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)

The 13 Colonies Special Event Begins Today

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13 Colonies Special Event Certificate

13 Colonies Special Event Certificate

The 13 Colonies Special Event begins today. This event commemorates the July 4th Independence Day in the United States of America. There are stations (K2A through K2L) on the air in each of the states that were one of the original 13 Colonies here in the USA. There is also a bonus station at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, PA (WM3PEN). If you work one or more of these stations, you can send for a QSL card with the state’s flag plus you can request a certificate (shown above – see the website for details on how to request a certificate). If you work all of the colonies/states, you can receive a certificate indicating this. We will be operating as K2K, one of the New Hampshire Stations in the digital (RTTY & PSK) and SSB phone modes. Richie (W1STT) will also be operating as K2K in SSB mode and Mike (N1IW) will be operating as K2K in CW mode. We will be on all bands 80m – 10m (including some 160m, 6m and 2m operation if there is interest). This event has become fairly large – the 13 Colonies Stations completed over 62,000 QSOs as part of the 2012 event. The event welcomes all Amateur Radio Operators around the world. Operations begin this morning and run through Saturday, July 6th. I hope that some of our readers will find some time to work us as part of this event. You can find our operating frequency on the spotting cluster or at this 13 colonies spotting cluster page.  To our readers in the USA – have a very happy and safe July 4th and God Bless America!

– Fred (AB1OC) and Anita (AB1QB)

QRP And Other Operating Awards

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ARRL DXCC - QRP

ARRL DXCC – QRP

I have been working on a number of operating awards as a means to confirm the performance of our recently completed station and as goals to expand and improve my operating skills. I have gotten to a point where my completed and confirmed QSOs have allowed me to earn several awards. The first award to mention is a recently completed ARRL DXCC using QRP (5 watt) power levels. This award required me to work and confirm 100 DXCC entities (basically 100 countries) using no more than 5 watts for transmitter output power. Completing this award is a good confirmation of our station’s antenna performance. In many cases, the QSO’s needed for this award received 59 or better signal reports confirming the performance of our antenna system.

Worked All States Award - QRP

Worked All States Award – QRP

I very much enjoy working stations using QRP (5 watt) power levels. To this end, I also have completed an ARRL Worked All States Award using SSB Phone and QRP power levels (5 watts). This award was a lot of fun to get and its pretty cool when you work another station in the USA and you get a 59+20 db or 59+10 db signal report and you let the other operator know that you are using QRP 5 watts!

ARRL DXCC - CW Mode

ARRL DXCC – CW Mode

Finally, I have been working diligently on my CW skills and I am very proud to have completed an ARRL DXCC Award (basically 100 countries) using the CW mode. I am really beginning to enjoy CW and it certainly opens the door to a great many DX stations that are difficult to find using any other mode.

I am working on some other awards that are more difficult. A few of these could be considered “lifetime achievement” awards. These include:

  • A 5 Band DXCC Award (100 confirmed DXCC entities on the 5 major bands 80m – 10m; I am also working on endorsements for the 5 WARC bands)
  • The DXCC Challenge Award (1,000 confirmed band countries on 160m – 6m)
  • The CQ WPX Award of Excellence (many confirmed prefixes using all modes, on all bands, and on all continents)

I am getting close on all of these. There are other awards which cater to almost any interest. Some other interesting ones include:

I hope that you will consider working towards one of the many operating awards – it’s a great deal of fun!

– Fred (AB1OC)

Better Organization Of Our Blog

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We have created quite a few posts (over 85) on our Blog to date. I think its important to make all of this information easier to locate and use so I’ve categorized each post and included these categories on the left side of our Blog pages (see the CATEGORIES section of the left of this page). You can click on a category such as “Antennas and Feedlines” and view all of our posts related to this topic. I also plan to create set of master posts which points to all of the information here on topics of broad interest to our readers. The first of these posts covers Amateur Radio Station Design and Construction. Other index posts are planned on Antennas and Contesting. We would appreciate your comments and suggestions as to the usefulness of the categories and master index posts.

