![]() | NAQCC News |
November 14, 2009 | NAQCC Web Site | Issue #106 |
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In this issue: 1. November Sprint. 2. October Challenge Results 3. General Club News 4. Featured Award of the Month 5. The NAQCC Elmer Project 6. CW Cartoon of the Month 7. News Items and Articles by Our Members |
1. SPRINT: Our sprint is this Thursday, November 19th at 0130-0330Z (which of course is the evening before if you go by local instead of UTC time.) All amateur radio operators should know about Z/UTC time and not even need such a reminder so we are discontinuing them next year and will only use Z/UTC dates and times when referring to our sprints. Our next to last special award certificate goes to the winner of a drawing among the following: The one making the highest score in each division and having the earliest date of their first ham radio license. You need not have been licensed continually, only the date of your first license counts. Beginning next year we are replacing our sprint special award certificates with a first-timer award certificate that is the same for every sprint. It goes to the one who enters and submits a log for one of our sprints for the very first time and makes the highest score among the first-timers. If you are entering one of our sprints for the first time, we welcome you and hope you will be a regular participant from now on. Last month we welcomed WG0AT (N0A), AB9CA, W6AZ (N6A), N3RBN, VE3KQN, WA9KPZ (N9A) as first time participants and/or log submitters. If our first-timer award were in effect then, the one making the highest score (WG0AT-N0A) among those 6 would have been the winner. That may explain the first-timer award a bit better. Remember this is only a very brief overview of the coming sprint. Be sure to read and understand the full general sprint rules and any specific rules for this month's sprint here. ![]() 2. OCTOBER CHALLENGE RESULTS: Paul N8XMS says it best about the October challenge: "I was looking over the results for the October challenge and was struck by the small number of entries. There were certainly many more contacts with N#A stations. I wonder why people didn't bother to submit them for the challenge? I imagine this could be a little bit discouraging to you (plural - the officers). So let me offer my personal "thank you" to all of the club officers for all of the fine work that you do. I, for one, really enjoy the challenges and greatly appreciate all of the effort that goes into them." Yes it is very disappointing to see that with nearly 4,000 members in the club, only a dozen or so will participate in our challenges. Why? We don't know. One member said the challenges are too hard. Well, if they were much easier, they wouldn't even be worthy of being called challenges. Still, with that in mind, Tom WY3H, our president and challenges manager has come up with some what he considers to be easier challenges for 2010. Rules for all 12 2010 challenges are now posted on the web site. Look them over and send your comments to Tom. The October challenge was a very easy one and carried with it a handsome prize which makes it even more mysterious why so few members entered. They could have earned a beautiful CW-theme lamp for their shack or den simply by making as many QSO's with our special event anniversary stations as possible and being the one who made the most. Anyway with all that being said, let's get down to the stats. Of the 9 entries, N1LU made the most band-QSO's with our N#A stations, and will be receiving the lamp donated by Bill W0EJ. It will be mailed by our new Prizes Manager Mike KC2EGL. N1LU and K3WWP won the certificates for the top two totals of different N#A band-QSO's. As always, full challenge info and results can be found here. ![]() 3. GENERAL CLUB NEWS: - The biggest news is the converting of emailing our newsletter announcements from 8 individual members to one QTH.net mailing list. Normally when something is working very well, you don't attempt to fix it. The 8 current plus 2 former members doing the emailings - K5DUZ, AA4W, EI2GP (replaced W2LJ), VA3RJ, 2U0BGE (replaced W5RJ), N9GOD, WB0OEW, and K4IWL - all did a wonderful job. However with a unified mailing list we are now able to not only email the newsletter announcements in one blow, but have a vehicle to distribute any news that may be stale or dated by the time of the next newsletter. We are NOT going to send announcements every time a member sneezes as some clubs seem to do with their mail lists. We foresee a minimum of 2 newsletter announcement emailings each month with a maximum of 2 or 3 extra emailings for late breaking news items. NO MORE than that. Only club officers will be posting to the list. It is not a general reflector. We want to know how you feel about this new system. We have had several favorable comments on the tests we've done so far. Thanks to all who commented. There were also two questions about it. One asked if he would be flooded with emails from it. I addressed that above. Another is concerned about the passwords being sent out in plain text in email. I fail to see why that is a fear. I'm sure no one is going to use the password for anything but the QTH.net list so even if it is stolen, there's nothing worthwhile taking for the thief. ![]() If there are any changes, we now have our new mail list to notify you of them up to the last minute. ![]() ![]() ![]() We haven't mentioned it for a while so here is how the member is selected. We have an Excel spreadsheet with one cell containing a formula that generates a random number from 1 to the current number of the newest member (as of this newsletter that's 1 through 3952). Then to make it even more random, the spreadsheet is recalculated 7 times and the number that comes up is the winner. The call is looked up in our membership list and a graphic of the call is created and hidden somewhere in the newsletter. ![]() ![]() 4. FEATURED AWARD OF THE MONTH: - The premise for our Participation award is encouraging our members to participate in our sprints and challenges by awarding points for doing so. If you participate in a monthly challenge you get 1 point. Participate in a monthly sprint, that's 1 point. However if you do both in the same month, that's NOT 2, but 3 points. Points are totalled for the entire year in three divisions - Eastern USA, Western USA, ![]() So far we've issued the following Participation awards: Yearly certificates and points earned: 2005 - max 27 pts as we started in April - no divisions this year K3WWP (27) 2006 - max 36 pts - first year with divisions East K3WWP (36) West W5ESE & W5TVW (6) VE/DX VA3RKM (20) 2007 - max 36 pts East K3WWP (36) West NU7T & WY7N (11) VE/DX VE3HUR (36) 2008 - max 36 pts East K3WWP (36) West NU7T (25) VE/DX VE3HUR (24) FISTS MEMBERSHIP: (K3WWP not eligible by his own wishes) 2007 VE3HUR (36) 2008 W2JEK (32)Full NAQCC Awards info here. ![]() 5. THE NAQCC ELMER PROJECT - FROM K5DUZ and N3IJR: - The Elmer project is completely co-ordinated by Ron and Karl. If you are interested in helping out or need help with any CW and/or QRP matters contact: K5DUZ - ![]() N3IJR - ![]() The NAQCC QRS Net convenes each Monday at 0130Z when Standard time is in effect and 0030Z during Daylight savings time (Sunday evening at 8:30PM here in the USA Eastern time zone) on 7122.5 kHz from ??? through October and 3595.0 kHz from November through ???. Everyone is invited to check in for some hands-on CW teaching and learning. QRO is permitted for this one NAQCC activity since learning CW is so important. Also see Elmer Project on the web site. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() 7. 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 ![]() (disclaimer) Any views expressed here are those of the member submitting them, and may not be in agreement with those of the NAQCC. ![]() Enough dreaming. Let's talk about reality and something that truly surprised me. I never thought I could use a bug again after 40+ years using keyers. Well, I was wrong. Even more so, I thought if I could use the bug, it would then adversely affect my keyer fist. Wrong again. I am now at the point where I can go seamlessly between bug and keyer without missing a beat, both with my right hand. So sometimes when the going gets slow, I alternate among straight key, bug, and keyer for my CQ's. If there's a moral, I guess it is never sell yourself short as you don't know what you can do till you try it. I think that is the bottom line to why some folks "can't" learn CW. They don't believe they can do it, so they don't even bother trying. |
The publication of our next newsletter will be announced via email to all members for whom we have a valid email address unless they specifically have unsubscribed from the email. Unless otherwise credited, all items are written by K3WWP. If you came directly to this newsletter, we invite you now to browse the NAQCC Web Site. |