 December 23, 2020 Editor: Paul Bourque, N1SFE | |||
IN THIS ISSUE
Contesting-wise, the next couple of weeks are filled with plenty of seasonal and shorter-duration events. All UTC-day on December 26, turn your beams toward Indonesia for the Gedebage CW Contest. The DARC XMAS-Contest is 2.5-hour sprint format event on December 26, where you may hear German stations sending "FF" to one another wishing "Frohes Fest." Non-German stations might try 40 meters where propagation may favor. Also on December 26: the Stew Perry Topband Challenge. If you have a 160-meter antenna, you probably are already planning on it! Between Christmas and New Year's Day, there are myriad CW events to keep you going: CWOps Mini-CWTs and QCX Challenges among them. January 1, you can verify that your RTTY gear is in order in the NCCC RTTY Sprint, really make sure in the 3-hour long SARTG New Year RTTY Contest starting at 0800z on January 1, then go all out in the ARRL RTTY Roundup on January 2. FT4/FT8 modes are allowed in the RTTY Roundup, if that's more your style. BUSTED QSOS Dave, N8SBE, noticed that I got Dan's, KB6NU, name wrong in the last issue. Sorry Dan! Complete information for all contests follows the Conversation section 24 Dec 2021- 6 Jan 2022 December 24 December 25 December 26 December 27 December 28 December 29 December 30 December 31 January 1
January 2
January 3 January 4 January 5 January 6
ARRL Kids Day is a phone event on January 2. The exchange for this event is name, age, location, and favorite color, and participants would surely welcome any contacts. Jim, K5ND, has a free e-book for you: "Capture the MAGIC of Six Meters," free for download, or read it online as "Getting Started on the Magic Band." Make sure you read chapter 9: Contesting! Bill, K2PO, notes: "Jari, OH6BG, and team did a refresh of VOACAP.com a month or so ago -- cleaning up code and using new maps, and so on. More recently Jari has added a new beta feature -- a path takeoff angle analyzer. Given both ends of a path, the code uses Voice of America software to figure out the statistical occurrence of different takeoff angles for available paths. Who knew, for example, that the path from Portland, OR to Washington, DC on 40 meters most commonly uses a takeoff angle of around 5 degrees, whereas the longer path to Peru most commonly uses a takeoff angle of above 10 degrees. If I have a 40 meter sked with my cousin in Boise, my signals will commonly be taking off at around 18 degrees. To chat with my son in Austin, TX, on 15 meters, I should elevate my dipole to optimize a takeoff angle of about 5 degrees. Lower angles are much more prevalent than the antenna literature seems to commonly suggest. It's unusual to see predominant takeoff angles much above 15 degrees. The VOACAP takeoff angle analysis covers all months from January to December, and assumes a fixed sunspot number (SSN). Naturally, conditions vary month to month, and with changes in SSN. Look for the 'TO Angle' button at the bottom of https://www.voacap.com/hf/ "
Lee Finkel, KY7M, Announced as New Editor of National Contest Journal: "Lee Finkel, KY7M, of Phoenix, Arizona, will begin his tenure as Editor of National Contest Journal (NCJ) with the magazine's January/February issue... Finkel, the 17th Editor, takes over the reins from Scott Wright, K0MD, a noted and regular amateur radio contester, who has helmed NCJ since January 2017." Scott, K0MD, must be getting ready to be on the air more, now that Lee, KY7M, is taking over the Editor role at NCJ: "We have had a bit of a warm spell this month so I decided to buy and install BOGs ("Beverage On Ground" - Ed.). I am trying the KD9SV and the Low Band Systems units. I bought the KD9SV from DXE and ordered the LBS directly from Russia. Transit time from Russia to MN was 12 days despite an estimated time of 35. DXE promises to stock the LBS parts in 2021. That said it is very easy to order online from LBS. Their staff communicate in English and payment is via PayPal. They provide tracking numbers for the shipment. The Pitcairn team recommended the LBS system to me because of how well it performed there. For contesters like me who have never had a low-band receiving antenna system, this is easy to install and does not take up as much real estate as a traditional Beverage or a vertical receiving array. I only wish I had installed it before the ARRL 160 contest."
