“ohio first dxcc field checking club” the nodxa...

NODXA RAG January 2003

January 2003

Fellow DX'ers,

DXCC activities are up according to the lat-est February QST. The ARRL's DXCC Manager, Bill Moore, NC1L, feels this is due to the "DXCC Challenge" program and the "surprisingly long-lived peak of sunspot Cycle 23". The ARRL's DXCC office checked more than 60,000 QSLs in 2002 than 2001. Also, the "ARRL Outgoing QSL Service" reported an increase. This service was just "shy of cracking the two million outgoing cards mark in 2002 and handled over 10,000 pounds of incoming cards".

An interesting figure about the QSL Service is one-third of all the cards going out head to only six countries: Japan, Germany, Russia, It-aly, Great Britain and Spain. Hopefully, this is good news for our hobby, and DXing will continue to be an important part/key in keeping amateur radio alive and well.

Well, I am sure you all have heard by now about my unexpected early Christmas present; a

rebuilt heart. Currently, I am doing fine, bored, but fine. I am walking over two and half miles every day at the local shopping mall. I also can drive my truck now. So, I am getting around OK, but I just can not pick up anything over 25-30 pounds.

I want to thank the many who sent get well E-mails/cards and flowers to me. It was truly touching, especially when you feel low and help-less. I hope to see you at the next meeting or possibly at the Mansfield Hamfest (the club will have a table there).

73 and Good DX de Tedd KB8NW

Fireside Chat With KB8NW

“Ohio First DXCC Field Checking Club”

NO8DX - Special Event Callsign W8DXA - NODXA Repeater 147.360 K8MR - PacketCluster 144.91 & 145.57 Web-site: http://www.papays.com/nodxa.html Newsletter: [email protected]

Northern Ohio DX Association P.O. Box 450783 Westlake, Ohio 44145 U.S.A.

The NODXA

RAG


Minutes of the January 6th, 2003 NODXA Meeting

The meeting was called to

order at 8:04PM by Tedd, KB8NW and followed by the around the room introductions by the 18 members/guest in at-tendance.

The treasurer, Mary, N8DMM, reports a balance of Ka-Ching!

A report on the packet clus-ter was given by Pete, N8TR.

Please submit your articles for the Newsletter to Dave, WD8IOU, the editor.

A discussion on the Dayton Hamfest 2003 was opened by Tedd, KB8NW.

Dwaine, K8ME, opened a discussion on the DXCC Patches.

Classes for amateur radio code and theory classes will be conducted by the Cuyahoga Amateur Radio Society as in-formed to us by George, K8KR. Contact Gary Dewey, NI8Z. at 216-642-8705.

Tedd, KB8NW, informs us that Billy G. Pickard, WA5PAE, has been appointed the new Great Lakes Division DXAC Rep-resentative.

The NOARS Winterfest will be held on 02 February, 2003 at the Gargus Hall in Lorain, Ohio from 8:AM till 2:PM as related by Tedd, KB8NW and that the Mansfield Mid-Winter Hamfest and Computer Show is to be held on Sunday 09 Febru-ary, 2003 at the Richland County Fairgrounds from 6:30 AM till 3:00 PM.

The 50/50 raffle was won by Dwaine, K8ME, his share was $15.00.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:34 PM by Tedd, KB8NW.

Secretary: Ron, K8VJG ARRL Concludes

5-MHz Experiments

ARRL Letter Without fanfare, the ARRL

allowed its WA2XSY 5-MHz experimental license to lapse January 1 rather than request renewal for another year. Last May, the FCC proposed going along with the ARRL's 2001 re-quest for a new domestic (US-only), secondary HF allocation at 5.25 to 5.4 MHz. Discus-sions with various governmental agencies--including the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) and the Na-tional Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)--continue on how to ac-commodate amateur operation in the band, which is primary for several governmental agencies including the military. The NTIA regulates radio spectrum allocated to the federal govern-ment.

"At this point, we have every reason to believe the FCC will act on its proposal early this year," said ARRL Chief Ex-ecutive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ. "As to what the outcome will be as far as 5 MHz is con-cerned, we cannot predict."

In a December 24 letter, Sumner thanked the 15 Ama-

teur Radio clubs and individual amateurs who took part in the 5-MHz experimental operation that began in January 1999 and largely concluded in 2002. "You assisted in providing an impor-tant part of the groundwork for our petition for a domestic allo-cation to the Amateur Radio Service in this frequency range by demonstrating the desirabil-ity and feasibility of a shared allocation," he wrote. "We hope it will not be long before ama-teurs throughout the country are able to enjoy the fruits of your efforts."

Sumner said the ARRL chose not to request another renewal of the WA2XSY license because it already had obtained suffi-cient information to justify its petition for the band.

Until surprise opposition surfaced last fall from the NTIA, the FCC had the League's request for a new 60-meter band on the proverbial fast track. In a letter filed with the FCC last August--after the comment deadline had passed--the NTIA recom-mended that the Commission not go forward with the 5-MHz proposal. The NTIA said sev-eral government agencies with allocations in the proposed spectrum had expressed reser-vations about allowing amateurs to use the band, even on a non-interference basis.

The ARRL has been working with the federal agencies in-volved to resolve the impasse the NTIA letter raised. The NTIA said critical federal agencies, including the Depart-


ment of Justice, the US Coast Guard and the Department of Defense, were making extensive use of 5 MHz frequencies. The FCC's May 2002 Notice of Pro-posed Rule Making (NPRM) fails to adequately protect these "critical government operations" from harmful interference, the NTIA asserted.

The ARRL has called the 5 MHz allocation "an urgent prior-ity of the Amateur Service." In its July 2001 petition, the League told the FCC that a new band at 5 MHz would aid emer-gency communication activities by filling a "propagation gap" between 80 and 40 meters.

Experimental operations on 5 MHz continue on a very limited basis in the United Kingdom and in Canada. In Newfoundland, the Marconi Radio Club's VO1MRC has been operating un-der experimental authority from Industry Canada and an en-dorsement from Radio Amateurs of Canada to conduct experi-ments on 5 MHz. On December 21, VO1MRC completed a cross-band (5 MHz/7 MHz) CW contact with VK7RO in Tasma-nia.

"Radiomobile"

A couple of months ago I

received an email touting the terrain mapping software "Radiomobile" found at

www.cplus.org/radiomobile.htm

After a little bit of install-

ing and a lot of downloading

from government terrain profile data bases, I now have a map that includes from the lake to North Royalton, with eleva-tions and streets marked (courtesy of MAPQUEST.COM). Also included is the ability to perform computerized radio path analyses on all HF and VHF frequencies. As most of you would know if you checked it out, getting a signal out of my QTH near Lake Erie to most of Cuyahoga county means es-sentially transmitting up hill, and in fact over some "hills" which are not obvious if you are on the road driving. To many typical sites to the south and southeast, my signals are often diffracted with single or double obstructions. A typical dB path loss from here to North Royal-ton, even without diffraction, will be about 118 dB or so.

You may be amazed at those dB figures. But path loss is a lot higher than you might think, because the signal attenuates inversely with the square of the distance. All the computed S-meter readings at 10 watts out (from my QTH to points south-easterly in the county) are rea-sonable and appear to match some of the local 10 meter net operations I have been in. From my QTH to the NODXA Packet Cluster appears to be relatively unobstructed (whew).

The software also has the ability to build a sequence of picture files so one can "fly" the path with a simulated fighter pilot's or bird's eye view. Computer simulations of entire polar and cartesian an-

tenna patterns as affected by terrain appear to be a feature of the program, but I have not tested those yet.

Software and data file in-stallation assistance is available if you need it.

-de Glenn, AF8C

Nine-year Old Makes Extra

Elizabeth Harper of Vine-

mont, Alabama, became one of the nation's youngest Amateur Extra-class licensees during the Montgomery Amateur Radio Club hamfest examination session November 9. Accompanying the nine-year-old on her upgrade journey were her parents, Anthony, NO2M, and Sondra Harper, KA4EIC.

There was a lot of excite-ment as the volunteer examiners from the Montgomery CAVEC group graded her Element 4 an-swer sheet, then rechecked it twice more. A General licensee at the time of the session, Elizabeth also might hold the distinction of being the only youngster her age now working on her third ham radio call sign. When she sat for the Extra, she was KG4NAU. The FCC is-sued her a new sequential call sign, AG4WP, which she held for about three weeks until the FCC granted her vanity ap-plication. Elizabeth now is AK3H.

--Steve Padgett, K4NM


Poptronics Ceases Publication

ARRL Letter

Poptronics magazine--which

evolved from the former Popular Electronics and Electronics Now magazines--ceased publication with the January 2003 edition (Vol 4, No 1). "After 94 years of publishing electronics maga-zines Gernsback Publications is no longer in operation," said Larry Steckler, Poptronics' edi-tor in chief and publisher. "Negotiations are under way to provide an alternative publica-tion to Poptronics subscribers."

Steckler says a new on-line edition of Poptronics will soon be available. Poptronics Inter-active, a separate on-line, paid subscription site announced in the October issue of Poptronics, also is scheduled to return soon, Steckler said. The company plans to post the latest infor-mation on its Web site www.

Poptronics.com. The site has been undergoing "remodeling," but Steckler said it should be back in operation by the end of January.

Many veteran amateurs may recall the "Carl and Jerry" sto-ries by John T. Frye, W9EGV (SK), which appeared in Popular Electronics in the 1950s and 1960s. The tales involved the ham radio-related exploits of a couple of teenaged hams.

Christmas Wish

All I want for Xmas is a BS7 A BS7, a BS7 All I want for Xmas is that stinking Reef I'd then have relief If I could work that reef All I want for Xmas is that card on the wall Then I'd have them all As my needs are small. All I want for Xmas is a BS7

A BS7, a BS7 I'd be in heaven All I want for Xmas is that qsl so small Then I could wish you all: A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Good health, happiness, and a BS7 in your stocking.

W9OL, Bill H. in Chicagoland

Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, W9OL, WB8K, AF8C, K4NM, K8ME, K8AV, K8PF, KC4IYD, KB8QOF and the ARRL Letter.

Welcome to the 2003 Mansfield Mid*Winter Hamfest & Computer

Show.. February 09, 2003

6:30am to 3pm Tickets: $5.00 in advance and $6.00 at the door.

Tables: $12.00 advance only. Table deadline 01 February, 2003

Advance orders must include SASE to: Dean Wrasse, KB8MG

1094 Beal Road Mansfield, OH 44905

419-522-W8WE


As of March 2002 Current DXCC Entities Total is:

335

NODXA Club Officials for 2002-2003 President - Tedd Mirgliotta, KB8NW (440-237-2816) V. President - Dwaine Modock, K8ME (440-582-3462) Secretary - Ron Borkey, K8VJG (440-237-6718) Treasurer - Mary Michaelis, N8DMM (440-236-5426) Newsletter Editor - David Autry, WD8IOU (440-238-0417)

NODXA Meetings are held the first Monday of each month at the Demetrio’s Family Restaurant on RT.82 just west of Interstate 71 in Strongsville at 8:00 PM. Come early and have dinner, drink beer, meet your fellow DXers and enter the 50/50 raffle.

NODXA Application and Renewal Form The Northern Ohio DX Association is a non-profit organization

with a primary interest in DXing. We encourage all DXers to join our group and share the interest and fun of DXing.

Please complete the application below and send along your appropriate dues or renewal to:

NODXA, P.O. Box 450783, Westlake, Ohio 44145 First Time Membership/Renewal (U.S.) $12.00 Foreign Membership (outside U.S.) $22.00 *Foreign Membership (no printed newsletter) (but w/Web access for newsletter) $12.00 Name__________________________ Callsign__________ Address __________________________________________ City _____________________ State/Prov. ______________ Country _____________________ ZIP __________________ E-mail ____________________________________________ ARRL Member? ___ Exp. Date _____ DXCC Member?____ Special Interest ___________________________________

The Northern Ohio DX Association P.O. Box 450783 Westlake, Ohio 44145 U.S.A

Dated Material Please Rush

Newsletter circulation: Pete Michaelis N8TR, Mary Michaelis N8DMM, and “Radio Ray” W8BIN

NODXA RAG February 2003 Page 1

February 2003

Fellow DX'ers,

How many of you have been reading about Yugoslavia in the newspaper? It looks like there may be a possibility of two new DXCC entities and one DXCC deletion. Wellllll, not just yet, but it's getting closer. It seems that the Yugo-slavia's Parliament formally abolished its nation (Yugoslavia) on Tuesday, February 4th. The re-maining two republics of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) will now become two loose unions with semi-independence.

According to a deal arranged by the Euro-pean Union with an aim to keep the two republics together, Serbia and Montenegro will continue to share the capital of Belgrade, and a joint ad-ministration for defense and foreign affairs. With the approval by the two chambers of the Yugoslav Parliament, the birth of a new country called "Serbia and Montenegro" was formed.

According to the ARRL Web page, "The new arrangement will have little immediate impact on

Amateur Radio. For DXCC purposes, Serbia and Montenegro will be considered a single entity--at least for the time being--and amateurs there are expected to continue using YU/YT prefixes. The situation could change in three years when residents of the two republics would be allowed to vote to stick together or go their separate ways." So it looks like we will have to wait a few years yet to work two new entities.

Lastly, if you did not work DXCC's newest entity Ducie Island last year, you will have a second chance this month (March). Activity is expected to take place sometime between March 7th and 15th. The callsign has not yet been an-nounced. Good luck in working them if you need them.






The NODXA

RAG

New Call Bob “Rabbi” Turek (ex K8AAI) is now KN8AI, which is a variation of his novice call.


Minutes of the February 3rd 2003 NODXA Meeting

Tedd, KB8NW, called the

meeting to order at 8:PM. The around the room introductions by the 19 members in atten-dance.

The treasury report by Pete, N8TR, has a balance of Ka-Ching!

The packet cluster is work-ing okay as stated by Pete, N8TR.

Pete, N8TR, reported on the problems with the packet cluster.

Please send articles for the Newsletter to Dave, WD8IOU.

Denny, WB8K, reported on NODXA certificates. A sample of the upgraded certificate was displayed.

Tickets for the Dayton Hamfest DX Banquet are $34.00. Contact Carl, K8AV, for tickets and information.

A discussion on DXCC Honor Roll listing deadline was opened by Tedd, KB8NW, reminding everyone that the cards are to be into the league by March 31, 2003.

There is a possibility of one deletion and two new entities due to the potential breakup of Yugoslavia, a discussion fol-lowed.

An interview with Don Miller, AE6IY (ex-W9WNV), and his past DXpeditions is available on Website http://www.qsl.at/common/miller2.html as informed to us by Pete, N8TR. A discussion on this fol-

lowed. George, K8KR, opened a

discussion on a future meeting site.

Glenn, AF8C, won the 50/50 raffle. His share was $18.00.

A second drawing was two tickets to the Lake County Hamfest and won by George, K8KR.

Tedd, KB8NW, closed the meeting at 8:31 PM.

After the meeting a video on the South Georgia 2002, VP8GEO, DXpedition was shown.

Secretary: Ron, K8VJG

DXCC Honor Roll Deadline

ARRL Letter

The deadline for the next

DXCC Honor Roll list is rapidly approaching. DXCC Honor Roll applications must be postmarked by March 31, 2003, for opera-tors to appear in the next list, which will appear in August QST. The DXCC Honor Roll list includes only current entities; deleted entities do not count toward Honor Roll.

With the addition of Ducie Island in 2002, the minimum number of entities required for Honor Roll is 326. For Number One Honor Roll, the total is 335 current entities. Plaques remain available for anyone currently or previously on the Honor Roll. Order forms are available on the DXCC Web site http://www.arrl.org/awards/dxcc/.

On a related note, the

DXCC Desk has finished enter-ing September DXCC applica-tions, and all but a handful (ones requiring special attention) are on their way back to mem-bers.

"With the 75,000 cards postmarked September 30 out of the way, we expect to make a significant reduction in the processing time in the weeks ahead," said ARRL Membership Services Department Manager Wayne Mills, N7NG.

New Field Day Entry Class

ARRL Letter

Field Day will gain another

entry class for 2003. ''Class F'' stations will operate at emergency operations centers, or EOCs. The change renews the emphasis of Field Day's 1933 origins as an emergency preparedness exercise as op-posed to a routine contest.

ARRL Contest Branch Man-ager Dan Henderson, N1ND, said that last year the League received a record number of Field Day entries from groups and individuals. Given the in-creased emphasis on emergency communications since September 11, 2001, the ARRL Board's Membership Services Committee asked that the Contest Branch come up with something to re-flect that emphasis. The new Class F station is the result.

''This is a major change,'' Henderson said. ''Class F has been established to encourage


groups to test and further their working relationships with es-tablished emergency operations centers.''

The updated rules and a list of frequently asked questions in the new 2003 Field Day packet spell out the details.

A Class F entry station must set up at an ''established EOC'' center activated by a club or non-club group. Class F EOC operation must take place in cooperation with the EOC staff. Class F stations are eli-gible for the same bonus points as Class A stations.

High Performance Audio

As the reward for finally earning my extra-class call (which only took 35 years), I purchased a Yaesu Mark V Field. It's a wonderful radio, with more bells and whistles than the space shuttle, and I was very happy with what I could do with it. Constant "599" signal reports I was getting from the stations I worked. I thought this rig had everything I could ever hope for. Boy, was I wrong!

The very next weekend, I attended a hamvention and heard a talk about transmit and receive audio, given by Bob Heil, the inventor of the Heil "Goldline" microphone series.

One sentence Mr. Heil said remained stuck in my head, long after the conference had ended: "You can spend $2000 on a radio, but remember, most stock microphones have a

wholesale price of less than $7, and their audio frequency re-sponse is tailored to the higher pitched voices of those who live in Japan, because that is where most of their business lies."

I went out and purchased a Heil ProSet II headset the next day, and a Goldline Mic the week after that. Yes, it made that much difference in the way the rig sounded!

Then I discovered the "ssbaudio" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ssbaudio discussion forum on "Yahoo Groups". Wow! Here is a great bunch of ama-teur radio operators dedicated to only one thing: Improving the way each of us sounds on the air.

I spent a few weeks "lurking" on that board, until I felt confident enough to ask a few beginner questions. The next thing you know, I'm help-ing other people optimize their transmit/receive audio, the same way people on that group had originally helped me.

Give it a try, you're all wel-come to join! You've spent many, many hours obtaining your amateur radio license, and hun-dreds, if not thousands of dol-lars have gone into your station. Once you experience hearing just how good your transmit au-dio can sound, I bet you'll be hooked, also.

