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The ARRL Contest Update
Published by the American Radio Relay League
********************************************
October 24, 2012
Editor: Ward Silver, N0AX
==> IN THIS ISSUE
- CQ World Wide or ARRL Sweepstakes? Yes!
- Time for a Libration? ARRL EME
- Lunar-Link Lives
- Clash of the Titans
- Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming
- Make Space for Plaques
- Seat of Consciousness
- Hackerspace SDRs
- Revisiting the Edge
NEW HF OPERATORS - THINGS TO DO
No question about it - you've been practicing for a while and you have
gotten pretty savvy about operating in HF contests. Now the Big Show is
starting! This weekend is the CQ WW SSB contest - arguably the biggest
radio contest of all. The ARRL CW Sweepstakes runs the following
weekend - the oldest domestic contest. Those will limber you up for
Sweepstakes Phone and CQ WW CW later in the month!
BULLETINS
November is a busy, busy contest month. With the new, improved, shorter
log submission periods, it will be easy to overlook sending in a log.
Make sure you submit your log before the next contest rolls around!
Don't forget about the new Ontario sections (ONE, ONN, ONS, and GTA) in
November's ARRL Sweepstakes that raise the Clean Sweep bar to 83.
The W1AW 160 meter signal has been off the air recently due to antenna
damage but is due to be restored shortly when a contractor replaces the
antenna on the 24th of October. (Thanks, Don WD8DSB and W1AW Chief
Operator, Joe NJ1Q)
BUSTED QSOS
Ed W0YK is the Director of CQ WW RTTY and CQ WPX RTTY contests. K5ZD
manages only the CQ WW DX contests - CW and SSB. (Thanks, Doug KR2Q)
The Cheesebits article referenced in the previous issue was authored by
W3CMP, not W3CMF. (Thanks, Phil K3TUF)
The ballpoint pen invented for NASA was the Fisher space pen that was
specially pressurized to work in zero gravity. (Thanks, Walt N2IK)
CONTEST SUMMARY
Complete information for all contests follows the Conversation section
Oct 27-28
- SKCC Weekday Sprint--CW (Oct 24)
- CQ World Wide SSB Contest
- SNS and NS Weekly Sprints--CW, Digital, (Nov 2)
Nov 3-4
- ARRL EME Contest
- ARRL November Sweepstakes--CW
- IBM QSO Party
- Ukranian DX Contest
- Radio Club of America QSO Party--Phone
- Collegiate ARC Championship--CW
- DARC 10-Meter Digital "Corona"
- OK1WC Memorial Contest (Nov 5)
- ARS Spartan Sprint--CW (Nov 6)
==> NEWS, PRESS RELEASES, AND GENERAL INTEREST
VHF+ contesters will be glad to know that the Lunar-Link
amplifier business has been acquired from
the estate of the late Steve Powlishen K1FO. According to Steve Simons
W1SMS , the business will immediately be known as
"Lunar-Link International" and will offer the same high quality legal
limit output VHF / UHF linear amplifiers, accessories, technical
support, repairs and, replacement parts as in the past. Steve's
partner, Lou Parascondola W1QJ states that new product orders are now
being accepted for delivery starting in the first quarter of 2013.
Are you ready for the CQ World Wide Contest ?
Part of getting ready is to read the rules and there are some new rules
this year. All online records
and scores have been updated, too. You can now submit your CQWW log on
via a web site with instant feedback on any
formatting errors. There's a blog for late-breaking announcements, too.
(Thanks, CQ WW Director, Randy K5ZD)
Another part of getting ready is to be sure you have the current
data files that help your logging software tell who's who and where
they are. Jim AD1C has updated the CTY files
as of 22 October. These files
contain information thatprefix (and sometimes call sign) to zone and
other data. There are links to popular logging software at the top of
the home page. Another popular software tool is known as "Super Check
Partial" or SCP and new databases
of calls for both CW/Phone and Digital contesting are now available
from Bob WA1Z. More than 44,000 calls are contained in the CW/Phone
file and nearly 12,000 for digital! Another update will be released
prior to the CW weekend of CQ World Wide at the end of November.
