Club News
HAPPY INCOME TAX !! - I don't know why, but April just seems to be my most unfavorite time of the year.... Everything is still OK in the Typhoon department, but the Income Tax department is looking worse all the time....

PACKET PROJECT - Dave, N2NL/KH2, aka WH2/N2NL, etc. has been talking to the mayors representative up in Rota and it looks like we may be able to obtain some tower space for a packet digipeater. We are going to need to make a few trips to Rota for a site survey and some testing with the guys up in Saipan (to see if they can hear Rota) but at least we are finally moving in the right direction with this project.

Jeff, N4UQM/KH2 will be leaving for the other side of the planet - England - on May 17th. Jeff is looking forward to his new duty station in England where he hopes to get on the air as M0-something-or-another. We've enjoyed having Jeff here in Guam, we appreciate his club participation as our Visual Basic programming guru and HF net control station, and wish Jeff, Vicky, and all the harmonics (including the new little Chammorro) the best of luck on their move to England. Hopefully we'll be keeping in touch via the radio and the internet.

MIDXA Web Pages - are alive and well (or you wouldn't be reading our digital newsletter, I guess) and after a long vacation from HTML programming I've been doing a few updates and additions. Browse around and see what you can find that's new. Once again thanks to Kuentos Communications Inc. for providing the club with the web space for our club pages.

Treasurer's Report - Since I dropped the treasurer off at the airport this morning at 6 AM, and I forgot to ask him to print a financial statement before he left for Hawaii, I can't give anyone any specific numbers. Anyone who would like a detailed financial report can email me and I'll be glad to provide you with one when WH2U comes back from his trip. I can give you the following infomation about the clubs financial status.

MIDXA is still an infant, we are only about 18 months old. One of the main goals of the club when it was created was to install and maintain permanent amateur radio infrastructure in the Mariana islands, and that is still one of our primary goals. So far, we have collected money from a few different sources, primarily membership dues. We also have sold a few Typhoon Century Club certificates, we are still trying to sell MIDXA lapel pins, and we have a few registered users of the MIDXA DVK software.

As of April 2, 1999, the club has spent $0.00 from the club treasury. That's not a typo, that is ZERO. All expenses relating to the club operation thus far have been paid for by the individual members who were involved in the various projects and activities. I would like to thank the following people for helping MIDXA to keep the bank account growing so we can continue to save the clubs money for future worthwhile amateur projects:

Marianas Amateur Radio Club - for the donation of the radio/TNC for our packet node in Guam.

Mr. & Mrs. Pins - Sid, NH7C, and Andrea, NH7CC for their financial support, time, and effort. This project has been passed on to Jim, KH2D.

Mr. Saipan Deep Pockets - Jun, WH0V, who has taken care of the MIDXA business in Saipan and who has paid more club 'dues' than anybody will ever know.

Mr. MIDXA Stickers - Danny, KH2JU, for the pipes, the coax, the hardware and the site for the Guam packet node - for lunch at our last executive committee meeting - and for all those MIDXA stickers seen on vehicles with ham tags driving around Guam.

Mr. Voice Keyer - Jeff, N4UQM for writing the DVK software that we have on our web page. We aren't giving Microsoft anything to worry about with our software business, but we do have a few registered users.

Thanks to WH2U for keeping the books, N2NL for dragging the old computers to Guam and to all the other people who have donated their time, effort, and pocket money to help get MIDXA off to a running start.

Thanks again to all our off island supporting members, because of your help we will have money available to fund worthwhile amateur projects when the opportunity arises.

The MIDXA executive committee (minus one) met at Shirleys Restaurant in Harmon on March 23rd to discuss some club business and to visit with Jun, WH0V, our Vice President, who was on his way from Saipan to Manila. The following item was discussed:

Club Members individual Web Pages - We have some members who have left the island, and some supporting members that we have not heard from for a while. We have decided to leave the members web pages in place until at least the middle of year. If you are a club member who is no longer in Guam or a supporting member who hasn't renewed your 1999 membership, we would like to thank you for your previous support. If you would like to renew your membership, the 1999 dues are $20.00 and should be mailed to:

MIDXA
P.O. Box 25666
GMF, Guam 96921

Checks should be made payable to John Van Der Pyl who is the club treasurer.

