 June 9, 2021 Editor: Paul Bourque, N1SFE | ||||
IN THIS ISSUE
Many operators and clubs are getting fired up for ARRL Field Day, which is the weekend of June 26. It's a time when hams take their gear and go outside, singly or in groups, to operate from temporary locations and mostly have fun. If you don't already have plans and you're interested in seeing what it's all about, it's probably not too late to join up with a local radio club. The June ARRL VHF Contest is this upcoming weekend. While it's not an HF contest, you'll find CW, SSB, and digital contacts. When you're making FT4 digital-mode contacts and signal levels are in the single digits around "0 dB" in the WSJT-X (or other software) interface, switch to SSB or CW to make some rapid-fire contacts. The weekend of June 19, the West Virginia QSO Party runs from noon to midnight on Saturday, Eastern time (1600z June 19 to 0400z June 20). West Virginia has 55 counties. Complete information for all contests follows the Conversation section 10 Jun - 23 Jun 2021 June 10 June 11 June 12
June 13 June 14 June 15 June 16
June 17 June 18 June 19
June 20 June 21 June 22 June 23 Unlike the rules in HF contests, the rules for the upcoming June ARRL VHF Contest allow coordination of contacts via non-radio means. This means you can call someone on a cell phone to get them on the air during the contest. You can ask someone you've contacted to spot you. You can even spot yourself (OPRG.8.1)! However, you must initiate contacts and exchange information for contacts entirely by radio. Confirmation of the contact is also part of the contact - make sure that happens via radio. "Thanks for the contact, right?" in a chat group isn't the right thing to do. There's no consensus of the single-best place online to coordinate activities. Here are some popular choices (let me know if I've missed your favorite):
According to Tim, K3LR, starting in 2022, the Contest Super Suite, Contest University, the Top Band Dinner, the Contest Dinner and the KC DX Club CW copying competition held during the same time as Hamvention are moving locations starting in 2022. The Hope Hotel, located adjacent to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, is the new host hotel for these activities. This hotel is approximately 11 miles east of downtown Dayton, Ohio, and 11 miles northwest of the Greene County Fairgrounds, the site of Hamvention. "Room reservations will be taken by the Hope Hotel starting on Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 9 AM EDT. Do not call them before that time. You can get room reservations by phone only. If you try to book online, you will see that there are no rooms for those dates. Every room in the Hope Hotel has been blocked for contesters and DXers for Hamvention week. Starting Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 9 AM EDT, you can call 937-879-2696 and ask for a reservation in the Contest University 2022 room block. There is no minimum night commitment. The room rate is $143 per night plus tax, and that includes a hot buffet breakfast each day of your stay. The room rate is the same for a single queen, two queens, or a single king with a pull-out... We look forward to seeing you Wednesday night, May 18, 2022, for the first night of the 2022 Contest Super Suite at the Hope Hotel." The Atlantic hurricane season started on June 1, and it's predicted to be an active one. The Hurricane Watch Net operates on "14.325 MHz during daylight hours and on 7.268 MHz after dark." In the event of a storm, please respect frequencies being used for emergency and/or relief operations. (ARRL website) A message from Vibroplex: "The fine book, Managing Interstation Interference, by former INRAD owner George Cutsogeorge, W2VJN, is now available as a free .pdf download courtesy of the author as a service to amateur radio in lieu of publishing a subsequent printed edition. Thank you! We are pleased to host this." Ward, N0AX, notes: "This is an excellent book that was published by W2VJN and which is now available as a free download PDF. It is cited frequently in ARRL publications." FlexRadio Systems is out with an update to their SmartSDR software that should make SmartLink users with Maestro or M Model radios happy. SmartSDR Version v3.2.39 is available from the FlexRadio website for download. According to the release notes, "This version supersedes SmartSDR v3.2.37 for Windows. All users are recommended to upgrade to SmartSDR v3.2.39 at their earliest convenience." Depending on the mode of Maestro you have, the upgrade itself can take some time. F6FVY used data from the Reverse Beacon Network to old-school ASCII plot CW speeds used by CQing stations on 15 meters during the CQ WW WPX Contest. From his data, it appears 28 WPM was the most popular. Now that logs have been sent in, and statistics potentially posted on 3830scores.com, it might be possible to see if higher WPM resulted in more reported contacts (as suggested by follow-ups to his Tweet). BeLoud.US tweeted the announcement of its launch on June 1. According to the website, BeLoud offers access to remote stations in Maine and Georgia on a minute-by-minute basis, with various plans providing differing levels of service. Fred, WW4LL, and Steve, W9SN, are the principals behind this service, and they are "proudly using Icom radios." For more information, visit the company website. ARRL Field Day (remember, "It's not a contest!") is June 26-27, 2021. With only 2 weekends left before the event, clubs across the US and Canada are making last-minute preparations to "take it outside." As an example, check out the Portage County Amateur Radio Service (PCARS) Radiogram for June: It contains an overall summary of their Field Day plans, and details from each "station captain" about how the stations will be set up and operated. While you're reading the PCARS newsletter, scroll down a bit to see their coverage of the RAC Canada Day Contest happening on July 1. Scott, K0MD, past editor of NCJ, re-tweeted some heart-healthy advice from a colleague that could be applicable to Field Day meal