Yearly Archives: 2013

AB1OC Results For 2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Contest

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2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Certificate

2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Certificate

I recently received my final results for the 2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Contest and was presently surprised. With a final score of 1,883,448, I won the Rookie overlay category in North America and Finished #2 in the World in this category. I was also #2 in the Single Operator High Power Assisted category in the United States Call Area 1.

AB1OC In Our Shack

AB1OC In Our Shack

I do not have much experience as a contest  operator. The 2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Contest was one of my first serious efforts in a major contest and I am very pleased with the results of my efforts. I used a good bit of recently added equipment and software in this contest (see related post on this blog) and the investments in these areas seemed to pay off nicely. I am very much looking forward to being part of this contest again in 2014.

– Fred (AB1OC)

AB1OC Completes The DXCC Challenge Award

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DXCC Challenge Award

DXCC Challenge Award

I have been working on a number of operating awards with the goals of both improving my operating skills and verifying the performance of our station against our original design goals. I am happy to say that I’ve achieved my first major goal in this area by completing a DXCC Challenge Award. This award requires working and confirming at least 1,000 DXCC band-enties on any of the Amateur bands, 160 through 6 meters (except 60 meters). This award is a good one to confirm the performance of our station across all of the HF Bands. It took me about 1 year after finishing our new station and starting to work towards this award to complete it. I hope some day to achieve the 1,500 and other endorsements for this award.

– Fred (AB1OC)

Mobile HF Installation – Part 2/4 (Bonding and Choking)

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Transceiver Ground

Transceiver Ground

This article will cover the second phase of our Mobile HF project – bonding and grounding.The following is a summary of the phases of the project:

We have been having fun with our new Mobile HF installation in our 2009 Ford F-150 Pickup Truck. We are currently using a simple HAMStick antennas to operate on the 20m and 40m bands. The initial installation focused on getting the radio installed in the truck and working and while this was successful, we have had to work around quite a bit of electrical noise when the vehicle is running. The noise was S9 without the Icom IC-7000 Transceiver’s Noise Blanker turned on and about S3-S4 with the Noise Blanker on. Most of the noise sounded like ignition or fuel injector spikes (it was engine speed dependent) and I understand that this is quite common with the Ford F-150 Truck. This past weekend, I set about solving the noise problems via a combination of Bonding and Choking techniques. An excellent source on how to approach this can be found on the K0BG Mobile HF website.

The first step in the process was to ground my radio to a solid point on the truck’s body. I used 3/4″ wide ground braid from DX Engineering (picture above) for this purpose. I was fortunate that my F-150 had Truck had good ground straps installed between the body and the frame at the factory (although I do plan to supplement these with heavier straps in the future).

Power Connection Choke

Power Connection Choke

Next, I added Type 31 choking material to the transceiver’s power and antenna leads. I added a total of three beads on the power leads (one in the engine bay close to the firewall and two on the interior side of the firewall). I also installed choking material on the antenna coax near the radio. The correct way to install these beads is to coil the cables through them as many times as possible to form an effective RF choke. With these initial steps, my noise fell from S9 to about S6-S7 without the Noise Blanker.

Hood Bonding

Hood Bonding

The next step was to bond the hood of the vehicle to the rest of the body via 1″ wide ground braid. These were made from material that I purchased from DX Engineering and they were installed on both hood hinges.

Body Bonding

Body Bonding

I also installed two bonding straps between the cab and the bed of the truck (one on each side).

Exhaust Bonding

Exhaust Bonding

Finally, I used kits from DX Engineering to bond my exhaust system to the frame of the truck. This needs to be done in three places – at the exhaust pipe section which is connected to the engine, on the mid-pipe which leads to the front of the muffler (shown above) and at the tail-pipe which leads from the rear of the muffler to the rear of the truck. Exhaust system bonding is probably the most effective technique for reducing electrical noise in most installation and mine was no exception.

