 January 20, 2021 Editor: Paul Bourque, N1SFE | |
IN THIS ISSUE
The weekend of January 30, you might give the Winter Field Day a try. If you are going afield, remember that it is winter... and be prepared with the essential items for survival. The weekend of February 6, the Vermont QSO Party would be a good place to look for bands/modes for this sometimes-difficult state for WAS. Minnesota and British Columbia also have their QSO parties that weekend. The ARRL School Club Roundup runs February 8 to February 12. This may be a difficult year for many schools to be on the air - if you hear them, favor them with a contact! Contest University's Propagation Summit 2021 is this weekend, January 23, 2021, starting at 11AM EST. It's free, but you must register ahead of time for the 4-hour Zoom program. For the agenda, see the CTU website. Complete information for all contests follows the Conversation section 21 Jan - 3 Feb January 21 January 22 January 23 January 25 January 26 January 27 January 28 January 29 January 30 February 1 February 2 February 3
Contest University's Propagation Summit is January 23, 2021, from 11am to 3pm EST. This Zoom webinar requires pre-registration, but is otherwise free! Topics include an update on Solar Cycle 25, how to maximize your antennas for your terrain, what we all might expect from improving solar conditions, and an update on the Personal Space Weather Project by HamSCI. At the end of the day, an Icom IC-705 transceiver from sponsors Icom and DX Engineering will be given away in a prize drawing. The sponsors stipulate that one must be present (on Zoom) during the drawing to have a chance to win. Scott, N3FJP, has updated all of his logging programs recently. Changes include the ability for programs to automatically check for updates, wildcard matching in Supercheck Partial lookups, and much more. For the complete details, see N3FJP.COM. It's Sunday late afternoon or early evening (in the US). You've had a bunch of fun contesting over the weekend, and of course you want more, more, more! What to do? Try one of the between-weekend contests, such as the Sunday night's K1USN Slow Speed Test, Monday's Worldwide Sideband Activity Contest, Tuesday's RTTYOPS Weeksprint and Phone Test (Fray), Wednesday's CWops Mini-CWTs, Thursday's NCCC CW Sprint or RTTY Sprints -- and all of a sudden it's the weekend again! The January-February-March 2021 edition of the Pacific Northwest SOTA Newsletter has an article by Darryl, WW7D, entitled "The Care and Feeding of Chasers," but it really about how to make more contacts more efficiently. His advice is wide ranging: From antenna and band choices to operating techniques, he covers both HF and VHF/UHF operating. Bob, K0NR, noted a proposal of 146.58 MHz as a "North America Adventure Frequency" to be used by 'OTA activities like Parks On The Air, Summits On The Air, and so on. The need for an alternative to 146.52 is driven by a number of factors, including that the calling frequency can be busy with non-'OTA traffic, and that 'OTA traffic can be disruptive to "normal" traffic on 146.52 MHz. The HamCation QSO Party Committee writes: "The HamCation QSO Party has been organized to create a fun way for amateurs to celebrate the Orlando HamCation experience over the air. The QSO party will replicate the camaraderie and social experience of attending HamCation and provide a way to have fun on the radio because HamCation 2021 will not be held due to COVID-19. It's more than past time to retire your Microsoft Windows XP machine: According to Andy, KU7T, member of the N1MM Logger+ development team, "Weekly N1MM+ updates beginning February 1, 2021 will only support Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10. Stated differently, XP users will not receive any N1MM+ updates from that date." Get out the... candles? Last week, the N1MM Development Team team announced support for the European DX (EU_DXC) Contest - a new worldwide multi-mode contest to be held February 6-7. This additional marks a milestone within the N1MM community, in that the logging program now supports over 500 contests. Latency From Wikipedia: "(Audio) Latency refers to a short period of delay (usually measured in milliseconds) between when an audio signal enters a system and when it emerges." In the radio realm, latency can be a factor in certain types of filters, in encoding and decoding of signals, and in transmission of information between your remote station and the control point. Super bonus extra Word to the Wise: Experiential Density A term coined by Valve Software's Half-Life team to characterize the number of events per unit time that a game player experiences. Too many, and a game can become tedious. Too few, a game may be boring. Different people may prefer different levels of experiential density. This term could be a characteristic of contests, or even certain ways to approach contest operating, for example, S&P vs. running. "Building and Contesting on 10 GHz" by Wayne, KH6WZ, was published as part of