Contest rental stations have been available for years and years - every
type of station from primitive cabins to fully-featured turn-key
stations. Remote Ham Radio is now
making the same access available over the Internet on a subscription
basis. Whenever you are operating remote, remember to abide by all of
the rules and regulations in the country from which the transmitter
operates, along with any rules about remote operation for the contest
you choose to enter. (Thanks, Jim N7US)
Here's one way to keep from moving your hands off the keyboard while
operating - change your hands into a keyboard!
The real-time score reporting sites, Getscores
and the Online Contest Score Server (a.k.a.
cqcontest.ru) are attracting more participants every weekend. Using
these sites to watch the changing scores of other stations facilitates
challenges, local competition, "contests within a contest", and can be
a powerful motivator to maximize the all-important BIC (Butt In Chair)
metric! The Online Contest Score Server was also used officially for
real-time scoring in this year's Scandinavian Activity Contest's
"National Team Contesting Trial
".
In addition to the scores, the site has the ability to embed audio and
video streams from the stations. (Thanks, Kim OH6KZP and others)
From the ARRL Propagation Bulletin by Tad K7RA, we learn that the NASA
solar cycle prediction
has been revised
slightly since last month. You may recall that the predicted peak was
moved recently from Spring to Fall 2013, and now the predicted peak has
gone down one point, from a smoothed sunspot number of 76 to 75.
Web Site of the Week - We take it for granted these days that power
from the utility grid is ac. It wasn't always so and you can find out
more about the clash of the titans
- Tesla and Edison - that determined whether dc or ac would eventually
prevail.
WORD TO THE WISE
The time to update your logging software is today...NOT FRIDAY
AFTERNOON BEFORE THE CONTEST!
==> SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
Before you get too wrapped up in preparations for the upcoming
contests, why not take a few minutes to send a photo and story to the
sponsor of your last contest? CQ WW RTTY Director, Ed W0YK
encourages you to send photos and stories about your
operation. Writeup authors are always looking for material!
The webinar hosted by new CQ World
Wide Director, Randy K5ZD was recorded and can be viewed online.
Randy's PowerPoint slides
have
also been posted for you to download and view. Hey, I think this
Internet thing may be catching on... (Thanks, Ken K4ZW)
How about a little "wayback machine"with this 20-minute professional
WRTC video
from 1990 in Seattle? Thanks to Stu N7ZZ for converting it to digital
for us to enjoy. (Thanks, Danny K7SS)
==> RESULTS AND RECORDS
Watch for the mail carrier - 2011 Sweepstakes plaques have been shipped
out and will be arriving in time to put them up in the shack before the
contest! (Thanks, ARRL Contest Branch Manager, Sean KX9X)
August NAQP CW preliminary results are
now online. (Thanks, NAQP CW
Manager, Chris KL9A)
The results for the Stew Perry Warmup are
now posted even though the contest ended Sunday! As more logs come in -
the results will be updated. (Thanks, Tree N6TR)
Official results for the 2012 EU HF Championship
are now ready on the
Slovenian Contest Club website having been verified by the SCC Contest
Committee. All UBN reports are publicly available as usual, too.
Everyone can print their own certificate online directly from the
results. (Thanks, SCC Contest Manager, Robert, S57AW)
IOTA Contest Manager, Don G3XTT writes, "Provisional results for the
2012 IOTA Contest were made available last week, and all entrants
should have received an email from the robot with a link to the results
and to their personal UBN. If you entered and have not received this
information, please email me as soon as
possible. We are allowing a short time for appeals and will go "final"
with the results (including making the URL available to everyone)
probably in mid-November."
OPERATING TIP
CQ WW RTTY Director, Ed W0YK, shares the log submission issues
experienced by all contest sponsors. "It is apparent that many people
do not read the robot email reply they receive. At the bottom of that
email, the robot lists the format errors in the log. If you don't
understand what the robot is telling you, then simply compare that
specific QSO line with the format specified on the Logs web page. The
problem should be obvious.
"Major logging programs like Win-Test, N1MM Logger and WriteLog all
create compliant Cabrillo files ... IF you enter your data correctly.
