
own LIDXA frequency at 147.300 MHz.
The new organization “MetroCor, Inc.,” which has been formed to replace the defunct TSARC (TriState Amateur Radio Council), is to provide amateur frequency coordination for the NYC/LI, Northern NJ, and part of the downstate NY regions. At the June meeting, Marty requested that Ed fill out a current “Repeater Frequency Coordination Update Document.” This document had been sent to the LIDXA from MetroCor. Ed had several copies of this form in hand, and requested that Pat fill out the technical repeater information, and he would fill in the sponsor/repeater information. Ed would then transfer all the information to the original document, and forward the data to MetroCor, along with a $15 processing fee. It was also recommended that Ed draft a general letter to MetroCor, stating that LIDXA welcomes this new group and is submitting a $20 check for their yearly organizational dues.
Marv
reported that the local packet activities of N2TX has been eliminated. Except for the node at K2LS, there is no
more DX packet-spotting networks in the NYC/LI area. Most of the activities are now confined to the Telnet/Internet.
Ed
said he would forward an e-mail to George Tranos, N2GA, ARRL SCM (NYC/LI),
informing him of the new LIDXA meeting site.
George edits the monthly “ARRL NYC/LI E-Happenings Newsletter.” The Section News will be discontinued from QST in printed version, starting with
the January 2003 issue.
Frank,
N2FF, LIDXA member and ARRL Hudson Division Director, said that although the
NewYork ham antenna bill came very close to becoming law (passed in the NY
State Senate), the New York Assembly would probably not vote on it this
year. The bill would have incorporated
the wording of PRB-1 into New York State law and set minimum regulatory heights
for antenna structures. Frank said that
he would meet with a task force shortly to plan for introducing the bill again
into the 2003 session.
It was mentioned that the 2003 Ham Radio University (HRU) planning meeting is set for October 14 in the Emergency Operations Center, Babylon Town Hall, North Lindenhurst, NY. That meeting will discuss the date, location, forum schedule, logistics and other aspects of HRU 2003. HRU is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, January 19, 2003, with the location to be announced.
Ed
said he would send out the announcement for the October 18 LIDXA meeting to all
members via e-mail. This mailing will
also include instructions to the Briarcliffe
College along with the September meeting minutes.
Marty
indicated that he was leaving for England in early October to attend the annual
IOTA Conference. This will be the tenth
year that he will be attending this conference. Marty stated he would report IOTA events to the membership in the
October meeting.
This
meeting concluded at around 9:45 PM after all the scheduled business had
finished.
______________________________________
Ed Whitman, K2MFY
LIDXA Secretary