![]() | NAQCC News |
Apr 25, 2009 | NAQCC Web Site | Issue #093 |
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In this issue: 1. May Challenge. 2. April Sprint Results 3. General Club News 4. Elmer Project 5. Latest Award Winners 6. News Items and Articles by Our Members |
1. MAY CHALLENGE: This is the second running of our 2-4-10-20 challenge. As the rules state - Make 30 QRP QSO's during the month using at least 4 separate bands. 10 QSO's must be regular QSO's (i.e. non-contest, non-net, non-sked), and 20 must be contest QSO's made in at least 2 different contests. Everyone who does that gets a certificate so here's a chance to easily earn a piece of wallpaper for the shack to show off to visitors. As you should do for every challenge, sprint, and award, read and understand the rules completely before you do anything. Here in the newsletters we just give a brief synopsis of what's going on. Full Challenge info here. ![]() 2. APRIL SPRINT RESULTS: IMPORTANT - Before we get to the results, we have some bad news to report. Windstream Communications who provides our sprint autologger has told us they are no longer offering that service after June 30, 2009. That means we lose a very effective and efficient means of submitting sprint results - UNLESS one of you can help. This is a bit technical, but it won't be for anyone who may be in a position to help out. We need someone who has a web site with a host that allows access to their cgi scripts. Specifically the mailform.cgi script. If those qualifications fit you, and you are willing, I believe you could upload our autologger page to your web site and we could link to that for our autologger. Or if you have any other way of coming up with a nearly 100% successful way of submitting logs, let us know. Now on to the results from April. Yet another white hole phenomenon this month in my area, but this time I shared it with a fairly large portion of the country, it seems. There were a lot of good scores with many folks putting 20+ and even 30+ QSO's in their logs. Our 64 logs submitted tied our record. Hopefully in May we will break the record. We could have done it this month, but a few folks who usually send in logs didn't do it for whatever reason despite their call showing up in many of the logs we did receive and cross-check. We have been receiving more and more comments about the thorough way we handle log checking - all of them positive and similar to this from Richard KG1W: "I'm sure I speak for most members when I thank you for the time and care you devote to checking the logs." We do believe in accuracy in contesting, especially in logging. That's why we take the considerable time and effort to cross-check all logs each sprint, and report score-changing errors to the participant. We also give anyone with a 'not in log' error a chance to check with the other fellow (gal) to find out if the QSO should really be there. Here now are the full statistics clearly showing the great turnout we had. I was surprised and a little disappointed in 20M, but 40M was fantastic and 80M quite good also except in certain areas where there was a lot of QRN. 40 and 20 should be quite good for the next few months with the lengthening of the daylight hours: STATS - current month, previous month, all time record, mo/yr (blue indicates a record set this month): Apr Mar Rec Month Logs - 64 57 64 9/08 &4/09 Autologger logs - 59 51 59 4/09 Stns in logs - 96 88 110 5/08 Hour 1 QSO's - 542 356 564 9/08 Hour 2 QSO's - 424 322 476 9/08 Total QSO's - 967 678 1040 9/08 20M QSO's - 11 24 185 6/08 40M QSO's - 617 285 709 9/08 80M QSO's - 339 369 481 12/07WINNERS: 1st SWA East - K3WWP 1st SWA Central - AA9L 1st SWA Mountain - N0TA 1st SWA Pacific - NU7T 1st Gain - W9CTB Special Award (most canadian QSO's) Drawing Entrants: K3WWP, W9ILF, AA9L, N0TA, NU7T Drawing Winner: AA9L 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. Your reports are important also. We had 10 stations who didn't submit a log show up 5-25 times in the 63 logs we received and cross-checked. Hopefully those 10 and many others will be back next month AND submit a log. Remember submitting a log doubles the strength of your statement that you support CW operation. We welcome these hams who submitted a sprint log for the first time. We hope they will continue to participate and report their results: K0IE, K0MLT, K4KSR, K5PSH, K9PL, KT4LF, N2ICZ, VA3TSK, W9CTB Full sprint info here. ![]() 3. GENERAL CLUB NEWS: ![]() What I said there about our Autologger applies equally to our Membership Application form. We lose that also after June 30, 2009, and need a replacement exactly as we do for the Autologger. Can you help? Let us know. ![]() The member can be anyone including officers with the exception of K3WWP who will be selecting and inserting the call. Selection of the member will be made in an Excel spreadsheet cell that contains the formula "=RAND()*(3677)" where 3677 will be the number of the latest member to join. The spreadsheet will be loaded into Excel and re-calculated 7 times. The call of the member with the selected number will then be