planning. ARRL also published an article on our northern neighbor's Thursday, July 1 Contest: "Radio Amateurs of Canada Invites Participation in the RAC Canada Day Contest." To emphasize: this year, July 1 is not on a weekend - this is a mid-week contest. The ARRL Kids Day event is June 19. The exchange for a "CQ Kids Day" contact is name, age, location and favorite color, or really anything the young op may want to talk about. It's not all about the rate for this one. The QRPGuys are out with a number of new products, including a multi-band FSK Digital Transceiver kit, a 10-12-15 meter CW transceiver, a dummy load, and a switched attenuator. The digital transceiver kit does something interesting - instead of generating appropriate SSB signals using an oscillator, mixer, then phasing or filtering, it samples the incoming audio stream, and recreates the correct waveform by controlling the frequency of the of the Si5351A VFO. Jeff, KE9V, discusses the reasons that he ordered one of WA3RNC's dual-band 5-watt CW transceiver kits. Clean design and a user-friendly user interface figured highly in his decision. The TR-25 Transceiver is available via WA3RNC's website. The Fort Wayne Radio Club has announced a new monthly contest: The Two Meter Classic Sprint. This is a CW/SSB contest on the first Saturday of every month, from 1300z to 1300z, starting June 5, 2021. The exchange is the grid square and consecutive serial number of the contact. For more information, see the contest website. Jim, K7WA, noted in an email message to the Western Washington DX Club: "Bryce, K7UA, has come out with an updated version of his 'New DXer Handbook.' Originally written for the Utah DX Association, it has become popular and is even available on Amazon! A free copy is available for download at his website: K7UA.com - Home of The New DXEer's Handbook." Much of the information is also applicable to contesters, such as the use of clusters, the Reverse Beacon Network, and propagation. Receiver Blocking Level From the free-for-download book, "Managing Interstation Interference" by George, W2VJN: "When high level signals are applied to a receiver input, there is a level, somewhat lower than the damage point, at which reception is blocked or disabled. This level is a function of the receiver design and varies depending upon the manufacturer and model...Reception is impossible, but no damage results."
"CQ Announces 2021 Hall of Fame Inductees" - This year's inductees into the CQ Contest Hall of Fame include Bob Wolbert, K6XX, and David Pruett, K8CC (SK). You can watch John, K1AR, introduce the inductees in this presentation from CTU (link to start of the awards presentation). Brian, KB9BVN, posted to the QRP-L reflector: "If you missed the vFDIM (virtual Four Days In May) this weekend, you missed some great presentations. Per Club President David Cripe NM0S, QRPARCI is currently uploading the video series to YouTube so you can view them." Looks like they're done, here's a link to the playlist. The playlist is not in order - you'll likely want to play the videos separately. Bob, N6TV, writes: "For those of who missed the 'Visalia' IDXC Contest Forum (live) on Zoom, it's now online on YouTube, here. Panelists: N6MJ, KL9A, K1AR, and K9CT. Moderator: N6TV. Question Coordinator: W2GD. Announcer: N6IE" QRZNow published a link to a Stitcher episode featuring ARRL's "The Doctor Is In" podcast all about "The Legendary G5RV Antenna." If that's too many layers of indirection, you can go directly to the ARRL "Doctor..." website archives to find this link from August 2019 and many others.
"I'm pleased to announce that the 2021 Louisiana QSO Party Final Results have been posted, and Certificate downloads for all participants are available online. Congratulations to the winners and all participants!" (Scott, W5WZ, for the LAQP Committee) Ward, N0AX, writes: "The YOTA Contest's first round is complete and claimed results have been compiled. You can find them at bit.ly/34A2dtD. Participation was very good and worldwide. In the YOTA-class categories, 102 entries were received from contesters as young as 7 years old and three entered as SWL listen-only. Above the age of 25, there were 584 entries, with the oldest at 87 years young. If you have a young ham looking for fun on the air, the next round will be on July 17 from 1000-2159 UTC, the weekend after the IARU HF Championship. Calendars fill up quickly in the summer so be sure to make arrangements now. There is a 6-hour category, too! Complete rules are available at www.ham-yota.com/contest. Radio and Contest Club Newsletter Editors: consider adding contest-update@arrl.org to the email distribution list of your club's publication. When the Contest Update publishes a link to an article in your newsletter, it's one way for your club to potentially increase its impact and find new members. Always Log What Is Sent -- Except... In a contest, you should always log what the other station sends as the exchange into your logging program. But what if it's wrong? Some options: If you've not completed the contact, and what you have copied doesn't make sense, you can ask for a repeat. If the station gives you the same (incorrect) exchange, you could ask the station yet again for a repeat, being explicit about the information you need for the contest. Zone, state, serial number, power, favorite shrubbery -- whatever you need. In the case of a zone, you'll need to explicitly ask for an "IARU Zone" or a "CQ Zone." The other station could be in a different contest, but will still give you the information that you need. Ultimately, you need to decide whether to log what was sent, or log what you "know" to be correct. If someone spelled their state incorrectly, it's probably okay to log the corrected information. For some types of exchanges, your logging program may reject a spelling that is not correct. For other less-obvious cases, it's still better to log what was sent. After the contest, after you've turned in your log, you might send a friendly email to the station and/or contest sponsor noting the situation.
