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The ARRL Contest Update
Published by the American Radio Relay League
********************************************
September 29, 2010
Editor: Ward Silver, N0AX
==> IN THIS ISSUE
- Radio Dreamin' - California QSO Party
- An Evening Out With the VHF Fall Sprints
- CQ WW Changes for 2010
- In Our Dreams
- Free Climbing Fallout
- CW NA Sprint Results
- Sporadic E Exposed!
- Get Primed, Geeks!
- About Five Years Before You Did
NEW HF OPERATORS - THINGS TO DO
This weekend's California QSO Party is the biggest of the state
contests - with terrific participation, world-wide. Check out the list
of prizes for domestic winners and have at it! This is one contest for
which super-high antennas aren't necessary and may even be a drawback,
depending on your location.
BULLETINS
There are no bulletins in this issue.
BUSTED QSOS
In the last issue's item about Chinese license classes, the first
prefix in the 3rd-Class list should be BG. (Thanks, Steve W3HF)
CONTEST SUMMARY
Complete information for all contests follows the Conversation section
October 2-3
- PSK Rumble - The Fall Classic
- EPC Russia DX Contest--Digital
- Oceania DX Phone Contest
- EU Autumn Sprint--Phone
- California QSO Party
- RSGB 21/28 MHz Contest
- ARS Spartan Sprint--CW (Oct 5)
- Fall VHF Sprints--432 MHz (Oct 6)
- NS Weekly Sprint--CW (Oct 8)
- DX/NA YLRL Anniversary Party--CW (Oct 8)
October 9-10
- ARRL EME Contest
- Makrothen RTTY Contest
- Oceania DX CW Contest
- Scandinavian Activity Contest--Phone
- Worked All Britain HF Contest--Phone
- EU Autumn Sprint--CW
- Pennsylvania QSO Party
- Arizona QSO Party
- FISTS Fall Sprint--CW
- North American RTTY Sprint
- Straight Key Weekend Sprint
- 10-10 Sprint
- SKCC Monthly Weekend Sprint--CW (Oct 11)
- CWops Mini-CWT Test (Oct 13)
==> NEWS, PRESS RELEASES, AND GENERAL INTEREST
CQ World Wide DX Contest
manager, Bob K3EST, notes some changes for the 2010 contests. "The CQ
WW Contest Committee will be expanding the award system for the
Assisted category...All low power and QRP Assisted entrants will be
specifically listed and eligible for awards as is already the case for
unassisted entries. A band-by-band breakdown for All-band Assisted
World, Europe and USA will be provided within the 2010 results. Lastly,
we will increase the number of plaques available to Assisted entrants
to include Europe All-band and World Single-band." Bob also reminds
Multi-Single entrants, "to declare, for each QSO in your log, which
transmitter makes the QSO: run or multiplier station." As noted in the
previous issue, log submission deadlines have been moved, as well: SSB
- Nov 21 and CW - Dec 15.
A new email reflector
has been established to facilitate communication among everyone
interested in WRTC2014 . (Thanks, Doug K1DG)
QSOs made with Northern California Contest Club members in the
California QSO Party do count towards the special NCCC 40th Anniversary
award , even though they will not be
signing /40 during the contest. (Thanks, Bob N6TV)
The 2011 W0 DX Convention will be held just
west of Kansas City, Kansas on July 23rd, 2011. The Convention is
hosted by the Kansas City DX Club and co-sponsored by the Missouri
DX/Contest Club and the Lebanon ARC. Numerous vendors will be there
along with a star-studded lineup of speakers and the world-famous KCDXC
CW Pile-up Contest. (Thanks, Ron K4SX)
In the recent Colorado wildfires, one of the victims who lost a home
was well-known contester and station builder, John W0UN. (The fire was
determined to be one of several arsons
, set nearby
and which burned about 1000 acres before it was controlled.) John
expresses his thanks to all those that offered help and sympathy. He
would also like to note that although he used Phillystran guy cable on
his towers, the lower sections were steel and thus flame- and vandal
resistant.
