 March 8, 2017 Editor: Paul Bourque, N1SFE | ||||
IN THIS ISSUE
Consider starting a station notebook, paper or computer-based, if you've not done so already. Your notebook is the place to record information such as your station configuration, equipment settings, SWR readings, logging program settings, general observations -- anything related to your station. When you find a problem or solve a station problem, put it in the notebook. Specific things to remember from the last contest? Put it in the notebook. By consistently collecting and recording this information, you're creating a reference that can help you to save time when troubleshooting or getting set up for that once-a-year contest. QRU BUSTED QSOS QRU Complete information for all contests follows the Conversation section March 9 March 10 March 11
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March 19 March 20 March 21 March 22 The 2017 Mid-Atlantic States VHF Conference will be held Friday, October 6 through Sunday, October 8, 2017 at the Holiday Inn Bensalem, Bensalem, PA. Papers and presentations related to UHF and VHF topics are being solicited by Rick, K1DS. Past presentations have included such contest topics as VHF/UHF Contest station construction, contest tips and techniques, and descriptions of successful contest configurations. This year's festivities will include a Saturday evening banquet buffet and door prizes and a Sunday morning mini-hamfest. The Raspberry Pi Zero W was released last week, featuring Raspberry Pi functionality in miniaturized form with WLAN and Bluetooth capability. At a retail price of approximately $10, it could provide an excellent building block to equip your Amateur project with an embedded web browser, or network capability. Check out RemoteQTH.com's server image for additional ideas. The popular Icom IC-7300 can be equipped with a receive-only antenna jack, with an RX7300 modification kit announced by INRAD. "This easy to install plug-in modification requires no soldering and is easily installed and easily reversible. The RX7300 can also be used for the insertion of accessory items into the receiver chain on the IC-7300 like receive-only bandpass filters, low noise preamps, etc." (KE9V) The USA National ARDF Championships and the IARU Region 2 ARDF Championships are being combined near Cincinnati, Ohio, July 31 to August 6, 2017. Direction finding aficionados from near and far will converge to participate in Foxoring, sprint, 2 meter, and 80 meter competitions. Individuals of any age are invited to participate, no Amateur Radio license is required. Practice sessions will take place the first three days followed by the competitive events. Winners of the 2017 events will be considered for inclusion on ARDF Team USA and may have the opportunity to travel to the ARDF World Championships in Korea in September 2018. Some things you take for granted, like WWV being there when you just need a reliable signal to receive. It can be unnerving when the signal is NOT available. Is it me, or WWV? You can check on the WWV/WWVH outage page, which shows all outages since January 1, 2000 lasting longer than five minutes. One of the cardinal rules of contesting is to always log what the other station is sending. But occasionally the other station is not sending the correct information. In the recent ARRL International DX Contest, CW, a DX station was sending an incorrect exchange for nearly 80 contacts before switching to a valid exchange for the remainder of the contest. The DX station's submitted log showed the correct exchange as the sent exchange for all of the contacts. How does this situation get scored? According to Ken, K1EA, ARRL DX Contest Log Checker, "A quick look at the DX station's reverse log (a listing of every QSO claiming to work the DX Station) shows when this happened. Most stations logged what was sent. A few made up a number. The DX station's log is marked as a log with bad sent exchange info. No one will receive a busted exchange with that DX station." (via CQ-Contest) Five years ago, a 19-year-old student Scott Vader was working on a metal prototype of a gas turbine and couldn't find a suitable way to 3D print with metal - so with his father's assistance, he invented a way to do it. Scott's method differed from the existing methods of depositing and fusing metal powders by using a pulsed magnetic field to propel drops of hot liquid metal through a nozzle. Today, Scott is the CTO of Vader Systems, a company formed to commercialize his invention. Any WRTC event requires a large amount of preparation and planning, and the WRTC 2018 crew has been especially candid with the details through their website and press releases. With fewer than 500 days before the competition in Germany, qualification events are over but the work continues. Near term milestones include processing team applications, testing site locations, and continued fundraising. Stacking: The combination of two or more antennas arranged at different vertical heights to achieve goals such as more gain, multiple simultaneous beam headings, or additional elevation angles. A stack match is a switching device that can electrically add or remove antennas from a stack on operator command to change the effective take-off angle or pattern.
Tom Owens, K7RI, was awarded the "Most Valuable Player" award for 2016 by the Western Washington DX Club. According to the WWDXC's January newsletter, "Over the years Tom has served as President and filled other club roles. More recently, it hasn't gone unnoticed that Tom has frequently opened up his fine station for hosting single and multi-op contest efforts. His mentoring and camaraderie helps make a club like ours great. Thank you for your generosity Tom!" Tom's QTH in Seattle hosted the team of JJ3UHS and JM3JOW during the first WRTC in 1990.
