![]() | NAQCC News |
Jun 28, 2008 | NAQCC Web Site | Issue #073 |
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In this issue: 1. July Challenge. 2. June Sprints Results 3. Latest Award Winners 4. Operating Tips 5. General Club News 6. Member News |
1. CHALLENGE: Our July challenge is basically the idea of Randy KB4QQJ. It's a poker challenge in which you make poker hands from the calls of stations you work. It's a bit complicated but we know all our members are intelligent enough to figure it out and have a lot of fun with it whether your favorite activity is rag chewing, contesting, or anything in between. Just read the rules through thoroughly and give it a go. Of course then at the end of the month send us your results. I'm delighted to say our members are becoming very interested in our challenges to the point of finding little points of order in the rules that we didn't cover initially. Please check the rules for this challenge just before July 1st to see any updates we've made based on our members' findings. Continuing this month everyone who completes the challenge and reports their results according to the rules is entered into a drawing to win one of the remaining sets of the bug or paddle handle pieces donated by Gregg WB8LZG. The winner gets to select which variety of pieces he or she needs for their particular bug or paddle. Please let us know when you submit your results if you don't want to be included in the drawing for any reason whatsoever (perhaps you don't own a bug or paddle). Otherwise you will be included, and if you win and then aren't interested, we'll have to go through the effort of a second drawing. Full Challenge info here. ![]() 2. JUNE SPRINT RESULTS 1: Of course we had 2 sprints in June - our regular monthly one and a special mW sprint. This section describes the results of the regular sprint. Conditions sort of flip-flopped from our May sprint, at least for many participants. Great in May, poor in June. As a result most scores were down this month except perhaps for those with the big high antennas. Only one record was set this sprint - the number of 20M QSO's, but our sprint participation remained very strong despite the poor conditions. We're proud of our members sticking with us through thick and thin. You're a great bunch! This month in the second go-around of our new division setup we had logs from all four time zones and our gain category, so 5 certificates were mailed out (plus the Special Award certificate) the day after the log submission deadline. Each month more and more logs adhere to our suggested format which means my job of log checking is getting easier and easier each month. Thank you very much for making an old man's job easy. Let's look at the stats now. STATS - current month, previous month, all time record, mo/yr (blue indicates a record set this month):
Logs - 49 54 62 4/08
Stns in logs - 78 110 110 5/08
Hour 1 QSO's - 300 414 500 4/08
Hour 2 QSO's - 199 256 449 3/08
Total QSO's - 499 670 898 4/08
20M QSO's - 185 135 185 6/08
40M QSO's - 300 456 602 4/08
80M QSO's - 14 79 481 12/07
Autologger logs - 43 49 54 4/08
WINNERS:1st SWA East - KA8MPT 1st SWA Central - W5TM 1st SWA Mountain - W0JFR 1st SWA Pacific - KA7SPS 1st Gain - K4BAI Special Award Drawing Entrants (portable operation): KB4QQJ, KD0V, K7RE Drawing Winner: KD0V CW Books on CD Drawing Entrants (donated by Chuck Adams K7QO): WB8LZG, W5TM, NO2D, KA7SPS, K4CZ Drawing Winner: NO2D Congratulations to all including winners and non-winners. Actually everyone who participated and sent in a log is a winner because that shows the ham radio world that there are many folks still using and enjoying CW on the ham bands. That's one of our main goals here at the NAQCC. Very special thanks to those who reported their results even though they made only a few QSO's. Those reports are important also. We had 4 stations who didn't submit a log show up 5 or more times in the 49 logs we received and cross-checked. Hopefully those 4 and many others will be back next month AND submit a log. We welcome these hams who submitted a sprint log for the first time. We hope they will continue to participate and report their results: K7RE, KA7SPS, KD8HCT, KF4KRV, N5SPE, N9WAY, NV4B, 2. JUNE SPRINT RESULTS 2: Our milliwatt sprint was plagued by high QRN levels. As a result, we are thinking of either moving it to a winter month or keeping it in June, but adding an additional one in a winter month. We did not do any log cross-cheking nor any statistical analysis as we do with our regular sprints. Also the only awards for this special sprint were a 1st place certificate for the SWA category and a 1st place certificate for the GAIN category. You'll notice that the winners and those who finished near the top in the results all had big and/or high antennas. I'd just like to say that you shouldn't be discouraged by that. You can also have a lot of fun and success with simpler antennas using milliwatt power levels. So give it a try when you get the chance, and of course in our next mW sprint. Those winners were: SWA - KG4W GAIN - K7RE There