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The ARRL Contest Update
Published by the American Radio Relay League
********************************************
December 8, 2010
Editor: Ward Silver, N0AX
==> IN THIS ISSUE
- Come On Sunspots! - ARRL 10 Meter and Rookie Roundup
- In the Soup - Stew Perry Topband Distance Challenge
- 10 Meter Contest Support
- Cabrillo Log Forms Online
- ARRL Section Map
- ARRL 160 Meter Contest Log Analyzer
- Hamming It Up
- Sporadic E Webinar with N6BV
- Wild Voices
NEW HF OPERATORS - THINGS TO DO
The ARRL 10 Meter Contest is an
excellent way to break into HF contesting, especially for the
Technicians and remaining Novices who may have never experienced a 10
meter band full of signals. On the next weekend, try out your CW skills
in the ARRL Rookie Roundup's
inaugural CW edition!
BULLETINS
Log due dates for two major contests are (or were) earlier this year:
The deadline for ARRL Phone Sweepstakes logs WAS 0300Z on 7 Dec
(yesterday) and the deadline for CQ WW CW logs is 21 December.
BUSTED QSOS
None reported!
CONTEST SUMMARY
Complete information for all contests follows the Conversation section
Dec 11-12
- ARRL 10 Meter Contest
- CWops Mini-CWT Test (Dec 8)
- Feld-Hell Happy Birthday Sprint
- NA High-Speed Meteor Scatter Contest
- 28 MHz SWL Contest
- PSK Death Match
- UBA Winter Contest
- Straight Key Weekend Sprint
- Great Colorado Snowshoe Run--CW
- Russian 160 Meter Contest (Dec 16)
Dec 18-19
- ARRL Rookie Roundup--CW
- OK DX RTTY Contest
- RAC Winter Contest
- Lighthouse Christmas Lights QSO Party-
- Croatian CW Contest
- Stew Perry Top Band Distance Challenge--CW
- Holiday Spirits Homebrew Sprint--CW
- Run For the Bacon--CW (Dec 20)
==> NEWS, PRESS RELEASES, AND GENERAL INTEREST
Be sure to update your logging software to handle the ARRL 10 Meter
Contest's new XE multipliers. Here are the earliest versions of several
popular programs that fully support the new multipliers including
correct output format:
N1MM - version 10.11.2
Writelog - version 10.77
Win-Test - version 4.7.0
CT - user group's instructions
NA - user group's instructions
TRLog - version 6.96
TR4W - version 4.231
SD - version 15.25
N3FJP - version 3.1
Ken WM5R emphasizes that you need to help get new folks (and other
casual HF contesters) interested in playing along this weekend. "Talk
up the contest with your friends. Post something to your local club and
mention the new XE multipliers. Grupo DXXE's reference sheet
for Mexican multipliers can
be downloaded and remember that in addition to the XA-XI prefix block,
Mexico is also assigned prefixes in the ranges 4A-4C and 6D-6J." Hector
XE2K/AD6D says that DXXE is also encouraging operators to activate the
rare and semi-rare states - you can get an idea of who to look for in
the online activity page . Now if we can
just get some propagation!
Here is the list of Mexican states and the abbreviations to use for
logging them in the ARRL 10 Meter Contest
: (from Rule 5.2.3 of the contest rules)
Aguascalientes (AGS), Baja California (BAC), Baja California Sur (BCS),
Campeche (CAM), Chiapas (CHI), Chihuahua (CHH), Coahuila (COA), Colima
(COL), Distrito Federal (DF or DFE), Durango (DGO), Estado de México
(EMX), Guanajuato (GTO), Guerrero (GRO), Hidalgo (HGO), Jalisco (JAL),
Michoacán (MIC), Morelos (MOR), Nayarit (NAY), Nuevo León (NLE), Oaxaca
(OAX), Puebla (PUE), Querétaro (QRO), Quintana Roo (QUI), San Luis
Potosí (SLP), Sinaloa (SIN), Sonora (SON), Tabasco (TAB), Tamaulipas
(TAM), Tlaxcala (TLX), Veracruz (VER), Yucatán (YUC), Zacatecas (ZAC).