With these additional steps, I my noise level was reduced to S0! While I still have a faint amount of engine electrical noise, I can operate without the Noise Blanker on and with a lower level of Noise Reduction than before the steps outlined here. My installation is much quieter overall and I find that I am hearing many more stations than I did before. There is still more work that I plan to do in the future including bonding the truck’s bed to the frame at all four corners, improving the existing factory grounding between the body and the truck’s frame, and bonding the four doors to the body. For now, my Mobile HF operating experience has been improved considerably.

The next stage of our Mobile HF project will be the installation of a Screwdriver Antenna. We also plan to install a mobile HF amplifier for high-power operation as well as other upgrades.

– Fred (AB1OC)

2013 Thirteen Colonies Special Event – QSL!

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2013 Thirteen Colonies Special Event - K2K NH QSL

2013 Thirteen Colonies Special Event – K2K NH QSL

Our updated QSL cards for this year’s Thirteen Colonies Special Event came back from the printer last week. This let us get about the business of responding to all of the QSL requests to the K2K New Hampshire Station. This project took the better part of two days to complete. We replied to approximately 450 direct QSL requests as well as 180 Buro QSL requests from previous years. The net was that I filled out about 630 cards in about two days. We expect that this batch of QSLs will represent about 2/3 of the QSL requests that we will receive for the 2013 Event.

New K2K New Hampshire QSL Card

New K2K New Hampshire QSL Card

Richie (W1STT), Anita (AB1QB) and I (AB1OC) redesigned the K2K New Hampshire QSL Card this year. The logo in the center of the card was used in various forms early in our history (ex. the Fugio Cent) to signify the unity among the Thirteen Original Colonies which formed the United States of America. It also appeared on the Flag of the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment which fought in the American Revolutionary War. The symbol in the upper left of the card is used on the current New Hampshire State flag and Seal.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2013 Thirteen Colonies Special Event. We certainly enjoyed doing it and we hope that everyone enjoys the new QSL cards.

– Fred (AB1OC)

Mobile HF Installation – Part 1/4 (Initial Installation)

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Mobile Installation In Ford F-150

Mobile Installation In Ford F-150

We have been planning to install a mobile HF setup in one of our vehicles for some time now. Our car and truck currently have an Icom IC-2820h 2m/70cm DSTAR transceivers installed in them, providing access to our local repeaters. We also purchased a backup Icom IC-7000 Transceiver some time ago with the intention of installing it in one of our vehicles. Our planning for our Mobile HF setup involved talking to Ron Douglass at Scorpion Antennas and studying the excellent K0BG Mobile HF website. I’ve settled on the following components for our Mobile HF installation in our 2009 Ford F-150 truck:

This is quite a complex mobile installation – especially the amplifier plan. Given that I have limited experience with mobile HF, I am planning to complete the project in phases:

This past weekend, we completed Phase 1 of the project – installing the IC-7000 Transceiver and a HAMStick Antenna in our F-150 Ford Truck.

Icom IC-7000 Control Head

Icom IC-7000 Control Head

The first step in the installation was to determine a good location for the IC-7000’s Control Head. It’s important to read the radio’s display and access its controls without taking one’s eye off the road. It’s also important to mount the unit so that it will not block the view of the road. After trying several locations while seated in the vehicle, I settled on a mounting location just below the top of the dash and just to the right of the steering wheel. This put the control head right in front of the driver in an easy-to-read and reach location.

Icom IC-7000 Head Unit Mounting Bracket

Icom IC-7000 Control Head Mounting Bracket

I made a small bracket from some sheet aluminum which was attached to the underside of the dash pad with three screws. The bracket provides a secure mount for the Icom MB-105 Mobile Mounting Bracket for the IC-7000’s Control Head.