were 29 logs received Full sprint info here. ![]() 3. AWARD WINNERS THE PAST TWO MONTHS: KC0ZLR - 1000MPW #0038 N2AUR - Worked All States #0008 K1YAN - 1000MPW #0039 We hope to add your call to the list of award winners soon. Full List of all award winners here. ![]() 4. OPERATING TIPS: Until our NAQCC Elmer program is put into effect by Ron K5DUZ and Karl N3IJR, we are going to offer an operating tip in each newsletter to try to address the neeeds of our members who are new to operating CW. Our first tip deals with calling CQ. It is important to strike a good balance between calling and listening time. If you make your CQ's too long, folks will tire of waiting for you to end and look for someone else. If you make them too short and then spend time listening for a minute or more for an answer, folks will just not hear your CQ and tune right past your frequency. OK, that's how NOT to call CQ. Let's talk about the best tried and true method that has proved successful over many years, and really works for the QRP operator. CQ CQ CQ DE K3WWP K3WWP K is the best possible CQ. Send CQ three times, then DE followed by your call twice, and finish with K. Do that sequence ONE time, then pause to listen for an answer. If you don't get an answer after 5 seconds or so, do the sequence again, and again, and again..... (of course with the pause to listen for answers) until you give up or get an answer. Most of the time it will be the second alternative - you will get an answer. While listening for an answer, don't forget to tune up and down about a half kHz or so using your rig's RIT especially if you have a very sharp filter in the rig. A lot of hams are not good at zero beating a signal or may be xtal controlled and may call up to 1/2 kHz (500 Hz) or more away from your frequency. We'll have more tips to help you improve your operating skills in each newsletter. YOU can help US by letting us know what you would like to see discussed here. Just email ![]() ![]() 5. GENERAL CLUB NEWS: ![]() ![]() 1. Be sure to put your NAQCC membership number (and web site URL if room permits) prominently on your QSL cards. Write it on your present cards, and be sure to have it printed on your next batch of cards. Don't forget to put it on your eQSL cards also if you use the eQSL service. 2. If you use email (who doesn't these days?) to communicate with other hams, ham clubs, ham equipment retailers, etc., be sure to prominently include your NAQCC membership number and web site URL in your email signature. 3. Talk up the NAQCC at your local radio club, in your on-air QSO's, in any kind of ham radio article or reflector posting you write, and any time ham radio is discussed. The club web site URL is http://naqcc.info/ Those are just a few of the ways you can help increase our club growth rate and in turn increase the effort being made to preserve CW on the ham bands. ![]() Gary K1YAN suggested a couple other awards we can add to our collection. They are similar to a PSK club's awards, but we will modify them so we can be true to one of our club's mottoes, "The Club With A Difference". They probably will debut in August in time for the end of summer and hopefully increased CW activity on the ham bands. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() 6. MEMBER NEWS: We all want to hear about your exploits using CW and QRP, and this is the place to post that info. So send the info to our news editor Paul KD2MX at ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() When the mW Sprint began, the temperature was still in the 80s and the winds were calm. The noise on 40 meters was getting worse, so I stayed on 20. Of the five contacts, Rick, AA4W, was the farthest at 1,500 miles away in Florida. I checked indo.com's distance calculator and found that all but one contact qualified for 1,000 miles-per-watt. ![]() For QRP operating from the boat, my Yaesu FT-817 hangs by straps below the center seat in the boat. I use Velcro wrapped around my leg to hold a 4" x 6" spiral notebook for logging. The Palm mini-paddles rest on top of that. The antenna is a 33-foot, homebrew EFHW supported by an MFJ fiberglass pole mounted in the bow. Despite its appearance, the arrangement is quite stable on the water. With two sets of toroid loading coils, the antenna is an electrical half wave on 40m. With the coils bypassed, it becomes a full size half wave on 20. I match the high impedance with a parallel L/C circuit made with more toroids and a tuning cap from an old AM radio. I use no counterpoise or radials. ![]() The hour went by too fast, but it was a workday, and I still had to pack up the boat and gear, drive home, and then unpack before heading off to bed. It took me two extra hours to fall asleep as I pondered purchasing a straight key, thought about what lake I would try for the next contest, or whether I might use my backpack setup and operate pedestrian mobile. After all, why be stuck playing radio inside when the weather is so nice? I'm looking forward to participating in future NAQCC sprints. ![]() ![]() |
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