Greetings ADXA Folks,

Mowing the lawn or spending time out on the tractor is good therapy. It allows you to clear your head and get away from things and ponder life, or maybe even your radio project, for a few hours. While mowing the lawn Friday the little ditty "While Strolling Through the Park One Day" popped in my head out of nowhere and I couldn't get the next line "in the Merry Merry Month of May" out of my head. It reminded me of the love/hate relationship I have with the month of May. During May each year I have my wife's birthday, Mother's Day, my wedding anniversary, a standing professional conference, the Dayton Hamvention, end of the school year programs for the grandkids, and then the Memorial Day weekend. There is literally no time for anything else and that's the "hate" part.

Once I finally did get "the month of May" out of my head it occurred to me the month is coming to a close and I did absolutely nothing to complete the items on my radio project list so I began focusing on what June holds.

June is an equally busy month but with a different focus -RADIO! Six meter DX is coming alive, the ARRL June VHF Contest is the 10-11, the W1AW/5 Arkansas operation is June 14-20, the 2nd Quarter ADXA Meeting is June 17, ARRL Field Day is June 24-25, and I have an IARU Administrative Council meeting and HamRadio Friedrichshafen (the European Dayton) in Germany the 23rd thru the 27th.

Dayton Hamvention - not much to report on this event. If you've been there it was, well, Dayton and if you haven't you should plan to attend at least once. The new location at the Greene County Fairgrounds in Xenia is much nicer (and cleaner) than the old Hara Arena dump. The weather was very nice and the crowds were large. Some ADXA folks I saw this year were W5VY, N5ER, KC5CFE, K5UZ, and K5UR. There may have been others that I missed or forgot. Contest University (held on Thursday but not officially part of Hamvention) again had a packed group of over 200.

ADXA 2nd Quarterly Meeting - Pat, W5VY, and I discussed the meeting while in Dayton. As previously reported the regular meeting date conflicts with the W1AW/5 Arkansas operation and the members from Searcy will be involved in the operation from W5ZN that weekend and won't be able to attend. The board had discussed moving the meeting date however there just simply isn't a date that didn't conflict with something. Pat has arranged for the room at Brown's Catfish in Russellville from around 10:30 to 2:00 PM on the 17th. He will be providing more info in the coming days. I apologize for not being able to attend but the scheduling of W1AW/5 was beyond my control. I look forward to seeing every one in September.

ADXA Annual Conference November 11 - Just a reminder that our annual conference will be November 11. The location is not yet firm. While in Dayton I had discussions with some potential special guests, one being a very prominent DXpeditioner. John, N5ER, who is coordinating prizes this year made contacts with potential prize donors.

Now that the "Merry Merry Month of May" is over let's get back on our radio projects. Fall will be here before we know it. I know several of you including N5QS, W5RZ, K5UZ and others have big projects on the table. Even though I wasn't able to begin any of the physical work on my project I was able to do a good bit of walking through the steps required and the result was a revision to the plan. If you've had a busy May as well, hopefully you had some lawn mower or tractor time to think through your plan without some ridiculous little ditty interfering and confirm how you will execute the physical work. Let's not procrastinate too long because if you do, the next post you'll be reading from me is "Fall is in the Air" and the 2023-24 DX and contest season will begin!

73 Joel W5ZN