Icom IC-7000 Radio Mounting

Icom IC-7000 Main Unit Mounting

The next step was to mount the IC-7000 Main Unit. I mounted it on the right side of the front passenger area on the lower kick panel. I mounted the radio with the rear panel facing the passenger so that we could connect control and data cables to allow the passenger to operate using digital modes or connect a PC for automatic logging. This approach also makes working on the antenna, power, and other radio connections possible without removing the radio from its MB-62 Mounting Bracket. I removed the feet and handle on the radio, which allowed me to mount it closer to the kick panel, which helped keep the unit out of the passenger’s feet. At this point, I ran the radio’s power cable through a wire grommet in the firewall and connected the fused power leads directly to the battery. I also used Icom’s OPC-1443 Separation Cable to connect the radio to the control head mounted on the dash. The final part of mounting the radio was to run an audio cable from the radio to the auxiliary audio input on my truck’s sound system, allowing me to use the truck’s audio system and speakers to amplify to radio’s audio.

Mobile Antenna Farm

Mobile Antenna Farm (HAMStick Is Center Antenna)

The final step of the installation was to install the MFJ HAMStick Antenna and mount. As you can see from the picture above, I choose to install the HAMStick on the roof of the truck. This approach works well because it allows the metal surface of the truck to act as the best possible ground plane for the mobile HF antenna.

HAMStick Magnetic Mount

HAMStick Magnetic Mount

I used an MFJ-336T Tri-magnet Base to mount the HAMStick. This base is solid and does not allow the antenna to move around on the vehicle. It was also a good choice as I plan to replace the HAMStick with the Scorpion Screwdriver Antenna later in the project. It was easy to route the antenna’s coax feedline through the corner of the door and then conceal it behind the trim panels in the interior of the truck as it was routed to the IC-7000’s base unit. The HAMStick antenna uses a spiral-loaded fiberglass section which includes a loading coil and a stainless steel whip on top.

20m HAMStick SWR

20m HAMStick SWR

The resonant frequency of a HAMStick is adjusted by changing the length of the stainless whip at the top of the antenna. As you can see from the picture above, I used our RigExpert AA-54 Antenna Analyzer to adjust our 20m HAMStick to favor the phone side of the 20m band. This tune-up will also allow operation in the 20m digital sub-band as well as in all but the very bottom of the 20m CW sub-band. We also purchased a 40m HAMStick. The bandwidth of the 40m HAMStick is limited due to its short length on 40m, so I tuned it to work best in the 40m DX window and the lower part of the US phone sub-band on 40m.

Mobile HF Log

Mobile HF Log

The last step in the installation was to secure a paper log and band plan to the truck’s center console using some large rubber bands. I use the paper log along with a small spiral-bound notepad to note information about my QSOs when operating mobile. The information on the notepad is transferred to the paper log when I am stationary.

With the installation complete and the 20m HAMStick installed, I made my first QSO with Ken (G0KEN) in the U.K.! The signal reports were 57 both ways, and we had a nice QSO on 20m. I do have some ignition noise when my truck is running, but the combination of the IC-7000’s excellent Noise Blanker and DSP Noise Reduction features reduced the noise level to S3 or less. I took my truck for a test drive with the new radio and worked a Special Event Station (OO7VA) in Belgium and several United States stations. All in all, our initial Mobile HF installation seems to be working quite well. The next step is to work on grounding the various parts of my truck and add some RF choking material to the power and other radio connections to try to lower the noise levels. This will be the topic of Part 2 of this series of posts.

– Fred (AB1OC)

One Year Anniversary Of Our Blog

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Our Readers Around The World After 1 Year

Our Readers Around The World After 1 Year

This month marks the one year anniversary of our Blog. We have been very pleased with the worldwide interest in the information and articles that we have posted during our first year. To date, we have enjoyed readers from 145 countries around the world with  over 38,000 views of the 90+ articles that he have written during our first year.

Our top three most widely read posts are:

Some of our most popular videos include (these videos take a few seconds to load and begin to play):

Our busiest day every was on Saturday, June 1st 2013 when he had over 1,000 views of our Blog in a single day. This occurred shortly after Anita (AB1QB) published her article on the 2013 Contest University At The Dayton Hamvention.