For example, if you enter your sent exchange as 'CA 03' in N1MM Logger
(which is backwards from the required order for CQ WW RTTY), it will
come out in that (incorrect) order in the Cabrillo file.
"You can easily edit your Cabrillo file with a text editor. Since is it
common to add, change or move the same parameter field in every QSO
line, a column editor is invaluable. I recommend the freeware Crimson
Editor ."
So read that robot message! If it tells you there is something wrong
with your log - do something about it and resubmit it. Double- and
triple-check your operating category and all of the information for
your station. Once you have a happy robot and you are a happy log
submitter - save the confirming message in an easy-to-find location. My
email software has a folder named "Contest Log Submissions" for all of
my log submission confirmation messages. It's easy and helps avoid the
dreaded "forgot to send in my log" disease.
==> TECHNICAL TOPICS AND INFORMATION
We spend hours and hours (and hours) driving our cars - almost as many
as we spend driving our radios. Those seats are pretty comfy - maybe
some spare seats could be converted
into a good shack chair with some adjustment of the table height and
equipment placement. Maybe you could replace the tuning knob with a
steering wheel?
Episode #42 of Chat With The Designers is about Homebrewing VHF/UHF
Antennas illustrates examples of antennas for getting on 6m, 2m and
70cm (440 MHz). Get ready for the ARRL's January VHF+ Contest now! The
"whiteboard material
" is online and you
can watch live and archived presentations
,
too. (Thanks, George N2APB and Joe N2CX)
When you need a little more "oomph" for a heavy job, Dan K0DAN
suggests, "Another improvised 'leverage amplifier' is a large tire iron
used to mount/unmount truck tires...about 5' long made of really hard
3/4" steel. It does NOT bend, and has a nice tapered lip on it for
where it's supposed to pry the tire rubber on/off the wheel rim." Woof!
Switchmode power supplies are not the mysterious beasties we may think
- with the right design tools, building them is easy. Try the Texas
Instrument's "Simple Switchers
"
web site for an example. A good project is building a little dc-to-dc
converter to change 12 V into the 28 V needed to operate surplus
aircraft relays. Don't forget the input and output filtering!
Making a PC board for power distribution looks simple but how do you
know if the traces are wide and heavy enough for the load? It's pretty
easy to tell when they weren't by using your olfactory senses. Here's
an online calculator
for safe PC
board current that goes up to 35 A and will help minimize the chance of
you saying, "Something smells hot..."
At a recent special event station setup, KL7VIC installed a hinge
assembly that allows installation of a Yagi at ground level on a
tilted-over tower without bending the elements. The assembly consists
of two steel plates connected together with high-quality barn door
hinges (see photo at right). Plate A is attached directly to the mast
that is mounted in the rotator. Plate B is attached to Plate A with
hinges, free to hang perpendicularly to Plate A when the tower is
horizontal as in the photo. A short stub mast installed on plate B
holds the Yagi boom by its normal boom-to-mast mount. While the tower
is raised from horizontal the Yagi elements stay level all the way up
as Plate B folds toward Plate A and the main mast. (Thanks, Rich KL7RA)
Technical Web Site of the Week - Software-defined radio is rapidly
approaching a tipping point where it becomes so affordable it will
start crowding out traditional radio architectures. For example, this
Slashdot story notes that
at the ToorCon hacker conference in San Diego, Michael Ossmann of Great
Scott Gadgets revealed a beta version of the HackRF Jawbreaker
,
It can both read and transmit signals from 100 MHz to 6 GHz. At
Ossmann's target price of $300, the versatile, open-source devices
would cost less than half as much as currently existing
software-defined radios with the same capabilities. The Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) pitched in $200,000 last
February as part of its Cyber Fast Track program.
==> CONVERSATION
Living On the Edge
(This item was originally published in the 27 Oct 2010 issue, just
before CQ WW SSB, and its message is just as important today - do you
know where your sidebands are?)
With this weekend's CQ World Wide SSB Contest coming up and the 40
meter band allocations having evolved rapidly over the past few years,
it's worth taking a few minutes to review some do's and don'ts,
particularly for US operators.
