[South Florida DX Association] Minutes from the meeting of May 5

[Neil Leibowitz, ChFC]

Here are the minutes from the SFDXA meeting held last Wednesday night, May 5.

SFDXA Meeting  May 5, 2005
The meeting was called to order to Steve at 7:33 PM.

Treasurer's Report Bruce W4OV-  Bruce gave the Treasurer's report. It was 
reiterated that club members should be having dinner in the cafeteria prior 
to meetings, as this is the best way of raising funds for the club.

Membership Committee Report  Bill W2CQ and Mark K2AU announced that it has 
been a long time since Member Emeritus status was granted to a club 
member.  Tom Mannix WA4YLD (SK) and Ed Dauer were our last conferees, years 
ago.  For all of their service to the club and its members over the 
years,  Norm W4QN and Pete N8PR have been conferred Member Emeritus status 
by a unanimous vote of the Directors and Officers of the 
club.  Congratulations to both!

Repeater Report  Brian NY4PD reports that Echo Link is 
operational.  Software can be downloaded from www.echolink.com.  For those 
who cannot raise our club repeaters via radio, they can do it with a 
computer, sound card, and microphone and properly installed software.  We 
should be mindful of ensuring a 2 second pause after each transmission, in 
order to deal with the delays inherent in the echo link system. Members 
should email Brian the call signs of any hams they feel should have access 
to our repeaters via the internet.   Brian also reported the Echo Link will 
be changed from "open" to restricted access for members and friends only 
when it is moved to the new Qth at W4OVs shack very soon.

Chuck W4ROA announced that this June 21 will be a media awareness event 
known as "Bring Your HT to Work Day", to promote our hobby as well as 
making people more aware of the capabilities of our hand held radios.

Steve W4DTA  Reports that we need to write our elected reps in Congress to 
help bring about official permission to set foot on KP1 and KP5 so that we 
can once again work these rare calls.

Pete N8PR  Gave a talk on a new award from the editors of CQ Magazine 
called "CQ DX FIELD AWARD".   This is a new award we can apply for by 
working at least 50 of the new grid fields world-wide.  For more info, 
consult CQ Magazine's web site.  These awards will be based on the # of 
fields worked, and the modes used.  Don W3AZD is a field checker for this 
award.  Kappy WA4TWG generously volunteered to travel to the Arctic and 
participate in the Iditerod in order to provide our club members with the 
opportunity to work the rarest of the rare grids, if the club could sponsor 
his trip.  To count for a QSO, a station has to be on land or 
sea.  Aeronautical mobiles and the ISS do not count.

There will be an informal dinner held this Monday night, May 10, at the 
Falcon Pub.

Meeting was adjourned at 8:33 PM.

Neil Leibowitz, KC4VU
Secretary