Warning: High performance audio is addictive! Now I've got a Behringer equalizer (Less than $50) between the mic and the rig, and I'm shopping for a good used noise gate on eBay.

Just when you thought your

radio could do it all, it just keeps on getting better.

Rich de KY6O

The Story of ZL7C

October 2002 (part 1)

By Ken Holdom ZL4HU and

Stan White ZL2ST

The Chatham Islands is a group of ten islands, two of which are populated – Chatham with 700 people and Pitt with 50. The islands are situated 770 km or 1 hour 40 minutes flying time southeast of Wel-lington, New Zealand. Enclosed within the main island of Chat-ham is a very large lagoon which is only open to the sea occa-sionally. The Chathams were first inhabited by Moriori people for 700 years and then Maori. The statue of the last full-blooded Moriori, Tommy Solo-mon who died in 1931, stands at Owenga on the East coast.

In the 1960s there was an invasion of fishing boats and their crews in search of riches from crayfish (rock lobster), wetfish and paua (abalone) and these areas were considerably overfished . These days some wealth still comes from crayfish and paua exports while sheep farming also produces revenue. There is a small but growing tourist industry. The occasional ‘ham’ visit contributes to this!

Following on from two very highly successful DXpeditions to ZL8RI in May 1996 and to ZL9CI in January 1999 the


Kermadec DX Association began planning a further DXpedition to ZK3, Tokelau Islands in July/August 2002. Initial enquiries were made regarding the cost of chartering a suitable vessel and when costs were realised, it was out of the question to ask the international DX community to support such a venture.

With the blood pressure still at a high level and the adrena-line pumping a decision was made to undertake a ‘fun’ DXpedition to ZL7 in October 2002. A majority of those who had already contributed towards ZK3 were only too willing for their support to be transferred to ZL7 and the planning com-menced immediately. Whilst this was to be a ‘fun’ DXpedi-tion it still had to be conducted in the same professional manner as were ZL8 and ZL9 and we certainly did not wish to tarnish our reputation in any way.

When this DXpedition to Chatham Island was announced, advice like ‘Its not worth it. Its been worked out’, ‘You are wasting your time’ - negative comments a plenty! But deter-mination prevailed from a leader who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “NO”!

Some initial enquiries were made with friends in the Chat-hams as to a suitable venue and a trip was made there in March 2002 by Ken ZL4HU to confirm all that was needed. Our initial site was dismissed for a number of reasons and an alternative site was located at the local racecourse named the Norman Kirk Memorial Reserve in honour

of one of New Zealand’s more prominent leaders and a former Prime Minister, the late Rt. Hon. Norman Kirk.

Immediately, Ken negotiated a formal lease agreement and the DXpedition was destined to be a success. Having a site, we then needed to begin working on a team and arranging air travel, accommodation etc. There was significant interest in our plans and we had enquiries from sev-eral enthusiastic operators throughout the world. Having finally decided upon an adequate number to get a discounted air fare deal we settled on a group of 4 from the USA, 1 from Ja-pan, 1 from England, 1 from Germany and 5 from New Zea-land. Past experience and reputations were of paramount importance in selecting this team.

With the team selected, the organising of equipment etc. was to become a significant part of the operation. Originally there were to be no on line logs, no

web site and no pilots. We just wanted to do another “back to the basics” DXpedition. Other members had different ideas to Ken and he reluctantly relented to their desire to have all the aforementioned. In hindsight this was a wise move.

Approaching our loyal and faithful previous sponsors was not an envied task especially as the status of ZL7 was not even within the top 100 most wanted countries. Surprisingly most were receptive to our call and responded positively. ICOM America loaned us two trans-ceivers. Vertex Standard (formerly Yaesu of Japan), Cushcraft Antennas of USA, SCS of Germany and our ex-tremely supportive local cable company General Cables of Christchurch, New Zealand all provided additional equipment. Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, K8ME, AF8C, KN8AI, KY60, ZL4HU, ZL2ST, eHam.net, and the ARRL Letter.



335


TMRA Hamfest and Computer Fair

Sunday, March 16, 2003 8:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. Lucas County Recreation Center 2901 Key Street, Maumee, Ohio All tickets are $6.00 at the door Free Parking Talk-In 147.27+ http://tmrahamradio.org

25th Annual Lake County Hamfest

Sunday, March 23, 2003 8:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. Madison High School, Madison, Ohio (Corner of Middle Ridge and Burns) All tickets are $5.00 at the door Free Parking Talk-In 147.81/21 http://www.lcara.org

For Sale TIMEWAVE MODEL 59+ FILTER SYSTEM FOR ALL MODES = $40.00 MFJ TNC MODEL 1270B --2PACKET RADIO HF & VHF WITH MANUAL = $35.00 128 MEG MEMORY CARD FOR PC-100 SPEED BRAND NEW = $12.00 MAKE OFFER ON ANY OF THE ITEMS ABOVE CONTACT DWAINE -- K8ME E-MAIL: [email protected] Phone: 440-582-3462

New ARRL Great Lakes Director Jim Weaver, K8JE, and Club President Tedd Mirgliotta, KB8NW, at the Mansfield Hamfest.

NODXA Meetings are held the first Monday of each month at the Demetrio’s Family Restaurant on RT.82 just west of Interstate 71 in Strongsville at 8:00 PM. Come early and have dinner, drink beer, meet your fellow DXers and enter the 50/50 raffle.








NODXA RAG March 2003 Page 1

March 2003

Fellow DX'ers,

A lot has happened since I wrote my last "Fireside". I am still attending Cardiac Rehab, I am a year older, and I have returned to work. It actually feels great to be outdoors after be-ing cooped up in the house for three months. However, my full strength is still not there.

As far as DX goes, the VP6DIA operation has come and gone, but there are still other ac-tivities on the air to keep you interested. There is one DXCC entity that has gone silent since last month. With the war in Iraq, there has been no legitimate activity since late February.

Someone asked me what I thought would happen to amateur radio in Iraq. My opinion/feeling is amateur radio in Iraq may become si-lent for a short duration. However, depending on the outcome of the war (and we all know the probable outcome) activity from Iraq will possibly be similar to what happened in Afghanistan. A new government will be set up and the possible

first amateur radio stations to be active would be operators who work for the UN. It is an in-teresting situation, but we have to wait and see.

Lastly, I am hoping that this newsletter is sent out before the April meeting. You should have heard/received (via E-mail) an announce-ment that the club will be at in a different loca-tion for the April meeting. This "may" be a pos-sible new meeting place for future monthly meetings. A decision will be made at the April meeting. We would like to have a good turnout for the meeting and especially for the dinner (this is very important). Details on the location and a menu should be somewhere in this newslet-ter. I hope to see you at the "BoneYard" in April.






The NODXA

RAG

Special NODXA Meeting Location! Please see the announcement on page two.


Minutes of the March 3rd, 2003 NODXA Meeting

The meeting was called to

order at 8:01PM by Tedd, KB8NW, and followed by the around the room introductions by 19 members/guests in atten-dance.

Mary, N8DMM, reports a balance of Ka-Ching! in the treasury, also that our insur-ance carrier informs us that we have terrorist coverage on our equipment.

The packet cluster has trouble with the link as ex-plained to us by Pete, N8TR.

Denny, WB8K, reports that the NOARS 145.150 mhz re-peater is now up and working.

Articles and related infor-mation for the newsletter are requested by Dave, WD8IOU, our editor.

George, K8KR, reported on the Committee on Dxpedition Recognition, and was followed by a discussion.

John, K8YSE, reminds the membership to inform the club on any E-mail changes and also informs us that the new roster is available on the website.

Nominations for Officers for the year 2003 was opened by Tedd, KB8NW.

For Secretary , Ron, K8VJG, was nominated by Ray, W8BIN, and seconded by Pete, N8TR.

For Treasurer, Mary, N8DMM, was nominated by John, K8YSE, and seconded by Pete, N8TR.

For Vice-President, Dwaine, K8ME, was nominated by Ron, K8VJG, and seconded by Pete, N8TR.

For President, Tedd, KB8NW, was nominated by Dave, WD8IOU, and seconded by John, K8YSE.

Karl, K8BCK, moved to close the nominations and was sec-onded by Pete, N8TR. A vote was taken and passed.

Pete, N8TR, moved to ac-cept the nominated candidates as the elected officers for the year 2003 and seconded by John, K8YSE. A vote was taken and passed. Congratulations to all! Tedd, KB8NW, informs on the ARRL concerns. The single most important activity on the inter-national front at present is the strong involvement of the Staff to achieve and the “harmonization” of the 7MHZ band and removal of shortwave broadcast stations from it.

This effort is quite costly, requiring much overseas and US travel for meetings in foreign countries with treaty delegates and representatives of Amateur Radio organizations in foreign countries . Another major Staff activity is the ongoing battle to protect our frequencies-from throughout essentially the en-tire radio wave spectrum.

Our Great Lakes Director would like to know if anyone has problems with the QSL Bureau. Send your complaint to Jim Weaver at [email protected].

The April 07 meeting will be held at the Boneyard Restau-rant in Broadview Heights at

the corner of Broadview Road (SR176) and Royalton Road (SR82). A video on WRTC will be shown.

The 50/50 raffle was won by Ron, W8WH, the sum of $16.00.

A second and third prize, Health at Home Magazines, were won by Denny, WB8K, and Ray, W8BIN.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:45PM by Tedd, KB8NW.

Secretary: Ron, K8VJG Special NODXA

Meeting Location!

NODXA will hold its monthly meeting April 7th at 8:00 PM at “The BoneYards” private party room. Members can ar-rive early for dinner (beginning at 6:30 PM). There will be a program. The “WRTC Finland 2002” video will be shown on a “BIG SCREEN TV”.

“The BoneYard” is located in Broadview Heights at 101 West Royalton Road (Route 82) on the Northeast corner of Broadview Road and Route 82.

From I-77: Exit Route 82 West (closet route). From I-71: Exit Route 82 East. Please refer to the map on the last page of this newsletter.

PLEASE ATTEND FOR DIN-NER: This may be NODXA’s new meeting location!


Hamvention Still At Hara Arena

ARRL Letter

Although 2003 marks the

last year of a five-year con-tract to hold Hamvention at Hara Arena, organizers hope to keep the show there for the in-definite future. Rumors crop up each year--and this has been no exception--that this year's event will be the last to take place at the venerable venue near Dayton, Ohio, that's served as Hamvention's home since 1964. Negotiations on a new contract to retain Hara for future shows remain in the off-ing. Billed as "the world's larg-est Amateur Radio gathering and trade show," Hamvention 2003 takes place May 16-18.

"We haven't made any deci-sions yet," Hamvention Produc-tion Manager Garry Matthews, KB8GOL, said this week. "We want to get this year's show under our belt and then renego-tiate the contract." At the same time, Matthews said, there are no plans to go else-where, nor is Hamvention under any threat or pressure to relo-cate. "There's nothing planned to move," he said. "But," he conceded, "we've looked at al-ternative locations in case something happens. Anything could happen to Hara."

Matthews says the sponsor-ing Dayton Amateur Radio Asso-ciation has explored several other possible locations for Hamvention, which has quietly dropped "Dayton" from the

show's official name. Matthews says no other site in the Greater Dayton area will serve the purpose that Hara does. "None of the other venues will support the show at its current size," he said.

Speaking of size, Hamven-tion reported that attendance for last year's 50th anniversary event was 24,832--down about 5 percent from 2001's crowd of 26,151. 2002 marked the sec-ond year in a row that Hamven-tion's attendance had dipped.

Attendance climbed to 28,804 in 2000, the year of the ARRL National Convention at Dayton. Matthews has said that any crowd larger than 28,000 starts to push the envelope as far as Hara Arena is con-cerned--especially the human comfort factor. Hamvention at-tendance peaked in 1993 at 33,669--before the event date changed from April to May.

As for continued use of Hara Arena, Matthews points out that the building has never been sold, is not for sale now and never has been. As for a new contract with Hara? "We'll evaluate the show after June 1, and we hope to improve some things," he said, without re-vealing any details.

In the meantime, he's pour-ing his energy into the arrange-ments for this year's show, but, he reports, things have been slower to come together in terms of advance sales to visi-tors and vendors. "If we go to war, people might not want to travel," he said. "There's noth-ing to panic about, but it's

tougher this year." Some changes already have

been announced. Among other things, Hamvention this year will replace its annual banquet and entertainment with a more low-key award winners' reception at Hara Saturday evening.

Between now and show time, Matthews says Hamvention will--among other moves--boost its advertising and promotion to counteract the sluggish advance sales. "We're going to have a good show," he predicted confi-dently.

For more information on Hamvention 2003, visit the Hamvention Web site http://www.hamvention.org.

Dayton Contest Dinner Tickets Now

On Sale The North Coast Contesters

have announced that tickets for the 11th annual Dayton Contest Dinner now are on sale. The dinner will be held Saturday, May 17, 6:30 PM, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Dayton. Seating is limited, ran-dom and not reserved. All din-ner ticket orders are handled exclusively by Craig Clark, K1QX, Radioware and Radio Bookstore, PO Box 209, Rindge, NH 03461 <http://www.radio-ware.com>.

Order tickets weekdays by calling toll-free 800-457-7373 or via e-mail <jcclark at prexar.com>. Major credit cards are accepted.


Paul Harvey Plugs HAM Radio

ARRL Letter

Veteran ABC Radio Net-

works commentator Paul Harvey this week offered some kind words for Amateur Radio. The mention was the second item on "page four" of his March 19 Paul Harvey Noon News and Comment program.

"America's quiet warriors are the legion of ham radio op-erators, 700,000 of them, who are always at ready for backup duty in emergencies--amateur, unpaid, uncelebrated, civilian radio operators, during and af-ter floods and fires and torna-does," Harvey said. "After the 9/11 attacks, hams were indis-pensable in reuniting friends and families. Most recently it was they who expedited the search for debris after the disaster to the space shuttle Columbia, and right now, at this moment, they are involved in homeland secu-rity to a greater degree than you would want me to make public."

The commentary's enigmatic and mysterious final sentence--typical of Harvey's habit of leaving his listeners hanging--apparently refers to the fact that many Amateur Radio Emer-gency Service (ARES) and Radio Amateur Emergency Service (RACES) teams have ramped up their alert status as hostilities get under way in the Middle East.

The entire Wednesday noon broadcast is available on Paul

Harvey's Web site: http://www.paulharvey.com. Click on the Wednesday noon link under "Listen Now."

O.A.R.C. NEWS The Ohio Area Repeater

Council will be having a meeting on Saturday April 12, at 9:30 am. Meeting Location will be at Universal Radio, in Reynolds-burg, Ohio.

Directions: take I-270 to I-70 east, take I-70 east until you come to Brice Road South, to Tussing Road, make Left on to Tussing Road.

Main Topic will be the New 900 mhz frequencies that are coming to Ohio plus some other pending issues.

Pat Hayes N8OOB OARC Secretary

ZL1AMO Fund Reaches Goal

International DX Association

(INDEXA) President Judy Rousch, AA7UC, reports that INDEXA has reached its goal of $20,000 for the Ron Wright, ZL1AMO, Air Ambulance Fund.

"We are also pleased to an-nounce that INDEXA absorbed all administrative costs, so that 100 percent of each donation went directly to the fund," she said.

Wright, who does not have medical insurance, fell ill last year, and a fund was set up to help defray the cost of an air

ambulance to take him to a hos-pital in Fiji.

"It is a great tribute to the DX/Amateur Radio community that it could come together as a team to provide humanitarian assistance to a colleague in need," Rousch said. "This spirit is what makes Amateur Radio truly great!"

ZL1AMO is now recuperating "slowly but surely," Rousch re-ports, and he has been back on the air.

The Story of ZL7C

October 2002 (part 2)

By Ken Holdom ZL4HU and

Stan White ZL2ST

Ken loaded a truck with all of the antennas, coax cable, tools, masts, guys etc. at his home in Clyde in the southern part of the South Island of New Zealand and set off for Christchurch airport. Other team members met progressively as they assembled in Christ-church or Wellington, the air-ports with scheduled flights to the Chathams.

The team consisted of Al Hernandez K3VN, Bill Beyer N2WB , Bob McQuarrie ZL3TY, Dave Anderson KW4DA, Hiro Miyake JF1OCQ, Murray Woodfield ZL1CN, Paul Rubin-field WF5T, Reinhard Maute DF4TD, Stan White ZL2ST,

Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, K8ME, K8AV, N8OOB, ZL4HU, ZL2ST, and the ARRL Letter.



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Steve Taylor G4EDG, Wilbert Knol ZL2BSJ and Ken Holdom ZL4HU, the team leader. A to-tal combined operating experi-ence of 350+ years.

In New Zealand our two non travelling vital team members were webmaster Gordon Stewart, ZL2ARN and pilot Lee Jennings, ZL2AL who undertook their most appreciative supportive role for the DXpedition.

The first group left Christ-church on Tuesday October 15 complete with all of the gear from Ken’s home and other equipment that team members had brought with them. The air service to the Chathams is pro-vided by Air Chathams using one of their four aeroplanes, a re-built 1956 Convair. The airline which is owned and based in the Chatham Islands also leases two planes to other New Zealand op-erators. Air Chathams main cargo consists of crayfish and paua from the islands to New Zealand for on forwarding to overseas destinations where these delicacies are very popu-lar.

The second group left the following day from Wellington on the scheduled service. Mean-while the first group which had already established themselves at the Backpacker accommoda-tion in the main village of Wai-tangi had returned to the race-course to begin assembling the

beams in the wet and windy con-ditions. When the second team arrived late on Wednesday af-ternoon as the rain eased, they assisted with the completion of the antenna assembly and to run out the coax cables etc. The antennas were positioned in two groups, one for digital modes and one for phone. This was care-fully planned by Dave KW4DA in order to give the least interac-tion between modes and bands. On Thursday 17 October we started early on the erection of the 8 metre (24 foot) masts with the beams atop. A crane was called in to assist with the 20 metre 4 element monobander which was difficult to handle because of it’s size. This same

antenna was reduced to an ef-fective 3 element beam at ZL9CI.

By late afternoon all of the antennas were up and these in-cluded Cushcraft Monobanders 20-4CD 20metres, XM515 15metres (2), XM510 10metres (2), Force 12 EF320 20metre monobander and WARC 2/2 , Nagara T2-3VX WARC beam, Create CV48 40/80 vertical, Create CL6A 6metre monoban-der, KY0A 80/160 vertical, K7ZV 30metres vertical, G4EDG 40 metres vertical, 1160ft Beveridge, 12 element 2 metre beam. It was time to dry our-selves and warm up while the rigs were set up for operation.