The "Hams With Class" column by Carole WB2MGP in the October 2010 issue
of World Radio Online leads with a
nice feature on Contest University that
includes a photo of K0DXC and K3LR. Good stuff about the things that
get young hams going! Another feather in the K3LR cap is Tim's
receiving the Barry Goldwater Award from
the Radio Club of America. The award is given for long service to the
public through Amateur Radio.
NASA is developing a super-sized antenna launcher
! Well, it could be
an antenna launcher. The more likely use is to accelerate spacecraft
down a horizontal track, hitting Mach 10 on the way to orbit...and
beyond! I'll bet it would clear the trees in my back yard easily.
The birthplace of the laser printer and the graphical user interface
for computers that presaged the Macintosh, Xerox's Palo Alto Research
Center (PARC)
is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. One of the nation's
premier research facilities, PARC is responsible for many innovations
that we now take for granted as standard features.
EU Sprint Manager, Dave G4BUO reports problems with the European Sprint
Web site, "so we have set up a new site at www.eu-sprint.com
. At present this just contains the rules
but we are working to migrate the full site if we cannot get the old
site back."
The Canadian Space Agency has just set up a camera in Yellowknife to
broadcast the aurora borealis
to the
general public. It's part of a 5-year educational initiative to raise
awareness of space weather and the sun's influence on Earth. (Thanks,
Jerry VE6CPP)
Web Site of the Week - In the "We Can Dream, Can't We?" department,
this story recounts the lure of
technology too strong for a contester to resist. Tom N6BT has described
a similar experience of hooking up a radio to a shortwave broadcasting
dipole array with more than 20 dBi of gain. Can you hear me now?
WORD TO THE WISE
Duty factor - the decimal equivalent of duty cycle which is given in
percent. For example, a duty factor of 0.5 is the same as a duty cycle
of 50%. Otherwise the two terms are completely equivalent in meaning.
==> SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
The video of a tower worker "free climbing" at heights over 1700 feet
has been making the rounds despite the best efforts of its originator
to expunge it. (Free-climbing is a violation of safety and workplace
rules.) Nevertheless, hams are agog over it and if there is one
benefit, the ensuing discussion reinforces the attitude of "safety
first" and emphasizes the need for proper climbing gear, such as a
fall-arrest harness and being attached to the tower 100% of the time.
While we're on the subject of climbing about, Chris KF7P posted a link
to videos about Fred
Dibnah the famous British chimney climber and steeplejack. For another
"first-person climber" video, here's one from John K0IO about erecting
a 1500-foot tower
through the eyes of a rigger.
Sep 22nd turned out to be an exciting day for our nearest star,
featuring a solar flare, coronal mass ejection, and magnetic filaments
lifting off into space. Sounds like spring break in Florida! All of
these events were captured by NASA spacecraft and can be reviewed on
the Spaceweather Web site .
The Akihabara district of Tokyo is legendary for its electronics
emporia all stacked together like so many surface-mount resistors in a
muffin tin. Tokyo Hackerspace has published a video guide
to the district - check
out the Rocket Radio video to browse the district's largest ham radio
store.
==> RESULTS AND RECORDS
September's final North American CW Sprint scores
have been published.
Congratulations to Trey, N5KO on his second consecutive victory. Steve,
N9CK racked up another Low Power win and KA9FOX held off K1DG
(operating at N1LI) in the QRP category. The Ad Hoc team won the team
competition, followed by the NCCC #1 team. (Thanks, CW Sprint Manager,
Tree N6TR)
The US team brought home three medals in the recent ARDF (Amateur Radio
Direction-Finding) Championships
held recently in Croatia. Very popular outside the US (and gaining some
attention here), ARDF has a sizeable youth contingent and is a great
entry activity to ham radio.
The results of the 2010 SP DX Contest
have been posted online and
were announced at the annual SP DX Club Convention. (Thanks, Romeo
S52RU)
OPERATING TIP
Make it hard to mis-connect things, especially during the contest. Heed
this example, overheard during the 2010 EME conference
and reprinted in the Packrats
"Cheese Bits" newsletter: ""He placed the
wrong filter on the 432 amp and in short time destroyed the amp,
proving that my filter worked fine."
==> TECHNICAL TOPICS AND INFORMATION
Sporadic E (Es) propagation was a major feature of the summer VHF
contests this year. With more hams active on 6 meters, we are learning
more and more about Es propagation patterns. Dean N6BV recommends this
paper on the subject as
good reading. Note that sporadic E on 6 meters often means 10 meters is
open, as well - hint, hint!