Dan, KB6NU, mentioned the Electronic Design article "Automatic Impedance Matching in RF Design" by Lou Frenzel, in a survey of ham radio related articles appearing in the recent trade press. Check the commentary by VE7EZM on Dan's blog page for potential errata. CQ-DATV's June 2021 issue has an article by Mike, WA6SVT, reviewing a 600 watt amplifier for 23 centimeters, which was reprinted from the Boulder Amateur Television Club TV Repeater's February 2021 REPEATER. Mike, WA6SVT, is associated with the Southern California Amateur Television Network, and this article was likely published in a previous ATN Newsletter. The amplifier modules by W6PQL are based on the NXP MRF-13750 LDMOS transistors. The amplifier was evaluated for use with ATV where the duty cycles are high compared to CW or SSB.
EMI was a problem for Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity during a December 12, 2020 flight. During that flight, interference halted the ignition of the rocket motor. The remedy was tested during another flight on May 22, which was deemed "flawless" by the company's CEO. The EMI issue even got a mention in an article on DigiKey's website. The Femtostar Project, or "F*" is "developing a satellite constellation for secure, open, and private communications -- anywhere on planet Earth. It's intended to be "free and open-source technology," including the hardware and software designs. According to the project's FAQ, because it's based on a constellation of low earth orbit satellites, latency through the network should be much less than those of geostationary satellites. "Faraday Wax" - This concoction is used to "glue" together materials that may be subject to vacuum. Unfortunately, it has a low melting temperature, which would prevent it from being used to make your own vacuum tubes. For my personal projects, and sometimes as Editor of the Contest Update, I occasionally have the need to manipulate PDF files. Sometimes I concatenate multiple PDFs into a single PDF, extract images from them, and so on. There are some wonderful commercial tools to do this on a professional or production scale. My needs are infrequent, so for simple tasks, I find tools like PDFTK and PDFIMAGES adequate for what I need to do. Know Before you Go, IRL and Remote After a year of uncertainty and travel restrictions, parts of the world are slowly, cautiously, embracing travel again. Make no mistake, there are some locations that are by no means finished with COVID, nor will they be for a long time. The unprepared traveler may find borders are closed to them, such as is the case for most travel to Canada from the US right now. Intra-country travel may also be restricted, as is the case inside of Canada, and even to some communities inside the US. If you are planning on traveling outside of the US and want to operate when you get there, ARRL provides some international operating resources that can help. When you're in another country, you must follow and operate within the rules of that country. The international operating resources page, current as of Spring 2021, covers such topics as:
One of the most important things to know is that "reciprocity does not necessarily mean the US amateur can simply go and operate," and that difference countries may have differing requirements for operation. For US-licensed amateurs thinking about using a remote station in another country, the "Remote Station Operation in ARRL Contest" web page provides guidance. In general, however: "Neither CEPT or IARP authorize remote station operating authority from any participating country" but that "bilateral or multilateral agreements might do so - be sure to review the regulations for any country of interest." Foreign nationals that are not US licensees that want to use a remote station located in the US: "For foreign nationals not holding a US FCC-issued license, remote control of a US station is not authorized under any treaty or reciprocal authorization, regardless of their location." So basically, not allowed. The best option may be for that person to obtain a US FCC license, which they can do by taking a VEC-administered exam if it's offered in their country. 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 10 Jun - 23 Jun 2021 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 CWops Mini-CWT Test, Jun 10, 0300z to Jun 10, 0400z; CW; Bands: 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10m; Member: Name + Member No./"CWA", non-Member: Name + (state/province/country); Logs due: June 12. VHF+ CONTESTS AGCW VHF/UHF Contest, Jun 12, 1400z to Jun 12, 1700z (144) and, Jun 12, 1700z to Jun 12, 1800z (432); CW; Bands: 144 MHz, 432 MHz; RST + "/" + Serial No. + "/" Power class + "/" + 6-character grid locator; Logs due: June 20. REF DDFM 6m Contest, Jun 12, 1600z to Jun 13, 1600z; CW, SSB, FM; Bands: 6m Only; RS(T) + Serial No. + 4-character grid square; Logs due: June 21. SMIRK Contest, Jun 19, 0000z to Jun 21, 0000z; CW, Phone; Bands: 6m Only; 4-character grid square + SMIRK No. (optional); Logs due: August 18. 10 Jun - 23 Jun 2021 June 10, 2021
June 11, 2021 June 12, 2021 June 13, 2021
June 14, 2021 June 15, 2021 June 16, 2021 June 17, 2021 June 19, 2021 June 20, 2021 June 21, 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. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ARRL Contest Update wishes to acknowledge information from WA7BNM's Contest Calendar. | ||||
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