the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo YouTube series. Wayne covers why you might want to do this, and how to get started. "Having Fun with VHF" by Bob, K0NR, covers the range of getting started to entering contests (around 24:00) to going portable to putting Summits On The Air (SOTA). In last weekend's NAQP SSB Contest, Marty, NN1C, and Dan, N6MJ, were battling it out in the Single Op LP category. Marty's claimed score of 405,372 bested Dan's claimed 388,155. An excerpt from Marty: "Proud to compete with my Elmer, Dan, N6MJ. His 319 (rate) hour at the start is simply amazing, and his 80-meter multiplier is for the record books. I may have won this round, but it is clear once he gets some propagation, the rest of us are in the dust." And then Dan: "...huge congrats to Marty, NN1C, for the win. Part of my motivation for doing this contest was to beat him, but it wasn't meant to be this time. He should be really proud of this effort especially knowing that I had zero limitations here and I really maxed out the score to the best of my abilities." OPERATING TIP Use the Right Mode for the Job Many contests allow the use of multiple modes as appropriate to make contacts. If you want to maximize your contest score, it pays to be where other stations are to make contacts, and also to make those contacts as quickly as possible. If conditions can support them, SSB and CW modes will probably provide a better rate than the FTx modes. Among the FT modes, FT4, with its shorter transmission time, can have higher rates than FT8. The savvy VHF/UHF contest operator will listen on the calling frequencies for SSB, FTx frequencies for FT8, scan for CW beacons, be watching for spots, and also monitor various contact coordination websites (if allowed by contest rules). They will also likely be ready for opportunistic contacts on FM. They'll be prepared on multiple frequencies, and actively switch modes to make contacts by whatever means possible, maybe even rainscatter! Apple Computer's new computers based on their home-grown M1 chip have been receiving favorable reviews for performance and power consumption. Existing software written for Intel-CPU-based Macs will run on the new models via emulation. Dean, AL7CR, reports that WSJT-X 2.2.2 for Intel-based macOS worked just fine, with a slight adjustment of memory settings: "The only unusual requirement is that the instructions for changing the memory size given in the software instructions will not work for M1-based Macs. Instead you use the following commands in the terminal: sudo sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=104857600 sudo sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmall=25600 The command sysctl -a | grep sysv.shm will verify that the change is made. At the moment the above must be done on each reboot." For more information, see his post to the Elecraft mailing list. You've probably heard of Node-RED for station automation. It's compatible with a wide range of devices. Here's a step-by-step guide by Dave, WO2X, to build an image for a Raspberry Pi computer, and start to experiment with it in conjunction with FlexRadio gear. This terminal removal kit with 60 different patterns might have just what you need to pull a terminal out of a connector for replacement. I haven't ordered one yet, however, time and aggravation saved with just one use might be able to justify having the whole set around. While shopping for an outdoor enclosure, I came across this one from Amphenol, which might suit receiving antennas or outdoor switching gear, also available in other sizes. There are multiple mounting points for circuit boards or other components. Andy, KU7T, a FlexRadio user and member of the N1MM Logger+ development team, analyzed the latency of remote systems after he experienced some of the challenges in real-world contest usage. His blog post separates the latency into "RX audio latency" and Keypress latency. He defines Keypress latency as the time between a key pressed on the control point's keyboard is registered at the remote location's software. His configuration and methodology for characterizing audio latency involves free software like Audacity, and can be reasonably duplicated. He was able to compare the differences between RemoteRig, Murmur/Mumble server, and SmartSDR, which he found could be as much as 500 milliseconds. Keypress latency when using AnyDesk software was between 50 and 60 milliseconds, including a 45 millisecond network latency. This ATU-100 MINI 7x7 auto-tuner kit from Banggood based upon N7DDC's ATU-100 design might be a nice basis for your 100-watt auto-antenna tuner project. N7DDC's source code is on Github, and a number of amateurs have documented their experience in building it. Using your favorite search engine will turn up a considerable number of posts from amateurs that have assembled tuners from this design. Catching Up Remotely With Lee, WW2DX I had an opportunity to have a Zoom call with Lee, WW2DX, last week. Lee and Ray, W2RE, founded Remote Ham Radio (RHR) in 2012. In the last