Waitangi Village on Chatham Islands

NODXA Meetings are held the first Monday of each month at the “The Boneyard” Restaurant on RT.82 just west of Interstate 77 in Broadview Heights at 8:00 PM. Come early and have dinner, drink beer, meet your fellow DXers and enter the 50/50 raffle.








NODXA RAG April 2003 Page 1

April 2003

Fellow DX'ers, There were some mixed reviews about last

month's meeting place, but as you can see by the meeting's minutes, we are giving "The Bone-Yard" a second chance. Most of the complaints were about the noise and the rooms size. Ron, K8VJG, has talked to the General Manager of "The "BoneYard", and he has agreed to turn the music down in the restaurant during the meeting.

As far as the size of the room, yes, it is a little small, but I think with some moving/organizing the tables better we can make it more comfortable. Besides, I think we had more people attending the meeting than normal. There will actually two big pluses about the place. No one complained about the food, and some men-tioned they liked the wide variety of food.

Also, those who stuck around for the video last month were impressed with the large screen TV. If "The BoneYard" May meeting does not meet the club's needs we will continue to look elsewhere.

Lastly, the Dayton HamVention is getting closer. I hope everyone who attends will visit the club's hospitality suite. This year's event will be special and dedicated to Jim Hire, W8ZET (SK). Also, just a reminder that it is that time of the year to renew your club dues.






The NODXA

RAG

Moving Sale IC765 --1200.00 TS940SAT with Speaker--900.00 IC25A--90.00 Henry 2K4A Amp floor model with extra set 3-500Z tubes--900.00 Hazer H4 by Glen Martin--250.00 Johnston Commercial Radio set up for Packet-- 90.00 Sommers XP807 Beam covers 40 meters to 10 meters--450.00 Jerry Kurucz, WB8LFO (440) 282-2123 [email protected]


Minutes of the April 7th, 2003

NODXA Meeting

The meeting, which was held at the Boneyard in Broadview Heights, was opened at 8:04 PM by Tedd, KB8NW, followed by the around the room intro-ductions by the 29 members/guests in attendance.

A balance of Ka-Ching! ex-ists in the treasury as reported by Mary, N8DMM.

Dues are due for the year 2003 as reminded to us by Tedd, KB8NW.

Pete, N8TR, reported on the packet cluster.

There will be a Hospitality Suite in Dayton this year as stated by Tedd, KB8NW.

Tedd, KB8NW, commented on this years Field Day.

A report on the DX-pedition of the Year was given by George, K8KR, and was followed by a discussion. Several groups were recommended. A vote was taken and the VP6DI, Ducie Is-land, group was elected for this award. A motion to allot $100.00 for a plaque for this purpose was made by George, K8KR, and seconded by John, K8YSE. A vote was taken and passed.

Jim, K8MR, informed us on this year’s Ohio QSO Party. Pete, N8TR, and seconded by Ray, W8BIN, made a motion to have a plaque made for the Ohio QSO Party. A vote was taken and passed.

A discussion on the use of the new meeting site was

opened by Tedd, KB8NW. A motion was made by John, K8YSE, and seconded by Karl, K8BCK, to return to the Bone-yard for the May meeting. A vote was taken and passed.

Nick, W8XD, won the 50\50 raffle. His share was $24.00.

Tedd, KB8NW, adjourned the meeting at 8:41PM.

Following the meeting a DVD video on WRTC, World Radio-sport Team Championship was shown.

Secretary: Ron, K8VJG.

DXpedition of The Year Award

At the April 7th Meeting,

the NODXA DXpedition of the Year committee, consisting of George, K8KR, Bob, W3HKK, and Byron, KF8UN, presented it's recommendations for the NODXA Annual DXPedition of the Year Award to the mem-bership.

The leading candidates were: PW0T - TI9M - VP6CI - CY0 - and the P5 Operations. All were characterized by:

-efficient, reliable, predictable on the air operations -outstanding planning and team-work -a consistently friendly, cour-teous, cooperative attitude that reflect well on the amateur ra-dio community -fairness in their distribution of contacts to all areas of the world -and last but not least, reliable QSLing.

During the animated discus-sion, led by George, K8KR, the 28 members in attendance se-lected VP6DI as their top DXPedition for the year 2002, just edging the P5, and followed by PW0T, TI9M and the CY0 operations.

$100 has been awarded to cover the plaque which is to be presented by The Club at the Dayton Hamvention 2003. Thanks to all who participated!

Bob W3HKK

Armed Forces Day

ARRL Letter

The US Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard will cosponsor the annual military/Amateur Radio cross-band communications tests May 10-11. The event will mark the 53rd celebration of Armed Forces Day. Although Armed Forces Day actually is Satur-day, May 17, the Armed Forces Day Amateur Radio event is held a week earlier to avoid conflicting with Hamvention.

The event features a mili-tary-to-amateur crossband communications SSB voice test and the Secretary of Defense message receiving test. During the crossband test, 14 military stations will listen on amateur frequencies and transmit on se-lected MARS frequencies. Most military stations will commence operation at 1200 UTC on May 10. Amateurs are asked to limit contacts to two minutes or less.

Eight military stations will


transmit the Secretary of De-fense's Armed Forces Day mes-sage at stated intervals via digital modes, including RTTY, PACTOR, AMTOR, CLOVER and MT63. QSLs and certificates are available. More information is available on the ARRL Web site www.arrl.org/contests/announcements/af-day/armdfrcs-2003.html.

Just Say “No” to Wideband SSB

ARRL Letter

The FCC has sent advisory

notices to four enthusiasts of what's become known as "enhanced SSB"--the practice of engineering transmitted sin-gle-sideband audio to approach broadcast quality. Letters went out earlier this month to ama-teurs in Illinois, Florida and New Jersey who are aficionados of enhanced SSB, also known as "upper wideband" and "lower wideband."

"The Commission has re-ceived numerous complaints re-garding the operation of your station," FCC Special Counsel Riley Hollingsworth wrote Paul Christensen, W9AC, John An-ning, NU9N, Anthony Latin, W4NSG, and Sareno Salerno, W2ONV, on April 3. Hollingsworth said complaints to the FCC alleged that the band-widths of the stations' en-hanced SSB emissions were "wider than necessary and con-trary to good engineering prac-tice."

"Wideband overly-processed

audio, especially when coupled with the high intermodulation levels of certain amplifiers, re-sults in the use of bandwidths extremely inconsiderate of other operators," Hollingsworth said. Such transmissions may violate FCC rules and may be at odds with what Hollingsworth described as "the expectation that the Amateur Service be largely self-regulated."

Occupying more bandwidth than necessary in a heavily used amateur band, Hollingsworth wrote, not only could generate ill will among operators but lead to petitions asking the FCC to establish bandwidth limits for amateur emissions. At present, the FCC imposes no specific bandwidth limits on various amateur modes.

Hollingsworth cited §97.307(a) of the Amateur Service rules that requires the signal of an amateur station not occupy "more bandwidth than necessary for the information rate and emission type being transmitted, in accordance with good amateur practice." Some amateurs have complained that enhanced SSB signals can take up 8 kHz or more of spectrum, cause splat-ter and unnecessarily interfere with other stations.

"The Amateur Service is not a substitute for the Broadcast Service," Hollingsworth said, "and the frequencies allocated to the Amateur Service were not allocated for a 'broadcast quality' audio emission or sound."

Hollingsworth suggested the enhanced SSBers operate when

the bands are less busy or on bands that are not heavily used. The many complaints the FCC has been getting--20 or so per week--leads to the conclusion that the stations' enhanced SSB operation is having "a negative impact" on the Ama-teur Service, Hollingsworth said. He requested that the four amateurs "fully review the rules" and make sure their stations conform to them.

Three Year DXpedition

By OPDX

OPDX was informed by

Skipper Susan Meckley, W7KFI, that she was starting her three year DXpedition to Central America and the South Pacific. At the time she contacted us she was in Mexico soon to sign W7KFI/mm. NOW FOR THE AMAZING PART! Susan told OPDX that she originally was to go on a 1946 Brewer, the ves-sel called Menage-A-tROIS. However, she states she soon found out that, at the age of 69 years old (YES 69), she could no longer single handedly sail the boat in heavy weather.

She stated, "It was just too much boat for an old lady." Susan traded her boat for a Challenger 1932. The Vessel S/V Dharma. She stated, "This size boat I can handle all by myself."

Susan left Oakland, CA, in January and has been slowly working her way south. She has spent time in many ports, and


she found them very nice. Susan has been in Ensenada, Mexico for the last month, but has now left again on Wednes-day, April 16th, for San Jose, Punta Cabras.

Heading south, Susan told OPDX that she would be oper-ating from an island that has not been operated on before, the Isle San Martin (NA-162). She was heard April 17th as XE2/W7KFI from San Martin on 14249 kHz at 2341z. The length of her stay is not known. However, Susan provided OPDX with her next stops (no dates given). Her next stop will be at Bahia de Torguga (Turtle bay), and from there to Magdelina Bay, Cabo San Lucas, and fi-nally La Paz.

Susan will be in La Paz for a few weeks, then it is off to the islands in the Sea of Cortez for operating....and into Guy-mas for the hurricane season.Come fall she will go down the mainland coast ending in Costa Rica. In April 2004, she is off to Galapagos Islands and into the South Pacific.

Susan states, "I will be in the South Pacific for up to three years, operating from any island that will give me a license to operate. This is a fully self-funded expedition. I asked all around for support but was un-able to get any.

Rig is an FT-847 with two 32' pop-up masts and I will be on all modes except SSTV...including Pactor. I intend to follow in the footsteps of Danny Weil from the 50's. Hopefully, I will not end up on a reef like

he did." We hope Susan will continue

to contact us on her amazing trip, and we wish her the best. One last note. Susan told us that she has room on board for a crewmember if anyone wants to go. If interested, let us know and we will forward the message.

NODXA Hospitality

Suite The Northern Ohio DX As-

sociation (along with WVNO Ra-dio) will once again sponsor a Hospitality Suite at this year's Dayton Hamvention. This year's Hospitality Suite will be dedi-cated to the memory of one of NODXA's "Silent Key" club members Jim Hire, W8ZET. Jim loved ham radio and en-joyed meeting his friends from around the world each year at Dayton. He was also a NODXA "Honorary Life Member" and was very involved with NODXA and the Hospitality Suite.

This year Jim's wife, Janeen (now a new ham - KC8BRS) has decided to keep the tradition going and will pro-vide some special memorabilia of Jim at the Hospitality Suite. Please stop by and visit. It will be in Suite 1011 on the 10th Club Floor of the Crowne Plaza Hotel (old Stouffers) on Friday and Saturday evenings.

All DXers/Contesters are welcome. Munchies and refresh-ments will be available. Come and meet the members and friends of NODXA.

Tedd, KB8NW

The Story of ZL7C October 2002

(part 3)

By Ken Holdom ZL4HU and Stan White ZL2ST

The comfortable lounge on

the top level of the operating site provided us with magnifi-cent views of the total race-course and surrounding areas. It also contained a small kitchen. We set up the oper-ating stations in two groups with two stations per table along the sides of the lounge. The SSB setup consisted of four rigs plus three amplifiers, while the CW setup had three rigs and two linears. The VHF equipment was situated between the two areas.

The equipment used con-sisted of Yaesu FT900, FT920 (2), FT1000MP (2), FT1000MP Mk V, FT100, FT817, and Icom 756 Pro II (2) with FL7000 (2), FL2100B, SB 220, Acom 1000 (2) linear amplifiers. S.C.S. Pactor II with an upgrade was used for loading logs and photos to the website daily and for re-ceiving daily reports and re-quests which proved to be a huge success.

Our first QSOs were about 5 pm local (0315Z – Chathams time is 45 minutes ahead of New Zealand) on Thursday. We were amazed at the QSO de-mand and by the end of the Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, W3HKK, ZL4HU, ZL2ST, OPDX, and the ARRL Letter.



335


first 24 hours we had clocked up 10,000 contacts. The next 24 hours produced another 10,000 QSOs and then the rate dropped a little to about 6,600 per 24 hours. We continued with 24 hour operation and gradually in-troduced more low band opera-tion including the 80 metre SSB and 160 metre European windows at 0600Z followed by USA and Asian openings.

All team members had an en-joyable time handling the pileups which were generally well be-haved and we endeavoured to make ZL7C available to all, whether they be the big guns or the small pistols or even the dupes making sure of contacts with us. Operating for 24 hours per day provided us with some interesting and exciting moments especially when we worked sev-eral African stations (these are always difficult from ZL ) and YA5T in Afghanistan.

Various digital modes were used at times including RTTY, PSK31, SSTV, hand-sent CW by Steve G4EDG (for the benefit of the local newspaper) and Steve’s 5 Watt 20M transceiver. Condi-tions were generally kind to us but on a few days 10 metres was poor. 160 metre CW was a struggle at times, particularly on the evening an electrical storm passed over us. Both our Web Site manager Gordon ZL2ARN

and our ZL Pilot, Lee ZL2AL provided us with excellent backup and feedback and we were able to respond to concerns on a daily basis.

We also received much assis-tance from local people including Terry Kamana and his wife Trish. Both of whom had been operators at New Zealand coast stations in earlier days and Terry had recently obtained his new ham licence which he proudly displayed. During a quiet period, one afternoon Terry operated the 15 metre CW station and made some 16 contacts using his new call ZL7TK. A rig is being shipped to Terry and he hopes to appear on the bands from time to time. The only other resident ham is ZL7NAA who is at pre-sent inactive.

We entered the Multi-2 sec-

tion of the CQ Worldwide SSB contest with two rigs. One des-ignated for 10 and 20 metres while the other was used on 15 and 40 metres. In the 30 hours of the 48 hours of the contest we had 5,500 plus QSOs.

W8 QSL Bureau Address Change

Effective May 1, the ad-

dress for the W8 incoming QSL Bureau will change to W8 QSL Bureau, PO Box 307, W Ches-ter, OH 45071-0307. Jay Slough, K4ZLE <[email protected]>, has been named to re-place the retiring Ed Gassman, N8HTT, who has managed the W8 QSL Bureau for several years.

NODXA Meetings are held the first Monday of each month at the “The Boneyard” Restaurant on RT.82 just west of Interstate 77 in Broadview Heights at 8:00 PM. Come early and have dinner, drink beer, meet your fellow DXers and enter the 50/50 raffle.








NODXA RAG May 2003 Page 1

May 2003

Fellow DX'ers,

Well Dayton HamVention 2003 is now in the books and hopefully, there will be another one next year (as we know it). This year's HamVen-tion was good in spite of the weather. However, it took it's toll on me and I paid for it over the following week. I was super exhausted, probably because of all the walking and not getting enough sleep over the three day event. My full strength and stamina still has not returned after my op-eration.

However, it was worth it! The DX Forum was really interesting this year. I got to present the 2002 NODXA DXpedition of the Year award during the forum, as well as hearing details on the ARRL's "Logbook Of The World" (LOTW) and a talk (no slides) by Don Miller, AE6IY (ex-W9WNV).

Also, the club's hospitality suite was a big hit again this year. We had a great turn out and we were open for three nights instead of two as

in the past. Once again, a big thanks goes to Janeen Hire

(probably now as W8ZET) for all her hard work-ing in booking of the rooms and the hospitality suite, which normally would have been done by her husband (Jim, W8ZET, now a Silent Key). She also provided some great momentous of her late husband Jim, along with some great hospi-tality, food and drink. Many looked at the dis-play of pictures, QSL cards and awards that Jim received and they reminisced about him. He was surely missed. Thanks again Janeen, I know Jim would have been proud of you.

Lastly, if you are on the NODXA's E-mail list you should have received announcement about a new meeting place for June. Actually, it is an old meeting place, but under a new name. Details should be listed in this newsletter somewhere. I hope to see you there.

Also, just a reminder that it is that time of the year to renew your club dues.






The NODXA

RAG


Minutes of the May 5th, 2003

NODXA Meeting

Tedd, KB8NW, called the meeting to order at 8:01 PM, which was held at the Boneyard in Broadview Heights. The around the introductions were followed by the 25 members/guest in attendance.

Mary, N8DMM, reports a balance of $Ka-Ching! in the treasury.

Pete, N8TR, informed us on the packet cluster status and was followed by a discussion.

Articles are needed for the Newsletter as requested by Dave, WD8IOU.

A discussion on new meeting sites was opened by Tedd, KB8NW.

Tedd, KB8NW, opened a discussion on the future of the Dayton Hamfest and on the Dayton Hospitality Suite.

A motion was made by Carl, K8AV, and seconded by Ray, W8BIN, to allot up to $200.00 for the Dayton Hospitality Suite for refreshments. A vote was taken and passed

The DX-pedition of the Year Award plaque was brought to the meeting by Dwaine, K8ME, and was passed around to the members to view.

Tedd, KB8NW, informed us that the guest speakers, one being the Great Lakes Director, for tonight’s meeting was unable to attend due to a death in the family.

Bob, W8GC, informed us on the classes on Amateur Radio

conducted by the Cuyahoga Amateur Radio Society. For further information go the CARS website at www.cars.org.

The 50/50 raffle was won by George, K8KR, and his share was $21.50. A second and third drawing , books on Health at Home, were won by Bill, W8JGU, and Gary, NI8Z.


Following the meeting a video on East Timor Island was shown.

Secretary: Ron, K8VJG. "Logbook of the

World” Enters Beta-Testing

ARRL Letter

The long anticipated

"Logbook of the World"--the ARRL's secure electronic con-tact confirmation system--is being opened for beta testing. While a formal unveiling was set for the Hamvention DX Forum May 17, LoTW now is available to all who wish to participate in the beta testing program, ex-pected to last 60 days.

At the heart of the Logbook of the World concept is a huge repository of log data provided by operators--from individual DXers and contesters to major DXpeditions--and maintained by ARRL. Logbook of the World Project Leader Wayne Mills, N7NG, says the system will benefit big and little guns alike by providing quick QSO credit

for awards offered by ARRL--and, it's hoped, those offered by other organizations as well--without having to first collect and submit hard-copy QSL cards.

Visit the ARRL Logbook of the World Web site www.arrl.org/lotw to learn more, download the necessary soft-ware and take part in the beta testing effort. For the purposes of the beta test, validated us-ers are asked to submit log data for contacts made on or after January 1, 1998. Once a certificate is issued, beta test-ers may e-mail their log data to the LoTW database [email protected].

