 August 10, 2016 Editor: Paul Bourque, N1SFE | ||||
IN THIS ISSUE
The SKCC Sprintathon will be a good place to work some CW, even if you don't have a boat anchor rig, or any vacuum tubes in your gear. You'll have to examine the rules to understand why tubes are a benefit in this contest. All weekend long the WAE DX CW contest will opportunities to work EU stations, as those are the only ones that count. A special feature of WAE is the exchange of QTCs, which count for additional points. For more traditional fare, the Maryland-DC QSO Party will provide CW, phone, and digital contact opportunities. On August 12, the Duke City Hamfest, in Albuquerque, New Mexico will have an HF Academy, focusing on those who have recently upgraded to General or higher. Topics include Rigs, Antennas, Propagation, Modes, Computer use in the shack, and there will be some hands-on demonstrations. For the weekend of August 20, the NAQP SSB contest will provide the bulk of domestic contest contacts, but if you've not tried RTTY before, the ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY is the spot to give it a go. The emergence of Tropical Storm Earl prompts the reminder to avoid frequencies on which emergency traffic may be present. You can keep abreast of emergency frequencies and operations by monitoring the IARU region 1 website, and the ARRL website. BUSTED QSOS QRU Complete information for all contests follows the Conversation section August 11 August 12 August 13 August 14 August 17 August 18 August 19 August 20
August 21 August 22 August 24 The Dayton Hamvention has lost its home of 52 years, the Hara Arena, and will be moving to the Greene County Fairgrounds in Xenia, Ohio, starting in 2017. According to Tim Duffy, K3LR, the Contest University, Contest Supersuite, Contest Dinner, and other activities revolving around the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dayton are unaffected. "We fully support DARA and the move. This is a good thing." If you happen to be in the Huntsville, Alabama area the weekend of August 20th & 21, the Huntsville hamfest will have a Saturday Contesting Multi-forum, with Tim, AB4B, moderating and presenting "Contesting 101." Craig, K9CT, will be presenting "Simplify your Contest Station," and Chris, NV4B, "VHF/UHF Contesting, Portable Style." Check their website for additional forums and information. Kenny, K2KW, suggests that if you want to plot a map of the grids you used in last June's contest, use K1RA's Cabrillo Grid Square Plotter, or WG7J's Gridmapper.
You have to be able to hear them to work them, and tinnitus can interfere with that, and life in general. New research points to some ways to treat the symptoms of this chronic condition affecting 50 million people in the US alone. According to the recently released Semiconductor Industry Association's International Technology Roadmap report, future innovation in transistor density will not be made by shrinking the size of transistors, but rather through changes in topology or geometry. The de-emphasis on size may occur as soon as 5 years from now. Ars Technica has placed the ITRS report in the context of other trends and industry history. Diplexer - A device that is used to combine different frequencies or bands to a single output, or which can separate a common input into different bands or frequencies. They are common in UHF/VHF mobile applications where 2 meter and 440 MHz radios share a single coax cable to feed an antenna. In recent WRTC contests, triplexers have been used to allow two radios on two different bands to simultaneously use a tribander antenna.
Contesters and amateurs involved in Public Service Communications should have a lot in common. The ARRL Webinar, Contesting as Training for Public Service Communications, by Ward, N0AX, discusses the similarities and might provide an impetus for greater contest participation. It could also be the basis for a program at a future emergency communications meeting.
Many of the steps like soldering, cutting, or painting, which might be necessary in homebrewing a project for your station yield gases, smells, or particulates. Here's an instructable showing a simple way build a fume extractor and fume box for small projects. The Louisiana Contest Club will have its regional meeting at the Shreveport, Louisiana Hamfest on August 13. The results of the 2016 Minnesota QSO Party (PDF) have been posted. Over 23 thousand contacts were made by the contest participants! The write-up includes details of a frosty combined MNQP and NPOTA operation by N0ECK. (Mark, WA0MHJ) Preliminary results of the July NAQP RTTY contest are available at the NCJ website. The NAQP RTTY Contest Manager, Mark, K6UFO, requests that any problems be reported to him via e-mail. This one is from Bob, K8IA: It has become tradition to honor the memory of contesters that have recently become Silent Keys by using their names in the contest exchange. You may have recently heard "Milt" being used in the NAQP CW, in memory of Arizona Outlaw Contest Club member Milt Jensen, N5IA, who passed away recently. Faraday Cages work...how, exactly? One person's journey to understand them on a physics level yielded a number of surprises, and questions the accuracy of conventional explanations. As RF design goes nearly all digital, this EDN article provides a look at what it's like to design radios using digital building blocks. One of the biggest changes is that the design environment may provide a working prototype without the necessity of building any hardware. FreeSRP is an SDR that covers 70 MHz to 6 GHz, and is open source and open hardware. What's more impressive it was designed and built from scratch by a motivated 18-year-old. He discusses how he did it and talks about the platform in this Reddit. Starting and Maintaining a Weekly Contest Practice reinforces skills, and you can consistently practice those skills with weekly contests such as the CW Ops Mini-T contest, the Phone Fray, or the Northern California Contest Club's Thursday night CW and RTTY Sprints. All of these contests share a relaxed intensity - the stakes are low, but the competition level can be high. Scores are self-reported to 3830scores.org. I asked Dean, NW2K, director of the Phone Fray, and Ken, K6MC, NCCC RTTY Sprint Director, for their comments on what it takes to run a contest on a weekly basis. Dean, who got the Phone Fray started just about a year ago, opines: "Certainly, the mechanics are important (e.g. rules, log submission and adjudication, presentation of results.) However, the most important task is marketing, the creation of a sense of excitement among the ops about the event and the associated challenges. It's not enough that the event is fun. It needs to be compelling to get hams on the air. I'm not good at marketing and I have a lot to learn. Starting Phone Fray was interesting and I wanted to try moving beyond '599 5' and have the contest exchange actually 'perform work.' Initially, I designed it to have an unconventional scoring system akin to what one might find in video games. In it, the degree of challenge was variable. New contesters could play since the scoring system had an entry level for new folks. Mid-level contesters found mid-level challenges and experts had a window into maximum challenge. Without going into the details, the contest exchange had a certain complexity, which conveyed important information...simply. I wanted the unconventional event to be SSB so that new contesters felt most welcome. (The contest would have a) New exchange, new scoring, new and veteran participants. The station is certainly a key component...but the initial Phone Fray put operator skills at the top. After a disciplined review of the initial Phone Fray rules by a dozen of our best contesters, it was decided to scale back the contest's complexity. It was felt that a NAQP SSB style event held weekly for 30 minutes was innovative enough for launch. If successful, 'special' events could be held on occasion to test some of the unconventional ideas. I'm grateful to the reviewers, the NCCC NS, the CWops CWT, and Matt NQ6N for all the excellent input and inspiration. Phone Fray just celebrated its first birthday. Winning rates are 120-150 QSOs/hour and participation continues to grow. Marketing is still the primary challenge; we need to get more SSB ops on the air on Tuesday evenings. We haven't slipped in a 'special' event yet....but perhaps soon! I believe firmly that we need to be more innovative in designing new contests. " Ken also mentions promotion in his comments: "When I took over from the previous person I did spend some time sending emails to contest clubs and RTTY Sprint participants. Other than the weekly announcements I don't really do very much now. Sprint format is not overly popular and combined with the mid-week time we have marginal turnout. But those of us that are active enjoy it so it keeps us going. We do get new people to join in on and off so we are a little successful at introducing RTTY Sprinting to some. I've never worked in sales so I don't have a background that would assist in promotion of our event. As far as goals, I look at it as a chance to get new people to try RTTY as well as Sprints. For the ongoing folks it really is a practice session, similar to spending time copying cw. It also gives folks a chance to check out equipment before the weekend, especially since RTTY activity is not great other than in contests. In my case it was a chance to learn something about SO2R, which was totally new to me when I returned to contesting after a 35-year absence. So I think practicing a new skill as well as learning are the main goals." Both gentlemen are doing a fine job promoting their contests. If you're starting a new contest, promotion appears to be key, as well as making the format and rules appealing to a wide range of skills. If you've not done so yet, give each of these weekly contests a try! That's all for this time. Remember to send contesting related stories, contesting pictures, book reviews, tips, techniques, press releases, errata, schematics, club information, pictures, stories, blog links, predictions, and favorite twitter handles to contest-update@arrl.org 73, Brian N9ADG 11 Aug - 24 Aug 2016 An expanded, downloadable PDF version of QST's Contest Corral is available. Check the sponsor's website for information on operating time restrictions and other instructions. HF CONTESTS CWops Mini-CWT Test, Aug 10, 1300z to Aug 10, 1400z, Aug 10, 1900z to Aug 10, 2000z, Aug 11, 0300z to Aug 11, 0400z; CW; Bands: 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10m; Member: Name + Member No., non-Member: Name + (state/province/country); Logs due: August 13. VHF+ CONTESTS MMMonVHF/DUBUS 144 MHz Meteorscatter Sprint Contest, Aug 11, 2200z to Aug 13, 2200z; Any; Bands: 2m Only; Signal report; Logs due: September 15. 50 MHz Fall Sprint, Aug 13, 2300z to Aug 14, 0300z; not specified; Bands: 6m Only; 4-character grid square; Logs due: August 27. ARRL 10 GHz and Up Contest, Aug 20, 0600 (local) to Aug 22, 0000 (local); Any; Bands: 10 GHz to light; 6-Character Maidenhead Locator; Logs due: October 18. See SKCC Weekend Sprintathon, above.
See ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY, above. August 12, 2016 August 14, 2016 August 15, 2016 August 17, 2016 August 18, 2016 August 22, 2016 ARRL Information Click here to advertise in this newsletter, space subject to availability. Your One-Stop Resource for Amateur Radio News and Information ARRL membership includes QST, Amateur Radio's most popular and informative journal, delivered to your mailbox each month. Subscribe to NCJ - the National Contest Journal. Published bimonthly, features articles by top contesters, letters, hints, statistics, scores, NA Sprint and QSO Parties. Subscribe to QEX - A Forum for Communications Experimenters. Published bimonthly, features technical articles, construction projects, columns and other items of interest to radio amateurs and communications professionals. Free of charge to ARRL members: Subscribe to The ARRL Letter (weekly digest of news and information), the ARES E-Letter (monthly public service and emergency communications news), Division and Section news -- and much more! ARRL offers a wide array of products to enhance your enjoyment of Amateur Radio. Visit the site often for new publications, specials and sales. Donate to the fund of your choice -- support programs not funded by member dues! Reprint permission can be obtained by sending e-mail to permission@arrl.org with a description of the material and the reprint publication. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ARRL Contest Update wishes to acknowledge information from WA7BNM's Contest Calendar and SM3CER's Contest Calendar. | ||||
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