eight years, remote capability has almost become "just another feature" of many transceivers. RHR provides access to ham radio stations on their "network" on a minute-by-minute basis. The RHR "network" comprises 20 locations with 28 transceivers, with capabilities ranging from low-power-only-with-dipole-antennas to full-power multi-multi capable stations with multiple antennas in some of the best radio locations in the continental US. They also have stations in HH2, KP4, and 9A. RHR has a Youth Program, offering participants 300 minutes of time on the network per month. When I spoke to Lee, we started with that: Brian, N9ADG: It was pretty interesting (in the CQ WW WPX Contest, Phone) where you took your young contesters and got them on the air. You did pretty well (potentially setting a new record). You took top flight stations and then invited the kids to operate... Lee, WW2DX: These kids...there are some on our youth network that are spectacular operators. Charles, AA4LS, has been recently entering the weekly CW sprints, and he's been competing with some of these guys that have been doing this for 30 or 40 years. Others, including for example, Connor, W4IPC, are fantastic phone ops. We brought these kids in who showed an interest, and got on Jonesport (Maine) using our cloud-based multi-multi logging interface. Brian, N9ADG: They'd operated that station before the contest? Lee, WW2DX: They'd been on the youth network for a while and were doing their own contests on their own through RHR. They usually ping us before a contest "Hey, can we use Summit (New York), do this one? Can we pick up Eastport and do this over the weekend?" We say Yeah! They're having a blast. We decided to do one of these big ones and get these kids in there and just have some fun and see what happens and really hammer on the technology and the new code. It reall worked out. I was super happy about it. Brian, N9ADG: And how did it end up finally? Lee, WW2DX: The plaque is here somewhere -- we won the world! It was impressive, and they were just so happy. They were just so happy operating and just running and cranking it out. We had Slack [an instant messaging platform - Ed.] running for chatting and we had a mult bell inside the (RHR) console, anytime a mult was worked, the whole Slack channel went crazy. [They won the world in Multi-Multi with 29 million points, a new record - Ed.] Brian, N9ADG: You used your built-in logging? Lee, WW2DX: We have our built-in logging, right inside the RHR console. All the ops log in to the same account and in the case of Jonesport (Maine) there are four stations there. We had four stations running simultaneously and everybody could just watch the Qs counting up and the mults and the score, all right there. It's just operating from the (RHR) console, no other distraction. And you just type call sign, enter, call sign, enter, call sign, enter. Just get into that groove and go. It just worked! We all had a great time. It's just a matter of fine tuning it, adding support more contests and features. We don't want to duplicate N1MM (Logger), we want to build an experience that includes the core features of logging - like we do with the underlying radios today, we don't (expose) every feature a radio offers through the RHR console, just the core ones - We're going to do the same thing with a contest logger. Just the core features that you need to operate big stations typically. It's going to be a lot of fun moving forward. Brian, N9ADG: Could you elaborate on whether you think the underlying radio matters so much or if you're presenting on the RHR console that it doesn't matter what you have. I think you guys kind of switched out some technology in the last couple of years. Brian, N9ADG: Recently I think there was a little bit of a kerfluffle where you were using social media to live-stream during a contest. And then there were some other stations are saying "Hey, you know, that could be in contravention of the rules..." Lee, WW2DX: There were a number of things that happened. We attempted to do some live streaming and some of the community members got upset. They claimed that we were giving out frequency band information. Even though all that information was actually blocked. It's silly... At the end of the day we have to get people on the air and we have to get kids interested in the hobby, reach them where their lives are. My daughters are 15 and 16, and I'm still shaking my head. I'm in the technology field and I'm, "wow, right." We need to wrap our heads around what this generation and these younger kids are really into -- we just have to leverage that and we have to, we don't have a choice, we have to. It's a huge, huge deal for amateur radio to promote in that way, because we are just moving in that direction across the board. At the end of the day, it all really is starting to come to the top -- there're rules now being written for some of these contests about live streaming and that's great. it'll eventually work its way out, like everything else does.