We’d like to thank everyone for your interest in our Blog and we plan to continue publishing articles that we hope will interest our readers and help the Amateur Radio Community in general.

– Fred (AB1OC)

2013 Thirteen Colonies Special Event Operating Award

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2013 Thirteen Colonies Top Operator Award

2013 Thirteen Colonies Top Operator Award

I believe that operating awards serve several important purposes within the Amateur Radio community. First, they encourage operators to get on the air and operate. Each award is different in this respect – some encourage DX’ing (ex. ARRL DXCC awards) while others encourage specific types of contacts (ex. the RSGB IOTA awards) and others are designed to encourage operators to provide the best possible experience in on the air events. At a personal level, operating awards several two important functions – they give us a means to test the performance of our stations and our skills as operators and they provide us with motivation and encouragement to improve both. Occasionally, an operating award comes along that really means a lot and I am happy and proud to say that I’ve recently achieved one of these. I’ve been active in the Thirteen Colonies Special Event for three years now and I’ve been working to improve our station and my skills as a pileup operator throughout this period. The 2011 event was my first experience operating a special event station (K2K New Hampshire) and I made several hundred digital contacts that year. In 2012, we used the Thirteen Colonies Special Event to prove in our new shack and made over 1,000 contacts using a mix of digital modes and SSB phone. This year, I set out to achieve the Top Operator Award in the high-power, single op category using our recently completed station including our tower-based antenna system and high-power setup. As you can see from the photo above, this effort was successful and provided an award that I will always be very proud to display in our shack.

2013 Thirteen Colonies Top Operator Certificate

2013 Thirteen Colonies Top Operator Certificate

I was able to make 5,812 contacts over the 6 1/2 days of the 2013 Thirteen Colonies Special Event. These contacts were made across all of the non-WARC bands from 160m – 2m. You can see more of the details of the contacts that Anita (AB1QB) and I made this year here. I’d like to thank Ken Villone (KU2US) who runs the Thirteen Colonies Special Event and Richie Feola (W1STT) who is the New Hampshire coordinator for the event for providing us with the opportunity to be part of something very special.

New K2K New Hampshire QSL Card

New K2K New Hampshire QSL Card

Richie (W1STT), Anita (AB1QB) and I have been working on a new QSL card for the Thirteen Colonies K2K New Hampshire station. I think it has turned out quite nicely. The new cards are in the process of being printed and we’ll be sending out the new cards to those who have QSL’ed contacts with K2K this year as soon as we receive them.

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in the 2013 Thirteen Colonies Special Event. I hope that we created some good memories for everyone. This is certainly the case for me.

– Fred (AB1OC)

2013 Field Day

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CW Station Operations

CW Station Operations

Our club, PART of Westford, MA USA, held our 2013 Field Day event at the Concord Rod & Gun Club again this year. We operated three HF Stations (SSB Phone, CW, and Digital) as well as a VHF and a Satellite Station this year. All of our operations were QRP 5 watts and used solar/battery power. The photo above shows Bob (W1IS) and Bill (AA1O) operating the CW station. Our day began with the setup of our antennas and the four stations.

Field Day Tri-Bander

Field Day Tri-Bander

Anita (AB1QB) and I handled the HF beam antennas for our Field Day Operation. This included a Hy-Gain TH-3JRS Tri-Bander loaned to the club by Allison (KB1GMX) which was installed 20 ft up on a guyed military push-up mast.

15m Buddi-Beam

15m Buddi-Beam

We also brought our 15m and 10m 3 element budi-beam mono band yagis which we designed for portable operations. These antennas plus a G5RV and a 40m wire beam made up our HF antenna farm for Field Day. All of these antennas were brought to a common interconnect panel where they could be connected to any of the three HF stations. We setup all of these antennas at home the week before to confirm that they worked as expected and to ensure that they could be erected safely and quickly at our Field Day site.