First, the lower edge of the US phone band is 7.125 MHz - not 7.100
MHz. The requirement is for you to keep your signal above 7.125 - all
of it. If you are using LSB, the frequency display of your radio shows
the carrier frequency and that has to be high enough to keep the
sidebands of your signal inside the phone band. What does that mean?
According to the FCC in Part 97.3a, everything stronger than 26 dB
below the mean power of the signal counts as the signal's bandwidth.
Without getting into a huge derivation of carrier suppression and
the effects on bandwidth of audio and RF compression and distortion,
let's just say that you should tune no lower than 7.1275 or 7.128 MHz
to be sure of "coloring inside the lines." I'm sure some enterprising
contest station outside the US will set up shop with a carrier
frequency of 7.125 MHz, but just don't call them. If you have a
connection to the spotting network, you can always post a spot that
says, "XY0ZZ 7.125 Not Legal for US Phone Band" and perhaps they (and
those calling) will see it and move.
A similar problem over the past couple of years has been stations at
the top end of 20 meters with their USB carrier frequency above 14.3475
- you're out of the band, folks! Again, just don't call them - these
are not the usual frequencies for rare stations.
Another "gotcha" is caused by jumping to that freshly posted spot and
giving your call without looking closely at the frequency. DX stations
can operate well below 7.125 MHz, 14.150 MHz, and 21.200 MHz - don't
call them there! In every contest, you can hear a steady stream of US
stations well outside the US band who should know better. If you can
program your radios not to transmit outside the US segments or set up
your spotting network filters or logging program not to tempt you with
out-of-band spots, do so. That way, in the heat of battle, you won't
make a mistake. Or be tempted to "make a mistake."
Finally, before sending in your log - make sure it states the right
category for your entry. If you receive ANY spots from the spotting
networks by any means, you must enter in the Single-Operator, Assisted
category (SOA). (This is the Unlimited category in most ARRL contests.)
Most logging programs now automatically connect to the Internet and
then to a spotting network, so you have to disable that feature if you
are going to enter the unassisted Single-Operator category. The current
versions of N1MM logging software now assume a default of SOA for
Single-Op entrants, so be sure and check when you set up the software.
As you get ready for radiosport's Big One, remember to play nice. Have
fun, definitely, but be sure to set good examples for good operating
and clean signals. The world does listen - especially when you're
living on the edge!
73, Ward N0AX
==> CONTESTS
24 October - 6 November 2012
An expanded, downloadable version of QST's Contest Corral in PDF format
is available. Check the
sponsor's Web site for information on operating time restrictions and
other instructions.
HF CONTESTS
ARRL November Sweepstakes--CW, from Nov 3, 2100Z to Nov 5, 0300Z. Bands
(MHz): 1.8-28. Exchange: Serial, category, call, check, ARRL/RAC sec.
Logs due: Nov 20. Rules
SKCC Weekday Sprint--CW, from Oct 24, 0000Z to Oct 24, 0200Z. Monthly
on the fourth Tuesday local time. Bands (MHz): 1.8-28, 50. Exchange:
RST, S/P/C, name, SKCC number. Logs due: 2 days. Rules
CQ World Wide SSB Contest--Phone, from Oct 27, 0000Z to Oct 28, 2359Z.
Bands (MHz): 1.8-28. Exchange: RS and CQ zone. Logs due: 5 days. Rules
SNS and NS Weekly Sprints--CW,Digital, from Nov 2, 0200Z to Nov 2,
0300Z. Weekly on Thursday evenings local time. Bands (MHz): 1.8-14.
Exchange: Serial, name, and S/P/C. Logs due: 2 days. Rules
IBM QSO Party--Phone,CW,Digital, from Nov 3, 0000Z to Nov 3, 2400Z.
Bands (MHz): 3.5-28. Exchange: Serial, name, country, continent, and US
state. Logs due: 60 days. Rules
Ukranian DX Contest--Phone,CW, from Nov 3, 1200Z to Nov 4, 1200Z. Bands
(MHz): 1.8-28. Exchange: RST and serial or Ukraine oblast. Logs due: 30
days. Rules
OK1WC Memorial Contest--Phone,CW, from Nov 3, 1600Z to Nov 3, 1659Z.