– Fred (AB1OC)

AB1OC’s First VHF Contest – 2013 ARRL June VHF

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AB1OC Operating In The 2013 ARRL VHF Contest

AB1OC Operating In The 2013 ARRL VHF Contest

When we built our new station last year, I decided to include antennas and equipment for 6m, 2m, and 70cm weak signal work. I have not had much chance to operate on these bands yet beyond some 2m EME work and a few contacts on 6m and 70cm. When the 2013 ARRL VHF Contest rolled around this past weekend, I was anxious to participate and get some experience with weak signal work on these bands. I spent some time on 6m the week before the contest to get a feel for this band and to check out my equipment. There was a good 6m opening to my east during this time, and I was able to work CU1EZ on the Azores; EA8DBM, EA8/G8BCG, and EA8CK on the Canary Islands; and J69MV in Saint Lucia. The longest of these contacts was over 3,100 mi. I’ve read a bit about propagation on 6m – 70m, including how short some openings can be. I certainly experienced this during the 6m DX opening before the contests – it did not last for more than an hour.

Logging And SO2R Control

Logging And SO2R Control

My goal in the ARRL VHF Contest was to work out a good operating configuration and to get some experience with the VHF/UHF bands, and I did not plan to compete for a top score this time. To keep the software side simple, I decided to use my DX’ing logger, DXLab, which is already configured to work with our Icom IC-7800 (6m radio) and Icom IC-9100 (2m and 70cm) radio. I also used our MicroHAM MK2R+ as an SO2R controller to share headphones and a microphone between the two radios. This worked out OK, as the QSO rates during this contest were not extremely high even when I was running.

Rotator Control

Rotator Control

I used two programs for controlling the rotator associated with the 6m SteppIR (6 elements) and the 2m (18 elements) and 70cm (21 elements) M2 Antenna Systems beams. The main program that I used here was Ham Radio Deluxe rotator. I chose it because it had the best grid square overlay map. This was useful for getting the antennas pointed at specific grid squares to work stations on 2m and 70cm after an initial contact on 6m. I also had DXLab’s DXView available to look up the specific coordinates for stations, but I did not use it very much during the contest.

I operated most of the day on Saturday and for a few hours on Sunday as preparations for the upcoming ARRL Field Day exercise required me to be away from my shack during parts of the contest period. I had good results running on 6m and used this band and mode of operation to make most of my QSOs. I also was able to run for some short periods on 2m as well. I have amplifiers that make about 1 Kw available on both bands, which greatly helped my ability to run effectively on 6 m and 2m. Most of my contacts on 70cm were a result of stations that I contacted on 6m or 2m, suggesting a contact on that band as well. I have about 100w available on 70cm, which proved adequate for contacts on 70cm as I got my antennas pointed accurately before moving up there to make contact with a station that was just worked on 6m or 2m.

I really enjoyed this contest a lot. The pace was a little more relaxed than most of the other HF contests I’ve participated in, and using two radios in SO2R mode was a new operating experience for me which was technically challenging at first. The following is a summary of my contacts during the contest.

Band QSOs Grids Worked
6 m 120 15
2 m 46 14
70 cm 19 6
Totals 185 35

There was a brief opening on 6m to Florida, USA, on Sunday morning, and I could work several stations there from my shack in NH, USA – a distance of about 1,200 mi. I also made contacts to the midwest and to several of the US eastern-central coastal states during the contest. All in all, the ARRL VHF Contest was a lot of fun, and participating in it helped me to gain confidence in my setup on the VHF bands. The only change in my VHF/UHF setup that I plan to make for the next VHF Contest is to use the N1MM Logger to take advantage of its ability to more effectively automate control of my SO2R setup.

Between the contest and my previous EME work, I have worked a total of 42 grid squares on 2m, and  I am hoping to be able to complete an ARRL VUCC Award on that band some time in the near future.

– Fred (AB1OC)

AB1OC Enters The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest

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AB1OC Operating In The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest

AB1OC Operating In The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest

I have been working to improve my CW skills for some time now as well as working towards a number of operating awards including the CQ WPX Award of Excellence. The CQ WPX Award of Excellence requires quite a range of confirmed contacts with CQ recognized prefixes including 600 using the CW mode. I was able to move both of these goals forward by operating in the 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest recently.

2013 CQ WPX CW N1MM Setup

N1MM Logger/FLdigi Setup For CW Mode

I again used the N1MM Logger along with FLdigi as a CW decoder in this contest. I am not yet proficient enough with CW to operate without a decoder but I did find that working a contest with the aid of a CW decoder like FLdigi helped me to improve my CW skills by practicing them. I found FLdigi to be a fairly effective CW decoder. I set up FLdigi as a Digital Interface Window in N1MM which allowed me to click on call signs and contest exchange information that it decoded to enter this information directly into the N1MM logging window. This saved time and reduced errors during contest operations.