I also bought from Home Depot the cable truck to make unrolling the coax smooth and fast. It was a wise inexpensive investment for my contest station. Thanks to W0GJ and W0VTT for advice on all of this. Tim, K3LR, Chairman of Contest University, writes: "Contest University is hosting a Propagation Summit 2021 on January 23, 2021 starting at 11 AM EST. An outline of the program is on the website. The registration link for the summit is also on the webpage, and as a bonus, Icom America is donating an IC-705 that will be awarded in a drawing from those present on the Zoom conference. The person's name/call sign drawn must be present on Zoom to win. Hope you can join us on January 23, 2021!" Are you looking for some heart-pumping VHF action? A three-band, 1-hour long, Winter VHF Sprint will be held on Saturday, January 2, 2021 starting at 1600 UTC (11AM-ET, 10AM-CT, 9AM-MT, 8AM-PT), thanks to the Rochester VHF Group (rvhfg.org). Being a VHF event, it covers all (and only) VHF bands: 6-meters, 2-meters and 1.35-meters. Simply exchange Grid-4s (e.g. FN01) with stations, once per band. There are no mode restrictions and you can contact the same station on multiple bands to build your score (but do it fast -- you have only one hour!). Scoring mimics that of the ARRL January VHF Contest (1 pt/QSO on 6 and 2 meters, 2 pts/QSO on 1.35 meters and "Score=Total Grids x Total QSO pts"), making logging easy. Post your score on 3830scores.com after the event!
N1MM Logger+ has a new feature: Automatic Antenna Switching, and Extended Antennas table. If you have appropriate MicroHam or OTRSP-compatible hardware, you can configure the predominant logging program to automatically display the choice of antennas based on the given band and azimuth to the station in the entry window. Alt-F9 will toggle through the antenna choices in the Entry window. Larry, K8UT, made a video about the new feature. You can make your own OTRSP hardware based on one of the Arduinos, and use some software from Mike, K7MDL, to handle the OTRSP protocol. Scott, N3FJP, has released version 3.8 of his ARRL RTTY Roundup logging application. Included in the release are the following new features (and more):
See the N3FJP website for more information. The Reverse Beacon Network is going to have even more traffic as 15 additional receiving sites are coming on line soon, with the help of equipment from DX Engineering, a grant from the YASME Foundation, and in cooperation with Amateur Radio Digital Communication (ARDC). You can read more about the effort to enhance the worldwide coverage of the RBN in the DX Engineering Press Release. Mark, ON4WW, recently compared RiTTY with 2Tone, GRITTY, and MMTTY in a video. RiTTY, written by K6STI, ran on MS-DOS based ISA-bus PCs about 20 years ago, and is remembered as better performing than the hardware Terminal Units (TUs) of the time. How does it stack up against the more modern applications? Mark previously compared RiTTY with MMTTY in a different video. Contesting is all about information management. With all of the windows on a typical screen related to spots, waterfalls, multiple decoders for digital contests, it can get crowded really quickly. Many home stations have multiple monitors for the display of information, but here's an interesting solution that might help those that use laptops: Turn Your Laptop Into a Triple Screen Workstation (Xebec Tri-Screen) Jess, W9ABS, writes: "I'm the organizer of the annual WINTERHEAT contest. The goal of this event is to provide radio operators an opportunity to log as many contacts on VHF/UHF simplex frequencies during an extended period of time (one month). Last year we conducted this event strictly at the state level (Illinois) however at the request from last year's participants we are expanding the event to a more regional level to not only include Illinois, but the six adjacent states as well (MI, IN, KY, MO, IA, WI). Even with the Illinois-only event last year, we had 140 participants making 6,500 contacts. We hope with the inclusion of the adjacent states those numbers will be much higher." The Northern California DX Foundation's end of year message talks not only about their support for DXpeditions, but also their support to the continuation of the Amateur Radio hobby and contesting, including the 2020 winner of the NCDXF Scholarship, Jonathan Kayne, KM4CFT from Candler, NC. "NCDXF plans on providing tuition and scholarship support to Contest University, the Dave Kalter Memorial Youth DX Adventure (YDXA) and Youth On The Air (YOTA) next year." They also "continue to partner with IARU to operate the worldwide Beacon system." NCDXF asks that you please consider a contribution to NCDXF when you plan your year-end giving. "Contributions can easily be made online via a credit card or PayPal using our secure web server: http://www.ncdxf.org/pages/contribute.html NCDXF is a 501(c)(3) entity. For U.S. amateurs, contributions are likely to be tax-deductible." (John, K6MM, President, NCDXF) Harbor Freight has some inexpensive devices that might be useful to remotely control line-operated ham gear. Their Geeni brand includes smart lights, smart plugs (which technically should be called smart sockets), even some that are "weather resistant." The Harbor Freight offerings join those from Wyze, TP-Link/Kasa, and others. Most of these devices are controlled via smartphone, smart