Tonight we had 17 check-ins.

> Don’t forget to sign up for the upcoming OCRA Christmas Dinner Party at the Hillsborough Exchange Club.  If you have not already signed up send an email ASAP to w4ord@freelad.com or call or text him at 919-455-3330 or call his home phone number 919-304-0796. Cost will stay at $18.50 and it will be held on December 12, 2016 with doors opening at 6:00pm and dinner served at 7:00pm.

> The DFMA Christmas Dinner will be held on December 6 and for members only as the club picks up the tab for the dinners.

Check-ins:

1. KZ1X – Steve: Was able to fix his remote stack match today.
2. W9KHP – Ray: Also planned on using the frequency for a round table for new ham intros. Going to drop to 28.400.
3. WA4PSC – Howie: Thanks to Bruce for the time, shack and hosting the CQWW-DX contest.  Did well – great crew – lots of fun in spite of the bands.
4. KR4UB – Dan: The OCRA Board Meeting was canceled.  Dan fixed his G5RV today.  He uses it mostly for RX. Did some posting on the OCRA web site – Lad’s Christmas Dinner and also Bruce’s last minutes from the Monday 10 mtr net.
5. NC4CX – Butch: It is quite cool at Butch’s QTH tonight. Butch did some listening to try to improve his code speed.  Only worked one Q to PJ2T in Curacao.
6. KM4NOU – Joel: Need to provision Bruce with an account on the server to publish some of the contesting info, Monday night net notes and the weekly DX notes.  This is the first time Joel picked up a mic in about a week.  The family and Thanksgiving were the priorities and spent some time on the coast.  Has his boat setup for the Christmas Flotilla with a light display.  This is the 6^th or 7^th year to participate in the boat parade.
7. KM4MBG – Jack: Spent Thanksgiving with his parents in Durham.  Not happy to go back to work today but quickly getting used to it.  Not much radio activity this past week.  Looking forward to the DFMA December meeting for updates on everyone’s resolution successes.
8. KJ4UZU – Clint: Good to hear everyone this weekend to the locals and out of state check-ins. Got 3 new ones confirmed on 80 and now up to 77. Hope propagation will help get to the magic 100. Worked French Polynesia from the mobile at lunch today.  Also at 277 mixed mode confirmations.
9. KU4GC – Dee: Survived another Thanksgiving thanks to Jack and Lenore’s food efforts. Working on getting up his 80 meter count and made two new ones over the weekend. Surinam (already confirmed) and Puerto Rico (not yet confirmed).  The contesting CW speeds are still just a bit fast. French Polynesia may really be the Austral Islands. Will have the New Years resolutions to deal with at the DFMA meeting. Dee has made a few of his goals.
10. KF4PAB – Lenore: Did some cooking for Thanksgiving including a spiced pumpkin pie. Enjoyed having his parents come over for dinner.  Got to check-in to the DFMA Thursday night net with her new mobile rig.
11. KM4RDH – Mike: From Utica, KY. In North Central KY.
12. W4BOH – Wilson: Coming to you from the slightly chilly Land of Magic. Trying to keep things moving forward. Fruit Cakes are in the construction process upstairs. Worked 25 – 30 Qs and almost the same quantity of countries. Added some new band countries and already have 5 new confirmations. Had some requests for repeats and then found out he was running 6.5 watts. So, some of the Qs were QRP contests. One of the ZLs was quite strong. Was unable to get through the Tanzania pileup. Looking forward to the upcoming Christmas parties.
13. K4SAW – Steve: Evansville, In – Good to hear the NC group tonight.  Got his 4 call when he lived in SC so knows where Chapel Hill is.
14. NA4VY – Dave: Using his beam tonight but getting almost 4 s-units of noise.  Wondering if he has a bad yard light.  Finished his biography so the next issue of the DFMA newsletter will include Dave’s bio.  Been doing lots of antenna work – focus on his 6 mtr / 2 mtr antenna.  It is now moved to a new mast to make it easier to work on.
15. KK4PH – Lowell: Not much radio activity over the past week. Have a Vertex commercial rig for 6 meters and is now adding all the UK frequencies so he can catch the opening should it occur.  Ordered an HF rig for the pickup – FT 891. Would like to get an auto-tune Tarheel screwdriver antenna.  Got a new solder station for the shop after the only one failed. Borrowed Wilson’s wood splitter so he and his adult children went to work splitting wood.  Still working on the leaves.
16. KX4P – John: Using a KWM380 tonight.  Wanted to make a special effort to check-in tonight. Enjoy reading the minutes every week.  Had a wonderful Thanksgiving. His daughter hosted this year and also had some of the students over. One from China, one from Israel and one from French Guiana.  Have a folded counter poise (K2AV design) antenna – just tested it and it will be in use this weekend in the ARRL contest.
17. N1LN – Bruce: Enjoyed the CQWW-CW contest this past weekend and looking forward to the ARRL-160 CW this coming weekend.