Lee, WW2DX: That's really the big piece here. Listen, we've all been there. You're young, you get distracted at certain ages on certain things and, that's what happens. Work, life, the whole thing. I think it's super important that we get these kids young and get that fire going right at an early age. We really need to get these kids on the air to work in contests, DXing, really getting them into hobby strong and then build that up because once they got a taste of that, there's no going back. To the point of your portability or keeping them connected. Yes, absolutely. I moved to Boston around 2000 for work. I lived in an apartment. I didn't have an antenna up. I didn't have the option of remoting in 2000. I was not active for a couple of years while I was up there. Those days are now over. iPhone, iPad, laptop, you're operating from wherever you want. That is happening today. The issues of people retiring and moving South and giving up their hobby? Those days are over. This technology is bringing back all those hobby enthusiasts, and getting their spark going again. We've got other stuff we're working on, to make that happen inside the hobby and RHR. The original initiative for the youth program was all of these colleges and high schools that had ham stations or have ham stations, and most of them are never used, they're sitting there collecting dust. The thought was let's reach out to those colleges, reach out to those high schools and put our technology into them and build a youth network, a dedicated network for just kids. Not totally start from RHR piece -- this is just a network for kids. Any of these kids can get on a number of stations around the country, maybe even the world for that matter, and just get on and operate. Just get on it and say "I'm going to connect to MIT or NYU and operate, not have to worry about anything." That's really the end goal. We'll also have ham operators who want to contribute their stations to that same network.I think it's very, very important. I'm in talks with a number of colleges right now because of COVID thing. Things are kind of just put on the back burner, but once we get past (the pandemic), that'll start picking up pretty quickly. Brian, N9ADG: You've mentioned getting folks back involved in the hobby. How do you know personally, and maybe also professionally from an RHR perspective, that you're winning? What are your KPIs and how do you measure them to know that you're making progress against the problems as you laid them out? Lee, WW2DX: A couple of ways; from a personal perspective, I get the emails from operators that say "Man, this is fantastic. I've been dormant in the hobby and came across your service. And it just really just brought me back to loving my hobby and getting on the air and talking to my buddies." Those emails are endless. Others are "Hey, I'm retiring from Michigan" or the northeast. Or "We're moving South and I have to ditch all my gear and I'm really bummed out." Then there's the KPI piece. We see the numbers. We track everything, we graph everything here, so we know what's happening. We see the growth. We see people turn radios on and where they're going and so on. The next piece for RHR is focusing on bringing new experiences to the operator. We've got two EME stations we're working on right now on 6 meters and 2 meters. I get many people who say "I always wanted to do moonbounce! But I just didn't have the location or the time or the money." [We're going to be] taking that and then promoting it and giving a really good experience for that. That's all in the works right now. The other thing is we're spending outside the US and we have a station in Croatia -- a really nice station of Croatia. They're really accommodating with CEPT licensing. If you have an advanced class license or above, you can operate that station legally with CEPT remotely. They also will also allow you to get your own 9A call sign. There are a number of hams that are getting their 9A call sign. I can go on there and just operate 9A as my own nine alpha call and start chasing a new DXCC. A lot of our RHR operators are seasoned DXers. If they work one or two new countries a year, that's huge. We have an outlet for them to start something new and fresh and exciting and restart those feelings they had years ago (working new ones). We're looking at more spaces outside the US that are CEPT friendly, remote-wise. Bringing those unique experiences to the operators is going to be important moving forward. So that's our next piece of focusing. Brian, N9ADG: You know, you could have something where you have like a combination RHR and travel: "Hey, go visit the country that you've been remoting from." Lee, WW2DX: That's definitely a thing that's possible. We get requests from people traveling in Maine who ask, "Hey, can we go and see the station?" We're 8 hours away from a lot of our big stations. But sometimes that does happen. Croatia would be a cool place to go visit. Operating there is awesome. Operating from Europe in general is great. There's a ton more VHF and UHF activity in Europe. The other cool thing we're doing in Croatia is one of my pet projects -- are you familiar with QO-100? A geosynchronous satellite that we can't operate from here in North America, but we've put a QO-100 receiver at the nine alpha station and we're going to put the transmitter in and so US hams can remote into the nine alpha station and just operate QO-100. We're going to bring QO-100 operations to North American hams. I think it's going to be awesome and going to open up that whole thing. The Flex makes all this stuff super easy. Throw some transverters on and bam! away you go. The whole architecture really worked out for us, for sure. Brian N9ADG: From the technology industry, the big thing