device, or other opaque and/or proprietary means, but the protocol for the TP-Link devices has been determined, and python libraries are available for your station automation needs. FFMA In discussions of some 6-meter contests, the letters "FFMA" may be mentioned. The Fred Fish Memorial Award was created in honor of Fred Fish, W5FF (SK). He was the first to have worked and confirmed all 488 Maidenhead grid squares in the (contiguous) US on 6 meters. As of this writing, 12 hams have achieved this award. Ria, N2RJ, discusses the administration details of operating as a US visitor to DX locations, and as a DX visitor to the US, in this YouTube video. Some countries accept an International Amateur Radio Permit (IARP) issued by the ARRL, others fall under CEPT rules, and many require application to the particular country's authorities. She also provides practical information as it relates to contesting, and information about operating from US military bases. Anthony, EI2KC, talks about the Stew Perry Topband Challenge in his YouTube Video from 2014, and using his self-described "rubbish antennas" with 350 W, makes a contact with DJ9RR. The narrow filter he's using for CW is typical of what can sometimes be necessary in crowded or noisy band conditions. Contesting from PJ4 is the topic of KU8E's December 2020 presentation to the Central Arizona DX Association. Jeff's home is subject to HOA restrictions, so he travels for contests. "High Current Power Supplies with Fredrik Kensander" is one of The Amp Hour podcasts. Imagine a switching power supply capable of 10 V, but at, oh, thirty thousand amps. Yes. 30 kA. This is not a linear power supply, but a SMPS running at 37 kHz. Fredrik discusses the architecture of these products, real world constraints, applications where they are used - really interesting stuff. Some of the ideas are applicable (at a smaller scale) to 1750-meter and 630-meter transmitters. The results for the 2019 Stew Perry Topband Challenge were (very) recently posted. The Stew also has a shiny new Facebook page. All of the qualification events for WRTC2022 have completed, and the standings have been updated on the WRTC2022 website, though they are unofficial and subject to "further verification." Any issues with the scores should be sent to qualification@wrtc2022.it. Anthony, K8ZT, writes: "After almost a year and 46 contests, the 2020 running of the State QSO Party Challenge has ended. If you participated you can now generate your own suitable-for-framing color certificate by visiting the State QSO Party Challenge website or directly at www.b4h.net/sqpchallenge. If you did not participate in 2020, get ready to compete in 2021. Work any or all of the 46 state, province or regional QSO parties and submit your scores via www.3830scores.com. For more information, you can visit the website, view our YouTube Video or read through a slideshow at tiny.cc/stqspc. The 2020 Texas QSO Party was held on September 12 and 13, 2020, and the results have been posted on the TQP website. Everything, including the contest results article at whopping 46 pages, is bigger in Texas. RX and TX Operating Tips These are from Doug, K1DG, as part of his presentation at the 2020 Contest University. Basically, learn how to use your transceiver effectively on various bands. For receiving, don't use the preamplifier, except maybe on 10 meters. In crowded band conditions, make sure you know how to use your radio's built in filters, or filtering (you can hear a comparatively narrow filter setting in EI2KC's video referenced in the Sights and Sounds section). For transmitting, you can use your radio's compression features to put more energy and punch into your SSB signal, but don't overdo it and cause splatter, pick up background noise, or reduce intelligibility. You can monitor your signal to make sure you're consistently putting out a good one. For CW, make sure the rise time on your CW signal is not too fast, which can increase your transmitted bandwidth. Five milliseconds (5ms) or more is a suggested rise time. Some radios even shape rise time to further reduce energy in the sidebands. There's a Groups.IO group dedicated to the use of Node-RED for ham radio applications: nodered-hamradio@groups.io. Node-RED is both a programming tool and an environment that can be used to help flexibly automate and control hardware and software using a graphical UI. Recent topics on the Groups.IO group include using Node-RED to control rotators, using it in conjunction with satellite tracking, and coordinating with metrics displayed via Grafana. SDR Technologies has released a Jetson Nano distribution with many SDR goodies already installed and ready to go. According to the GitHub page, it's built on Ubuntu 18.04, and includes GNUradio 3.8.2, SoapySDR, GQRX, SigDigger, WSJT-X, and more. Jetson Nano is a "small, powerful computer that lets you run multiple neural networks in parallel for applications like image classification, object detection, segmentation, and speech processing. All in an easy-to-use platform that runs in as little as 5 watts." 