Tiny Elephant's Contest Corner

The Latest Contest News -
A NARC Bulletin Exclusive

A monthly column by Ed Deichler, K2TE

Hello again, contest fans. Here it is the beginning of October and I have to figure out what's cooking for the contester's pallet for the month of November. I haven't worked any OCTOBER contests yet! I know...I know...the NARC Bulletin has a printing deadline. I sometimes wish I could e-mail things to everyone in NARC, using a packet bulletin board or any of the Internet services. Like everyone else, I have been engulfed by the "data barrage" that seems to saturate every available non-ham twisted pair or piece of coax. I agree that it certainly saves trees and is making consultants as rich as sports figures.

However, maybe I'm old-fashioned; I still like the personal touch of having a copy of the Bulletin to refer to now and then for information. Yeah, its true that we have routinely available gigabyte storage capacity now, so there is not problem with saving back issues indefinitely. I suppose I could just as easily bring up the NARC Bulletin file to check on something in a past issue - IF I remember where I filed it. If it is particularly interesting, I probably would print a copy of it. What was that about saving trees?...

Last month I had my first experience working a RTTY contest as I teamed up with Mike, NEV - oops, busted call; I mean NE1V - to work the CQ Worldwide RTTY contest the last weekend of September. We operated the low power, all band class and managed to work about 370 stations. A RTTY contest is definitely unique if you're used to CW contesting. The WF1B contest program, like CT, takes the drudgery out of typing and logging RTTY contacts. However, I soon learned that it is no place to try tail-ending or dropping your call in between exchanges. Several times I noticed strange calls being printed out that were the result of "byte crashes". When it was all over, I think we had about 60 countries worked and 40 states. I understand that John, WS1E, and Chris, KA1SIE, had nearly identical scores of 750+ contacts and are in the running for top finishes. Nice going, guys; now I have someone to chase next time!

In what has become a crazy situation that would fuel Oprah for a month, the K2TE "superstation" project is back on track and aiming for the CQ Worldwide megacontests. Over the weekend, Mike and I put a TA-36 tribander up on my short tower in preparation for the coming contest season. As with any antenna project, it had its share of excitement. I've found that I have to make up for a lack of strength when wrestling with a 75-80 pound, 6-element beast through sheer stubbornness. I managed to get the thing clamped in place and connected but not without the requisite scrapes and bruises. (I've got the divots in my hands to prove it.) My plans are to use this antenna as a multiplier hunter, or, if propagation favors low antennas, use it as the primary antenna.

Speaking of contests, there is another RTTY contest coming up next month in addition to the usual CW and SSB stuff. Read on...the leaves can wait a little while longer...

ARRL Sweepstakes. 4-6 November (CW); 18-20 November (SSB).

The annual ARRL Sweepstakes get-together starts at 2100Z and ends at 0300Z for either contest with a maximum of 24 hours operation over the 30 hour period. The contest exchange consists of five fields: QSO number, precedence for power class (A, low power; B, high power (> 150 watts), and Q, QRP of < 5 watts), your callsign, a two-digit check representing the year first licensed (for me, it is 63), and, finally, your ARRL section. With all this, thank God for programs like CT, especially for CW. The SSB event has gotten easier with digital voice keyers, but I still have trouble with the "UXA data rate" from some stations. Multipliers are the 77 ARRL/RAC sections. Stations may be worked on 160-10 meters using the general portion of the bands for either mode. Operation on the Novice portions of the bands is also encouraged. Categories: single operator, multioperator (including packetcluster use by single ops). Incentives to get folks to jump in: work 100 stations in either contest and get a participation pin. Work all 77 sections and get a "clean sweep" coffee cup. The "clean sweep" incentive usually leads to a frantic search for the Yukon, Eastern Washington, North Dakota, or Delaware sections as the contest draws to a close.

Worked All Europe RTTY Contest. 11-12 November.

Don't have many details on this one, but this contest is most likely a 24-hour contest that has similar rules to WAE contests on CW that take place over the summer. If I remember right, there is a requirement to exchange a QTC of the last 10 stations worked in order to collect bonus points. Because this is a RTTY contest, I can listen to a couple of stations doing an exchange to see how its done. The rest of the time the exchange is usually a serial number and report; however, when in doubt, listen - don't pout.

CQ Worldwide CW DX Contest. 25 -26 November.

The CQ Worldwide CW DX contest takes place over the last weekend in November, which usually means kick the relatives out with the turkey from Thanksgiving before Friday night. No matter how the propagation goes, this one is always a good contest to find rare countries on bands you don't normally hear them. The superior weak-signal readability of CW works nicely for those couple of hours when propagation opens to the other side of the world. I supposed it also helps that most stations are up and running for the whole 48 hours. There are plenty of categories to suit your station investment. A station can operate single band, low power, high power, with or without packet spotting, all the way up to all-band, multi-multi operation with a transmitter on every band. Operation is allowed from 160 to 10 meters. Even though the sunspots are minimal, 10 meters does perk to life for stations in the Caribbean and South America, and, for some of the superstations, it opens briefly to the South Pacific. Look for a lot of activity on 160 and 80 meters this year. Well, there you have it for November. Keep your fingers crossed that it will snow before Thanksgiving weekend. That way, you won't have to rake the leaves as promised when you were going to be off, hi hi.

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