 October 4, 2017 Editor: Paul Bourque, N1SFE | ||
IN THIS ISSUE
A receiving antenna can make all the difference on the lower bands, as it can provide a better the signal to noise ratio than typical transmitting antennas. Some examples that aren't too complex and don't take up too much room include a loop or flag. At times you can even use an existing antenna for a different band. For example, at my QTH during a VP8 DXpedition a few years ago the signals on 160-meters were not receivable using a dipole, but they were audible on a 40-meter vertical. The Low-Band DXing book by ON4UN has many fine examples of receiving antennas, and W8JI's website describes theory and practice. 5-Oct - 18-Oct 2017 Complete information for all contests follows the Conversation section October 5 October 6 October 7
October 8 October 9 October 10 October 11 October 12 October 13 October 14
October 15
October 16 October 18 Reminder: Beginning with the recent ARRL September VHF Contest, log deadlines are shorter for the majority of ARRL Contests. In summary, ARRL VHF Contests now have a 10-day log deadline - and starting with November Sweepstakes, ARRL HF Contests now have a 5-day log deadline. Reminder part deux: If your club participates in the ARRL Contest Club Competition, remind the club member taking care of the details that if they haven't done so, it's time to review the membership eligibility lists for the 2017-2018 contest season. This must be done BEFORE the first point-qualifying contest, ARRL Sweepstakes, otherwise sadness may ensue: "club results will be calculated based on only the eligible members that you file in your eligibility list uploads before the contest begins." No Mulligans on this one: see the September QST article on "ARRL Contest Changes for the 2017-2018 Season" (PDF) or the web page for the details. After the recent hurricanes in the Caribbean, and just five days before the contest, the sponsors of the North American SSB Sprint cancelled the October 1 (September 30 local) contest, to not have any chance of impacting the important health and welfare traffic using the Amateur bands. According to Bob Hayes, KW8N, NA SSB Sprint Committee Chairman, "As much as many enjoy this contest and were looking forward to participating in it this weekend, it is necessary and appropriate to give wide berth to the health and welfare communications now taking place on the Amateur Bands. We encourage all Amateur Radio operators to assist or donate to the recovery efforts through appropriate aid organizations." According to the SSB Sprint website, the contest has been rescheduled for November 12, 2017. The popular and historic Oceania DX (OCDX) Contest runs on two consecutive contest weekends, one for Phone and one for CW. October 7, 2017, 0800z is the start of the phone event. According to the sponsors, "multipliers are the key" to winning this radio contest. In the OCDX contest, Oceania prefixes count as multipliers the first time they're worked per band, where 'prefix' includes the number. As an example, ZL1, ZM1, ZL2 and ZM2 are four multipliers. While you may be able to find uncommon Oceania prefixes on CW using cluster spots, you'll have to aggressively hunt for the rare ones for the SSB event. Some rare ones are planned -- it's anticipated that Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling Island will be on the air for the phone and CW weekends, respectively. Overall activity is expected to be brisk: despite declining conditions in 2016, new records were set, and over 1200 logs were received. For more information, check the website for the rules, anticipated activations, and general information on entering this contest. Jeff, WK6I, writes: How do you do a contest like Makrothen? (with apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein) Given up for dead a year ago, the Makrothen contest is back with a vengeance, now sponsored by the Pizza Lovers 259 club of Northern California. The Makrothen - which is a word meaning "great distance" in ancient Greek - is one of the few distance-scored contests conducted below 50MHz. Competitors exchange 4-character Maidenhead grid squares, and the score is calculated based on the distance in kilometers between the grid square centers. There are some additional details - like band multipliers, see the rules - but basically you add up all your 'klicks' and that's your score. Distance Based Scoring provides a more equitable scoring system that minimizes the station location advantage that is so typical of most other HF contests. This allows stations around the world to compete with one another on effectively the same terms making the contest more fun for all participants! Now that I have your attention, perhaps I should mention... it's a RTTY contest! There are some other additional twists. The Makrothen is nominally a 24-hour contest, but that is split into three 8-hour periods during which everyone operates, separated by 8-hour pauses where everyone takes a break. Also, the Makrothen features a separate single-op, multi-receiver category. If your contesting proclivities lean towards SO2R or SO2V (using the sub-receiver on a single transceiver), be sure to enter this category. All categories may operate with assistance. The rules, some additional background and resources, and log submission can all be found at https://www.pl259.org/makrothen/. The first contest period occurs on October 14. Scott, N3FJP, announces that a new version of his Pennsylvania QSO Party Contest Logger is now available via his website. Recent changes to the PAQP have added additional Canadian multipliers. In related news, Scott's non-QSO Party software now supports multiple real time contest scoreboards. Bruce Horn's popular Contest Calendar website has a new URL! The new link for WA7BNM's Contest Calendar is