is containerized computing, both in the virtual world and in the physical world where, you can move a data center around. You have standardized your configurations with the Flex and you basically ship a rack, then hook up the cables and power? Lee, WW2DX: We have a set of what we support and literally plug it in and go and it just works. The goal is to have these stations up and running around the clock. We never want to see these stations down. We're always testing new gear. New switching, new rotors and this and the other thing to really, really get it. There's a lot of new stuff coming that looks awesome, really beautifully designed filtering and switching and IP-based stuff. It's going to make it more efficient, easier, and reliable. Brian, N9ADG: Are you going to be the first ones to really provide that experience where you land the container on some DX location and you let everyone else run the DXpedition? Lee, WW2DX: Already in the works. DXpeditions are another piece. Timing is everything. It really is. We have Starlink [broadband satellite internet with world-wide coverage, in the pre-service stage - Ed.] coming. Starlink is going to be a huge game changer that'll provide us real internet, low-latency, anywhere on the globe. That's going to just open up a whole 'nother thing. It's going to be hybrid to start. What I mean by that is, I'm scheduled to go to Sable Island (CY0) at the end of this year -- we were supposed to go this past year, but COVID -- the idea was to bring a station set up for remote. It would be there 24-hours around the clock. Remote users would come in and they just block their times, around the clock. Put them on whatever bands you want. [The DXpedition doesn't] have to worry about sleep. Even if it was just FT8 on 12 meters, you have bodies, they're just trying to peel every Q out of the spots that you're not going to put your main crew on. The next piece is going to be dropping something on an Island someplace and it pops up and away you go. I have mixed feelings about it. It's going to be interesting times moving forward in that whole remote realm, (the) DX world. DXpeditions? The biggest problem is funding them. When you have a remote station on the DXpedition and it's being operated 24 hours a day and generating revenue for that privilege, I think it's going to be a positive for DXpeditions because they're going to have another extra stream of revenue coming in that they didn't have before. At the end of the day, it's getting people on the air, getting them the DXing. Brian, N9ADG: Are there other things, more in a contest or DXing setting, like the online scoreboards, that could be a game-changer? What are your favorite ones you think "I'm surprised this has or hasn't taken off more?" You mentioned the waterfall or spectrum display, you said you can't see doing it without it... Lee, WW2DX: From a contesting perspective, it's going to be more along the lines of station design and leveraging some newer RF technologies inside of a contest station. The technology is working out great. I just see good stuff coming for the hobby - Um, mostly good stuff coming for the hobby. So as long as we have, you know, good leadership and a good voice I think we'll be going in the right direction, at least. Brian, N9ADG: With COVID, in the multi-multi case, remote is the only way some people can stay on the air in some jurisdictions. And, people are realizing there are some efficiencies by not having operators having to buy airplane tickets - does that mean the multi-multi remote is here to stay? Lee, WW2DX: Yes, even if you had three ops show up to the station and three guys were remote, if you really wanted to be super efficient have a JA run JAs during the JA openings. Have Europeans run South America. That's all possible with a click of a mouse. Remoting is definitely here to stay as long as we don't do something dumb and screw it up with rules and regulations. I don't think that's going to happen. We were a big bullseye when we started, but that bullseye pretty much doesn't exist anymore. People's understanding has evolved and now [they see] the positiveness of it. I always see the positives with the emails that I get. It's really the reason we do it -- we get some of these emails from guys that are "My hobby was dead and now not only have you brought the hobby back, I can operate things I could only dream about my whole ham career. It's those types of emails that just fuel us. It's just a lot of fun. It's really, really cool providing a service for people who enjoy it. We enjoy it! it's so cool that others can enjoy it as well. [To be continued ...] 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 21 Jan - 3 Feb An expanded, downloadable version of QST's Contest Corral is available as a PDF. Check the sponsors' website for information on operating time restrictions and other instructions. HF CONTESTS NAQCC CW Sprint, Jan 21, 0130z to Jan 21, 0330z; CW; Bands (see rules); RST + (state/province/country) + (NAQCC No./power); Logs due: January 24. VHF+ CONTESTS See NCCC Sprint Ladder, Worldwide Sideband Activity Contest, SKCC Sprint, above. January 21, 2021 January 22, 2021 January 23, 2021 January 24, 2021
January 25, 2021 January 26, 2021 January 27, 2021 January 28, 2021 January 29, 2021 January 30, 2021 January 31, 2021
February 1, 2021 February 2, 2021 February 3, 2021 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 a choice of one print magazine: QST, the monthly membership journal, or On the Air, ARRL's new bimonthly publication for beginner and intermediate hams. All ARRL members can access all four ARRL magazines -- QST, On the Air, NCJ, and QEX - digitally. 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, | |
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