 September 29, 2021 Editor: Paul Bourque, N1SFE | |
IN THIS ISSUE
The California QSO Party is this weekend, sponsored by the Northern California Contest Club. With 58 counties, and radio clubs that activate the rare counties with enthusiasm, it's a great weekend to be on the radio. Do well enough and you could qualify for a grape prize: "The top 20 CA and top 20 non-CA Single-Operator/Single-Operator-Assisted entrants will receive a personalized bottle of NCCC Private Reserve California Wine...Winners under the age of 21 will instead receive a non-alcoholic personalized award." Jeff Stai, WK6I, owner of the Twisted Oak Winery, generously supports this event. DX opportunities include the Oceania DX Contest (Phone) and the TRC DX Contest. Continue to polish your RTTY skills in the Russian WW Digital Contest, which only allows RTTY and BPSK63. The weekend of October 9, the Makrothen RTTY returns - it's a distance-based RTTY contest, with four-letter grids as the exchange. The CW portion of the Oceania DX Contest complements Scandinavian Activity Contest (SAC) Phone leg for DX. QSO parties include Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and the QRP Amateur Radio Club's QRP-ARCI Fall QSO Party. Complete information for all contests follows the Conversation section 30 Sep - 13 Oct 2021 September 30 October 1 October 2
October 3 October 4 October 5 October 6
October 7
October 8
October 9
October 10 October 11 October 12 October 13
"Registration Opens for USA Amateur Radio Direction Finding Championships" From ARRL Special 12 Bulletin ARLX012: During the weekend of September 19, the The Cumbre Vieja volcano in Spain's Canary Islands erupted, and a lava flow ensued, "triggering the evacuation of more than 6000 people... In order to facilitate communication into and out of the area, EMCOM-SPAIN has asked that the IARU Emergency Center of Activity Frequencies be kept clear in case the situation worsens: 3.760 MHz; 7.110 MHz; 14.300 MHz, and 21.360 MHz." Traveling with your laptop to an exotic contest locale? According to a Dell Computer support article, "In all extended travel and especially airplane travel, safety should be your primary concern. Under no circumstances should you leave a laptop powered on and in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag, backpack, or in an overhead bin. The laptop will overheat as a result of that action." According to someone familiar with these matters, many aircraft are equipped with "lithium ion containment kits" like the Hot-Stop 'L'. These kits also work with cellular phones that malfunction. The California QSO Party is coming up on October 2-3, 2021. Dean, N6DE, the 2021 CQP chairman, writes: "The California QSO Party website has the following which might be of interest to any contester: 1) A Strategy Page: Of main interest is the Operator's Guide to the California QSO Party. One for California operators, and one for US/VE/DX operators. It's like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, only not as funny and not as British! It's intended to be a 25+ page operating guide which helps both beginners and experts. Many of the items covered in the guide can apply to any contest, not just CQP. Below the Operator's Guides, the Strategy page is chock full of graphs, data and helpful tips on many topics. I have wished that other big contests produce similar guides and data. I hope this sets a trend in the contest community. 2) An audio-video page: It can be helpful both to the newcomer and the expert to listen to actual audio from the contest. Links here are for CW recordings, with logs to follow along with. And there's a 2-minute video for SSB with audio plus the screen showing QSOs being entered in N1MM Logger+ and showing a Flex Radio band display. 3) Club competition page (with changes): The big change is that club score is not just the sum of member scores. We are adding bonus points to inspire clubs to motivate its membership in needed areas such as new contesters, youth and YL participation. We also have five different club sizes based on logs received. See you in the California QSO Party! It's about time: Jim, W8WTS, points out that a contest is defined by at time interval. "Time intervals, periods of time with a duration, can be defined by a starting instant and an ending instant." For example, when a 24-hour-long contest is to occur starting at 1200z: "The instant marking the start of the contest is 1200Z of the first day, and the instant marking the end of the contest is 1200Z of the next day. The