LoTW will accept authenti-cated data--either in Cabrillo or ADIF format--directly from computerized logs via the Internet. Software Development Manager Jon Bloom, KE3Z, noted that because the soft-ware still is under development, any data uploaded during the beta-testing period will be erased before LoTW "goes live." Beta participants will have to obtain new certification even if they've participated in earlier LoTW testing. The beta certi-fication will be good only for the beta-test period. Bloom emphasized that every call sign would need a separate certifi-cate.

Bloom and Mills encouraged beta-test DXers and contesters to upload their log files--the bigger the better--to test the robustness of the software as well as to populate the database and create a more realistic en-


vironment. LoTW will find and match contacts between sta-tions based on the log data submitted by users, and the re-sults will appear on the Logbook of the World Web page.

"We're not replacing the whole paper QSL scheme with Logbook of the World," said Mills, who is also ARRL's Mem-bership Services manager. "This is really a system to offer credits for awards."

Waterproofing RF Connectors

Waterproofing RF connec-

tors is a concept many amateur radio operators fail to recog-nize. When you're dealing with weak signals or a repeater sys-tem with a dynamic range of 140 dB, that Radio Shack edu-cation just doesn't cut it.

There are a lot of different ways to protect and waterproof your RF connections, some actu-ally work!

Just because you've been doing something wrong for 30 years doesn't mean it's right!

1. Wrap the entire connection once (or twice) with 3M Scotch Super 88 or 88T PVC electrical tape. Super 88 is recommended over Super 33 or the other crap because of its ideal tempera-ture characteristics and the fact it's 20% thicker. Be sure to allow a significant overlap of each turn. It's also to best to wrap the tape up to connector, or the opposite way of intended water flow. This is done to pre-

vent the electrical tape from wicking water in. You'll want to do this for each tape layer, if possible. Also, on the last turn, don't pull the tape hard, just leave it loose and press it down. This will help prevent it from unwrapping. 2. Make sure there are no air cavities or openings in the tape! Where there is air, there will be water. 3. Next, wrap the entire con-nection once (or twice) with 3M Scotch 2242 rubber electrical tape. Pull the tape so hard that it turns from black to gray, and wrap it tightly around the en-tire area previously covered with Super 88 electrical tape. 4. Wrap the entire connection once (or twice) again with a layer of Super 88 electrical tape, just like in step one. 5. That's it! A fully waterproof seal, with the ability to remove the tape layers using nothing but a utility knife. 6. If you put CoaxSeal directly on a RF connector, I will hunt you down and shoot you. 7. If you put CoaxSeal directly on a RF connector, I will hunt you down and shoot you. 8. If you put CoaxSeal directly on a RF connector, I will hunt you down and shoot you.

It's often recommended that you spray clear-coat type

sealants (Scotch-Kote) on your connection to make it water-proof. This is O.K. to some ex-tent, but not recommended as an end-all solution. These seal-ants contain acetone and other chemicals which can eat the rubber gaskets in N and Heliax connectors, along with the outer covering on some types of coax. They also break down in ultra-violet light (sun light), the seal-ant will then flake off. If you do need to use that type of sealant, for whatever reason, cover it with Super 88 electrical tape.

You can use spray clear-coat type sealants to water-proof non-critical connections, like to avoid dissimilar metal electrolysis, or in areas where it is just to hard to reach. Be sure to check the connection at least once a year though.

If you do need to use Coax-Seal, please apply a layer of electrical tape to the area first.

RF connections are some-what waterproof to begin with, but wrapping the connection will help prevent the connection from coming loose due to vibra-tion.

If the connection will be un-derground, you may want to ap-ply Plasti Dip spray-on coating over the final tape layers.

It is better to be cautious and waterproof your connections on the ground in the summer than to stand around like an id-iot in January wondering why nothing works.

(Green Bay Professional Packet Radio Tech Bulletin #1)


The Story of ZL7C October 2002

(part 4)

By Ken Holdom ZL4HU and Stan White ZL2ST

Meanwhile operation contin-

ued on SSB on the WARC bands and on digital modes on all bands. All up, in 11 days we had an amazing 72,213 contacts including 30,819 CW, 39,002 SSB, 2059 RTTY, 333 PSK.

On 6 metres Bob ZL3TY or ‘Mr Static’ as we knew him, spent many hours listening to noise and running the 6 metre beacon on an FT100 rig and 5 element yagi. He was rewarded with three FSK441 meteor scatter and two CW QSOs on 6 metres with ZL stations and then on our last operating day a nice opening to Japan which produced 136 CW QSOs. On 2 metres Bob used the FT100 with a Daiwa 150 Watt ampli-fier adjacent to the 12 element yagi to make four JT44 moon-bounce QSOs with USA sta-tions. Bob also spent some time dealing with HF pileups. SSB operation was handled by Ken ZL4HU, Murray ZL1CN, Bill N2WB, Al K3VN, Reinhard DF4TD, Hiro JF1OCQ, Stan ZL2ST, Bob ZL3TY, while digi-tal operation was carried out by Paul WF5T, Dave KW4DA, Steve G4EDG, Wilbert ZL2BSJ, Stan ZL2ST, Hiro JF1OCQ. Wilbert also spent many hours ‘working’ on our logs for the daily transmission to webmaster Gordon ZL2ARN.

Our eating arrangements

were very flexible indeed and if you are fond of burgers and chips or chips and burgers then you guessed it. However, they were tailored to suit the tastes of the various team members by a very helpful local café. We were provided with two most welcome barbeques and on a more exotic occasion we were treated to cooked crayfish and a green salad, compliments of Terry and Trish, the fine hosts of Ken’s XYL Emily and son Wil-liam who joined us on this DXpedition.

The weather on Chatham Island is a little cooler than what we are used to in New Zealand, courtesy of a regular cool south-westerly wind. How-ever during the period we were operational and particularly at assembly and dismantling times we were treated to more rain than is normal. Most of us walked the 1.5 km from the backpackers to the racecourse daily but on occasions during the showers the rental car was most welcome.

The operation was closed down at midnight local time on 28 October to allow us to have some well earned rest before dismantling the aerials early next day. As we finished, the pileups were still there but somewhat diminished after 11 days operation. Following the pack up on Monday the group with some invited guests en-joyed a dinner at the Waitangi Hotel which was settled with some fine New Zealand wines and Chatham Island 'Black Robin' beer. The beer is

named after the Black Robin bird which is a local endangered bird of which there were only about 5 in existence in 1980. It was the world’s rarest bird. After careful management num-bers of the birds are now in-creasing.

On Tuesday morning most of the gear was loaded on to the Air Chathams truck and the Christchurch bound group also set off for the airport. The Wellington group occupied them-selves on their final day on Chatham Island by sightseeing.

From Waitangi which is to-wards the bottom of the west-ern side of the island we went east to look through the local (diesel powered) electricity gen-erating station and on to Owenga on the east coast to view the Tommy Solomon statue and village. We then went up back to the west coast and north to the top eastern corner of the island (about one and a half hour trip) and viewed the centuries old Mori Ori tree carvings nearby and the village of Kaingaroa. We the headed south and then west to walk to the basalt columns on the coast and then drove on to Port Hutt village with it’s shipwreck on the beach. Each of the villages has it’s own fish processing factory.

On return to Waitangi the group proceeded up the hill to the old ZLC coast radio station which now houses the telephone Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, ZL4HU, ZL2ST, GBPPR, and the ARRL Letter.



335


exchange. Only one mast re-mains for various VHF telephone services. We then visited the local TV studio which is closing soon because many of the island-ers are now receiving TV signals directly via satellite. The TV station is above the local wharf where the shipping service to New Zealand calls regularly. Next day it was the turn of the second group to leave for Wel-lington.

We were supported ex-tremely well by the local Chat-ham Islands people and our heartfelt thanks goes to them. As a result of placing an adver-tisement of the TV a number of folk visited us to gain for them-selves an appreciation of what we up to.

To all our supporters/sponsors we would like to take the opportunity to say a big thank you to you all and without this support this DXpedition would not have taken place. We hope that you will continue to support these ventures and hopefully or even maybe, the Kermadec DX Association will again be heard on the Airwaves.

For more pictures and infor-mation plus ZL7C logs have a look at our website at www.qsl.net/zl7c/.

New Meeting Location! NODXA’S new meeting location is at Laura’s Family Restaurant at 4601 E. Royalton Rd (Rt 82, close to I-77) in Broadview Hts, Ohio. Please see the map on the last page of this newsletter.

FOR SALE

40-FOOT ROHN TOWER

3 ELEMENT CUSHCRAFT A3 BEAM

IT'S ALL DISMANTLED READY FOR BUYER TO

HAUL AWAY FOR $125.00

IF INTERESTED CALL WALT ROBINSON

(KB8VJE )

AT 216-332-9473

MOVING SALE IC765 --1000.00 Henry 2K4A Amp floor model with extra set 3-500Z tubes--800.00 Sommers XP807 Beam covers 40 meters to 10 me-ters--400.00 Jerry Kurucz, WB8LFO (440) 282-2123 [email protected]

NODXA Meetings are held the first Monday of each month at the Laura’s Family Restaurant on RT.82 just west of Interstate 77 in Broadview Heights at 8:00 PM. Come early and have dinner and meet your fellow DXers and enter the 50/50 raffle.








NODXA RAG June 2003 Page 1

June 2003

Fellow DX'ers,

It is time to mark your calendar. Put big red circles around June 28th and June 29th. These are important dates for a club function. It is the annual ARRL Field Day weekend. I'd like to see more people out there this year (either to visit or operate). No one is pressured to oper-ate. Come on out and see the set up and support the operators. Who knows, maybe you will pick up a mike, hit the keyboard (RTTY) or hit the key. Anyway, come on out (Bring a friend!) and watch or join in the fun. There will be munchies, pop and 807s (and even a T.V. set). All the comforts of home. I hope to see you there. Di-rection and location should be listed somewhere in this newsletter.

Well, after several months of moving around to different locations to find a perma-nent meeting place, it seems the club has found a new (but old) home. Those who attended last month's (June) meeting seemed pleased with

Laura's Kitchen. I heard no complaints about the food. The owner seemed real happy to have us there. So, if you have not attended a meeting over the past few months because of the loca-tions, now is a good time to come back. We do not plan to move anymore (hopefully).

Lastly, I hope we have good weather for Field Day, and I hope to see you out there (at lease for the support). Also, just a reminder that it is that time of the year to renew your club dues.


Mudside Chat With KB8NW




The NODXA

RAG


Minutes of the June 2nd 2003

NODXA Meeting The meeting was called to

order at 8:01PM by Tedd, KB8NW, which was held at Laura’s Kitchen in Broadview Heights, Ohio. The around the room introductions then followed by the 29 members/guests in attendance.

The treasurer Mary, N8DMM, reports a balance of $Ka-Ching! and that there are several renewal memberships.

Tedd, KB8NW, reported on the Dayton Hospitality Suite refreshment cost and donations.

Pete, N8TR, informed us on the packet cluster.

Please send articles and your total credited countries to our Editor Dave, WD8IOU, at [email protected].

A letter from Janeen Hire, now W8ZET, was read by Tedd, KB8NW, thanking the club in making the Hospitality Room a success and will continue with the tradition for next year.

A discussion on the Dayton Hamfest 2003 was opened by Tedd, KB8NW.

Tedd, KB8NW, informed us on the DX Forum held at the Dayton Hamfest and on the presentation of the DX-pedition of the Year Award plaque.

A motion was made by Bob, W8GC, and seconded by Carl, K8AV to allot $100.00 toward the shipping expenses for the Quad antenna to 3B9FR. A vote was taken and passed.

A discussion on Field Day

2003 was opened by Tedd, KB8NW.

Mary, N8DMM, opened a discussion on the food for Field Day 2003. A motion to allot $75.00 for food was made by Ray, W8BIN, and seconded by Byron, KF8UN. A vote was taken and passed.

Jim, K8MR, informed us on the Ohio QSO Party to be held on Saturday, August 23 from noon to midnight EDT.

A motion to continue to meet at Laura’s Kitchen was made by Tedd, KB8NW, and seconded by Carl, K8AV. A vote was taken and passed.

Dick, K8RM, won the 50/50 raffle and his share was $25.00.

Tedd, KB8NW, adjourned the meeting at 8:52 PM.

Secretary: Ron, K8VJG

HAMvention Atten-dance Down In 2003

ARRL Letter

Hamvention reported June 4 that attendance for this year's 52nd show was 22,168, down a bit more than 10 percent from last year's crowd. "This is based on the number of admis-sion tickets issued and exhibitor and staff badges issued," said a statement from the office of Hamvention Production Manager Garry Matthews, KB8GOL. Matthews told ARRL that weather played a big factor in attendance this year.

"Our biggest contributing

factor to the drop was the near-constant rain on Satur-day," he said. "We had a whole day washed out."

On the plus side, Matthews said, Hamvention 2003 came close to selling out vendor spaces, and many vendors re-ported that they had a good year, despite the smaller crowd.

The 2003 number marks the third year in a row that Ham-vention's attendance had dipped. Attendance at last year's 50th anniversary event was 24,832, down about 5 per-cent from 2001's crowd of 26,151. The crowd size climbed to 28,804 in 2000, the year of the ARRL National Convention at Hamvention.

Matthews said Hamvention expects to wrap up negotiations within the next three weeks on a new, two-year contract with Hara Arena, Hamvention's home since the 1960s. The antici-pated contract, in conjunction with support from local hotels and motels and area municipali-ties, "would allow Hamvention to stay in the Dayton area for the foreseeable future," Matthews' office said.

Hamvention 2004 will be held May 14-16. For more in-formation, visit the Hamvention Web site www.hamvention.org.

Field Day 2003

By WD8IOU It’s Field Day time again!

June 28 and 29 to be exact.


Our perpetual field day chairman, Bill, W8JGU, has once again answered the call to duty and is organizing this event.

The NODXA site is the same as last year, the Mount Augustine Training Center located on 5232 Broadview Road in Richfield.

Everybody is encouraged to attended this 24-hour mara-thon, and, most of all, to oper-ate! (Hey, if KB8NW can oper-ate, then you can too!). We especially need CW operators to keep that station running for the full 24 hours.

This year the club will par-ticipate in the 2A class using three stations: SSB, CW/RTTY, and VHF/SATELLITE. We will be housing all these stations in two large tents. Here is your chance to operate RTTY if you have never done so.

The SSB and CW/RTTY

stations will be using Yaesu FT1000MP transceivers so this is your chance to play with a top-of-the-line rig if you have not had the opportunity before!

The antennas for these sta-tions are N8TR’s custom wire antenna’s, a HEX beam, and the W8JGU miracle 6M beam.

The club has allocated $75 for food so there should be plenty to eat. But we will need some cooks so, even if you don’t want to operate, stop on out and flip some burgers!

Remember to bring the bug spray, folding chairs, sun screen, and 807’s!

See you there!

Proof: KB8NW DOES operate on Field Day! (Photo by K8AV)


QRP WARC-Speed DX Challenge

ARRL Letter

Danny Eskenazi, K7SS,

Ward Silver, N0AX, and the Western Washington DX Club--with the assistance of Bruce Horn, WA7BNM--have an-nounced the year-long QRP "WARC-Speed DX Challenge." The objective is to work as many DXCC entities as possible using low power (QRP) on the so-called "WARC bands," 30, 17 and 12 meters.

The Challenge starts at 0000 UTC June 1, 2003, and ends at 2359 UTC May 31, 2004. For the purposes of the Challenge, QRP is defined as 5 W or less output on digital modes or CW and 10 W PEP on SSB. (AM or FM operators also are welcome.)

Certificates will be awarded for the top three totals from each CQ Zone in each of sev-eral categories for working 100 entities on any single band. Re-sults will be posted monthly in the following categories: 17-meter CW, 17-meter phone, 17-meter digital, 17-meter to-tal, 12-meter CW, 12-meter phone, 12-meter digital, 12-meter total, 30-meter CW, 30-meter digital, total CW, total phone, total digital, total over-all. Participants may enter as many or as few categories as they wish.

The Challenge involves no QSL cards or cumbersome pa-perwork. At the end of each month, WA7BNM will post a

score submittal form on the 3830 Score Submittal Web page www.hornucopia.com/3830score.

Participants will enter their totals and updated totals will be posted to the 3830 contest score reflector and CQ-contest reflectors (and be forwarded to the DX and QRP reflectors, as well). At the end of the year, participants will be able to download a nice certificate!

The honor system rules, Sil-ver said, and he notes the Challenge is not a contest. For more information, contact Ward Silver, N0AX, [email protected].

New 60-Meter Band Available July 3!

ARRL Letter

The new five-channel 60-

meter amateur allocation be-comes available to US Amateur Radio operators at midnight (12:00 AM) local time on July 3. The local time designation means that amateurs in the US territory of Guam likely will be the first to get a crack at the new band.

The new band will be a sec-ondary allocation--federal gov-ernment users are primary--and the first on which the only per-mitted mode will be upper-sideband (USB) phone (emission type 2K8J3E). The FCC last month announced it would grant hams access to five discrete 2.8-kHz-wide channels instead of the 150 kHz-wide band ARRL had requested and the FCC initially proposed. The

League remains optimistic, how-ever, that Amateur Radio even-tually may be able to enjoy a band segment with multiple mode privileges at 60 meters. ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, has said that in the meantime hams will have to be on their best behavior when taking advantage of the limited channelized allocation, open to General and higher class licen-sees.

The FCC has granted ama-teurs center-channel frequen-cies of 5332, 5348, 5368, 5373 and 5405 kHz--the last channel common to the amateur experimental operation under way in the United Kingdom www.rsgb-hfc.org.uk/5mhz.htm. To be "on channel," users of 60 meters should set their trans-mitted carrier frequency 1.5 kHz lower than the channel-center frequency. In terms of day-to-day operation, the new band is expected to resemble the sort of channel sharing typical on local repeaters.

ARRL Laboratory Manager Ed Hare, W1RFI, says hams need to be very careful if they're considering modifying their current transceiver or transmitter for 5 MHz. The ARRL advises that members check with the appropriate equipment manufacturers re-garding specific modification in-formation. Some modifications not only may void the warranty

Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, K8AV, WB8K, KF8UN and the ARRL Letter.



335


but could affect or alter a transmitter's operation in unpre-dictable ways.

"Hams need to be sure that any modifications put them right on the desired channel," Hare said. "Most hams are used to just having to think about band edges, so on other bands, if a mod were a bit 'off,' all opera-tors would need to ensure is that they are not transmitting outside the band."