http://www.contestcalendar.com. Beep, Beep, Beep, Sold! A vintage full-scale test version of Russia's 1950's Sputnik satellite sold for $847,000 last week. If you're looking for a modern beacon transmitter you can use on the Amateur bands, including the new ones at 2200 and 630 meters, check out QRP Labs' Ultimate3S kit. Some people have flown the Ultimate3S to over 6 miles height and around the world using high-altitude balloons. (Dennis, N6KI) WRTC 2018 announces the completion of the selection of all 63 teams with the determination of the Youth and Wild Card spots. Youth teams are comprised of operators under the age of 25. Seven Youth teams applied, and the three selected will be led by CE2MVF, YO8TTT, and HA8RT. The Wild Card teams include K1DG and teammate N2NT, along with teams captained by 9A7DX, YV1DIG, ZL3CW, and UN9LW. I asked Lance, W7GJ, what it would take to make just one Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) contact in the upcoming ARRL EME Contest, just to do it. It could be a nice challenge to share among a group of club members. Lance has quite a bit of experience in this area, dragging EME gear to many far away places just to give other Amateurs rare grids on this mode. His reply: "Here is a quick introduction for someone who might want to try 6-meter or 2-meter EME. I have worked many single Yagi stations on both 2m and 6m, and the only for thing for sure is that if you don't try, you won't be successful. The first step on trying EME on 6m or 2m would be to download WSJT-X and learn how to use it to operate JT65. A step-by-step checklist for setting up the program is at http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj/JT65.pdf. One of the very popular features of WSJT-X is that it will work with most modern rigs that have some sort of USB cable to control the rig by computer using CAT (a separate "computer interface" box is not necessary in such a case). If you cannot elevate your antenna, and you have a quiet QTH with chance for good ground gain (smooth, unobstructed terrain toward your east or west), find someone who has a larger array with elevation so they can track the moon and run a sked with you while your moon ascends (or descends) through your ground gain antenna lobes below 20 degrees elevation. You can run the WSJT-X "ECHO MODE" to check on your own as to whether you have ground gain lobes and what moon elevations work best for you, given your antenna height above ground, and the steepness of the terrain around your antenna site. Ground gain lobes work best if you don't have any buildings or HF antennas below your VHF antennas to shield them from the valuable ground gain reflections. You can compare the gain of popular antennas and learn more about ground gain on my website. Especially on 6m, it is important to increase your chances by trying EME on a day when conditions are best for EME. The best days for 6m EME are also shown on my website. In addition, you should avoid days when there is aurora or a high Kp index. Next, if you want to try to work somebody on 6m, go to the ON4KST EME chat page and try to line up a JT65A mode sked with a big station. If you want to try 2m, follow the same steps as above, but go to this page to arrange a sked. GL and DX! VY 73, Lance" October 15 is the first date that most US Amateurs can realistically use the new 2200 and 630 meter bands. The PSKReporter website is ready to take reception reports from digital mode applications like WSJT-X that support report uploading. The ARRL School Club Roundup starts October 16, and ends October 20. Be on the lookout for activity, and give out a few contacts if you can. Klick - shorthand, or even slang, for kilometer. There are 620 miles for every 1000 klicks. Frank, W3LPL, will be joining Carl, K9LA, for the World Wide Radio Operator Foundation (WWROF) webinar "A Look at Propagation for the 2017/2018 Contest Season." You can mark Wednesday, October 4, 9 PM EDT (Thursday, October 5 - 01:00 UTC) in your calendar, and don't forget to pre-register. They'll discuss the current solar cycle 24, what to expect over the next six months, and how it will affect the contest season.
Jose, CT1BOH, read an article by K9LA entitled "Solar Flares at ZF2RR" and that encouraged him to share his own observations (in 2009) of a X4.0 flare that affected is 2000 CQWW CW P40E contest operation. Jose has graphs of the solar flux observations, and 26 minutes of audio on 21 and 28 MHz during the event. Presentations from the recent Six-Meter BBQ are starting to appear on YouTube. Here's one by David Shoaf, KG6IRW, talking about six-meter DXing and Contesting. Ed, W0YK, states that raw scores for the CQWW RTTY Contest have been posted. He notes that these are NOT the same as claimed scores. Raw scores are calculated from the official scoring software before any penalties or deductions are considered. "Final log checking may change these numbers." "The 2017 Kansas QSO Party preliminary results are posted to the Kansas QSO Party website. We had a record 383 logs (up from our previous high of 325), 113 Kansas operators and 51 1x1 call signs spelling KANSAS, QSOPARTY, SUNFLOWER and BISON. John, N6MU swept all 105 counties for a 7th year in a row. Please look over the results and contact Bob, W0BH with corrections/problems. Thanks to all who participated!" (Bob, W0BH, KSQP Coordinator) Use the RF gain control effectively It's easy to overlook the RF gain control, but it can be another tool you can use to more quickly get stations into the log. With most radios, adjusting the RF gain control down results in an increase in the S-meter indication. In the presence of fading on a signal, you can adjust the RF gain just to the point where you can still hear your signal, but the S-meter is steady, with no fluctuations. At this point, any effects of AGC on the signal should be