5 watts refers to the power consumption of the computer. IARU Region 1 personnel have been taking part in Wireless Power Transfer discussions as part of ITU-R Study Group 1, continuing to "advocate caution on the permitted levels of spurious emissions from WPT-EV systems." Amazon is designing... antennas? For their Kuiper LEO satellite-delivered broadband service that is under development, they found they needed a hardware footprint for the ground terminal that was smaller than was available commercially. So they developed their own steerable Ka-band phased array antenna with overlayed TX and RX arrays. Dan, KB6NU, found this one: Make your own conductive ink. It's not inexpensive, but it's not crazy, either. The author of the IEEE Spectrum article, W. Wayt Gibbs, describes exactly how he was able to get the ink's components, and modify off the shelf drawing pens to dispense liquid conductors onto a plastic transparency (the "paper") for a 555-based tone generator. The Day After Christmas 2020 Vic, VE3YT, "wrote this little ditty to convince local contest newbies to consider the upcoming Stew Perry Topband Challenge" and sent it to a couple of club mailing lists, so you may have seen it. It's too good not to share -- contesters in general will appreciate it. He kindly allowed me to use it here: 'Twas the day after Christmas, when all through the house Kids played with their toys and the cat caught a mouse. Gathered round the tree, the people made merry While the ham in the shack prepared for Stew Perry. Although the Stew Perry contest was only Morse code The ham didn't mind, 'twas his favourite mode. The inverted L hung in a tall tree with care; N1MM was loaded with the local grid square. In the mid-afternoon the ham heard only static And flew to the window looking down from the attic To check the antenna, but it was still there. It went up 30 feet, then across in the air. His radials, of which he had only two, They were not even straight but he hoped they would do. It was not yet dusk, the sun was still high The ham sat and relaxed with an audible sigh. As the sun started to set, there arose such a clatter, The ham spun the dial to see what was the matter. 160 meters was full of sigs that were strong The ham picked one out and joined in the throng. A few hours later, after running the band The ham relaxed a bit, turkey sandwich at hand. Already 100 QSOs in the log, The ham dreamt of a Beverage or maybe a BOG. As dawn approached, the ham was still at his work Nodding off, a call woke him up with a jerk. It was Santa, who had just got on for a bit "MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A DIT DIT." Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings, 73 and HNY, Vic VE3YT That's all for this time. Remember to send contesting-related stories, book reviews, tips, techniques, press releases, errata, schematics, club information, pictures, stories, blog links, and predictions to contest-update@arrl.org 73, Brian N9ADG 24 Dec 2021- 6 Jan 2022 An expanded, downloadable version of QST's Contest Corral is available as a PDF. Check the sponsors' website for information on operating time restrictions and other instructions. HF CONTESTS CWops Mini-CWT Test, Dec 24, 0300z to Dec 24, 0400z; CW; Bands: 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 10m; Member: Name + Member No./"CWA", non-Member: Name + (state/province/country); Logs due: December 26. VHF+ CONTESTS AGCW VHF/UHF Contest, Jan 1, 1400z to Jan 1, 1700z (144) and, Jan 1, 1700z to Jan 1, 1800z (432); CW; Bands: 144 MHz, 432 MHz; RST + "/" + Serial No. + "/" Power class + "/" + 6-character grid locator; Logs due: January 7. Winter VHF Sprint, Jan 2, 1600z to Jan 2, 1659z; any; Bands: 6, 2, 222; 4-character grid square; Logs due: January 7. Also, see ARRL Kids Day, Worldwide Sideband Activity Contest, above. 24 Dec 2021- 6 Jan 2022 December 24, 2020 December 25, 2020 December 26, 2020 December 27, 2020 December 28, 2020 December 29, 2020 December 30, 2020 December 31, 2020 January 1, 2021 January 2, 2021 January 5, 2021
January 6, 2021
ARRL Information Click here to advertise in this newsletter, space subject to availability. Your One-Stop Resource for Amateur Radio News and Information ARRL membership includes a choice of one print magazine: QST, the monthly membership journal, or On the Air, ARRL's new bimonthly publication for beginner and intermediate hams. All ARRL members can access all four ARRL magazines -- QST, On the Air, NCJ, and QEX - digitally. Subscribe to NCJ - the National Contest Journal. Published bimonthly, features articles by top contesters, letters, hints, statistics, scores, NA Sprint and QSO Parties. Subscribe to QEX - A Forum for Communications Experimenters. Published bimonthly, features technical articles, construction projects, columns and other items of interest to radio amateurs and communications professionals. Free of charge to ARRL members: Subscribe to The ARRL Letter (weekly digest of news and information), the ARES E-Letter (monthly public service and emergency communications news), Division and Section news -- and much more! ARRL offers a wide array of products to enhance your enjoyment of Amateur Radio. Visit the site often for new publications, specials and sales. Donate to the fund of your choice -- support programs not funded by member dues! Reprint permission can be obtained by sending email to permission@arrl.org with a description of the material and the reprint publication. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ARRL Contest Update wishes to acknowledge information from WA7BNM's Contest Calendar, | |||
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