[ADXA] Long Periods of Boredom Interspersed with Brief, Intense Moments of Excitement

[Joel Harrison]

So why the heck has this reflector been dead for several weeks???

Well, its kind of like calling for hours in a major DX pileup. Long
periods of boredom calling, then brief intense moments of excitement when
they call you!

Since I have become a hard core low band DX'er, the transition from winter
into summer seems to depress me as I take down all my 160 meter receive
antennas for the summer so hay can be cut in the fields, my business is
very busy in the spring (and fall) so I tend to get occupied with funding
my amateur radio addiction and I just flat forget to keep some chatter
going here on our reflector. No excuse or apologize offered, that's just
life these days! :-)

The exciting news is ADXA continues to revive itself across the entire
state and interest is high. I am very excited about our upcoming second
quarterly meeting in northwest Arkansas and the interest from our friends
in that part of the state. I look forward to a very good meeting. I want
to personally thank San K5YY, Jay W5JAY and Kathy WQ5T for their work in
identifying a location for our June meeting. The Western Sizzlin in
Springdale also owns the Western Sizzlin in Russellville where the local
radio clubs meets on occasion so they are familiar with Amateur Radio
groups and are excited to host us.

The Dayton Hamvention was an experience. Having moved from the HARA Arena
to the new location at the Green County Fairgrounds in Xenia, OH was a
challenge for DARA. There obviously are some issues they will need to
address for next year however I believe the new facility is an improvement
over HARA. Many of the non-Hamvention events were still held at their
usual locations and were executed flawlessly. Contest University was
another success and I was honored to once again be a part of that event. A
photo from Dayton has been posted on our website.

I have been the victim of two lightning strikes this spring. One at the
end of April that was minor, and another that was rather severe while Kim
and I were in Dayton. Fortunately, the radio equipment fared well with
only some accessories taking a hit but we did suffer a good bit of damage
to household items. I want to encourage to you consider acquiring a copy
of the new ARRL publication "Grounding & Bonding for the Radio Amateur"
written by my good personal friend Ward Silver, N0AX. It outlines a number
of good practices you should implement in your station. I have previously
implemented many of them here at W5ZN and the results during this most
recent lightning strike proved to have saved the major components in my
station (5 K3's, amps, etc) with only minor damage to the radio
accessories. Interesting enough, the accessory items that had not yet been
implemented into the "program" fell victim to the strike! Ward has
actually operated from W5ZN and I have been the recipient of many of his
recommendations, including the use of the #31 mix ferrite cores to reduce
noise, etc that I have presented at a couple of ADXA meetings. Given our
location in a heavy lighting zone it is well worth your time and expense
to study and implement these good practices.

While at Dayton I spoke to my good friends Jerry WB9Z and Val NV9L about
coming down to be with us at a future ADXA meeting. Jerry was excited that
I asked and said let's book it for a time after he returns from Bouvet. I
told him we most definitely would do that.

So, we are now transitioning into summer and other activities take up a
lot of our time. Enjoy that, and most definitely enjoy time with your
family or spouse. This is VERY important to ensure you will be allowed
time to get in those pileups later! Just don't forget that DX is just like
Santa Claus....IT'S EVERYWHERE! and on the bands now. Get on and work
some!

For those of you who will make our June 17 meeting in Springdale, I look
forward to seeing you.

73 Joel W5ZN
ADXA President