correct time to publish for the 24-hour long contest is 1200Z of one day until 1200Z of day two." Jim, W6US, writes: "The Sierra Nevada Amateur Radio Society is proud to present the annual Nevada QSO Party. The state of Nevada is one of the rarest U.S. states on the air. This year's event starts at 8 PM Friday, October 8, Nevada time (PDST) (0300z 10/9/2020) and runs until 2 PM Sunday, October 10 (2100z 10/10/2020). The objective of this contest is to activate and work all 17 of Nevada counties. Nevada stations work anyone, anywhere, and out-of-state stations work Nevada stations. On each HF band, stations may be worked up to three times, once each using Phone, CW, and digital modes. On the VHF+ "band" that includes all legal frequencies 50 to 1300 MHz, stations can be worked just once per contest. Rovers in Nevada can be worked again when they change counties. The exchange is a signal report (59 or 599) and ARRL/RAC section for those outside of Nevada, signal report and the 5-letter county code for in-state stations. In order to introduce new hams to contesting, the use of repeaters is allowed on the VHF+ frequencies. FT8 and FT4 are allowed. --See the WSJT-X section in the contest rules. N1MM Logger+ has built-in support for this contest. For those that are not able to use a logging program, the WA7BNM Cabrillo Web Forms website can construct and submit your log. Logs must be Cabrillo. Paper logs or ADIF will not be accepted. A video explainer is available for setting up N1MM Logger+ with WSJT-X. The SNARS website has an Activations web page to show counties that will be on the air. In-Nevada operators can self-register for their county using the page. The goal is to have all counties on the air with all modes. Out-of-state operators are invited to travel to Nevada enjoy the low-noise levels of rural areas, and opportunities for county line operation. The Nevada QSO Party website has the rules, FAQ, and additional information." There's a current and evolving discussion of appropriate RTTY contest frequencies on the RTTY Groups.io. With the rise of FT4/FT8, the inattention to channel usage by automated stations, and various country restrictions, there are definitely better frequencies than others. David, G3YYD/M7T, opines "US east coast stations don't come down to 40 meters and look for EU earlier enough...I can see the NA DX clusters giving me good reports but no NA callers. Keep an eye on those cluster to catch EU early." David suggests the EU activity during RTTY contests on 40 meters is on "7040 to 7060 (sometimes 7065) but also around 7080 to work USA." Ron, KX1W, Secretary of the Quarter Century Wireless Association, writes: "The annual QCWA QSO Party held in March each year has been discontinued by a vote of the QCWA Board of Directors. This is primarily due to a lack of participation." Gordon, NW7D, finds that working consistently working greyline DX can provide insight into where and when to be for elusive contest multipliers: "The other day, I had left my station running idle on 40 meters FT8 even though I don't normally operate on that band during the daytime. Just before sunset, I started seeing an amazing amount of European and African DX on the computer screen. In a relatively short time, I worked Greece, South Africa, Ghana, France, Germany, EU Russia, Spain, and Belgium. It turns out that it was very early morning in these countries and I surmise that greyline skip was favoring both of us even though the A Index was 8. Then rather suddenly, the DX disappeared after about 40 minutes...poof, gone! I found it rather exciting to work so much DX in a short period of time." Gridtracker is a free application for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and MacOS that "displays your QSO log data from WSJT-X plus any combination of ADIF formatted files you have stored on your computer, your network, or the internet." It integrates real-time and historical data, supports alerting, tracks award progress, and so much more! See the project repository for the most up-to-date information. WSJT-X 2.5.0 has just been released and is available on the WSJT-X website. " New features are described in the WSJT-X User Guide here and in the Release Notes. If you will use the new Q65 mode, please read the Quick-Start Guide to Q65." Dummy Load A device, usually representing a 50-ohm resistance, that is used in lieu of an antenna for transmitter testing or measurement purposes. Note that a transmitted signal will likely still be radiated when using a dummy load, though