MorseDec CW Decoder For iPhone

MorseDec CW Decoder For iPhone

I also used the MorseDec CW Decoder on my iPhone as a second decoder and the FLdigi/ MorseDec combination was effective in this contest. In some cases, one would successfully decode the received CW when the other did not.

Online Contest Score Website

Online Contest Score Website

Another tool that I used for the first time in this contest was the Online Contest Server website. This tool allows one to post and compare your score in real-time during the contest to those of other operators. It was very easy to enable this capability using the N1MM Logger – all I had to do was to create an account on the Online Contest Server website and enable N1MM to post my scores which it did every few minutes. Anita (AB1QB) learned about this interesting tool during her participation in Contest University at the 2013 Dayton Hamvention. I found that being able to see how I was doing relative to some of the other operators was good motivation to keep going during the contest. This also gave me an indication of how others with scores close to mine were balancing adding to their score via more QSOs vs. searching for additional prefixes (i.e. multipliers). It also shows each operator’s statistics by band which is helpful for comparison purposes.

2013 CQ WPX CW Band Conditions

Contest Band Conditions

Unfortunately, band conditions were less than ideal during this contest. A series of solar storms started on Friday evening just about the time the contest began and continued through the entire contest period. This made for some challenging operating conditions during most of the contest period.

Countries Worked In The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest

Countries Worked In The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest

In spite of my limited CW skills and the band conditions, I was pleased with the results that I was able to obtain working the contest. I probably worked about 60% of the available operating period during this contest. I mostly operated in Search and Pounce mode due to my limited ability to decode CW by ear. I did run briefly on 160m and 40m late at night to get some experience with running in CW mode. As you can see from the above, I was able to work 86 DXCC entities during the contest – not quite a DXCC but I was very happy with these results given my limited CW abilities.

AB1OC FInal Claimed Score In The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest

AB1OC Final Claimed Score

I was also able to make a little over 500 QSOs and worked 344 prefixes during the contest. This brought my total prefixes worked towards the CQ WPX Award of Excellence in CW mode to 550 of the 600 required. While all of these prefixes will probably not be confirmed, I am now within striking distance of completing this aspect of the award and I should be able to snag the final number of prefixes required to reach 600 confirmed via non-contest operating.

The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest was a lot of fun and it helped me to improve and build confidence in my CW skills. I would encourage our readers to try CW if you do not currently use this mode. It is challenging to learn CW but there is a great deal of DX available via this mode and I believe that some of the finest operators in the world use CW as their preferred mode.

– Fred (AB1OC)

AB1OC Completes 10,000th QSO From Home QTH

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I passed a milestone in my career as a HAM a few days ago – I completed my 10,000th QSO from my home station! The call was with VP9FOC, Yuri the operator of a Special Event Station in Bermuda commemorating the 75th anniversary of the FirstClass Operators Club. My 10,000th QSO was using CW and I was QRP 5 watts. I very much hope to someday have the CW and other skills to be able to be part of the FirstClass Operators Club – that would be quite an honor indeed. It was certainly good luck to have this station be my 10,000th QSO. I decided to create the video tour above of the 10,000 QSO’s I’ve made from my home station. I hope you enjoy it.

– Fred (AB1OC)

2013 Contest University At The Dayton Hamvention

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Contest University Session

Contest University Session

One of our favorite things to do at the Dayton Hamvention is to attend Contest University.   Fred (AB1OC) and Anita (AB1QB) attended Contest University for the first time in 2012 and found this to be a great learning experience about Amateur Radio in general and Contesting specifically.  The instructors are the same people who consistently place highest in contests. They share their knowledge with the rest of us at Contest University.

Here are some of the sessions that I attended at Contest University 2013:

