pix_logo01 (5K)NAQCC News

May 26, 2007NAQCC Web Site Issue #047

In this issue:
1. June Challenge.
2. May Sprint Results
3. Latest Bear Hunt News
4. Featured Award of the Month
5. General Club News
6. Member News

1. CHALLENGE: Our June challenge is provided by Mike KC2EGL #1236. When Mike suggested it a few months ago, I thought it was very intriguing and told him we would definitely do it. Now is the time. It's one of our alphabet challenges which seem to appeal to our members. Mike challenges you to construct call signs of members from the call signs of other members worked during the month. It's all explained in Mike's rules, so I won't say more here.

If you have an idea for a challenge, please let us know and we'll consider it.

We're having a second challenge this month also. As you know, each June is ARRL Field Day. For the past couple years we've challenged our members to see who could work the most states during FD, and we're doing so again this year. Let's see if N4UW can defend the title he's held for 2 years now or if someone else can take it away from him.

Only one Participation point is involved, and you can earn it in either challenge.

Full Challenge info here.

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2. MAY SPRINT RESULTS: Our May sprint provided us with some of the best conditions we've yet had for a sprint. 40 meters was the real star of the show with very strong signals on just about any path imaginable. 20 meters was also very good and a record number of QSO's were reported there. 80 meters was also good, but noisy as expected. Also it seemed few folks left 40 meters to try 80, but those who did were rewarded with a few extra QSO's. I (K3WWP) made my best score ever beating my previous best by around 200 points. I hit the 40 QSO mark for the first time. N4BP with his big antenna farm broke the 50 QSO barrier with 51 QSO's, just two shy of the record he established as C6AKQ back in February.

Most likely because of the Dayton Hamfest plus the nice weather, despite the great conditions, participation was down a bit this month. I know personally a few hams who always attend Dayton and head there a bit early were missing from the logs received this month. Still participation was respectable at 37 logs received showing 79 different stations participating.

Cross-checking was both easier and yet more difficult this month. Easier because several participants took advantage of our new downloadable entry forms which made it a simple matter of cut and paste for me to get their logs into our master sprint spreadsheet. Thanks to those who did use the form and followed the instructions exactly. You saved me a lot of time. However three other logs in particular gave me a very hard time. Two did not include QSO times and one had almost all QSO's listed on the wrong band. Both items are extremely important for the actual cross-checking procedure (described here if you're interested in how it works). Those logs probably would have been discarded by other contests who actually do check logs as we do. We're here to teach proper contesting and logging procedures so we are tolerant of such errors.

Our winners were:

1st SWA - K3WWP
1st Gain - N4BP
Special Award (Most 20M QSO's) - N4BP
Top Non-Winner - W9CC

Congratulations to all including winners and non-winners. Actually everyone who participated and sent in a log is a winner because the listing of your results on our web site shows the ham radio world that you are interested in preserving CW on the ham bands. That's one of our main goals here at the NAQCC.

We had 10 stations who didn't submit a log show up from 5 to 14 times in the 37 logs we received and cross-checked. Hopefully those 10 and many others will be back next month AND submit a log.

Full sprint info here.

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3. LATEST BEAR HUNT NEWS: From our Bear Master Ron, K5DUZ:

Does an NAQCC Bear make noise while roaming the forest? We may never know the answer to that question if a Bear volunteer isn't forthcoming! We need a few Bears to get the Bear Hunt back 'on track'. One day, a few days, or an entire week, the choice is yours! The Bear Hunt is a great way to test newly erected antennas or new rigs. Come on Bears! Raise your paws and volunteer! Check the NAQCC Bear Hunt section for full details.

Full bear hunt info here.

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4. FEATURED AWARD OF THE MONTH: Each month in our end-of-the-month newsletter we are going to talk a bit about one of our awards. This month it's the Alphabet Prefix Award. This award was instituted because of the popularity of CQ Magazine's WPX award. However we are not copy cats so we felt it should be modified from the CQ rules. Instead of using the standard definition of a prefix, we use the first two characters of a call sign. That is, K3WWP would give you K3, KB3LFC gives you KB, DQ2006X would be DQ, 3A2MW is 3A, and so on. Unlike the WPX award, this gives a fixed number of 'prefixes' to shoot for. USA Calls (including US possessions) provide a total of 120. DX provide a theoretical maximum number of 1196 combinations although not all 1196 actually exist. The basic certificate is issued for 100 USA and/or 400 DX 'prefixes'. We hope you'll check out and work for this award. As always, read and be familiar with the complete rules before embarking on earning this or any award.