at reduced levels. There are many anecdotes of operators inadvertently working stations using a dummy load. Some types of dummy loads are used as intentional radiators, for example, lightbulbs are used in the Lightbulb QSO Party . Max, NG7M, put together "MORTTY / TinyFSK Setup Tutorial for N1MM Logger+ for FSK RTTY HF Contests" back in 2020, it's still relevant today. While Max uses an Elecraft K3 in his video, the material is applicable to most rigs with FSK and PTT inputs. "K3LR interviews CQWW Contest Director K1AR" - Tim, K3LR Alan, AD6E, posted a link to the YouTube video "Bottom Cycle Blues" by Raul, AE3RM, to the Northern California Contest Club reflector with the comment, "Wow, ham radio music." It originated from WA8Y's post to the CWops reflector. Check page 66 of the October 2021 issue of QST for a feature article on Raul and his music. John, VE6EY, demonstrates the use of diversity reception in this video, and how its use can counteract fading and help increase the average signal to noise ratio of received signals. Ward, N0AX, NA CW Sprint Manager, notes: "The September North American CW Sprint Preliminary Results have been published. The log-checked scores and category winners are available on the website. Thanks to the log checking team and our NCJ web admin for their quick work. Contest results author, N3BB, is working on the full writeup with all of the tables, graphs, and photos you enjoy. Welcome to our Sprint newcomers and operators who activated rare states and provinces, as well." The 2021 Hawaii QSO Party results are now available on the Hawaii QSO Party website. According to Alan, AD6E/KH6TU, Icom provided awards support, and the contest robot infrastructure was provided by WA7BNM. The Hawaii QSO Party makes it easy for multi-contest participants by only scoring the HI QSOs in submitted logs and ignoring the others. In 2021, grid squares were allowed for digital mode contacts for the first time. Alan suggests that you "watch the cool videos at the bottom of the main page." Aloha. It's Okay to Use Visual Aids When using a club call sign, or when you're in a phone contest with an unfamiliar or complicated exchange, it's okay to write the call sign and exchange on a piece of paper to reference during the contest. Use painter's tape to stick it to the computer monitor just under the screen. Low-tech, effective, and easy to update. K3RRR noted in a tweet that an outdated Android phone can be repurposed as an antenna rotator controller using the Visual Rotor (by EA7HG) Android application, and some easy-to-build Arduino hardware based on an ATMega2560. EA7HG's YouTube video also illustrates how this works. Alan, VK2LAG, made a cute Open-Short-Load all-in-one. This is a useful tool for calibrating your VNA. If you'd like to print your own, here's a link to it on Thingiverse. Elecraft has released updates to the K4 Programmer's Reference. According to Wayne, N6KR, "This will be of interest to anyone using K4 or K-Pod switch macros or developing K4-compatible applications." The latest, version B14, updates information on a number of commands related to switches, digital output, RIT, line in/out, bar graph and more. Phil Karn, KA9Q, provides a tour of his KA9Q-Radio Package in a PDF appropriately entitled "The KA9Q-Radio Package." The one-sentence description: "The KA9Q-Radio package demonstrates fast convolution and IP multicasting in a flexible, multichannel software defined receiver that easily scales to hundreds of channels on low cost hardware." Think of it as a way to "scale out" the digial signal processing across multiple nodes on a TCP/IP network. It's billed on Hackaday as "The Simplest FT8 Transceiver You'll Ever Build." Charles Hill's Pocket-FT8 mostly uses mostly board level components. A Teensy 3.6 CPU controls a Si4735 receiver chip, and the transmitter chain uses the popular Si5351 programmable oscillator driving a Mini-Circuits GVA84 power amplifier with some filtering. Simple doesn't mean basic - the design sports a color LCD screen! Cut Contacts Cut numbers are used to numerical elements that are part of some contest exchanges. Most CW contesters don't think twice about sending 5NN, saving 6 dash-times by not sending 599. Operating in last weekend's CQ WW RTTY Contest reminded me of the trend to minimize the back-and-forth sequence with various smart macros for RTTY. The normal sequence of a contact goes like this: N9ADG: CQ TEST N9ADG CQ K7RU: K7RU K7RU N9ADG: K7RU 599 03 WA 03 WA K7RU: 599 03 WA 03 WA N9ADG: TU N9ADG CQ One