Hare recommended that on 5 MHz amateurs remain within "a few tens of Hertz" of sup-pressed-carrier accuracy. He also pointed out that hams have a mandate not to have any of their signal occupy spectrum out-side the assigned 2.8 kHz chan-nels.

Noting that high-frequency audio response can vary consid-erably from radio to radio, Hare has suggested restricting occu-pied channel audio bandwidth to 2600 Hz, rolling off below 200 Hz on the low end and above 2800 Hz on the high end.

Last-minute opposition to the granting of a band segment at 5 MHz came last year from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which cited the ongoing spectrum requirements of federal government licensees having homeland security responsibili-ties. The NTIA administers

spectrum allocated to the fed-eral government. A compromise between the FCC and the NTIA resulted in the limited, channel-ized allocation.

The NTIA selected the channels the FCC authorized to minimize the possibility of inter-ference to federal government users, and it dictated the use of USB so that federal government users--who also use only USB--could readily identify amateur stations if necessary.

The FCC has set maximum power at 50 W ERP and said it would consider a typical half-wave dipole to exhibit no gain.

KF8UN and KC8LYG win 1st Place 2002 WWWPX in 8th area.

FOR SALE Free standing crank-up Tower: TX-455 at 55’ + 10’ mast + Ham 4 rotor + TRX-80 raising fixture + Force 12 C-19-XR Yagi antenna: $2200 Alpha 87A HF Amp: $3500 All A1 condition. Take all for $5200 John Sepper N8KUS (440) 333-7911 [email protected]

NODXA Meetings are held the first Monday of each month at the Laura’s Kitchen Restaurant on RT.82 just west of Interstate 77 in Broadview Heights at 8:00 PM. Come early and have dinner and meet your fellow DXers and enter the 50/50 raffle.








NODXA RAG July 2003 Page 1

July 2003

Fellow DX'ers,

Well it finally happened. If you have not heard, delegates at the World Radiocommunications Confer-ence 2003 (WRC-03) "eliminated the requirement that amateur applicants prove Morse Code proficiency to operate below 30 MHz, leaving it up to individual ad-ministrations to retain or drop Morse Code as an exam element." I should say WOW, but we all saw it com-ing. The United Kingdom has already eliminated their CW exams, and I am sure many others will follow. Let me first say I hate to see the CW exams go (even though I am not CW active), but I believe there is a reason for this change (the writing is on the wall).

Face it, next time you go to a club meeting or a hamfest, look around. "WHERE HAS THE YOUTH GONE?" It is just not there. I think there is a major push to get more people interested in amateur radio by making it easier to get a license. With a larger number of operators, there will be more of a reason to protect our amateur radio frequencies. As far as what the League is going to do, word from our ARRL Great Lakes Director Jim Weaver, K8JE, (recently back from a Board of Directors meeting) states, "the general sense is that we (the League) should wait to see what FCC proposes to do before investing much

effort in anticipation of FCC's plan. Remember, there is no need for the Commission to do anyting. No ac-tion is necessary if they decide to let things stand as they are at this time." I am sure over that the next several months this will be a major topic at most amateur gatherings.

I would like to remind everyone that the "Ohio QSO Party" will be this month (August 23-24th). It would be great if you could get on and hand out a few QSOs and turn in your scores for NODXA. I was a little disappointed to see only 2 or 3 people from NODXA (and one of them was me) was active in the contest. So, I hope to hear you on the air.

Lastly, I sure by now you heard NODXA has lost another member. Joe Skraba, W8ZSD, became a Si-lent Key on June 29th. I want to thank the many NODXA members who attended the funeral home to pay their last repsects. Joe was a great guy and friend. I will miss his humorous words and wit, and his laugh/smile, especially at the NODXA meetings and "BARF80 Breakfasts". It was always fun to talk to him. He will surely be missed. 73 and Good DX de Tedd KB8NW

Poolside Chat With KB8NW




The NODXA

RAG


Minutes of the July 7th, 2003

NODXA Meeting

Tedd, KB8NW, called the meeting to order at 8:02 PM and followed by the around the room introductions by the 21 members/guests in attendance. The meeting was held at Laura’s Kitchen in Broadview Heights, Ohio.

Tedd, KB8NW, informs us of the death of fellow club member Joe Skraba, W8ZSD. He will be missed by all.

There is a balance of $Ka-Ching! in the treasury as re-ported by Mary, N8DMM.

Bob, W8GC, informed us on the Quad antenna for 3B9FR and also on the CARS classes for the Extra Class License. For more information go to www.cars.org and select education.

A report on the packet clus-ter was given by Jim, K8MR, and Pete, N8TR.

Dave, WD8IOU, requests articles for the Newsletter.

A request for donations for the Banaba Island and Surinam dx-peditions was related to us by Tedd, KB8NW.

Tedd, KB8NW, informs us about the proposals on Morse Code changes by the IARU and the 40 Meter band realignment and on the use of transmitting signals over utility power lines called Broadband over Power Lines.

CARS special guest speaker at the August 20, 2003 meeting will be Jim Weaver, K8JE, our ARRL Director, Great Lakes Di-

vision, as related to us by Gary, NI8Z. The meeting is to be held at the Oak Grove Picnic Area of the Metro Parks in Brecksville, Ohio starting at 7:30 PM. Bring your ARRL questions and suggestions for Jim. Use the 146.820mhz re-peater for assistance.

A discussion on being a col-lection location for a trans-ceiver for Monk Apollo, SV2ASP, was opened by Tedd, KB8NW.

Steve, N8IS, informs us on the JOTA in the third week-end , the 18 & 19, of October, 2003 for Scout participation. Contact Steve at [email protected].

A report on Field Day 2003 results was made by John,K8YSE. The number of partici-pants was 22 and had 2 trans-mitters operating simultane-ously. There was 600 cw con-tacts, 998 phone and 15 digital qso’s.There was a battery mul-tiplier and points for the W1AW Field Day Message and 100% Emergency power for a total claimed score of 4456 points. This was followed by a discussion.

A motion was made by Ray, W8BIN, and seconded by Bill, N8PW, to donate $100.00 to the Mount Augustine Facility for the use of the Field Day site. A vote was taken and passed.


The 50/50 raffle was won by Steve, N8IS. His share was $19.00.


7 MHz Realignment Compromise Makes

Radio History

ARRL Letter

In an 11th-hour compro-mise, delegates to World Radio-communication Conference 2003 (WRC-03) agreed to move broadcasters out of 7100 to 7200 kHz in Regions 1 and 3 to make room for the Amateur Service. The expanded world-wide allocation at 40 meters goes into effect on March 29, 2009. Amateurs in the US and the rest of Region 2 will con-tinue to enjoy the 7000 to 7300 kHz band they now have, but with greatly reduced broad-casting interference.

The compromise marked the first time in the history of in-ternationally coordinated radio spectrum allocation that an HF broadcasting band was shifted to accommodate the needs of another service. The compro-mise cuts in half the incompati-bility between amateur and broadcasting use of the 7 MHz band and doubles the 40-meter spectrum available to amateurs in Regions 1 and 3.

While the result falls short of the IARU's goal of a 300-kHz worldwide exclusive band for amateurs, the cooperation of broadcasters, opposing dele-gates and many others was re-quired to make a positive step for ham radio. Spectrum be-tween 4 and 10 MHz is on the agenda for WRC-07, but fur-ther changes to 7000-7200 kHz


will not be considered. The conference also dropped

the international Morse code requirement, leaving individual countries to decide if they want to retain a code proficiency re-quirement, and adopted a num-ber of improvements to the other international regulations for the amateur service. The delegates also agreed to allowed a secondary allocation for sat-ellite borne synthetic aperture radars at 70 cm and made ama-teur call sign assignment more flexible.

NODXA and the Ohio QSO Party

Saturday, August 23 is the

2003 Ohio QSO Party. This year it’s a special one, cele-brating Ohio’s Bicentennial.

For several years NODXA has supported the Ohio QSO Party by sponsoring a plaque for the highest scoring DX station. For 2003 I’d like to see the club get involved in an additional way – by actively competing in the Ohio club competition.

Like other contests, the OQP club competition is deter-mined simply by the sum of the scores submitted by its mem-bers. This can be guys operat-ing from home, or in a host of other fun ways – multiops, port-able operations from rare coun-ties, mobiling around Ohio, spe-cial events stations (K8ZOO/K8CRF?), etc.

NODXA have a lot of very good contest/DX stations in a number of northern Ohio coun-ties. If we can get them on the air, we will have a very good base for a big club score. I for one will again be out driving around Ohio – probably the southeast part – and submitting my score for NODXA.

Full details about OQP are at www.mrrc.net/oqp. In a nut-shell, the OQP runs from noon to midnight EDT (16z Saturday to 04z Sunday), people outside Ohio work only Ohio stations, but us Buckeyes work everyone, inside or outside Ohio. Ex-change a QSO number (starting at 1) and your QTH. Multipliers are by mode, so working Cuya-hoga county on both phone and CW gets you two multipliers.

For those NODXA members outside Ohio, join in the fun by chasing Ohio station and Ohio counties. Although only Ohio scores count toward the OQP club competition, we hope those outside Ohio will try to work as may Ohio stations, and NODXA members, as possible. For those outside the USA and Canada, there is a very nice plaque sponsored by NODXA – can you win it?

When you send in your log, be sure to list NODXA as your club, so that your score will be counted towards the club total.

We hope to see everyone on the air on August 23!

Jim Stahl, K8MR

Party Etiquette and the Ohio QSO Party

Like any social gathering,

the Ohio QSO Party (and those of other states as well) have a few largely unspoken rules of etiquette. Many are a lot like etiquette for any party. To get you a bit more familiar, here are a few of them:

If you can’t be there at the start, get there when you can. Though the serious party goers will be there from noon to mid-night, feel free to arrive when your schedule permits. And don’t give up if you have to leave. As with any party, peo-ple do come and go through the course of the day. And unlike many parties, if you do have to leave, feel free to come back! There are likely to be lots of new people you did not meet the first time around.

Of course if you aren’t there full time, you may miss some special guests you will later regret missing – like a mo-bile or someone else making a short appearance from a rare county.

Come as a group. There is a club competition in OQP – the winning club determined by the sum of the scores from its members. Get your club in-

FREE! GAP TITAN multi-band vertical Antenna to the first person who comes and gets it. On the gound but needs to be dis-assemble. Please call Stan - AA8IN at 330-667-6011 to set up a time. Stan ([email protected])


volved in a great late summer on-air activity!

Or come alone. You’re still very welcome even if you’re not in a club.

Greet the guests! As Ohio-ans, we are the “hosts” of this party. Good hosts make a point to approach the visitors and make them feel welcome. Be the first to speak - call CQ! In QSO parties like OQP, the in state guys are typically the ones who do most of the CQing, while the out of state guys typically mostly tune around looking for people in Ohio. So find a frequency and call some CQ’s. There will be people, both inside and outside Ohio, who are looking to meet us Ohioians. This may include a lot who are former Buckeyes!

Typically 40 meters is the busiest band in the OQP, but remember that there are lots of people not so close to Ohio who’ll be joining the fun. Don’t ignore them: spend some time on 20, 15, and if it opens, 10 meters. And don’t forget 75/80 at night.

R.S.V.P. Advance reserva-tions of course aren’t required, but let the world know of your plans to attend. The OQP has an e-mail reflector to announce plans, ask questions, share ideas, and in general to get psyched for the weekend. You can subscribe to this reflector at the OQP web site, www.mrrc.net/oqp.

No need to bring a hostess gift. Your activity is quite enough!

Send a thank you note. Do

this by sending in your log after the contest. Electronic logs go to [email protected]. Paper logs go to K8MR at his callbook address.

Attend other people’s par-ties as well. Many other states have their own QSO parties. Like birthday parties, your own are the most special, but you can have lots of fun at other people’s parties as well. If you have fun in Ohio’s party, check out those other state parties as well.

See you at the Ohio QSO Party – Saturday, August 23. Noon to midnight, EDT. This year is a special party – for Ohio’s Bicentennial. Be there!

Jim Stahl, K8MR

C.A.R.S. News

Jim Weaver, K8JE, ARRL Director Great Lakes Division, will be a guest speaker at the C.A.R.S. Aug. 20, 2003 picnic meeting. Get your ARRL ques-tions and suggestions ready for Jim. The location of the picnic is in the Brecksville MetroPark at the Oak Grove site. See map at www.cars.org for details.

Also, CARS will be putting on Amateur Extra classes starting August 27 and going through October 8, 2003 Wednesday evenings, 6:30pm sharp till aprox 8:30pm.

*August 27 is for sign up, orientation & handouts.

*October 8 will be a VEC extra class exam for class

members only. *cost $30 per person (non

CARS members) including CD and all class materials. CARS members get a $5 discount.

*location: Independence Civic Center, Willow room (map on our web site) 6363 Selig Drive Independence, Ohio 44131

If you want to get your Ex-tra class license go to www.cars.org, follow the link under "EXTRA CLASS INSTRUCTION SIGN UP TIME" and fill out the registration form or send me an e-mail at [email protected].

USI Activity

Look for NODXA member Byron, KF8UN, to be active from Tappan Lake Island (USI OH-New) between August 9-10th. Activity will be on all bands 80-6 meters. QSL via the address on QRZ.com.

Byron says: “KC8WTP Sandy and I will be camping nearby the night before, weather per-mitting, and plan to get on the air as soon as the antennas are up on Saturday morning the 9th of August. KC8WTP will be on 6m. if the band opens up. Route-250 crosses Tappan Lake Island”.

Go to http://www.eng.mu.edu/~usi for more info on the US Islands Award program.

Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, K8MR, WB8K, K8AV, NI8Z, W8GC, KC4IYD, KF8UN, OPDX, and the ARRL Letter.



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DX Tidbits

NODXA member K8MFO is at number eight in the DXCC Chal-lenge Award program with 3006 enties. NODXA member KF8UN is at number 150 with 2149 en-ties. For more information on the DXCC Challenge, visit www.arrl.org/awards/dxcc/listings/challenge.html.

Bill Moore, NC1L, ARRL

DXCC Manager, wants to remind everyone that once again, the deadline for submitting applica-tions for the 2003 DXCC Annual List is rapidly approaching. Ap-plications must be postmarked September 30, 2003.

Mike, GM4SUC, reminds eve-

ryone that there are only three weeks to go before the Interna-tional Lighthouse/Ship Weekend takes place (starts at 0001z Saturday, August 16th and ends 2359z Sunday, August 17th). There are just over 250 stations in 34 countries confirming their participation in the event. The list of these stations can be found at: http://lighthouses.net.au/illw/2003.htm. Mike states, "If you have notified us of your participation would you please check that the details are cor-rect." Full rules and details of the weekend event can be found at: http://lighthouses.net.au/illw/index.html.

Field Day Chairman W8JGU working the pileup on 6 meters

Field Day 2003 Antenna Crew Raising the 20 Meter Hex Beam

NODXA RAG August 2003 Page 1

August 2003

Fellow DX'ers,

Let me first say that I do not know what exactly to write about this month, and I am at a loss for words. So much has happened over the past month, I do not know where to begin.

Do I talk about how bad the weather and summer have been? (Bring out the ark... more rain is on its way... HEY, what happen to sum-mer.. Is it September already???? GEEE..)

Do I talk about the "2003 BLACKOUT"? (WOW, that was an interesting 14 hours for me. Especially since it was just before I went on vacation and the power finally came on two to three hours before leaving. Did you lose any equipment? I did!)

Do I talk about "BPL"? (I guess I could talk about this since this is real important. However, I know how well up-to-date you guys/gals are on this serious subject, so there is no need. If you are not up-to-date, I suggest you go to the ARRL Web page and read about BPL.)

Do I talk about DX? (Well, DX has been so so... However, we do have a few interesting op-erations coming up in the coming months... 3C0, BQ9P, FO0/A, XU, XZ, ZK1/N...etc... Also, the bands will be picking up... That is something to look forward to...)

It is official! I guess I will talk about noth-ing, and your club president has decided to take this month's FIRESIDE off. See you at the next meeting.


Poolside Chat With KB8NW




The NODXA

RAG

Due to the Labor Day holiday, the next meet-ing will be on Monday, September 8, 2003.


Minutes of the August 4th, 2003 NODXA Meeting

The meeting , which was

held at Laura’s Kitchen in Broadview Heights, Ohio, was called to order at 8:01 PM by Tedd, KB8NW. The around the room introductions were fol-lowed by the 23 members/guests in attendance.

Mary, N8DMM, reports a balance of $Ka-Ching! in the treasury.

A report on the packet clus-ter was made by Pete, N8TR, and was followed by a discus-sion. A motion was made by Pete, N8TR, and seconded by Dwaine, K8ME, to authorize the sum of $150.00 towards the software for the K8AZ cluster. A vote was taken and passed.

Send articles and informa-tion for the Newsletter to Dave, WD8IOU.

Tedd, KB8NW, related to us that the 3 element SteppIR antenna was sent to 3B9FR. Many thanks to those who do-nated money and especially to Bob, W8GC, who is to be com-mended on his hard work in or-ganizing this project.

A dx-pedition to Banaba Is-land, using T33C call, will be on April 4-16, 2004, as informed to us by Tedd, KB8NW. A mo-tion to donate $100.00 toward this dx-pedition was made by Nick, W8XD, and seconded by John, K8YSE. A vote was taken and passed. Another dx-pedition to take place on Sep-tember 27-October 10, 2003

to Annobon Island, 3C0, was announced by Tedd, KB8NW. A motion was made by John, K8YSE, and seconded by Wayne, K8FF, to donate $100.00 to this dx-pedition. A vote was taken and passed.

A discussion on the proposed Morse Code requirements was opened by Tedd, KB8NW.

Tedd, KB8NW, reported on a transceiver for Monk Apollo, SV2ASP, and donations for this purpose, and a discussion fol-lowed. The current project is on hold due to other considera-tions.

A discussion on the DXCC Patches was opened by Tedd, KB8NW.

George, K8KR, informed us about a new DX Reflector by e-mail and was followed by a dis-cussion.

The next meeting will be held on September 8, 2003 as announced by Tedd, KB8NW.

Ray, W8BIN, won the 50/50 raffle. His share was $21.00.

Tedd, KB8NW, adjourned the meeting at 8:53PM.


Changes to 8th Call Area Bureau

Please visit the new 8th call

area Bureau page where changes in bureau operation is explained. This page is located at http://home.fuse.net/jslough/w8buro.html. Here is a summary of the changes to the bureau page:

1) Added a description of where the bureau will soon be physically located (VOA Mu-seum)

2) Suggestion that users of the bureau be ARRL members

3) Not accepting cards for other than W8 bureau designees (not being an input point for cards brought back from other bureaus or for outbound cards to DX. (Those must be sent to ARRL HQ per outbound bureau operating guidelines as found on the ARRL website.)

