Welcome to the Arkansas DX Association

Celebrating 51 Years of Service to the Arkansas DX Community!

ADXA is a 100% ARRL Member Affiliated Club

ADXA is committed to the support of its member’s pursuit of DX activities and of DXers around the world.

ADXA holds quarterly meetings at different locations in Arkansas. These meetings allow sharing of DX information with the group and discussion of requests for support of various planned DXpeditions.

2018 ADXA Officers:

President: Joel Harrison W5ZN
Vice President: Pat Patterson W5VY
Secretary-Treasurer: Glenn Wolf N5RN
Director: Earl Smith N5ZM
Director: Roger Gray, N5QS

Special Guest

Frank Donovan, W3LPL

Frank’s contesting career began as a twelve year old at the Providence Radio Association, 1959 ARRL Field Day, W1OP/1, on Neutaconkanut Hill two miles from his home in Providence, Rhode Island. Soon afterwards he began to slowly build his own small contest station on 1/10th acre in a densely populated urban neighborhood.

17 year old K1LPL finished first place USA in the 1964 ARRL CW DX Contest low power category. In 1968 he was the leader of the W1OP/1 Field Day that finished in first place in the 4A category from a former World War II FCC monitoring site in Scituate, RI. Immediately after college, US Air Force 2nd Lieutenant Frank Donovan’s first military assignment was in the Washington D.C. area where he worked under PVRC member W3GN and with his multi-multi mentor W4BVV.

Frank finished first place USA single operator in four CQ WW CW and four ARRL CW DX contests from 1973 to 1978. His first multi-multi experience was with the world high scoring 1974 PJ9JT CQ WW CW team. W3LPL multi-multi teams started forty years ago with a small entry in the 1978 CQ WW Phone DX Contest. Less than four years later two incredible long nights of 10 meter JA runs unexpectedly produced the team’s first USA multi-multi win in the 1982 ARRL Phone DX Contest, the same year that renowned multi-multi competitor W2PV became a silent key.

W3LPL multi-multi teams have completed more than one million QSOs and achieved more than fifty first place USA finishes out of more than 150 entries in the CQ WW and ARRL DX Contests. Frank became a member of the prestigious CQ Contest Hall of Fame in 1999 and is a regular presenter at Contest University. He retired seven years ago as a Chief Engineer at General Dynamics Corporation after a 45 year career in electronics and systems engineering.

Frank has been a Professor at Contest University in Dayton ever since it began, conducting multiple sessions on antennas and propagation.

Special Guest

ARRL President Rick Roderick, K5UR

ADXA is proud to have Rick as a long time ADXA member.

A ham for over 50 years and an ARRL Life Member, Rick has held numerous ARRL volunteer positions continuously for all of those 50 years. He has been on the ARRL Board of Directors for 24 years and currently serves as President. He has served on all standing committees of the ARRL Board of Directors and served on numerous other committees and task forces of the Board over the years. He also served on the DX Advisory Committee and was chairman for many years. He was instrumental in the creation and implementation of Logbook of the World and the DXCC Challenge Award.

Rick has held numerous HF and VHF/UHF operating and achievements awards. Rick is an avid DXer with 370 countries worked, including 320 countries on 160 meters, 352 countries on 80 meters, 353 countries on 40 meters, some of the top standings in the world. He holds DXCC on 10 bands and is ranked 7th in the world on the DXCC Challenge Award. He holds over 10 different Worked All Zones Awards, and was one of the first to achieve Worked All Zones on 160 meters. On VHF/UHF, he’s held many operating and achievement records, including the world distance record for QSO’s on 2 meters meteor scatter and 222 MHz tropo. He was one of the first to work all continental 48 states on 2 meters without the use of moon bounce, 47 states in one year. He is second in the world on 6 meters VUCC and first in the world on VUCC for 2 meters, 222 MHz, 432 MHz, and 1296 MHz for non-EME. He received the Fred Fish Memorial Award #3 for having worked all grid squares in the United States on 6 meters.

He and his wife, Holly, have two grown children. Holly is well known for her active part in representing Amateur Radio and the ARRL wherever they go.

Special Guest

Bernie McClenny, W3UR

Bernie lives in Glenwood, MD and was first licensed as WB3JRU in September 1977. He quickly became interested in working DX. In 1991 he changed his callsign to WR3E and became a member of the ARRL DXCC Honor Roll at the age of 27. On November 4, 1996 WR3E was exchanged under the Vanity Call program for W3UR.

In March 1997 Bernie started the first daily e-mail DX Bulletin called The Daily DX. In the summer of the following year he was asked and accepted as the editor of QST’s “How’s DX?” column. In March 2001 he purchased The 599 DX Report and renamed it The Weekly DX.

He has operated from two all time new DXCC counters – E44DX in Gaza, Palestine and 4W/W3UR in Baucau, East Timor. Other DXpeditions include A61AJ, AH3D, OH0/W3UR, VU4AN, YU8/OH2R (Kosovo), 8P9UR, J77A and soon V47UR. He has also been a guest op multipile times at 4U1UN. When not writing or on DXpeditions Bernie can often be found on the air chasing new ones in the DXCC Challenge, hunting IOTA and guest operating in contests at W3LPL.

Bernie is currently at 3,144 on the DX Challenge list, 321 on 160 meters and 341 on 80 meters.

Special Guest

Bill Kennamer, K5FUV

Soon after ADXA member K5FUV obtained his ticket at age 15, Kennamer gravitated first to contesting, then to DXing. A 1968 graduate of the University of Arkansas, Kennamer joined the HQ staff in June 1992 as a DXCC Specialist after a career in the insurance and securities industries and as manager of AGL Electronics in Dallas. He became editor of the “How’s DX” column in QST in September 1993 and later became ARRL’s DXCC Manager.

In addition to editing the DX column, Kennamer penned numerous DX-related articles for QST and an occasional product review. He replaced Chuck Hutchinson, K8CH, as Membership Services Manager in April 1998.

In 1995, Kennamer was among the international group that reopened Myanmar (Burma) to Amateur Radio as part of the XZ1A operation (see “DXing from the Golden Land,” QST, Mar 1996).

In addition to his expertise in the DX realm, Kennamer has extensive contesting and QSL Bureau experience. He’s been a regular presence and presenter at Amateur Radio gatherings around the US and elsewhere in the world, and he enjoys an international reputation as a DXer and contester.

Thanks to our Premium Sponsors:

Conference Prizes:

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2019 ARRL Handbook

ARRL Antenna Book

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One-year Subscription to The Daily DX

One-year Subscription to The Weekly DX