And with each passing issue, more prognostication on the upcoming
(hopefully) solar cycle 24. This article
is in the Depressing-Above-15-MHz column. I know the Top Band operators
are secretly rejoicing over all of this, though! (Thanks, Roger W7VV)
A giant squid? A contorted contrail? How about the amazing mobile
antenna of K6ITA spotted in the parking lot of the TAPR Digital
Communications Conference? (Photo by N0AX)
Doug K1DG reports and others confirm that running antenna wire over
small-diameter pulleys (1" or so) causes even stranded wires to break
and may accelerate corrosion (which leads to breaks). He reports higher
reliability using large-diameter (3-4") plastic pulley wheels and
homemade brackets.
Steve KD1JV has some advice for parts/radios/junk hoarders not unlike
himself, "Don't move! It is truly amazing at how much "stuff" we can
accumulate and how difficult it is to part with much of it if you do
have to move." I don't know any such individuals in ham radio, do you?
A single Google Earth file presents the entirety of the FCC broadcast
license database - an
interesting view of towers you may encounter. (Thanks, Daniel K7DGL)
The current and previous issues of QEX feature a two-part tutorial for
the QuickSmith software that uses the
Smith Chart to work out transmission line problems. (Thanks, Nick
WA5BDU)
In a multi-rivet tubing joint, place the heads of all three rivets in
the holes before beginning to pop the rivets. If popping a rivet causes
the tubing to shift, getting the final rivets seated properly could be
difficult.
Technical Web Site of the Week - Learn the technical details of digital
video in Xiph's tutorial series, "Digital Video Primer For Geeks
". The series begins with a basic
explanation of digital audio and video fundamentals. With so much
digital technology involved in contesting these days, particularly for
remote station operation, this is pretty useful stuff.
==> CONVERSATION
About Five Years Before You Did
It's a common question to a more experienced ham, "What was the best
time to get into ham radio?" Why is it that the answer always seems to
be, "Oh, about five years before you did," or the equivalent? No matter
what, there is always somebody who seems to have been around when the
DXing was easier, the pileups more mannered, the bands open longer, and
the homebrewing brew-ier. It never fails. (Just remember, young folks,
they got the same jazz from their elders when they got started!)
Sometimes I think maybe we should have all just thrown our radios away
after 1959 (or 1947 or 1932 or 1927 or...) since nothing could ever be
that good again. After all, 10 meters was open 24 hours a day and you
only had to sneeze into the microphone to fill your log with DX while
running only 5 watts of AM from a 6L6 rig built from a kitchen bread
pan and connected to a dipole in a tree. Sigh. (For the record, I got
licensed in 1972.)
Who says there weren't any VE8's on the in Old Days? Looks like quite a
few to me! (Thanks, Danny K7SS for the photo)
Pssst - here's a secret - every year is a golden year! I just got
back from a couple of digital communications conferences and let me
tell you that digital is exploding in any manner you care to evaluate;
modulation, protocol, activity. For example, W0YK just checked in with
a claimed score of 5024 QSOs from P49X in last weekend's CQ WW RTTY
contest. A couple of years ago, the 5000-QSO level was considered
fantasy for a single-op station.
Golden ages are not incremental - they stem from breakthroughs or
sudden changes in the environment. The Internet and Solar Cycle 19 have
a lot in common. We are seeing a dramatic convergence of technologies
that are enabling an explosion of digital modes, fertilizing innovation
and experimentation. The latest version of F6CTE's free multi-mode
software, MultiPSK , has 87
different modes to choose from. That's a far cry from when I got into
ham radio and it was pretty much RTTY, SSTV, and Fax warbling away
around various calling frequencies.
A presentation by Bruce K6BP at this past weekend's TAPR Digital
Communications Conference showcased the new Codec2 Open Source digital
voice codec for
low-bandwidth channels, such as HF ham radio. The primary developer is
David Rowe, VK5DGR and his work is a significant advance in the
communications state of the art, one aspect of Part 97.1's Basis and
Purpose for Amateur Radio. While digital voice is not yet a
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