Metro DX Club January Meeting Minutes 1/15/21
The Metro DX Club’s January meeting was held on1/15 via ZOOM. Thanks to John K9EL who arranged checking members in.
The meeting was called to order by Metro President Jim N9TK. Those attending besides Jim were:
W9ILY, K9CJ, WA9LEY, K9EL/4, W9MK, W9PDS, WT2P, K9GA, K9ZO, K9DRS, K9CT, NE9A, N2BJ, KA9IUC, W9EWZ, K9NU, K9MM, N0RJC, N9IO, K9NR, K9AJ, K9XYL, K9NB, NV9X, W9AS.
Several of the attendees were visitors and were welcomed to our meeting.
HEALTH AND WELFARE Although a not a member, it was reported that K9IL ,who was a friend to some members, passed away recently.
DECEMBER MINUTES Approved
TREASURER’S REPORT John W9ILY reports our Club had income of $275 which was a combination of dues and donations. Our expenses included a $14.85 web cost and purchase the of a plaque for $38.00.
DUES Most members are paid up for 2021. For those who haven’t paid, Club dues of $15 for 2021 are being accepted and can be paid via Pay Pal to w9ty@arrl.net or by check to the address on the Metro website. If using Pay Pal, use the friends and family option to avoid charges to the Club.
WUST AWARD No activity.
KING OF THE MOUNTAIN Our congratulations go out to Ralph K9ZO who won the Club competition for 2020. He showed off his plaque for the group. Our King Of The Hill competition will continue in 2021 starting with NAQP SSB as our January event. Join the fun and make sure you submit your scores to the 3830 website and to John W9ILY who maintains the standings on the Metro website.
CONTESTS John W9ILY reports that in ILQP, Metro had the 3rd highest club score, in Field Day, Metro was #1 in our area, and in NAQP RTTY, our team was about midway in the standings. We also had several members active in the CQ 160 contest. NAQP SSB and ARRL VHF are on tap for this weekend with the 160 CW contest coming up later this month.
DX There has been some good DX stations active lately including T6AA, TZ4AM, 3D2, FK8.
RULE CHANGES FOR THE CQ WW WPX CONTESTS IN 2021 The 2021 CQ WW WPX RTTY, SSB and CW contests will include a new Multi-Transmitter Distributed category. Stations operating in this category may have a maximum of six transmitted signals, one per band at any one time, from stations in different locations. This may be fun for members to try.
DX MARATHON The deadline to enter for 2020 has passed. John K9EL reports that the high claimed scores have been posted on the DX Marathon website. John’s team will now begin compiling the approximately 800 logs that were received.
NEW LOOK METRO WEBSITE If you haven’t checked it out yet, take a look. Thanks to JohnW9ILY for all his hard work on this and keeping the site updated. Send your contest results, photos and other items of interest to John.
JANUARY MEETING PROGRAM Patrick W9PDS gave a very interesting report on his interest experimenting and building multi band receiving stations, capturing the spots and reporting them to PSK Reporter. He showed some graphing he designed that shows peak activity per band and much more. He also collaborates with others with similar interests. He’s working on upgrades to his setup that improves the numbers of spots he can capture. His antenna currently is a 80 meter end fed wire. He is consistently in the top 20-50 signal monitors sending spots into PSK Reporter each day (there are about 7000 unique people/day sending in spots). More details about Patrick’s presentation can be found on the recorded Metro meeting at the following link. http://www.k9el.com/MetroDX/MetroMeeting15Jan2021.mp4
The meeting was adjourned.
Many stayed on the ZOOM call for some after meeting discussion.
Submitted by Lee WA9LEY
Metro Secy.