Category — Contesting

It was a big contest weekend, at least here in the states with the ARRL VHF contest. Lots of people were out looking for elusive VHF openings and stations to work — and found them. Quickly perusing the scores this morning finds many stations worked over quite some distances. Amongst the floods of the Midwest, it looks like a little break was found for the the weather weary.

On the other hand, it was also the weekend of the ANARTS RTTY contest. I was able to participate in the contest this time around from home. However, conditions just sucked. With the solar flux sitting at 64-67 most of the weekend and the K-index from 2-3, not much was bouncing off the ionosphere to work.

I heard nothing east of Texas from Seattle-land. No DX, though I understand there was a brief opening on Saturday evening around 1700Z to Europe.

It’s tough to slog it out with poor conditions. Fortunately, it was a lot of fun and great to be on the air again (more on this later).

Hope you enjoyed your weekend.

Scot, K9JY

Receive articles automatically: subscribe through a news reader or via e-mail. Choose in the "Subscribe" box top right or K9JY.com Subscriptions for more info.

The W9DXCC Convention has released their 2008 program.

The W9DXCC was THE convention to go to outside of Dayton when I lived in the Midwest. It was the very first ham convention I ever attended.

The convention is great fun, well attended, and run pretty well. And this year’s programs look great.

Scot, K9JY

Just announced on one of the reflectors I subscribe to, the Dayton Antenna and Contest Forums are now on-line.

Antenna Forum

The Dayton Antenna Forum has three presentations. The first is Real World Antenna Patterns vs. Theoretical Computer Antenna Plots by Mike Wetzel, W9RE, and Tom Chance, K9XV.

The second is A New Approach for Measuring Complex Antenna Currents in a Vertical Array by Greg Ordy, W8WWV (love THAT call…).

And the third is Multi-element Lowband Vertical Arrays - Approaches for Small Lots by Ted Rappaport, N9NB, and Ray Sokola, K9RS.

Nice to see those Midwestern calls!

Contest Forum

The contest forum offers six presentations.

The first is, of course, the 2008 Dayton Contest Forum Introduction by Doug Grant, K1DG.

The second is Passing the NCJ Torch by Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LZ, and Alan Dewey, K0AD. (Doing nice job as well).

The third is When Giants Walked the Bands – The Early Days of Multi-Multi by Doug Zwiebel, KR2Q.

The fourth is SDR and Contesting – The Future is Now by Pete Smith, N4ZR.

The fifth is Beamforming on 160 Meters by Victor Kean, K1LT.

Finally, Contesting with 28 Miles of Feedline by my former neighbor John Battin, K9DX

Thanks to KKN.net for hosting these presentations. All of the links are PDF files.

Scot, K9JY

In this series on Club Program ideas, I’m providing possible programs for clubs to use in their meetings. You can find a full explanation of the approach in Club Programs – The Series.

Today’s program idea: Compare Multi-Two contesting to single operator contesting.

Contesting is a great way to test our stations in a defined time frame. Yet, having a multi-two contesting station is quite different than a single operator station. There is different strategy and teamwork now comes into play. Describing these differences will bring members into a different world then most have seen in the past.

Here are possible subjects to present:

• Station equipment requirements
• Station antenna requirements
• Interstation interference needs
• Working with teams
• Scheduled operating times
• Passing multipliers
• Dividing the work

Bonus program suggestion: requirements for a competitive multi-multi station.

Scot, K9JY

The NEW HTML version of the Contest Rate Sheet is now out — and it is MUCH better than the old text version.

Of course, I’ve been on the web a long time and prefer the look of HTML to text.

Highlights:

• Name change. Was the ARRL Contest Rate Sheet; now is The ARRL Contest Update
• The top summary paragraph will link you directly to the section. No more scrolling.
• Bigger type. Easier reading
• Headlines in red, text in black. Easier to navigate.
• Links in the sections are now typical hyperlinks, not Tiny URL’s or spelled out as in the text version. Improves readability.
• Sub-sections done in bold — easier to read and navigate
• Includes pictures! It was great to see my old neighbor John, K9DX, and fellow SMC’er Jerry, WB9Z, “holding up the wall” at Dayton.

Can you say “exceeded expectations?” Yup. Really nice.

How to get it:

The ARRL Contest Update is published every other Wednesday (26 times each year). ARRL members may subscribe at no cost or unsubscribe by editing their Member Data Page as described at http://www.arrl.org/contests/update/.

Well worth it if you contest. And now even better.

Scot, K9JY

In this first of a series on Club Program ideas, you might as well strike while the controversy is hot!

CW Skimmer is a program that decodes CW callsigns heard within a bandwidth on your radio. It is a brand new approach to decoding Morse code. The software is controversial because it may help people decode pileups and contest calls without decoding “by ear.”

Suggested program:

1. Explanation of the software
2. Demonstration (slides) of the software
3. Personal experience in using the software in contest
4. Personal experience of using the software in a DX pileup
5. Personal advantages and disadvantages of the software

The objective of this program is to show the new technology in use at a station. This is not a technology that will work well for all purposes and amateurs. The program works better with Software Defined Radios simply because the passband is bigger. All important types of information for learning about the software.

The after-the-meeting meeting can have discussions on what contest class this software should be included in for contesting!

Scot, K9JY