VHF Tower

VHF Tower

Another part of our team spent time to put up a Rohn 25G tower for our VHF Station. Allison, (KB1GMX) led this effort and supplied yagis for 6m and 2m. Operating on these bands QRP 5 watts is quite challenging and Allison was able to make a fair number of contacts by utilizing her considerable VHF operating experience.

Digital Station Battery Power

Digital Station Battery Power

With the antennas up, we turned our attention to the setup of the digital station and its associated battery and solar power. The digital station is the most challenging in terms of off-grid power because we need to power both the Transceiver and a Personal Computer as the latter is integral to generating and decoding digital mode signals over the air. The power system for the digital station consisted of two 65 Ah dry cell deep cycle batteries and a solar charging system. The batteries were sized to allow operation of the digital station for the full field day period of 24 hours in the event that we had limited sunshine due to clouds or rain.

Solar Panels

Solar Panels

The battery system used SunSaver MPPT charging system setup in a 30 Vdc configuration along with two PowerFilm 90W folding portable solar panels wired in series. We had good sunlight during the daytime and the solar panels were able to keep our batteries fully charged. The CW and SSB phone station used a few sets of smaller batteries and a solar panel to recharge them.

SSB Phone Station Operations

SSB Phone Station Operations

All three of our HF stations used Elecraft KX3 Transceivers. The KX3s turned out to be an excellent choice for our Field Day operations as they have low power consumption, a good receiver and provide excellent usability and external interfacing capabilities for automated logging, CW and digital operation. The photo above shows Scott (NE1RD) and Lyman (W1LKS) operating the SSB phone station. We used PCs on all three station to automate logging. We used Andy’s (KB1OIQ) xlog logger for the Phone and CW stations and the N1MM logger for the Digital Station.

Digital Station Equipment

Digital Station Equipment

Anita and I were the coordinators for the Digital Station and we decided to update the configuration of the digital station this year. In addition to the Elecraft KX3, we used a Windows 8 PC running N1MM/MMTTY/2Tone/FLdigi to handle the logging and digital mode processing.

Digital Station Software

Digital Station Software – RTTY Mode

N1MM provided a more contest-oriented logging setup as well as the ability to run multiple digital decoders to give us the best possible chance of receiving digital transmissions without error. For RTTY signals, we used a combination of the MMTTY and 2Tone encoder/decoders. For PSK signals, we used FLdigi. After some initial tuning, we got good results with this combination of software.

Satellite Station

Satellite Station

Bob (KB1SWZ) put together a very competent Satellite station to complete our Field Day setup. Working LEO birds QRP 5 watts on Field Day provided to be quite a challenge as its hard to compete with the many higher power stations contending for the birds on Field Day.

Toolbox Talk

Toolbox Talk

With all of the stations setup and ready to go, we provided a series of “Toolbox Talks” to help members of our club understand our field day stations and how to use them. Shown above is Scott (NE1RD) explain how to use the Elecraft KX3 which was central to all three of our HF stations.

Digital Station Operations

Digital Station Operations

One of the best parts of Field Day is that it provides the opportunity to spend time with newer operators and young people to introduce them to many aspects of Amateur Radio and to provide them with opportunities to get on the air and try new things. Shown above is Fred (AB1OC) explaining the operation of the Digital Station.

Field Day Feast

Field Day Feast

We are fortunate to have our club sponsor a nice meal as part of our Field Day event. Charlie (W1ADL) and Rick (W1RAG) did a great job with food for our event this year. In addition to a great meal, this provides all of the club members participating in our Field Day event a chance to socialize and have fun.

We operated for the full 24 hour period again this year and managed to make a good number of contacts with our QRP setups. The totals for our effort were 722 QSOs (up from 587 in 2012) with a final score (including bonus points) of 7,355. A special thanks to everyone who contributed to or was part of making our 2013 Field Day event a success. We also very much appreciate Joe’s (KB1SSA) efforts to help us secure the excellent facilities at the Concord Rod and Gun Club for our Field Day event.