The MIDXA lapel pin project has still not reached the break even point so it is still being financed by individual members. When the numbers turn black the project will 'officially' become part of the clubs business.

The amateur community in Guam and Saipan has been totally saturated with MIDXA pins. Every ham here has some, even if we had to sit on them and hold them down while they were buying one. There are a few people I know running around with MIDXA pins on their golf hats and they don't even know what ham radio is....

If you are a club member who lives off island you might consider purchasing some MIDXA pins to sell to the hams in your area. With a little help from hams off island I think we can turn the pin project into a successful MIDXA fund raiser. You can see the pin info on another page at our website (click the pin picture above). If you are interested in purchasing a small quantity of MIDXA pins to distribute in your area, please email Jim, KH2D.

What does every ham need to get on the air ? An antenna, of course. No radio stores in Saipan, so when a new ham wanted to get on the air, WH0V and company went into the homebrew mode.

Before we get started on the antenna project, congratulations to Totoy, KH0GV, for passing his 13 wpm CW test and for upgrading his license to Advanced class.

KH0GV, Totoy, in his shack.

The new antenna was built by Jun, WH0V, Ace, KH0CE, and Totoy, KH0GV. The boom was made of a 1.5 foot long piece of pipe, and the spreaders are angled at 22 degrees to the boom. Since it's a 'QUAD' they decided it should also be a QUAD-Bander, so they designed the antenna for 15, 10, 6 and 2 meters. The first time around, 1/2 inch PVC pipe was used for the spreaders, but that's kind of 'floppy' when the spreaders get long enough for 15 meters, so they decided to rebuild the antenna using bamboo. The antenna (on the first try) was fed directly with 50 ohm cable but that idea resulted in a high SWR so some 75 ohm cable had to be flown in from Guam to make matching transformers for the feed lines (no coax cable stores in Saipan either). The Quad has separate feed lines for each band. The antenna is 35 feet high and the rotor was contributed by the ArmStrong Rotor Company, so WH0V says it's good exercise for the operator.....

The Quad Band Quad at KH0GV

Thanks to WH0V for the Quad story and pictures.

Club Activities
Guam
On the last weekend of March, which just happened to work out to be WPX SSB weekend, the gang in Guam decided to move the weekly breakfast meeting to WH2U's beach for an afternoon BBQ. After setting up WH2U's DX-Station-In-A-Bag (Kenwood 130, MFJ Keyer, and a 20 Meter Dipole) and borrowing one of the batteries out of John's truck, we made a few guys on the west coast happy by giving them WH2, NH2, and KH2 multipliers all in one whack. Conditions were OK to W6 and W7 land, but we didn't work too many of the stations we heard in South America with the dipole up about 15 feet. We were so busy eating, telling stories, and playing with the radio that I forgot to take the camera..... Pictures next time....

Saipan
The Saipan crew teamed up with some members of the Amateur Radio Club of Saipan to provide communications support for the Salt & Pepper Mini Triathlon.

Volunteers present at 5 AM included WH0V, WH0ABA, NH0E, KH0CE, KH0GV, KH0HE, KH0HK, and KH0HM.

The swimming event was held at Paupau beach near the Hotel Nikko, and the cycling and running events were all through the north end of the island, passing tourist spots like the Bonsai Cliff, Bird Island, the Grotto, Suicide Cliff and the Last Command Post. Participants in the triathlon were from Japan, Guam, and Saipan. WH0V reports that there we no injuries and the event was a success.

The lead cyclist starts up the hill with the pack close behind.

Thanks to WH0V for the Salt & Pepper story and pictures.

Band conditions on the HF bands for the past few months have been what we should probably call 'Stinky'. Dave, N2NL, has been busy banging away in every contest that comes along but others of us have been busy with off island trips and other things so no major contest victories to report. I've heard rumors that the guys up in Saipan sent in a few logs to the ARRL but I haven't seen the numbers. I need a volunteer, someone who would like to be the Official MIDXA Contest Manager. Not a hard job, just collect contest scores from club members via email, arrange them into some form of logical order, and send them to me for the newsletter. Don't knock each other down running to volunteer - let me know if you are interested.

Articles for the newsletter, items for sale, pictures of your new antenna, etc. are always welcome. Just email them to MIDXA.