Want to encourage new blood in CW contesting? The ARRL Rookie
Roundup on Dec 19th is your chance
to break out a straight key and QRS to speeds a new CW operator can
manage. Here's your chance to experience those wonderful Morse-filled
experiences of days gone by - like glass elbow and hand cramps, but I
digress. Slow down and put your call in a Rookie's log or help a Rookie
master CW at your station!
Are you traveling to a DX location? Here are the TSA rules
explaining what's
required of you if any of your electronic equipment contains lithium or
lithium-ion batteries. RC modelers
deal with this all the time and are very helpful in making sure their
battery-powered gear is treated properly. The TSA traveler's assistant
Web
page lists many do's and don'ts which are mostly common sense, but are
helpful in protecting your stuff. (Thanks, Steve KS1G and Stuart K5KVH)
Japanese amateurs are operating RTTY on the low bands an if you're not
aware of the band plan there, Rag LA6FJA has relayed an email from
Hisami 7L4IOU on the subject:
3.520-3.530 and 3.599-3.612 MHz
3.520 - 3.525 is the main segment
3.525 - 3.530 and 3.599-3.612 has SSB QRM in early evening
7.025-7.045 MHz
7.030 - 7.035 is shared with SSTV
A reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles
would certainly make life interesting for hams. The Geomagnetic North
Pole is currently moving north under the Arctic Sea at about 40 km per
year, dragging the auroral oval along with it and affecting polar path
propagation. While it's been three-quarters of a million years since
the last reversal, no one knows whether we are overdue for a flip-flop
and the field strength seems quite strong. Pull up a lawn chair, pop
open a cool drink, and watch - you never know! (Thanks, Graham VE3GTC,
Dana AD5VC, and Ron W2IOL)
Jon W0ZQ and Gabor VE7DXG have reminded the VHF+ community of this
great piece by the late Bill Seabreeze on strategy considerations
for successful roving.
If you think your amplifier makes the house lights blink, how about
when you plug in an electric car? According to this article on power
industry concerns
about supplying all that juice, a high-capacity battery in an electric
vehicle (EV) such as the Tesla can draw nearly 17 kW - as much as a
house - during the charging period. This will put a lot of stress on
the residential power grid substations and distribution equipment. Got
fuses?
Extending the discussion of ordinary (O) and extraordinary (X) waves
reignited by KL7AJ's interesting article in the December issue of QST,
Carl K9LA has written about HF circular polarization in his
"Propagation" column in the current issue of World Radio
. This topic is a well-known
concept but has not captured the attention of hams - worth a read!
Spaceweather featured an interesting story
on Long-Delayed Echoes (LDE) on 30 November reporting that Peter DK6NP
received some LDEs during the recent geomagnetic storm on Nov 27th. I
was interested to learn that LDEs were first reported in 1927! If you
heard LDEs, please contact Peter as requested in the story.
Web Site of the Week - If you are a casual contest participant and
don't want to install a contest logging program, the Cabrillo Forms
Web site by WA7BNM gives you an on-line
option of manually entering your QSOs and sending the resulting log to
the contest sponsors in Cabrillo format. (Thanks, Doug KR2Q)
WORD TO THE WISE
Attenuation - reduction of signal level, particularly useful in
receivers. As we go into the winter months of low-band activity, make
sure your receiver isn't being overloaded by strong local signals and
atmospheric noise. You may be surprised at how much you can improve the
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by reducing input signal level and cutting
back on the RF Gain.
==> SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
Where are all those sections you worked in Sweepstakes, anyway? The
ARRL has a colorful Worked All States (WAS) map
online that labels all the sections. (Thanks, Norm W3IZ)
Auroras can wreak havoc with HF propagation, but they sure are
pretty to look at as shown in this Astronomy Photo of the Day
from Norway. Be sure
to follow the article links and watch the video, too!
Do you have some photos from CQ WW 2010? Please share them with the
contesting community on Contesting.com . On the
right side of the home page, click "Add CQWW 2010" and follow the
instructions! (Thanks, Steve N2IC)
These are the most colorful radials you'll ever see - they have
excellent taste in France, as F5OHS demonstrates in putting up his
vertical antenna with
savoir-faire. (Thanks, Rich KL7RA)
==> RESULTS AND RECORDS
Now that the contest is done, you can evaluate your performance with
Bob K0RC's "ARRL 160m Log Analyzer" spreadsheet. Recently updated for
new features and faster processing, the latest revision, 1.0.8
, is now available for download. Import
your Cabrillo log file and review a variety of statistics.