technique that has been accepted for a while now is to chain the confirmation of one contact with the signal report for another with a RTTY macro: N9ADG: CQ TEST N9ADG CQ K7RU: K7RU K7RU KZ1W: KZ1W KZ1W N9ADG: K7RU 599 03 WA 03 WA K7RU: 599 03 WA 03 WA N9ADG: TU K7RU NOW KZ1W 599 03 WA 599 03 ...Contact with KZ1W proceeds Usually operators using N1MM Logger+ have the <F12> key set up to substitute for <F3>, using some variation of {LOGTHENGRAB}TU NOW {F4}{F5}{RX} ! for the actual macro. I'm finding increasing numbers of stations using a different technique -- "cutting" one "over" completely out, by sending their call and exchange, not just their callsign, in response to a CQ. Like this: N9ADG: CQ TEST N9ADG CQ K7RU: N9ADG K7RU 599 03 WA Didn't copy it all? Got a different report than you expected from a previous contact with this station? Just ignore the report, and force them into the traditional exchange. But hey, we all have computers now for logging, especially for RTTY. We know that we've worked that station as we enter the call sign. The previous contact information shows up because our logging computers do this for us. As operators, all we need to do is confirm that the exchange matches the one they gave us the last time, and respond thusly: N9ADG: K7RU 599 03 WA TU N9ADG CQ And...we're done with that contact. Both stations have sent their exchange. Both stations have copied the exchange. The last time I mentioned this a few years ago (yes, it's been around for a while), I got some feedback that this is not to be encouraged. But... why not? The rules don't specify that a minimum number of transmissions must occur for the exchange, and the exchanges are being exchanged. If used correctly, it can save time. In N1MM Logger+, the running station can answer this easily by pressing <F5> <F2> <F3> keys and letting the macros do the work. Sure, this isn't the "traditional" way of doing the exchange. But If someone is going to claim "tradition" as a reason to not do it, I want to see them use a mechanical RTTY machine in the next contest. Our RTTY equipment has evolved, this is a human operator adaptation to having these capabilities. On a personal note: When I became the Editor of the Contest Update in May 2015, I did so because I was a real fan of the publication that Ward, N0AX, had been putting together for 12+ years, originally as the Contest Rate Sheet. I found that the mix of topics that were contest-related was just the thing to keep the contesting spirit going between events. In the 6 years that I've been the Editor, I've learned that the Contest Update only works because of the input and support of ARRL, contest clubs, companies, and individuals in bringing you the biweekly issues. Earlier this year, I expressed my interest to ARRL to continue to keep the Contest Update fresh by giving someone else a chance to entertain and inform you as its Editor. In August, the plan came together as Paul, N1SFE, ARRL's Contest Program Manager, was tapped as the next Contest Update Editor, starting in October. That time is now here. This is my last issue as your Editor. I have especially appreciated your support as readers, and will miss my every-other-Wednesday-morning inbox where your emails arrive in response to the previous night's issue. Radio-wise, I'm planning on a personal uptick in contest participation this fall, and have a few projects that will finally get finished. See you in the next contest! --Brian N9ADG 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 30 Sept - 13 Oct 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, Sep 30, 0300z to Sep 30, 0400z; CW; Bands: 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10m; Member: Name + Member No./"CWA", non-Member: Name + (state/province/country); Logs due: October 2. CWops Mini-CWT Test, Oct 6, 1900z to Oct 6, 2000z; CW; Bands: 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10m; Member: Name + Member No./"CWA", non-Member: Name + (state/province/country); Logs due: October 9. VHF+ CONTESTS Two-Meter Classic Sprint, Oct 2, 1300z to Oct 2, 1330z; CW, SSB; Bands: 2m Only; Serial No. + 4-character grid square; Logs due: October 5.
Also, see Worldwide Sideband Activity Contest, SKCC Sprint Europe, Nevada QSO Party, Arizona QSO Party, Pennsylvania QSO Party, South Dakota QSO Party, SKCC Sprint Europe, above. 30 Sep - 13 Oct September 30 October 1 October 2
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October 10 October 11 October 12 October 13
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