First through fourth Monday of each month; see website for bands. Bands
(MHz): 3.5, 50, 144. Exchange: RS(T) and serial. Logs due: 7 days.
Rules
Radio Club of America QSO Party--Phone, from Nov 3, 1700Z to Nov 4,
0500Z. Bands (MHz): 3.5-21. Exchange: RST, QTH, name, equipment. Rules
Collegiate ARC Championship--CW, from Nov 3, 2100Z to Nov 5, 0300Z.
Bands (MHz): 1.8-28. Exchange: See ARRL Sweepstakes. Logs due: Nov 20.
Rules
DARC 10-Meter Digital "Corona"--Digital, from Nov 4, 1100Z to Nov 4,
1700Z. Bands (MHz): 28. Exchange: RST and serial. Logs due: 2 weeks.
Rules
ARS Spartan Sprint--CW, from Nov 6, 0200Z to Nov 6, 0400Z. Bands (MHz):
3.5-28. Frequencies (MHz): Monthly on the first Monday evening local
time. Exchange: RST, S/P/C, and power. Logs due: 2 days. Rules
VHF+ CONTESTS
ARRL EME Contest--Phone,CW,Digital, from Nov 3, 0000Z to Nov 4, 2359Z.
Bands (MHz): 50-1296. Exchange: Call signs, sig rpt, acknowledgement.
Logs due: Jan 1. Rules
SKCC Weekday Sprint--CW, from Oct 24, 0000Z to Oct 24, 0200Z. Monthly
on the fourth Tuesday local time. Bands (MHz): 1.8-28, 50. Exchange:
RST, S/P/C, name, SKCC number. Logs due: 2 days. Rules
OK1WC Memorial Contest--Phone,CW, from Nov 3, 1600Z to Nov 3, 1659Z.
First through fourth Monday of each month; see website for bands. Bands
(MHz): 3.5, 50, 144. Exchange: RS(T) and serial. Logs due: 7 days.
Rules
==> LOG DUE DATES
24 October - 6 November 2012
- October 25 - 10-10 Int. 10-10 Day Sprint
- October 25 - 222 MHz Fall Sprint
- October 27 - Feld Hell Sprint
- October 28 - WAB HF Phone
- October 28 - QRP ARCI Fall QSO Party
- October 28 - EU Autumn Sprint, CW
- October 28 - Run for the Bacon QRP Contest
- October 28 - Scandinavian Activity Contest, SSB
- October 28 - UBA ON Contest, SSB
- October 28 - Asia-Pacific Fall Sprint, CW
- October 29 - Microwave Fall Sprint
- October 30 - GTC CW Cup
- October 31 - BARTG Sprint 75
- October 31 - Washington State Salmon Run
- October 31 - Texas QSO Party
- October 31 - California QSO Party
- October 31 - Arizona QSO Party
- October 31 - All Asian DX Contest, Phone
- October 31 - Araucaria VHF Contest
- October 31 - German Telegraphy Contest
- October 31 - Worked All Provinces of China DX Contest
- November 3 - 432 MHz Fall Sprint
- November 3 - TARA PSK Rumble Contest
- November 4 - New York QSO Party
- November 4 - UBA ON Contest, CW
- November 5 - YLRL DX/NA YL Anniversary Contest
- November 5 - 10-10 Int. Fall Contest, CW
- November 5 - Worked All Germany Contest
- November 6 - TRC DX Contest
==> ARRL INFORMATION
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==> ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ARRL Contest Update wishes to acknowledge information from WA7BNM's
Contest Calendar and SM3CER's
Contest Calendar .
The ARRL Contest Update is published every other Wednesday (26 times
each year). ARRL members may subscribe at no cost or unsubscribe by
editing their Member Data Page as described at
http://www.arrl.org/contests/update/.
Copyright (c) 2012 American Radio Relay League, Inc. All
Rights Reserved
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Address all comments and questions to the editor as described in this
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