minimal, and your copy should improve. Some operators even turn OFF their AGC to dig for the really weak ones on relatively quiet bands, preferring to manually control the gain using the RF Gain control. In noisy bandy conditions you can reduce RF gain, thereby reducing overall noise levels, which can help to decrease operator fatigue. Anyone who has tried to record both ends of a CW QSO using the USB sound card built in to an IC-7300 or IC-7851 quickly discovers that received audio is recorded OK, but transmitted CW sidetone is not. The recorded audio mutes completely whenever you transmit CW. This frustrating limitation of Icom radios has been documented in the N1MM online manual, and in N6TV's Contest University presentations. A solution to this longstanding limitation has finally been discovered! K5DHY reported that sidetone was being recorded OK on his IC-7300. Mystified, N6TV asked K3CT to investigate, and John discovered that simply changing the obscure menu item USB AF Beep/Speech... Output to ON immediately enabled CW sidetone to be recorded OK over the USB connection, along with any received audio. With some contest sponsors requiring top competitors to make recordings of all transmitted and received audio, one task just became much simpler. This works for the IC-7300, IC-7850, IC-7851, and probably the new IC-7610, but be advised that the default setting is OFF instead of ON, so action is required to make this work. (Bob, N6TV) Guy, K2AV has preserved and enhanced the Folded CounterPoise (FCP) antenna information that Jack, W0UCE (SK) previously maintained, and has placed it on his website, K2AV.com. Guy and Jack started a correspondence about this antenna after Guy's article "The FCP: A 160 Meter Counterpoise for a Postage-Stamp Lot" appeared in the May/June 2012 NCJ. Information that has been added since the original article includes using it in an Inverted L configuration. Guy calls his website a "work in progress" since he intends to add more information as experimentation proceeds. That fireball that you see in the sky could be the origin story for yet another movie superhero, but it's more likely to be a meteor, which is defined as the "visible path of meteoroids that have entered the Earth's atmosphere at high velocities." In addition to being adequate but fleeting targets for VHF signals, they can also put on quite a show. Of course there's a website for tracking them. The term "dual use item" is now an appropriate descriptor for Xbox controllers. Perhaps in the future we'll be swiping left and right to work our way through the pileups? Pitching In You've likely seen the hurricane Maria recovery coverage on the news, on the ARRL website, in the ARRL Letter. According to Fred Kleber, K9VV/NP2X, "Life is returning to some sort of normalcy in the VI while our neighbors in PR are well into the 'desperation state'. " Amateurs are contributing with pragmatic solutions to providing support to those who have been thrust back into the pre-electrification era. Fred notes that he's "part of a team which is slated to fly a plane with a tow banner over remote parts remote parts of PR. The banner will instruct anyone with a ham or FRS (the cheap walkie-talkies you can buy at Walmart or sports stores) on which frequencies to call for help. The plane will have a ham operator, GPS, and a repeater on it to obtain status and summon help, if needed. Low tech but effective in reaching remote parts of PR which still haven't received aid." The ARRL in conjunction with the American Red Cross have sent a team of fifty Amateurs to Puerto Rico assist with on-the-ground communications and relief. A number of Amateurs based in the continental US have been relaying traffic. Some are contesters, and no doubt their experience in operating and handling information quickly has benefited them. Amateur related businesses have answered the call for resources with equipment and support of their employees' time in service of this disaster. At least one contest has been rescheduled to avoid any possibility of interference with recovery related communications. As the recovery progresses over the next few months, just being aware that the effort is continuing can help out in small ways - for example being aware of potential frequencies that can be in use, listening just a little more carefully before transmitting, and remembering to support the aid organizations already there. According to Fred, the goal of the Virgin Island government is "restoration of power to 90% of St. Croix by Christmas." He points out that "the simple things in life, like the light switch, power, water, a toilet flushing, and so on, have taken on a whole new meaning." 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 05-Oct - 18-Oct 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, Oct 4, 1300z to Oct 4, 1400z, Oct 4, 1900z to Oct 4, 2000z, Oct 5, 0300z to Oct 5, 0400z; CW; Bands: 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10m; Member: Name + Member No., non-Member: Name + (state/province/country); Logs due: October 7. VHF+ CONTESTS ARRL EME Contest, Oct 7, 0000z to Oct 8, 2359z; CW, Phone, Digital; Bands: 50-1296 MHz; Signal report; Logs due: December 6. UBA ON Contest, 6m, Oct 8, 0800z to Oct 8, 1000z; CW, Phone; Bands: 6m Only; ON: RS(T) + Serial No. + ON Section, non-ON: RS(T) + Serial No.; Logs due: October 29. UBA ON Contest, 2m, Oct 15, 0700z to Oct 15, 1000z; CW, Phone; Bands: 2m Only; ON: RS(T) + Serial No. + ON Section, non-ON: RS(T) + Serial No.; Logs due: November 5. 05-Oct - 18-Oct 2017 October 5, 2017 October 6, 2017 October 7, 2017 October 8, 2017 October 9, 2017 October 10, 2017 October 12, 2017 October 15, 2017 October 16, 2017 October 17, 2017 October 18, 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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