inserted into the newsletter somewhere in the k3wwp middle of a sentence just like my call in this sentence. Since there are many calls mentioned in a newsletter we will make it obvious from the context (as in the example) which one is the potential winner. Every member gets one, and only one chance to win. A member's call will only be used in one newsletter, then they are removed from any further consideration, whether they find their call and win or don't find it and miss out. ![]() ![]() 4. ELMER PROJECT: From Karl N3IJR - Well we had our run at the QRS net on 80 meters. I must report it was not well attended. But we are not giving up yet! The first Sunday night we had 4 check-In's and I just want to thank all who checked in. Our second Sunday we had 1 check-in. Needless to say I was disappointed. We still want to give it a good try. Maybe 80 meters was not the best band, I'm not sure. We are going to switch over to 40 meters. The frequency that we would like to try is 7122.5 kHz. We will be far enough away from other club and net activity on that frequency and I would really like that to be a place where NAQCC members can meet. Not just for the Sunday net but if you just want to get on an rag chew for a while. I think it would be great to have a safe place no matter what your skill level, to find another friendly NAQCC member to chat with. We will make the move from 80 to 40 this coming Sunday, April 26th at 8:30 pm EDT (0030Z Monday). Maybe by moving to 40 meters we can get some of you who do not have the capabilities to get on 80 meters to join in. So lets give it a try on 7122.5 kHz. Just another side note, we do have a list of Elmer's who are willing to help on a individual basis, all you have to do is drop me an e-mail to ![]() If you are interested in helping out or need help with any CW and/or QRP matters contact: K5DUZ - ![]() N3IJR - ![]() Also see Elmer Project on the web site. ![]() 5. AWARD WINNERS THE PAST TWO MONTHS: K3WWP - 1000MPW #'s 0052, 0053 WA9KPI - 1000MPW # 0054 NU7T - 30-30 # 0007 (one month: April 2009) K2QPN - DXCC # 0004 K2QPN - 1000MPW # 0055 Interest in our awards took a slight step backward since we last reported our winners here in the newsletter. Hopefully with improving conditions on the higher bands, interest will perk up again. Remember, awards are yet another way to show the continuing popularity of CW on the ham bands, and earning them with QRP shows the very high efficiency of CW. Remember also our wonderful incentive to work towards and earn our NAQCC awards thanks to Gregg WB8LZG. Gregg has donated a set of beautiful knob inserts for the K1 and K2 rigs. The Giveaways page in the main section of the web site has more info and a picture. You can win one by earning and applying for any TWO of the following NAQCC awards. It's first come, first served, so make haste. QSO-A-DAY 30-30 Alphabet Prefix Worked Members - Advanced Suffix Words Check the 'Current' page in the 'Awards' section of the web site for rules for these awards. Only new applicants on or after October 1, 2008 are eligible. Our very first winner was Steve NU7T who is one of most active members participating in most all of our sprints and challenges as well as having earned many of our club awards including the AlphaPrefix and Suffix Words awards which earned him a knob insert. Full List of all award winners here. ![]() 6. NEWS ITEMS AND ARTICLES BY OUR MEMBERS: This section is a forum for you to tell other members what you've been up to on the ham bands or to submit an article dealing with some aspect of CW and QRP operation or equipment. Send your news items and articles to our news editor Paul KD2MX at ![]() ![]() ![]() I think this is a great idea. I will tell you why I think so. My very first QRP rig was a Rockmite for 40M. In fact that was my very first CW rig. Once I built it I decided to get on the air with it. So I fired it up and tried calling CQ. My CW was around 5WPM and I really had no clue what I was doing. Needless to say that I was never able to make a contact with that rig. Sure a Rockmite is not the best choice for a newbie CW operator. My lack of experience just made it impossible to make any successful contacts. My slow CW speed, lack of experience and low powered setup were all factors. So I wanted to tell you guys that I think your idea concerning using QRO power levels (for club teaching/learning activities only - K3WWP) is a great idea. I will tell you that my next rig was a Ten Tec 1340 CW Transceiver for 40M. I made my very first CW contact on that rig. So QRP levels for a first contact is very possible. Some may argue that it may not be the best way to go for a newbie. The difference in wattage between the Rockmite and the 1340 is significant enough where it made a difference for me. I am still doing my best to increase my CW speed. I am trying to break some bad CW habits. There is always a higher level to strive for and I am just doing my best. So keep up the good work and I hope all is well!! 72 Joseph ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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