– Fred (AB1OC)

Amateur Radio For Young People At Sci-Tech

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Sci-Tech In Frisco, TX USA

Sci-Tech In Frisco, Texas USA

I recently learned of the Sci-Tech Discovery Center in Frisco, Texas USA. This fine facility is dedicated to helping young people to learn about Science and Technology and to hopefully encourage them to pursue Science and Technology learning and vocations. A group of local HAMs in Texas has teamed up with Sci-Tech to install and operate a very nice Amateur Radio Station at Sci-Tech. I recently met with Barry Goldblatt, WA5KXX to tour the station at Sci-Tech and to learn more about what Barry and his team are doing with the Boy Scouts and other youth groups to promote Amateur Radio among young people in the Dallas, Texas area. The following is Barry’s description of his work and progress at Sci-Tech. I think that you will find his article interesting and enjoyable. The Sci-Tech HAM team is currently working to raise funds to create a more private area for young operators to discover Amateur Radio at Sci-Tech and to further expand the station’s capabilities. A link to a website where you can make a donation to help with this expansion is included at the end of the article (I suggest that you note in the comments that the donation is being made to benefit the Amateur Radio Station if that is your desire). I believe that the work at Sci-Tech truly represents the Amateur Radio community at its best.

– Fred (AB1OC)

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The McKinney Amateur Radio Club (MARC) and the Plano Amateur Radio Klub (PARK) teamed up over the past six months to install an HF-UHF station at the Sci-Tech Discovery Center in Frisco, TX.  Sci-Tech is a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning center for elementary and middle-school age students.  The facility has hosted over 100,000 visitors in the past 12 months and provided outreach experiences for additional 165,000 students in Collin County schools.  The teams completed the project on September 15, just in time for the station to be in operation for the Boy Scout Jamboree-on-the-Air (JOTA) on October 20-21.

The project began with a donation by David and Diana Brandenburg of the Brandenburg Life Foundation in February 2012.  David, K5RA, has provided funding for amateur radio stations in schools and museums throughout the country including the Heard Museum in McKinney, Haggard Middle School in Plano and the Saint Paul School in Richardson.  Additional funding for a WeatherBug commercial-grade weather station was provided by the Goldblatt Family Trust.  The installation at Sci-Tech provides up-to-the-minute reporting of weather conditions on the Internet and is used by WFAA Channel 8, an ABC affiliate, as well as other news organizations that monitor weather in the north Texas area.

Tower Mount At Sci-Tech

Tower Mount At Sci-Tech

The clubs went to work immediately on the antenna installation and station design.  That was not an easy task.  The Sci-Tech Discovery Center is located in a commercial tilt-wall structure with 50-foot walls.  PARK President, Kip Moravec, AE5IB, designed an antenna mount that would clamp to the perimeter wall and allow the Rohn tower section to pivot down for easy servicing of the antennas, the rotor, and the weather station components.  The mount was constructed using quarter-inch steel angle stock and weighed over 400 pounds.  It took one full day to cut the steel and drill the necessary holes so the structure could be assembled and then powder-coated to protect it from rust and match the color of the building.

Once the antenna mount was complete, MARC President Walter Lemons, AE5IT SK, President of the McKinney club, along with Rusty Delaney, K5FEA, and other members of the team loaded it onto a flatbed trailer for transport.  The team hauled the mount to the roof of the building and began the installation.   It took two sessions the use of a 50 foot lift to position and secure the mount in place.  The team then installed the Rohn tower sections and added a Force 12 C3SS 10, 15, 20-meter beam, a VHF-UHF vertical and the weather station components.

During these two sessions, other members of the team began drilling a three-inch hole in the building wall for the cable entry.  Again, this was not an easy task, since the walls are eight-inch-thick concrete.  The cabling run from the tower to the station measured 175 feet.  Cabling included coax runs of LMR 400 for the HF-6 frequencies and LMR 600 for the VHF-UHF frequencies plus wire for the Yaesu antenna rotator, WeatherBug weather station and two runs of CAT-5 Ethernet cable.  The CAT-5 cables are reserved for a future installation of HSMM equipment.