Full NAQCC Awards info here.

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5. GENERAL CLUB NEWS: We would still very much like to have your comments on the new newsletter format since it is still in its infancy. We have received several so far, and all have been positive.

pix_blueball (1K) Club President KB3LFC, Vice President K3WWP, and members N3IJR and KC2EGL will be manning a table at the Butler, PA hamfest on Sunday June 3rd. If you're in the area we hope you'll visit the hamfest and say hello. See http://www.breezeshooters.net/ for info about the hamfest.

pix_blueball (1K) Thanks to W9FNB who has agreed to help out our blind member Lou, WA9TPZ by providing him with club info. Also thanks to N9SJV and WA7OET for their offers and help in this matter.

pix_blueball (1K) Be sure to tell all your QRP/CW friends about the book prize in our June sprint. In case you haven't heard, we're giving away two books by Dave, K4TWJ to the members who submit the two highest scores in the sprint. The books are: World of Keys and Keys II: The Emporium. One was donated by K4TWJ and the other purchased with member donations. Full details are in the June sprint rules.

pix_blueball (1K) Starting with the July sprint we will be continuing our prize each month with the prize being a set of CD's to the member with the highest overall score. A member can win the CD's only once, so we can have as many different winners as possible. In the December and June sprint each year, the CD's will be won in a random drawing of all members who make at least 5 QSO's and submit a log. This is just a teaser, and more details will be made public as the July sprint draws nearer. Right now we want to emphasize our June sprint and its prize.

pix_blueball (1K) We want to compliment and congratulate our fellow CW-supporting organization FISTS. As is the NAQCC, FISTS is courteous and considerate of other organizations and their activities. The latest Keynote indicates that the July FISTS sprint has been moved from Saturday afternoon to Friday evening to avoid a conflict with the IARU RadioSports Championship. FISTS was correct in being the one to move since the IARU contest was 'there first' with their second weekend in July schedule. In fact, the IARU contest goes back to before FISTS was even founded.

It's great that a club like FISTS can do the honorable thing in such matters. Having priority to a certain schedule, frequency, etc. is very important and should be honored. This shows what a class organization FISTS is. We are proud that our two organizations can work so well together to promote CW.

We urge other organizations to follow the lead of FISTS and the NAQCC. We urge all our NAQCC members to enter the FISTS sprint on the evening of July 13th to show our appreciation of their thoughtfulness and courtesy.

pix_blueball (1K) We've posted a page on the web site dealing with the club activity days mentioned previously. Check out and comment on the following: main_activity.html.

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6. MEMBER NEWS: This is YOUR section of the newsletter. We want to know what our members are doing with CW and QRP on the ham bands. We present only POSITIVE news here, and only news concerning QRP/CW. Brag about that new rare country you worked last week. Tell how you finally worked KL7 to finish your 40 meters WAS. Share your excitement in working halfway around the world to Australia with 100 mW. Tell us how you built that new little QRP rig or keyer paddle from scratch. Give us the URL to your brand new CW/QRP web site so we can all take a look. Do a review of your K1 you just finished building.

We've received the following news items for this issue. Is yours among them? I'm sure you've done something newsworthy that you want to share with your fellow members, so come on and send that news to our news editor Paul KD2MX at pix_email_kd2mx (1K).

From John K3WWP #0002 - I was delighted to win the SWA category of our May sprint. Delighted and amazed because I thought for sure someone with a better antenna setup and location would blow me away, but it didn't happen. I think I'm more proud of this victory than any of my 9 previous wins. Mainly it serves to show that you can accomplish many things in ham radio despite not having a huge antenna farm and fabulous location. I hope my efforts encourage those in similar situations to not give up, but continue to work towards their goals in ham radio.

The publication of our next newsletter will be announced via email to all members for whom we have a valid email address unless you specifically have unsubscribed from the email.

Past on-line newsletters beginning with issue #042 are now archived on the site. So if you missed seeing any past issues, you can check them out in the archives.

If you came directly to this newsletter, we invite you now to browse the NAQCC Web Site.