4) Once cards have reached the unclaimed status for a given call, we will continue to destroy future incoming cards without further notification, until we are notified by the intended recipient that they want the cards. (We are assuming that once refused or the recipient is uncontactable, they remain so which gives implied consent to destroy forever.)

5) We will not forward be-tween letter mangers/bureaus for calls without envelopes; i.e., you must have envelopes on file for every call for which you want to receive cards. If you change calls for any reason, vanity call, upgrade, moved to or from the 8th call area, you need envelopes for every call.

6) We will NOT use used envelopes

7) 1x1's require envelopes on file with dates of operation on the envelope

8) If you do not want bu-reau cards for DX operations you did or are manager for, once we are notified, we will destroy the cards and not re-


turn them and do not take re-sponsibility for destroying cards addressed to you, for your US operations.

9) Similarly, we will not forward bureau cards at league expense to the new manager if you cease being the manager for a DX station.

Part of what is implied is that we will no longer return unclaimed cards at league ex-pense except for cards to Si-lent Keys and other obvious de-fects like invalid call or wrong call. Cards not returned will be destroyed. Before they are destroyed the letter manager will have attempted to contact the intended recipient and have held the cards for at least the minimum time required under the SOGs (90 days).

As stated on the web page the biggest problem we have is not having envelopes on file for those whom we receive cards. The letter managers expend too much time trying to track peo-ple down to notify them that they have cards at the bureau and need to send us an enve-lope. Please encourage our fel-low hams that if they work any DX at all they should expect to get bureau cards.

I also want to remind eve-ryone that we can not accept cards for lower-48 US to lower-48 US contacts-period! They too will be destroyed.

If anyone has questions or concerns after reading the web page, they may contact me at [email protected].

Thanks for your assistance in making the hobby more fun

for all of us. Jay, K4ZLE, 8th Area incoming

QSL bureau manager

FCC Wants Com-ments on Morse

Code Related Petitions

ARRL Letter

The FCC has invited public

comments on six separate Morse code-related petitions for rule making, some of which would al-together eliminate Element 1, the 5 WPM Morse test, from the Amateur Service rules (Part 97). World Radiocommunication Conference 2003 (WRC-03) made optional the requirement to prove the ability to send and receive Morse signals to operate below 30 MHz.

A petition from Peter M. Beauregard, KI1I, designated RM-10781, would give all Tech-nician licensees current Novice/Tech Plus CW privileges on 80, 40, 15 and 10 meters and lim-ited phone and image privileges on 80, 40 and 10 meters. Beauregard said the CW privi-leges would "encourage Techni-cian class licensees to upgrade to General" by giving them a "practice area." He has pro-posed new Tech phone/image privileges on 3850-3900 kHz and 7225-7300 kHz. His peti-tion would not eliminate Element 1, however.

Pete V. Coppola, KG4QDZ, and family--Tina Coppola, KG4YUM, and Pete A. Coppola,

KG4QDY--have asked the FCC to eliminate Element 1 from the rules. The Coppolas' petition, designated RM-10782, would grant Tech Plus HF privileges to current Technician licensees. It also would retain the current CW-only subbands. The Coppo-las asked the FCC to make the change effective immediately on a provisional basis.

Kiernan K. Holliday, WA6BJH, has asked the FCC simply to "remove all require-ments for knowledge of Morse code" from the Amateur Service rules. Holliday said there is less reason to require Morse code in the Amateur Service today. In his petition, designated RM-10783, Holliday also said the code requirement limits the ability of handicapped individu-als to get ham tickets. "The Commission's policy should be to encourage the use of Amateur Radio," he said.

Dale Reich, K8AD, peti-tioned the FCC to delete Ele-ment 1 for General class appli-cants but keep it in place for Extra class applicants. Under Reich's scheme, "no-code" Techs wanting HF privileges would have to upgrade to Gen-eral first. Reich's petition is designated RM-10784.

Eric Ward, N0HHS, seeks immediate elimination of "proficiency in telegraphy using Morse code." The "immediate removal of the telegraphy re-quirement from Amateur Radio licensing is appropriate and clearly in the public interest," Ward contended in his petition, designated RM-10785.


In a detailed, nine-page pe-tition, the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordi-nators (NCVEC) is calling on the FCC to delete Element 1 and give "Tech Plus" privileges to current Technician licensees. The NCVEC also asked the FCC to "take expedited action" to allow volunteer examiner coordi-nators (VECs) to discontinue ad-ministering Element 1 "as soon as possible."

"The Amateur Service com-munity suffers from the loss to its ranks of a large number of potentially excellent operators who are turned away because of the CW requirement," the NCVEC petition said.

The organization, the um-brella group for the 14 VECs in the US, said there's "no longer any reasonable justification for requiring an applicant to demon-strate this antiquated skill," and that most applicants never use Morse after they pass the test. The NCVEC petition is designated RM-10787.

The ARRL-VEC abstained from voting on the NCVEC's pe-tition question when it came up during the NCVEC's July 25 meeting in Pennsylvania. At its own July meeting in Connecticut, the ARRL Board of Directors affirmed its interest in review-ing members' input on the Morse issue as well as on other possible revisions to Part 97 arising from WRC-03. The Board's current position is to retain the Morse requirement for HF access.

Two more recently filed pe-titions--one from No Code In-

ternational and another from two amateur licensees--are ex-pected to be put on public no-tice in the near future.

Interested parties may file comments on any or all of these petitions using the FCC's Elec-tronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/, which also permits users to view the petitions and all comments on file. There is a 30-day com-ment window.

To file a comment, click on "Submit a Filing" under "ECFS Main Links." In the "Proceeding" field, type the full RM number, including the hyphen, and com-plete the required fields. "RM" must be in capital letters, and you must include the hyphen be-tween "RM" and the five-digit number. You may type your re-marks into a form or attach a file. ECFS also accepts com-ments in active proceedings via e-mail, per instructions on the ECFS page.

While a Morse code exam element remains on the books in the US, Canada and elsewhere, a handful of countries--including Switzerland, Belgium, the UK, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands--already have moved to drop their Morse re-quirements. Austria and New Zealand are expected to do so soon.

California QSO

Party (CQP) 2003 1600Z October 4, 2003 -- 2200Z October 5, 2003

Sponsored by the Northern

California Contest Club (NCCC) FUN FOR CLUBS OUTSIDE

OF CALIFORNIA. Last year 20 clubs turned in

scores for the “Top Non-California Club” plaque.

The Tennessee Contest Group won the plaque with 16 logs and a score of 703,996 points. You can view the TCG 2002 plaque at www.k4ro.net/tcg.html

Start your contest season with a “big bang” in CQP 2003. Participation was up a whopping 21% in CQP 2002. Come join us and win awards (plaques and wine), earn a certificate, buy a t-shirt and most importantly “have fun” in one of the largest state QSO parties.

OBJECT: Stations outside of California work as many Cali-fornia stations in as many CA counties as possible (CW and phone, 160-80-40-20-15-10-6-2 meters). Stations in Cali-fornia work everyone.

* Updated Multi-Single rule for 2003 allows unlimited band changes!

* Complete and final rules and other information at http://www.cqp.org/

EXCHANGE: * Stations outside of Cali-

fornia send QSO number and U.S. State, ARRL Canadian sec-tion, or Country.

* California stations send QSO number and county.

AWARDS: The most plaques Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, K8ME, K8KR, K4ZLE, W6ZZZ, AE4TR, and the ARRL Letter.



335


and awards in any state QSO party.

* 34 Plaques (wood and metal, not mere wallpaper!)

* 40 Bottles of California wine (commemorative CQP labels with your call sign)

* Certificates to the top Single-Operator in every state, province, country, and CA county

* Certificates to each and every entrant who makes at least 100 QSOs

Commemorative CQP 2003 T-shirts are available for purchase if you make at least 100 QSOs (waived for DX entries). Please include your size (M / L / XL /

XXL) and $10 ($15 for DX entries).

PLEASE SEND IN YOUR LOGS !

Free logging software CQPWin at www.cqp.org/Software.html

Entries must be submitted no later than November 15.

* Logs should be submitted by e-mail to [email protected]

* Logs may be submitted via postal mail to: NCCC, c/o Al Maenchen, AD6E, 3330 Farthing Way, San Jose, CA 95132-1908.

- Marc, W6ZZZ, a member of the CQP Publicity Team

Procrastination, an Ode to HAM Radio

While sitting in my shack one night, Looking out the window, what a beautiful sight, The sun had set, the moon was shining bright, Every thing was fine, much to my delight.

Listening to my radio, the hams were complaining, There's a storm brewing, static was increasing, As I watched the moon, much to my dismay, A cloud passed over, more was on the way.

Soon there were many, the moon began to dim, The temperature was falling, winter was setting in, Rain was falling, and snow began mixing, I just remembered, my antenna needs a fixing.

It had served me faithfully for so many years, I should be ashamed, it almost moved me to tears, Work while the sun shines, my father told me, But I was lazy, and time passed, as you can see.

Fear not, it's still up there, I said, as I gladly, went to bed, It's battered and torn, and hanging by a thread, It's winter outside, and dark as can be, It will make it through the night, just wait and see.

Morning came, I was up early, waiting for daylight, I went to my shack, in snow , up to my back, It had snowed all night, now Ice was forming, I slowly drank my coffee, while waiting for morning.

I turned on my Rig, a-hah! I said in my head, It's still working, or else all would be dead, The hams were still complaining and go-ing strong, There's snow and ice, and it will be there long.

I rushed outside to have a look see, But damage to my antenna was not to be, It's still up there, I said, while the feelings were mixing, There's one thing for sure, "my antenna still needs a fix-ing".

Bennie H Mineer (AE4TR) via eHam.net

NODXA RAG September 2003 Page 1

September 2003

Fellow DX'ers, Looks like the 2003-2004 DX/Contest season

should be very interesting in the next several months. All kinds of announcements are being made for the CQWW DX Contests, but the ma-jor DXpeditions/operations should provide many with a new entity or band/mode. As this was being typed a team was heading to Annobon Is-land (3C0) to start off the fall season. Activity should last until October 10th.

In the coming months, we as DXers, can look forward to Pratas Island (BQ9P - October 9-16th), Kermadec Island (ZL8 - starting October 11th for 10 days, ranked 23rd on the most wanted list) and Europa Island (FR/E - Novem-ber 22nd-December 4th, ranked 6th on the most wanted list).

The new year 2004 will also start with some excitement. Look for Peter I Island (3Y0) to be active January-February (Bob/K4UEE and Ralph/K0IR are the leaders of this DXpedition). This

island is ranked 7th (4th for Europe) and the last operation took place in 1994 (3Y0PI). Also, we must not forget the Banaba Island (T33) DXpedition that will take place in March of 2004. So, it looks to be exciting over the next several months. Enjoy the DX.

Lastly, please attend the next meeting (October 6th). A special vote will be taken to change the starting time of our regular monthly meeting to an earlier time (7:30 PM).






The NODXA

RAG


Minutes of the September 8th, 2003

NODXA Meeting Tedd, KB8NW, called the

meeting to order at 8:00 PM, which was held at Laura’s Kitchen in Broadview Heights, Ohio. The around the room in-troductions followed by the 16 members in attendance.

The treasurer Mary, N8DMM, reports a balance of $Ka-Ching!

A report on the Ohio QSO Party was given by Jim, K8MR.

Tedd, KB8NW, informed us on the E-mails received from the Annoban Island and the Ba-naba Island dx-pedition groups thanking us for our donations!

NODXA will have a club ta-ble at the Cleveland Hamfest held this month.

The Massillon Hamfest will be held on Sunday ,October 26, 2003 starting at 8:00AM at the Stark County Fairgrounds in Canton, Ohio. There will be an auction on odds and ends ham-gear, no computer equipment, starting at 10:AM. For mobile checkins use the 147.18+ re-peater pl 110.9. For other info contact [email protected].

Tedd, KB8NW, informs us of a dx-pedition to Myanmar from September 30 –October 17, 2003.

Dave. WB8IOU, made a motion, by proxy of Tedd, KB8NW, to donate the sum of $150.00 to the ARRL toward the anti-legislation of BPL. This was seconded by Dwaine, K8ME, and was followed by a discus-

sion. A vote was taken and passed.

The amateur radio station at the Rainforest building in Cleveland is now using the call, K8CRF/200, for the Commemo-ration of the Bicentennial of the Statehood of Ohio as announced to us by Ron, K8VJG. Look for them on Thursdays between 10:00AM and 3:00PM on 14.180-14.270mhz, 7.150- 7.270mhz, or 18.110-18.165mhz. For vhf use the 148.82- repeater. A special QSL card will be sent, SASE please

Bob, W8GC, informed us that 3B9FR has received the 3 element Stepp IR antenna.

A discussion on starting the meeting one half hour earlier was opened by Tedd, KB8NW.

Ray, W8BIN, won the 50/50 raffle, his share was $13.00.



"Logbook of the

World" Goes Live!

ARRL Letter The long-awaited QSL-

cardless ARRL awards and con-tact credit system "Logbook of the World" (LoTW) officially opened for business this week. Within its first five days of op-eration, the system--which is open to all--already had at-tracted more than 1000 re-quests for a digital certificate, the essential pass key to LoTW.

"Although Logbook of the World is a tremendous resource for hams chasing DXCC, VHF/UHF Century Club (VUCC), Worked All States (WAS) and other awards, we hope it will appeal to hams who are not currently active in these awards programs," said ARRL Chief Op-erating Officer Mark Wilson, K1RO. "The proliferation of logging software has stimulated activity and interest in contest-ing, and submitting log data and verifying award credits online is a logical next step."

Data integrity has been a watchword of the LoTW since the project's conception, and that starts with a digital cer-tificate. Obtaining a digital certificate involves a combina-tion of on-line filing and good old-fashioned snail mail. The first step is to visit the ARRL Logbook of the World Web page <www.arrl.org/lotw>, download the LoTW software and request a digital certificate that ties the participant's identity to a digital key.

"We will need to verify you are who you say you are," ARRL Membership Services Manager Wayne Mills, N7NG, explains. "The security of the entire sys-tem depends heavily on the method used for verifying the user's identity." This first step is called authentication. Every-one who plans to use LoTW first must obtain a digital certifi-cate. There are no exceptions. For US amateurs, this process relies on your mailing address in the FCC database, which must be current.


For non-US amateurs, au-thentication will rely on other documentation, primarily a copy of the participant's Amateur Radio license and another offi-cial identifying document. Mail these copies to ARRL, Logbook of the World Administrator, 225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111 USA.

Assuming everything goes smoothly, US licensees request-ing a digital certificate soon will receive a postcard in the mail that contains a password. "The first batch of postcards has been mailed, and some people have uploaded their passwords," Wilson said. "Those will be checked, and the first batch of digital certificates should be e-mailed to users September 22."

Users then should go to the LoTW Web site and enter the password to complete the proc-essing of their certificate re-quest. Once the password has been entered, the digital cer-tificate will be e-mailed within a working day or two. Non-US stations will receive their digital certificates via e-mail once their documentation has been received at ARRL Headquarters and authenticated.

Participants will use their digital certificates to "sign" and upload either Amateur Data In-terchange Format (ADIF) or Cabrillo-formatted files. Par-ticipants also may use their pri-mary digital certificates to ob-tain additional certificates nec-essary to submit log data and obtain award credit for con-tacts made under formerly held call signs.

At the heart of the Logbook of the World concept will be a huge repository of log data pro-vided by operators--from indi-vidual DXers and contesters to major DXpeditions--and main-tained by ARRL. Mills says the system will benefit big and little guns alike by providing quick QSO credit for ARRL-sponsored awards, especially DXCC.

Obtaining a digital certifi-cate and uploading log data are free of charge. There will be a per-QSO charge for each con-tact credit used, but Mills ex-pects it will be much less than the typical costs involved with exchanging paper QSL cards. When you use an LoTW confir-mation for an award credit, the fee will be added to your ac-count and shown in the user's record. The user will be able to pay for these charges on-line using a credit card.

Mills' article, "Introducing Logbook of the World," appears in the October issue of QST. LoTW news and announcements will be posted to the Logbook of the World Web site.

Russian QSLing There are some aspects in

regards to mailing letters to Russia which I think you should know.

First, letters coming from abroad are quite often opened by post employees. They unseal the letters without leaving any marks, remove all valuables, and reseal the letters back or sim-ply trash them. It is better to enclose IRCs rather than Green

Stamps (which will undoubtedly tempt the post personnel very easy) or send letters by regis-tered mail. The US dollar ex-change rate is around 30 rou-bles nowadays, while an IRC costs 14. I mean it can be ex-changed for postage stamps 14 roubles worth.

Second, the post office re-quires that full name of the ad-dressee should be clearly writ-ten on the envelope when you send your letter to Russia. That is because due to a lack of PO Boxes some people are sub-renting them, in order to earn extra money. In order to crack down on them, post personnel will not forward the letters that are addressed incorrectly or incompletely.

Third, don't cross zeros with a slant (/) bar when writing numbers in an address as is commonly done when writing callsigns. Since this is not done in Russia a post office employee will likely think that you made an error and put your letter into a wrong POB.

Forth, don't write the call-sign of the addressee on the envelope. The post employees know very well that hams may receive Green Stamps from time to time, and they will pilfer the letters addressed to hams.

And the last, but not the least. Please write address on the envelope as legibly as possi-ble!

Questions: I have some Russian stamps.

Will it worth to use them for SASE?


Using Russian stamps for SASE is not a bad way out at all. I think nobody of post em-ployees will try to unstick them. Hi. Actually this will not work to QSL managers who try to earn extra money on QSLing (e.g. RW6HS). And keep in mind that postage rates increase from time to time, last time this happened in autumn 2000.

Wouldn't it be better if letters are mailed from inside Russia?

Sure, it will. The delivery will be much safer. Besides that domestic postage rates are quite low here. BTW if you are involved in IOTA chasing or any other activity that requires frequent need for direct QSLing into Russia, and you have a friend here, you may ask him to help you. E.g. I manage some foreign friends and quite suc-ceed in it.

I've noticed the order of lines in the address is different in Russia. What is the best way to write the address?

I would suggest the follow-ing: name, box number (or street address), city, zip code, country. The order was differ-ent until recently, but now it doesn't matter much.