  • Radio Sport Contesting, It’s More Than Rules – K5GN – The message from this presentation is that with contesting, everyone is under the honor system – there is no referee in your shack making sure that you follow the rules.  Technology has brought even more innovative ways to cheat than in the past.  But the best contesters do not cheat – your time is better spent learning to improve your skills.
  • Tips on Being a Better Single Operator – K5ZD – Randy Thompson is the director of the CQ WW contest and is an excellent speaker.  In this presentation, he shares many tips on improving your contesting skills based on his experience contesting and analyzing logs.  I would highly recommend this presentation, which can be viewed from Icom’s YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/IcomAmericaInc. Some items that I learned are:
    1. Automate as much as you can – band changes from your software, rotator control, PTT output to the radios, etc.  It is possible to set up your station so that you can click on a spot and your rotor will turn your antenna, your radio will tune, and the entry window of your logger will open with the callsign filled in.
    2. Station layout is important – make it easy to reach the items you go to most and difficult to reach the ones that you should not (eg. don’t accidentally switch antennas while transmitting)
    3. Have a strategy – look at your past logs and the logs of your peers (Logs are public for some contests, like the CQ WW contest).
    4. Understand the rules and use this information to determine when to change bands, when to run, when to hunt for multipliers
    5. Get your station ready 1 week before the contest and get a good night’s sleep the night before.
    6. There is a real-time score reporting website – cqcontest.ru – See below for an example showing AB1OC’s score midway through the CQ WPX CW contest.
    7. Don’t give up if it’s not going well – keep pushing – the next QSO could make the difference.
AB1OC CQ WPX CW Real Time Score Display

AB1OC CQ WPX CW Real Time Score Display

  • Setting Up for RTTY Contesting/Operating a RTTY Contest – W0YK – The presenter, Ed Muns, operates as P49X from Aruba in the major RTTY contests and consistently has stop scores.  I attended this talk last year, but with some RTTY contests under my belt, I was able to get much more out of the presentation this year.  He provides alot of good technical information about how RTTY works, how to set up RTTY, comparisons of hardware and software for RTTY, and what the various program options do.  Some learnings:
    1. Using multiple decoders for a given signal helps to get a good copy on at least one.  The new 2Tone decoder from G3YYD can decode signals under some conditions where other decoders (MMTTY, etc.) cannot.  This avoids asking for repeats and increases your QSO rate.
    2. Using Super Check Partial, a database of active contester callsigns, can also help to accurately  pick out call signs
    3. Callsign stacking  – waiting for 2-3 callsigns after calling CQ and then working them in sequence can speed up your QSO rate.
    4. RTTY is easier than other modes, since the callsign is already decoded for you on your screen.  Take advantage of this to multi-task to increase your rate.  Use Single Operator Two VFO (SO2V) to find stations via search and pounce while running.  Or do search and pounce on one VFO and while you are waiting for your chance to respond to a CQ, look for another station on the other VFO.  If you have 2 radios, and are good at multi-tasking – use SO2R to increase your QSO rate even more.  This is how the best RTTY contesters win.
  • Post-Contest Log Analyzers – K6MM – As mentioned by K5ZD in his talk, analyzing your contest log (or your peers’ logs) is a good way to improve your score in the next contest.  This presentation was about several software packages that can help you to do this.  The most full featured of these is SH5 , which provides 50 different reports on your log.  Some of the reports include QSO rates per hour, number of hours operated, QSO break down by band, and number of countries worked.  It even provides a Google map plot of the QSOs that you worked!  I ran SH5 on my log from the 2013 BARTG HF RTTY contest and a couple of reports are shown below.
AB1QB QSOs from 2012 BARTG HF RTTY Contest

AB1QB QSOs from 2012 BARTG HF RTTY Contest – from SH5 generated KML file

AB1QB QSOs per Hour 2013 BARTG HF RTTY Contest - from SH5

AB1QB QSOs Per Hour 2013 BARTG HF RTTY Contest – From SH5

Some other topics presented at Contest University included Contest Antennas and Coaxial Cables, Propagation Trends, RFI and Ham Radio, VHF Contesting, Design and Maintenance of Antennas, Towers and Rotators.  There is so much good information, I wish I could have attended multiple sessions at once!

We also attended the RTTY contesting forum at the Dayton Hamvention where we learned about the Reverse Beacon Network and CW Skimmer . These tools are beginning to be available for RTTY.  The CW Skimmer works with participating stations running software that decodes and collects information from received CW traffic.  That data is collected by the Reverse Beacon Network website and displayed like spots from a spotting network.

AB1OC Spots on Reverse Beacon Network (CW Skimmer)

AB1OC Spots On Reverse Beacon Network (CW Skimmer)

Next year, Contest University will be held around the ARRL Centennial which will be held July 17-20, 2014 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.   Contest University has also been held in Germany, Italy, and Australia.

Several of the contest university sessions were recorded and can be found on Icom’s YouTube Site:  http://www.youtube.com/IcomAmericaInc.  The Hamvention RTTY Contesting Slides and Videos can be found at W0YK’s website.

There is also some good contesting information at http://www.rttycontesting.com and the CQ-Contest and RTTY email mailing lists at contesting.com.

– Anita (AB1QB)