HAM Station At Sci-Tech

HAM Station At Sci-Tech

A second team that included Tony Campbell, W5ADC, completed the cabling and connected the radios for their first QSO on September 15.  Rusty Delany, K5FEA, made the first VHF contact.  Dan Howard, KE5CIR, and Michael Porter, KF5LDJ, from the Lake Area Amateur Radio Klub (LAARK) made the first HF contact with N1LS in Colorado on September 29 in preparation for the upcoming JOTA event.

This installation was extremely complicated and arduous because of the building structure and the fact that the teams were working during a hot Texas summer.  The Brandenburg Life Foundation, the Goldblatt Family Trust and the Sci-Tech Discovery Center are extremely grateful to club presidents, Walter Lemons, AE5IT SK, and Kip Moravec, AE5IB, and the members of the McKinney and Plano radio clubs for their expertise and hard work.  This installation would not have been possible without their help.

Sci-Tech Antenna System

Sci-Tech Antenna System

In July 2013  Sci-Tech was provided with a much-needed expansion by the City of Frisco Community Development Commission (CDC) at their June 2013 meeting.  The 3,800 square foot expansion will provide for more classroom and exhibit space.  The expansion provides enough room so that the amateur radio station equipment can be moved to a permanent location.  The new 60 square foot “shack” will feature sound-proofed walls and a glass door and viewing window.  The enclosed space will allow Sci-Tech to expand its amateur radio programs and sets the stage for a special event station day later in 2013 or early 2014.  There are plans to add more functionality to the installation including HSMM capability.

Sci-Tech currently opens the station to the public one day per month.  Planning is underway to develop a radio exploration camp for young visitors during the summer of 2014.  Ideas for other events include an all-night DX party and a Boy Scout One-Night Radio Merit Badge

More information is available about Sci-Tech by clicking here.  Sci-Tech is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Frisco, TX that delivers innovative educational experiences for all ages in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

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Author: Barry A. Goldblatt, WA5KXX

Experiences From The 13 Colonies Special Event

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New K2K New Hampshire QSL Card

The K2K New Hampshire QSL Card

The 13 Colonies Special Event for 2013 has come and gone and I wanted to share our experiences as one of the Special Event Stations for New Hampshire. We operated for 6 1/2 days mostly on SSB Phone and some using Digital Modes. The response to the event was even bigger than last year with some 80,000+ QSOs being made by the 13 Colonies stations. The pileups during the first few days of the event were huge! We did quite well for New Hampshire completing over 6,200 QSOs. We also operated on all of the non-WARC bands that our station can support.  The following are some statistics from our operations during the event:

Band

 Mode QSOs
160m SSB 51
80m SSB 214
40m SSB 1,651
CW 1
20m SSB 3,626
Digital (PSK/RTTY) 329
15m SSB 233
10m SSB 95
6m SSB 18
2m SSB 5
Grand Total  

6,223

K2K  Operations From Our Station – QSOs By Band And Mode

We worked all states in the US including Alaska and Hawaii, several US territories and some DX. The DX participation in the event was quite good and this enabled us to work stations on all continents across the world.

There are always many memorable QSOs during an operation like this and this year’s event was no exception. Some of the QSOs which stand out include those with young operators and operators who made their first HF QSOs ever. I also had an operator from Guadeloupe  (FG4NN) respond to my CQ calls on 6m as well as several stations in Japan calling in during my digital operating sessions. We also encountered several /AG folks (operators who had recently upgraded to General Class). The QSOs on the Top Band (160m) and on the 6m and 2m Bands were also special as these bands are less commonly used during the 13 Colonies Special Event. Most everyone that we talked with was very appreciative of the event which is what makes doing something like this so much fun!

We will have quite a bit of QSL work to do along with the other 13 Colonies Stations and this will no doubt bring back more good memories from our operations last week. Thanks to everyone who made the 13 Colonies Special Event a success this year. We are already looking forward to 2014.

– Fred (AB1OC)