Soapbox from the recent CQ
WW CW contest and others has been compiled for your reading pleasure by
Dink N7WA. While you're replaying the recent CQ WW CW contest, a merged
list of both 3830 claimed
scores and actual log submissions has been compiled by Valery R5GA.
Valery is also collecting contest photos for the Web site.
The results of the PreStew warmup
for the Stew Perry Topband Distance Challenge held in October 2010 are
now posted. Contest manager, Tree N6TR, reminds us that the "big" Stew
is coming up in less than two weeks on December 18/19th.
SYLRA Contest 2010 preliminary results
are out, just awaiting the final paper logs to be complete. (Thanks,
Janne OH6LBW)
Kevin W9GKA has compiled some very interesting VHF reports on
distance-based scoring
and a
historical data paper .
Great reading for VHF+ enthusiasts!
OPERATING TIP
Anticipating a lot of new HF operators giving the ARRL 10 Meter Contest
a try this weekend, Hank N8XX contributes a few tips for improved
contest fun:
1. Call CQ - don't just Search and Pounce. Find a fairly clear
frequency, call CQ, and see what happens! This works especially well
towards the end of a contest when you are a new station on the bands!
2. On CW, call CQ at your speed, even if that speed is 10, 15, or 20
wpm.
3. Say or send only your call when answering a CQ - you'll get through
quicker.
And always remember...
"The worst day of Contesting is infinitely better than the best day
working" (Thanks, Tim K3LR and the ZM2M East Coast Contesters)
==> TECHNICAL TOPICS AND INFORMATION
You might think a Hamming Code
refers to Morse, but no! 60 years ago, Bell Labs scientist Richard
Hamming came up with his method of encoding data to perform
computations and telecommunications without errors. This was the
beginning of the field of coding theory that combines computation,
mathematics, and communication, an important step to the sophisticated
digital world that we take for granted today.
Judging from signal levels during contests, it must be tough to be a
receiver's front-end input circuit! The original "Front End Saver"
circuit was described by KD9SV in Feb 1997 CQ Magazine. The finished
product is available from Radio-Ware
or a circuit board is
available from FAR Circuits . A similar
circuit has been designed by OK1RR
, as
well. These can save your radio a trip to the repair shop! Another
problem with strong signals is caused by overload from local AM
broadcast stations. Jack W8OZA at Clifton Laboratories
has designed two new BC-reject filters - the Z10022 is a high-pass and
the Z10020 a band-stop design that also allows reception below 540 kHz
for LF and VLF reception. (Thanks, Joe W4TV)
Here's a nice Web article
that goes
into the details as it describes how to add PowerPole™ connectors to an
Astron SS-25 or SS-30 switching power supply.
A good January 1995 QST article on tuning T-network tuners
by
W4ULD can be found in the online ARRL archives. After you figure out
the basics, this online Java tuner applet by W9CF
will let you practice
what the article teaches! (Thanks, Jim W7RY)
If you want to neaten up those multi-cable bundles, but conduit or
cable tray is too confining or expensive a solution, try these cable
hangers that allow
access to the cables at any point, but still corral them into neat
runs. You can buy them at an electrical supply house and a #10 sheet
metal screw will suffice for mounting. (Thanks, Dave K9XD)
Technical Web Site of the Week - The recording of last week's PVRC/NCCC
webinar on HF Propagation and Sporadic E during WRTC 2010 by Dean N6BV
is now available. The video file
is 50 Mbytes in WMV format and a PDF version of the presentation slides
is also
online. (Thanks, Dean N6DE)
==> CONVERSATION
Wild Voices
For those of you that didn't get no satisfaction in Phone Sweepstakes,
here's another mangled melody by Dr Beldar from the Rolling Stones'
"Wild Horses" - 73, Ward N0AX
Band edge running
Is easy to do
The mults will all work me
When I call CQ
Clueless invader
You hear where I am
You know I won't let you
Push me up the band
Wild voices
Couldn't push me away
Wild voices
You'll work me some day
I heard you tuning
Your carrier's plain
Now you're attempting
To drive me insane
No sweeping tuners
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