Dennis Eremin, RZ1AK

Rohn Files for Chap-

ter 11 Bankruptcy

ARRL Web Site Rohn Industries has filed a

voluntary petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The best-known manufacturer of tower and tower hardware for the Ama-

teur Radio community, the Peo-ria, Illinois-based company also manufactures towers, antenna support structures and "infrastructure equipment" for the telecommunications industry. In business since 1948, the firm also makes security fencing and provides design and con-struction services. Rohn an-nounced September 16 that it was filing for Chapter 11 relief in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indi-ana.

"Our immediate goal is to stabilize the company's financial situation and utilize the Chapter 11 process to enable the com-pany to conduct normal business operations as the company works to complete a sale trans-action," Rohn Industries Presi-dent Horace Ward said in an-nouncing the company's bank-ruptcy filing. Rohn says it's now in discussions with an unrelated third party regarding a pro-posed asset sale while it contin-ues to conduct business as usual. Ward told ARRL there is "no truth" to a rumor circulating on some Internet newsgroups that disgruntled workers had damaged manufacturing equip-ment beyond repair in reprisal for consolidating fabrication fa-cilities into the single Indiana plant.

The impact of Rohn's trou-bles on the Amateur Radio com-munity is not clear, but at least one major antenna products supplier reported earlier this summer that it was having problems getting Rohn products, although it continues to offer

them. Ward told ARRL this week that Rohn intends "to execute the orders we have and to continue to take orders in the normal course of business."

In the company's statement, Ward attributed the bankruptcy filing to a severe downturn in the telecommunications industry. Last January, the company con-solidated its manufacturing ac-tivities into a single plant in Frankfort, Indiana. In July, NASDAQ delisted Rohn Indus-tries after it was unable to meet its minimum bid price re-quirement. The company remains eligible for listing on the Over the Counter (OTC) Bulletin Board, where it's been assigned the OTC BB symbol ROHN. The company's stock had been sell-ing for as little as $0.01 a share over the past 52 weeks.

The bankruptcy reportedly includes five of Rohn's direct and indirect subsidiaries.

At the same time it filed for Chapter 11 protection, Rohn has announced it's entered into a $9.5 million debtor-in-possession credit line with its lenders. The bankruptcy court must approve that agreement.

In the wake of the bank-ruptcy filing, Rohn Board of Di-rectors members Stephen Gor-man and Jordan Roderick re-signed, leaving Ward as Rohn's chief executive officer and only director.

Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, K8ME, AF8C, W8GC, RZ1AK, K4WLS, K2FF, Magnolia DXA, and the ARRL Letter.



335


ARRL Contest Rule Changes

The ARRL Contest Branch

has announced rule changes gov-erning ARRL-sponsored operating events. The changes become ef-fective November 1, 2003.

In any contest that requires off-time, any claimed off-time period must be at least 30 min-utes long. "Remember that lis-tening time counts as operating time when calculating off-time," said ARRL Contest Branch Man-ager Dan Henderson, N1ND.

Second, the Northwest Ter-ritories (NWT) multiplier has been renamed "Northern Terri-tories"--abbreviated NT--for contests that use ARRL and Ra-dio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) sections as part of the ex-change.

"While not an official RAC section, the VE8, VY1 and VY0 (Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut) are grouped to-gether as a multiplier in the ARRL November Sweepstakes and the ARRL 160-Meter Contest," Henderson explained. "The new name and abbreviation will more accurately describe their makeup."

Henderson said use of the NWT abbreviation was inconsis-tent to designate a multiplier that also included Yukon and Nunavut. Awards for ARRL-

sponsored contests will continue to be issued to the VE8, VY1 and VY0 together as the North-ern Territories section.

Finally, in contests using geo-political entities as multipliers--the ARRL RTTY Roundup, the ARRL International DX Contest and the ARRL 10-Meter Con-test--the official abbreviation for Northwest Territories is NWT. "This change brings the multipliers for those events into a consistent form," Henderson said. ARRL encourages contest participants to update the nec-essary files for their logging software.

For more information, con-tact Henderson at [email protected].

How to Bust a

Simplex Pile-up Having trouble busting a sim-

plex pile-up?? Set your Split or XIT/RIT so that your XMT freq is 200 - 400 Hz lower than the DX freq. On most XCVRS, this will cause your signal at the DX end to be 200 - 400 Hz higher than the mob, and it will stand out like a sore thumb. Works 98 % of time for me even when competing with W4s using a lin-ear and yagi !!! Try it !!!

Now you might think that since you are transmitting on a lower frequency, the DX should

be receiving you on a lower fre-quency. This would be true for wide splits. For smaller shifts in freq such as << 800 Hz, the product detector in receiver sec-tion will create an inverse audio shift in the audio bandpass of receiver.

Larry, K4WLS, Magnolia DXA

Digital Recorders

for DXing I can't say enough about

digital recorders. I use the DVS-2 with my Yaesu Mark-V. I've got 4 separate versions of my call prerecorded. One is Kilo-watt 2 Foxtrot Foxtrot, another is Kilo 2 Florida Florida, another is K 2 Freddy Freddy, and the last is Kilo 2 Fox Fox - K 2 Fox Fox. US operators will pick up anything with Fox Fox very eas-ily, Europeans like/recognize Florida Florida, and Japan/others understand the standard Foxtrot Foxtrot better.

And with the digital re-corder, all I'm doing is pushing a button for as many times as necessary until the DX station comes back…then I key the mike and actually talk to say nothing more than "QSL, 5/9 also…Tnx." I call this the "When in Rome Speak as the Romans" method.

Glenn, K2FF, Magnolia DXA

NODXA RAG October 2003 Page 1

October 2003

Fellow DX'ers,

Last month I mentioned that Europa Island would be active late November. However, since I last wrote, the planned dates have been changed a bit; actually for the better. The French op-erators will arrive on Europa on November 24th, but will stay until about December 15th (a little longer than first announced). The team will be traveling on a French Naval ship to the island.

The team will consist of 5 to 8 operators, and they expect to have three stations on the air. The operators have requested the callsign TO4E, and they will use the callsign TO4WW during the CQWW CW DX Contest (November 29-30th).

As mentioned last month, this is a rare French island to be active and who knows when it will be activated again. For updates on this op-eration, visit their Web page at: http://europa2003.free.fr

If you missed the announcement in the

OPDX, Monk Apollo, SV2ASP/A, is back on the air in a big way thanks to George Varvitsiotes, K6SV. George has been planning for the last several months to deliver (while in Greece on family business) a new Icom IC-756 ProII do-nated by Icom. I hope to have more details (maybe a story) from George once he returns.

Lastly, I hope to see you at the next meet-ing. Also, I hope everyone has a safe and great Thanksgiving Day holiday.






The NODXA

RAG

New Meeting Time The NODXA monthly meeting now starts at 7:30 PM but still occurs on the first Monday of the month at Laura’s Kitchen Restaurant on RT.82 just west of Interstate 77 in Broadview Heights. If you haven’t been to a meeting in awhile, why not come over, catch up with old friends, and brag about all the DX you’ve worked?


Minutes of the October 6th, 2003 NODXA Meeting The meeting , which was

held at Laura's Kitchen in Broadview Heights, Ohio, was called to order by Tedd KB8NW at 8:00PM. The around the room introductions followed by the 19 members/guest in atten-dance.

The treasury has a balance of $Ka-Ching! as reported by Mary N8DMM.

Pete N8TR informed us on the status of the packet clus-ter.

Tedd KB8NW relates to us a letter from Mary Hobart K1MMH of the ARRL thanking our club for the donation to-ward BPL anti-legislation and that NODXA is on the ARRL Honor Roll list.

A discussion on an e-mail from the Florida Dx-pedition group for a donation was opened by Tedd KB8NW.

Tedd KB8NW opened a dis-cussion on the changing the start time. John K8YSE made a motion to move the starting time of the meeting to 7:30PM and was seconded by Ray W8BIN. A vote was taken and passed. Starting in November, 2003 the meeting will begin at 7:30PM.

The 50/50 raffle was won by Dave WD8IOU. His share was $17.00.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:26 PM by Tedd KB8NW.


HAMVention 2004 a Go!

ARRL Letter

Hamvention <http://www.

hamvention.org> will be at Hara Arena near Dayton, Ohio, at least for another year. General Chairman Gary Des Combes, N8EMO, announced the one-show contract this week. The last Hamvention contract with Hara Arena was for five years. Des Combes also expressed con-fidence that behind-the-scenes management changes he's insti-tuted since taking over July 1 will translate into success for "the world's largest Amateur Radio gathering and trade show."

"Overall, I think things are going very well," Des Combes said of progress toward pulling together Hamvention's 53rd show, which will take place May 14-16. "I'm confident we're going to be successful." The al-ways popular annual gathering attracted slightly more than 22,100 visitors in 2003. That figure was down by more than 10 percent from the 2002 crowd, and it marked the third year in a row of declining Ham-vention attendance.

Des Combes is banking that the management team and "best business practices" approach he's put into place for next spring's show will turn things around. One significant change is a shift away from jobbing out Hamvention's production to paid professionals and returning to the strong reliance on volun-

teers that was a hallmark of past Hamventions.

"Some of the volunteers, quite frankly, felt they were not welcome," said Des Combes, who believes that moving away from an all-volunteer Hamven-tion was a mistake and created some unease within the organi-zation. Under his regime, some volunteer staffers from the past now have returned to the fold, Des Combes said. Most of the volunteers for the 2004 show are from the sponsoring Dayton Amateur Radio Associa-tion (DARA).

The new order at Hamven-tion means that Garry Mat-thews, KB8GOL, is out as the show's paid production manager. Matthews had served as the backstage impresario for more than three decades of Hamven-tions. Des Combes said he in-tends to spread out Matthews' former duties among several volunteers, saving money in the process. He's also establishing--and in some cases reestablish-ing--a set of committees re-sponsible for various aspects of Hamvention. The Hamvention assistant chairman is Jim Nies, WX8F.

"We have to just work smarter and tougher," he said, adding that the management change will be invisible to those attending. "I don't think John Q. Ham will see anything much different."

While the show is still in the planning stages, Des Combes said one possible change would be to have the award winners' recognition ceremony during


Hamvention itself. The recogni-tion event has replaced the tra-ditional Saturday evening ban-quet, done away with this year because of slack attendance.

A project management pro-fessional, Des Combes says he anticipates the all-volunteer ap-proach will make it possible for Hamvention to more economically mount a show that's of the same quality or better than those of past years.

"I can tell you I am leading sweeping changes in how we op-erate Hamvention," he said. All of them, he says, will better serve the vendors, DARA and the amateurs who attend Ham-vention. "I think it's going to be good for everybody."

Ticket prices for the 2004 Hamvention will remain at the prices established prior to Des Combes' taking over the reins. Advance tickets for all three days are $20 ($23 park-n-ride bus transportation). Tickets at the gate will cost $25. All un-der 12 years of age are admit-ted free. Des Combes says ar-rangements are under way to enable on-line ticket purchases.

KE8RO Moving

to KL7 Editors Note: NODXA mem-

ber KE8RO, Phil, recently sent me a note detailing his move to KL7 and how he wish to work club members during his road trip. Intrigued, I asked Phil for more information; here is his response:

My friend Sean, KL1SF and his wife Mindy, KL1MF, used to

live here in Ottawa County. I got Sean involved with amateur radio way back when. Sean ap-plied for a position at Denali National Park and is currently employed there in communica-tions. My wife and I recently applied for positions with Denali National Park and my wife came out with a job offer working for the superintendents office. I will be looking for a job once we arrive.

How we decided to relocate was due to a visit with Sean and his wife last year (we vis-ited Alaska in July of 2002). We fell in love with all that Alaska had to offer and not to mention Denali National Park. Such a beautiful place! We will be looking for a home to pur-chase in the small town of Healy, Alaska.

Healy is located approxi-mately ten miles north of the Denali National Park entrance. We hope to purchase property with at least three acres, so I have plenty of room for anten-nas.

I plan on operating mainly 20, 17 and 15 meters on my way up. Look for me on the following frequencies, give or take a few depending on how busy the bands are (14.227, 21.327 and 18.157). I am looking forward to QSO's with my fellow NODXA members back here and look for me in many of the contests. I will be looking especially hard for club members to give them multipli-ers during many of the major contests.

I probably won't have a

station up until we purchase a home, but I will have something up temporarily. Again, if any club members find themselves taking a trip to Alaska and vis-iting the park, please drop me a note and let me know when they will be in town. Once we have a home purchased, I would be more than happy to accommo-date any of our members who visit. I do plan on changing my callsign and I have a few in mind.

As far as the trip, we will be traveling across the states, traveling from my location here in Ohio to Bellingham, Washing-ton. We will board a ferry, which will take us three days north into Alaska. Once there, we finish our journey by vehicle to our final destination, Healy, Alaska.

We will be leaving here on the 16th of November and will be off the air from the 21st to the 24th (on the ferry during those days). Once we are set-tled and I have internet access, I will be posting lots of photos and information on our personal web site, www.dempsey2.com, along with a run down of my amateur station.

The only disadvantage of moving to Alaska is starting all over with my DXCC award. I have 307 countries worked to date from here in Lakeside, Ohio. I hope to operate all bands, 80 thru 10 meters, in-cluding 6, once I can get on the air from Alaska. Good DX! Phil Sauvey KE8RO P.O. Box 108


Denali National Park, Alaska 99755 [email protected]

73 Magazine Says "73 and QRT"

ARRL Letter

After completing 43 years

of publication, 73 Amateur Ra-dio Today magazine is calling it quits. Plans to publish a joint October/November issue fell through this week, and the September 2003 issue was the magazine's last. According to self-proclaimed "El Supremo and Founder" Wayne S. Green II, W2NSD, it was a simple matter of economics.

"After failing a last minute effort to collect on some larger accounts receivable we decided yesterday to throw in the towel--that the September is-sue will have to be the last," Green told ARRL October 9.

"SK after 43 years of pub-lishing."

The first issue of 73 was published in October 1960 from what Green--a former editor of CQ--once described as "a small, dingy apartment" in Brooklyn, New York. Since the summer of 1962, 73 has been based in Peterborough, New Hampshire--Green's home state. The magazine was a pio-neer promoter of SSB, FM, solid-state, easy construction projects and the marriage of personal computing and Amateur Radio.

His interest in microcomput-ing led Green in 1975 to found

Byte, a magazine devoted to the then-nascent and largely do-it-yourself computer hobby.

At the peak of its popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, indi-vidual issues of 73 totaled more than 300 pages of ads, articles and commentary. Heading each issue was Green's inimitable "Never Say Die"--some would say never-ending--editorial, in which he rarely missed an op-portunity to tweak the ARRL and his magazine competitors for their perceived shortcom-ings.

QST Editor Steve Ford, WB8IMY, says 73 published his first article in the 1970s. "I was saddened to hear that 73 has ceased publishing," Ford said. "Wayne's excitement about the growing amateur FM repeater phenomenon at the time was infectious."

Green's 73 editorials and regular round of personal ap-pearances originally concen-trated on Amateur Radio and his ideas to improve, advance and grow it. In recent years, however, they've veered into conspiracy theories, cures for cancer, AIDS and other ail-ments and Green's proliferation of book titles on those topics.

Green says he'll continue his essays on his Web site <http://www.waynegreen.com> "for those subscribers who mainly bought the magazine for them." He told ARRL that no definite arrangements have been made yet about how to handle out-standing 73 subscriptions.

CQ Publisher Dick Ross, K2MGA, said he takes no joy

from the passing of 73. "The loss of any publication serving Amateur Radio leaves all of us a bit poorer," he said. "Thank you, Wayne, for 43 entertain-ing, informative, sometimes in-furiating, and always interesting years of 73. We'll genuinely miss it."

SV/A, Mount Athos

OPDX

By the time you read this,

Monk Apollo, SV2ASP/A, should be on the air (or close to being back on) in a "BIG WAY". Over the last several months, George Varvitsiotes, K6SV, has been communicating with Monk Apollo since his radio went down (off the air - broke) and began the project to help him get back on the air. George informed OPDX on Tuesday, October 14th, that he was leaving the next morning for Greece and would be taking Monk Apollo a new Icom IC-756 ProII and power supply donated by Icom. He stated that he had all the necessary papers (that Monk Apollo sent him) to enter Mount Athos and deliver the new radio.

George also told OPDX that it is his intentions (with Monk Apollo's approval) to install all the antennas that were previ-ously donated and get Monk

Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, KE8RO, WB8K, K8ME, AF8C, W3UR, OPDX, and the ARRL Letter.



335


Apollo back on the air in a big way. George informed OPDX of his plans back in July once OPDX announced that the Northern Ohio DX Association (NODXA) was looking into collecting funds to buy Monk Apollo a new radio. At that time he told OPDX he was going to Greece on family business and wanted to keep his plans a secret until the radio was delivered. OPDX and NODXA agreed to his wishes.

Once again, OPDX and NODXA would like to thank the many "who wanted to help". We hope you get a chance to work Monk Apollo and welcome him back on the air.

Bernie is not the Man for A61AJ

This note is to inform every-

one that I do not have any logs or QSLs for A61AJ. I have not been the QSL manager for A61AJ for more than two years.

Up until about a month ago N4QB was the manager. Now Ali has made a change and the QSL managers are as follows:

K2UO (All of the Americas) DJ2MX (Rest of the world) They have or soon will have

all logs! I am being inundated with

questions about the QSLing

practices of A61AJ. I do not have any other information. If you have a question you will need to ask K2UO, DJ2MX or A61AJ himself.

Bernie, W3UR

For Sale Alpha 87A: $3500 Kenwood TS-450, all filters, antenna tuner and Kenwood power supply: $500 All for $3800 John Sepper (N8KUS) (440) 333-7911 [email protected]

For Sale HAL Communications DS-3100 ASR Terminal Unit and ST-6000 Demodulator with manuals. $350 or best offer. Dwaine (K8ME) (440) 582-3462 [email protected]

NODXA RAG November-December 2003 Page 1

November-December 2003

Fellow DX'ers,

The new year is approaching fast. It is only two weeks away as I am typing this. Looking back over the year 2003, I would have to say this was not bad year for DXing. To just to name a few, we saw some interesting activity from Annobon Island (3C0), Timor Leste (4W), Pratas Island (BQ9P), Ducie (VP6/D), Macquarie Island (VK0M), Johnston Island (AH3D - by OH2BH and W3UR), Wake Island (KH9), Europa (TO4), St. Peter & St. Paul Rocks (ZW0S) and plenty of operations/activity from Ogasawara (8N1OGA), Christmas Island (VK9X), Cocos Keeling Island (VK9C) and Albania (ZA). Hoper-fully, the year 2004 will be as active.