At the same WWDXC meeting, Rod Linkous, W7OM, a call familiar to many contesters, was awarded the "Johnny Dack W7KH Lifetime Achievement Award" by the club for his many years of service to the club in various roles. Rod was also featured in the November-December 2014 NCJ Contester Profile. The World Wide Radio Operator Foundation webinar by JC, N4IS, entitled "Waller Flag Construction" has been posted to the WWROF website. The webinar link includes discussion as well as a slide presentation. Check out this spectacular YouTube video of an M3 X-ray flare emanating from the sun's surface on February 24, 2017. (NW7US) "Preliminary scores for the January NAQP CW and SSB contests are now posted on the NCJ website. Please check your results to make sure they appear correct. Corrections or questions should be sent to the appropriate contest manager before March 10, 2017. For CW: Chris, KL9A, cwnaqpmgr@ncjweb.com, for SSB: Bill, AC0W, ssbnaqpmgr@ncjweb.com" (Bill, AC0W) Being on the Spots For CW or RTTY contests, when you're operating in a category that allows the use of spots, make sure you're getting both human and RBN (Reverse Beacon Network) aka skimmer spot data. You can find DX clusters that provide RBN data through this website. Make sure you know how to turn on RBN spots for your DX cluster type, and be aware that during major contests, your computer can slow down as it processes tens or hundreds of spots per second. There are DX cluster client programs that you can use between your logging program and the upstream DX cluster to more efficiently filter for useful spots. Since the features and functionality of the RBN and related DX clusters change over time, it is worthwhile to keep your knowledge fresh by revisiting RBN and DX Cluster related websites. Elektor is starting a series of posts about building a µTracer tube tester kit. This project works in conjunction with a PC to measure and characterize the behavior of a wide variety of tubes. In the first installment, the project is described, the kit is ordered and unboxed. Remember the "series of tubes" we used to use to get our signals on the air? Many of the higher-power varieties were made by Eimac. Martin, AA6E, briefly reviewed the history of Eimac on his blog, and provided links to classic Eimac documents such as "The Care and Feeding of Grid Power Tubes." Spoiler: Eimac is now a division of CPI, Inc.
The March/April 2017 QEX magazine has an article by Brian, K1LI and Tony, K1KP entitled "The Polar Explorer," which investigates using non-linear amplification for SSB modes. It describes their experiments and prototype to develop a high-efficiency Phone transmitter using Envelope Elimination and Restoration that also meets FCC emission requirements. Amphenol RF publishes a table of different types of coaxial cables, which includes characteristic impedances and physical diameters. Quantities of high-performance but lesser-known coaxial cable can sometimes be found at hamfests or on eBay, and could be useful for applications like impedance transformers, chokes, or internal wiring. Effective Communication
Signal quality has traditionally been important to our hobby, even as we've progressed from spark to CW, and have added voice and digital modes. From a practical perspective, more intelligible signals lead to faster and more accurate communication. A quality signal has traditionally been something to strive for, a point of pride for many Amateurs. The Internet has become a communications medium for all subjects, and there is no shortage of email reflectors and websites related to Amateur Radio. While there are plenty of good websites, there are also many that have excellent content, but aren't as effective as they could be because of 'interference' from poor layout or design, broken links, browser incompatibility, slow hosting, lack of maintenance, or many other details. But, just as it's easy to get a quality RF signal today with rigs right out of the box, it's also possible to use a modern website service or content management system which can enhance the way your information is organized and presented. One big reason to care about a quality website signal is that the first exposure to our hobby for many people may be through a radio club or other Amateur Radio related website. The population that we seek to attract to our hobby is precisely the one that may be turned away by web pages reminiscent of the late 20th century. That's all for this time. Remember to send contesting related stories, book reviews, tips, techniques, press releases, errata, schematics, club information, pictures, stories, blog links, and predictions to contest-update@arrl.org 73, Brian N9ADG 9 Mar - 22 Mar 2017 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 CWops Mini-CWT Test, Mar 8, 1300z to Mar 8, 1400z, Mar 8, 1900z to Mar 8, 2000z, Mar 9, 0300z to Mar 9, 0400z; CW; Bands: 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10m; Member: Name + Member No., non-Member: Name + (state/province/country); Logs due: March 11. VHF+ CONTESTS SARL VHF/UHF Analogue/Digital Contest, Mar 11, 1000z to Mar 12, 1000z; Analog (CW/SSB/FM), Digital; Bands: 50 MHz, 70 MHz, 144 MHz, 432 MHz, 1296 MHz; RS + 6-character grid locator; Logs due: April 3. UBA Spring Contest, 2m, Mar 12, 0700z to Mar 12, 1100z; CW, Phone; Bands: 2m Only; ON: RS(T) + Serial No. + UBA Section, non-ON: RS(T) + Serial No.; Logs due: March 26. AGCW VHF/UHF Contest, Mar 18, 1400z to Mar 18, 1700z (144), Mar 18, 1700z to Mar 18, 1800z (432); CW; Bands: 144 MHz, 432 MHz; RST + "/" + Serial No. + "/" Power class + "/" + 6-character grid locator; Logs due: April 3. See F9AA Cup, SKCC Weekend Sprintathon, Oklahoma QSO Party, Virginia QSO Party, Louisiana QSO Party, Feld Hell Sprint, CLARA Chatter Party, and QCWA QSO Party, above. March 9, 2017 March 10, 2017 March 11, 2017 March 12, 2017 March 13, 2017 March 15, 2017 March 16, 2017 March 17, 2017 March 18, 2017 March 19, 2017 March 20, 2017 March 21, 2017 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 email to permission@arrl.org with a description of the material and the reprint publication. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ARRL Contest Update wishes to acknowledge information from WA7BNM's Contest Calendar and SM3CER's Contest Calendar. | ||||
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