Personally, I sure would like to see a large operation to Scarborough Reef (BS7) come up. This is my last DXCC entity. The only bad thing going for the year 2004 is the continue down-slide of the sunspot cycle. The year 2003 was not too bad, but I think in 2004 we may see a

big change in the propagation, unless the sun-spots hit a plateau. We will just have to hope for the best.

Lastly, I would like to wish the members a great holiday season and good health to you and your family in the coming new year. This also in-cludes good propagation for DXers/Contester in 2004. Hopefully, all of us will be able to work something new (maybe a new entity on a new band or mode). Have a fun and safe holiday/New Year.






The NODXA

RAG


Minutes of the November 3rd, 2003

NODXA Meeting

Tedd KB8NW called the meeting to order at 7:30PM held at Laura’s Kitchen in Broadview Heights, Ohio. The 22 members/guest made their introductions.

Mary N8DMM reports a balance of $Ka-Ching! in the treasury.

A report on the packet clus-ter was made by Pete N8TR.

Dave WD8IOU requests ar-ticles for the Newsletter and informs us that the October Newsletter will be available this week.

Tedd KB8NW read a letter a request from six radio ama-teurs from the UK who are go-ing on a dx-pedition to Eritria, using the call E30PA, in Febru-ary, 2004 for a donation to-ward this event. Qsl to G3AB. Nick W8XD made a motion to donate $100.00 toward this and was seconded by Bruce N8DJX. A discussion followed and a vote was taken and passed.

Another request for a dona-tion toward a dx-pedition to Rodriguez Island in March or April, 2004, using the call 3B9C, by the 5 Star DX Asso-ciation. A discussion ensued. A motion to donate $100.00 to-ward this dx-pedition was made by Carl K8AV and seconded by Nick W8XD. A vote was taken and passed.

Dwaine K8ME related to us on the Special Qsl card and displayed one for the Cleveland

Rainforest using the call K8CRF/200 for this bicentennial year for the State of Ohio. The station can be contacted on 146.82 Mhz- repeater.

Bob W8GC announced that the CARS Christmas Party to be held at the Independence Civic Center in Independence, Ohio on Friday December 19, 2003 at 7:00 PM. Contact Steve N8IS or Gary N8IS for tickets or go to the website at www.cars.org for more information.

There will be Amateur Radio classes starting in January of 2004 held by CARS as informed to us by Bob W8GC. For more information check the CARS website at www.cars.org,

George K8KR won the 50/50 raffle and his share was $22.00.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:07PM by Tedd KB8NW.


Minutes of the December 1st, 2003

NODXA Meeting

The meeting, which was held at Laura’s Kitchen in Broadview Heights, Ohio, was called to order at 7:30 PM and was fol-lowed by around the room intro-ductions by the 23 members/guests in attendance.

A balance of $Ka-Ching ex-ists in the treasury as reported by Mary N8DMM.

Pete N8TR reported on the packet cluster updates and a discussion followed.

Dave WD8IOU informed us

on the Newsletter. A letter of appreciation

from the ARRL for the club’s donation toward the anti-BPL legislation was read by Tedd KB8NW and also included was a Certificate of Special Campaign which was displayed.

A discussion on the Field Day 2003 results was opened by Pete N8TR.

The 50/50 raffle was won by Ray W8BIN. His share was $20.00.

Tedd KB8NW adjourned the meeting at 7:54PM.

Following the meeting a video on the BQ9P dx-pedition was shown.

Secretary: Ron K8VJG.

A Ham's Night

Before Christmas (Yet another corruption of Clement Clarke Moore's classic Christmas tale, this time by Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, and the Raleigh Amateur Radio So-ciety, Raleigh, NC.) Twas the night before Christ-mas, And all through two-meters, Not a signal was keying up Any repeaters. The antennas reached up, From the tower quite high, To catch the weak signals That bounced from the sky. The children, Tech-Pluses, Took their HT's to bed, And dreamed of the day They'd be Extras, instead.


Mom put on her headphones, I plugged in the key, And we tuned 40 meters For that rare ZK3. When the meter was pegged by a signal with power. It smoked a small diode, and, I swear, shook the tower. Mom yanked off her phones, And with all she could muster Logged a spot of the signal On the DX PacketCluster, While I ran to the window And peered up at the sky, To see what could generate RF that high. It was way in the distance, But the moon made it gleam - A flying sleigh, with an Eight element beam, And a little old driver who looked slightly mean. So I though for a moment, That it might be Wayne Green. But no, it was Santa The Santa of Hams. On a mission, this Christmas To clean up the bands. He circled the tower, Then stopped in his track, And he slid down the coax Right into the shack. While Mom and I hid Behind stacks of CQ, This Santa of hamming Knew just what to do. He cleared off the shack desk Of paper and parts,

And filled out all my late QSLs For a start. He ran copper braid, Took a steel rod and pounded It into the earth, till The station was grounded. He tightened loose fittings, Resoldered connections, Cranked down modulation, Installed lightning protection. He neutralized tubes In my linear amp... (Never worked right before -- Now it works like a champ). A new, low-pass filter Cleaned up the TV, He corrected the settings In my TNC. He repaired the computer That would not compute, And he backed up the hard drive And got it to boot. Then, he reached really deep In the bag that he brought, And he pulled out a big box, "A new rig?" I thought! "A new Kenwood? An Icom? A Yaesu, for me?!" (If he thought I'd been bad it might be QRP!) Yes! The Ultimate Station! How could I deserve this? Could it be all those hours that I worked Public Service? He hooked it all up And in record time, quickly Worked 100 countries,

All down on 160. I should have been happy, It was my call he sent, But the cards and the postage Will cost two month's rent! He made final adjustments, And left a card by the key: "To Gary, from Santa Claus. Seventy-Three." Then he grabbed his HT, Looked me straight in the eye, Punched a code on the pad, And was gone - no good bye. I ran back to the station, And the pile-up was big, But a card from St. Nick Would be worth my new rig. Oh, too late, for his final came over the air. It was copied all over. It was heard everywhere. The Ham's Santa exclaimed What a ham might expect, "Merry Christmas to all, And to all, good DX."

First and Last Rule of DXing

The first and last rule for

working DX has and will always be tune, listen, tune, listen, tune, listen.....and tune, listen some more. This rule has held fast for so many years simply because if you cannot hear the DX, you cannot work the DX!

30 years ago, an hour spent listening to 20M on a good propagation evening would net you many rare DX stations call-


ing CQ. Not anymore! What has changed ? Think for a few min-utes. How many chirpy, raw AC CW signals have you heard com-ing from Russia lately compared to years ago? Not very many. Now you hear more lousy signals coming from USA stations. What has changed is this: Dur-ing the past 30 years or so, better economic conditions in the world, and the breakdown of the old Russian federation have allowed the majority of DX in the world to have just as good, if not better, stations than stations in the states. Ex-cept for possibly some of the poorer third-world countries in Africa and Asia, the DX is no longer running low power home-brew or WWII surplus rigs and simple wire antennas. They are now using late model transceiv-ers, linears, and towers with high gain multi-element yagis or quads. The rare DX stations with this setup now have just as good, if not better, country to-tals than we do. Now they are no longer calling CQ, but listen-ing for a new one, just like we should be!

With the rare DX now lis-tening instead of calling CQ, it is now more difficult to work a new one by just listening. The First and Last Rule still stands firm however. Since it is now more difficult to work a new one by listening, many of us have put our faith in Cluster Net spots. Cluster Nets have their good and bad points. More on this later. The problem with putting your faith in cluster spots for working a new is this:

By the time you get the linear tuned and on the DX QRG, the pile-up has always started, and your chances for working the new one have greatly dimin-ished. Someone had to hear and/or work the DX to put the spot on the cluster. That some-one could have been you, and you would have been able to get a probable first, second, or third shot at the DX instead of being in the middle of the pile-up. In summation, time spent just watching the cluster would be better spent just listening.

99.99% of the time calling CQ DX is a waste of your time. Unless you have a tower, high gain yagi, and linear (if needed), you should never call CQ DX. If do have a tower, high gain yagi, and linear (if needed), and you know there is a good probability the band is open to a part of the world that you need a new one, calling CQ DX may bring a rare one with a modest station out of the woodwork. Why? That sta-tion knows if he calls CQ that he would wind up with a pile-up he would not want or could not handle.

Tower/Yagi or not and you want to feel like a Big Wheel, call CQ DX one evening when the band is open to Europe. Oh yes, you will probably get a pile-up, fill up your log with DX you worked many times before, and increase the workload of the QSL bureaus. Believe me Europeans like to QSL. End re-sult, you have to take the time (I hope) to reply to those cards. This time could be spent

more wisely listening for a new one.

DXpeditions have and will always be a good way to work a new one. For the past two years, there have been a lot of good DXpeditions to some of the most wanted. The First and Last Rule still applies. You have to be able to hear them to work them. Here is where the Clus-ter Net comes in handy. It is a very fast way to determine what bands and modes the DXpedition is working right now, so you save some time compared to just tuning and listening.

You still have to be able to hear the DX to work however. Never jump into a pile-up if you have marginal copy of the DX station. It only leads to the frustration of "was that my call he gave" ? A good DX Op will always give the frequency range that he is listening Up. If the DX just says Up, and the pile-up is 10 KHz wide, get very comfortable, and be prepared to be at the Op Table for a long time unless you get very lucky. Many DXpedition Ops have the bad habit of only sending a partial call?, and a TU in return. Even if the par-tial call was close to yours, and the timing was right, you could very well wind up with a NIL.

Never consider the preced-ing scenario a good QSO. All good DXpedition Ops will send Thanks to the following for their contribution to this months edition: N8TR, N8DMM, W8BIN, KB8NW, K8VJG, K8YSE, K8AV, KN4AQ, AF8C, AA7UC, K4WLS, N0KFC, W1DLS, OPDX, MDXA, eHAM.net, and the ARRL Letter.


the complete, correct call of the station they worked at least once in the exchange.

Depending on the time of year, propagation conditions, and the location of the DXpedi-tion, often times the higher bands will not cut the mustard especially for the Little Pistols (opposite of Big Guns). Do not dismay however. Almost all DXpeditions start off on the higher bands to get their QSO count up. At about the half-way point of the DXpedition, they will crank up on the lower bands. They will always shoot for the states on the lower bands when they know the QSO count for the states is low on the high bands. The DXpedition is usually running high power, good anten-nas, and a seasoned low band Op, and they know the sunrise times in the states. So, if you cannot get through on 20 - 10M, bet you will make it on 30 or 40M. Check these bands a few hours before local sunrise and sometimes 1 to 2 hours af-ter sunrise on 30M. 99 % of time if you cannot cut the mus-tard on 20 - 10M, 30 or 40M will get the new one, even in the Summer.

Most major Dxpeditions, in the initial planning stages of the Op, study the propagation con-ditions of the location they are bound for. They obtain the lat-est propagation forecasts for that location, and prepare charts for times and bands to hit all the continents on the globe. They consider both short path and long path propagation for as much world-wide coverage

as possible. They want to give you a new one. So, when you shoot to work a major DXpedi-tion, do your propagation home-work as well.

Ask any seasoned DX Op the key to working DX. He will tell you listen, tune, listen, tune........The First and Last Rule for Working DX!

Larry, K4WLS,

Magnolia DX Association

Bill "Pick" Pickard, WA5PAE--SK

On Sun-day, No-vember 23rd, the DX com-munity was sad-dened to learn that early that

morning Billy G. "Pick" Pickard, WA5PAE, lost his battle with pulmonary fibrosis disease and became a Silent Key.

Prior to his death at the age of 68, Pick had a distinguished military career. In 1954, he joined the Air Force where he served in Tripoli, Libya; Ankara and Karamursel, Turkey; Ger-many; and Scotland. Subse-quent assignments were to HQ, USAF Security Service; RAF Chicksands, Bedfordshire, Eng-land; and Viet Nam where he flew as a crew member on 101 combat missions in a rebuilt C-47 (Gooney Bird) loaded with advanced electronic warfare gear. Before retiring in 1977

after twenty-three years in the Air Force, Pick was assigned to the National Security Agency for four years.

Pick held an Extra Class li-cense and was an accomplished CW operator who had the ability to copy through very difficult conditions.

Throughout his life, Pick was an avid DXer. He operated from Germany as DL4IZ and for the past three years Pick and friend Jay, K4ZLE, made three DXpeditions to Guantanamo Bay where Pick operated as KG4IZ and Jay as KG4MO.

In 1997, Murphy Ratterree, W4WMQ, then president of the International DX Association, appointed Pick to the staff of the INDEXA Information Ses-sion where Pick dispensed DX and QSL information during the daily sessions. In 2002, Pick was elected vice president of INDEXA and continued in that capacity until his death.

On January 1st, 2003, Jim Weaver, K8JE, ARRL Great Lakes Division Director, ap-pointed Pick to be the new Great Lakes Division DXAC Rep-resentative.

Pick was an Honor Roll Dxer and a member of the Southwest Ohio DX Association; the West Chester Amateur Radio Associa-tion; and The Greater Cincinnati Amateur Radio Association where he wrote a DX column for The Mike and Key Newsletter.

Pick is interred at the West Chester Township Cemetery and is survived by his wife of 43 years, Ethel Pickard; two daughters; and three grandchil-


dren. Condolences may be for-warded to Ethel at 8063 Pepper Pike, West Chester, OH, 45069.

Submitted by Judy, AA7UC

Ground Radial

Cutting Tool

I came across a tool for get-ting ground ra-dials buried into the sod. I needed to get some radials placed into my back yard and the frost was beginning to al-ready set into the ground. I had tried sev-eral different methods to do this in the past and nothing was working very well.

Then I came across this yard tool used for manually edging along sidewalks. It is called a Steppin’ Edger and a company called Hound Dog, web site hound-dog.com, manufactures it.

They have some pictures of this tool on their web site. It basically will cut a groove about 1/4 inch wide and 4 inches deep & about 10 inches long in one cut. After the radials have been placed into the grooves the 1/4 inch line will just disappear in a couple of days. A person can place many radials with this in a very short amount of time with very little effort.

Mike Roda, N0KFC, eHam.net

Ham Radio 'Classic' I believe that the future of

ham radio can be found in it's past. As each year passes and technology advances, the magic of radio seems to fade. If we examine radio for it's utilitarian value, we find that the Internet is in many ways "better" than HF, and cell phones are "better" than VHF. And as we all know, everyone in America has access to both the Internet and cell phones. The military has aban-doned Morse code, and even phone patches to the troops are being phased out in favor of Satellite communications. When every cop has a cell phone and laptop in his cruiser, how much value do the guys in the orange vests with HTs really bring to the party? (Yes, I think there is still value there, but the world has changed, and I don't think it is the same value that was brought to the table 25 years ago.)

So what's left? Plenty. There is still a hobby of radio communication, electronic experi-mentation, and antenna building out there. We need to take a lesson from the guys in the clas-sic car clubs. Cars have become much too complicated for the av-erage guy to work on. But Americans love their cars. So what do they do? Buy a Clas-sic! -- One with a carburetor, and a real "points and condenser" ignition system. And real CHROME!!! You can still have a garage full of really cool tools, and a fun way to spend your time. The car guys know that

technology has passed them by, but they don't care. They know that the car they play with is not really that practical any-more, but that's not the point of it. It's a hobby, and they know it. And you know what? America is absolutely crazy about cars from the sixties. Cars from the sixties routinely show up in mov-ies cast in the present. Manu-factures now make replicas of the VW beetle, and Ford Mus-tang from the sixties.

Guess what? Radios from the same time era are pretty neat too. You can actually work on them, they look cool, and when you turn them on the glow of the tubes is a lot like the rumble of the motor in that '65 GTO. Classic radios are like classic cars in that they both have souls. They both give you that exciting feeling that comes from knowing that "this thing could kill you if you're not careful." If you need a ride to work, take your 2002 Toyota. If you need to call work, use your cell phone. If you want to have fun, take the GTO and burn rubber. Or if you like radios, fire up the Vi-king II and the Skyrider and light up the ether! What will we talk about? Modulators, power supplies, and antennas, of course! Radio is our hobby.

Remember the guys who were into Photography back in the six-ties? They had dark rooms in their basements, and SLRs with ten different lenses. They changed their equipment as Technology changed. Have you seen any "Photographers" re-cently? I haven't. Technology



335


stole their magic. Before we change the name

of our hobby to the "Radio Pro-fessionals of America" or before we drop the code, or before we eliminate real QSLs, let's think about what will remain. It is a mistake to try to keep up with technology that passes the ham's ability to tinker. Just let the technology pass us by. We aren't the cutting edge anymore, and we never will be again. Let's accept it, and enjoy the hobby that we have created. If we continue buying boxes we can't tinker with, the radio hobby will offer nothing that the Internet and cell phones can't. At that point, the hobby will be lost. Let's build our own boxes. Ham Radio "Classic" is where the magic is!

David Sanford, W1DLS, via

eHam.net Early Christmas

Present for WD8IOU

After twelve years of “suffering” with a small three element tri-bander, I decided to upgrade to the new SteppIR beam. This revolutionary antenna uses stepper motors to adjust the length of all three elements based upon the frequency se-lected via it’s microprocessor powered control box. This beam

covers ALL frequencies between 20m and 6m inclusive so now I have an three element beam for the WARC bands and four ele-ments (one passive) on 6m.

Assembly of the beam went smoothly and my crack ground and tower crew had the SteppIR on top of the 9-foot GM roof tower in short order.

Unfortunately, there were some problems with one of the fiberglass tubes which resulted in the destruction of the driven element stepper motor assembly. FluidMotion quickly replaced the stepper motor and W8GC had a spare tube, but that still re-quired the crew to make a sec-ond trip to my QTH to do every-thing over again!

Performance of the SteppIR has been great! So far, if I can

hear the DX, I’ve been able to work it bare foot! That was never the case with the old Wil-son System 33 that the SteppIR replaced.

This beam has several fea-tures which make it a joy to use. The best is the “instant” 180 di-rection change. If you are lis-tening to some DX via short path and would like to check it via long path, you don’t have to touch your rotor control. Simply push the 180 degree button on the control box and, in less than three seconds, the SteppIR will change it’s element lengths so that it is “pointed” backwards!

I would like to thank K8YSE, N8TR, WB8K, W8GC, N8IS, W8JGU, and KB8NW. Without your help, the SteppIR would still be in the box!

“ohio first dxcc field checking club” the nodxa...

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