Tiny Elephant's Contest Corner

The Latest Contest News -
A NARC Bulletin Exclusive

A monthly column by Ed Deichler, K2TE

June Contest Bugs

Here we are in early May and its time to get in the swing of Summer activities. Something seems to be out of whack here; didn’t it snow a few weeks ago? L’see here...it snowed in early February, then got nice; snowed in early March, then got nice; snowed in early April and got nice again - that means it should be snowing the first weekend of May. Ok, ok, enough of the depressing stuff (well, it DID snow on Temple mountain on the 6th). The only good thing I have to say about the horrific winter we just had is that all I could do was plough through the roads in my quest for the starting line at Hopkinton - well, a few hundred yards from it, anyway. In case you haven’t heard by now from the daily commute chatter, I ran the 100th Boston marathon and finished standing up. I had no choice; it was too crowded to fall down. As usual, I was severely chilled and I cramped so bad that veteran massage therapists had their hands full. (Oooohhh! another Royerism!)

The Boston marathon was my first time at Boston. The crowds made the whole thing a 26-mile block party and one of the most memorable things I’ve ever done. Another memorable thing that I look forward to every year is a NARC Field Day. I’m always amazed at the support the club gives this annual emergency exercise/ contest/ tower-raising/ antenna experiments/ party. If it looks like I can’t make up my mind, you’re right; a NARC Field Day is any one of the above that meets your fancy. Every year I see new faces joining the familiar ones during the planning meetings as we go through the process of organizing things. I find it especially gratifying that there is always room for new folks to enjoy the fun and make a contribution to NARC’s consistent best-in-the-country Field Day.

This year chairman Al, WA1TYB, has already been assembling the troops in several planning meetings leading up to this month’s club meeting as the big kick-off. I understand that Al is lining things up for the usual NARC 15A juggernaut - that’s 15 STATIONS on the air running up to 100 watts to antennas ranging from an HT whip to stacked 20-meter monobanders. I don’t want to steal much of Al’s thunder, but strong rumor has it that former club prez and still-current member emeritus Bill, WB1BRE, will be making a guest appearance to operate the satellite station. As of press time, Bill is recovering from heart problems he suffered in April. Bill is recovering nicely with some new plumbing and is looking forward to Field Day. I’m sure we are looking forward to seeing Bill and Dot, KA1LDS, as much as they are looking forward to a NARC Field Day and the great chow - well, hold the chili.

For my part, I have been busy running up and down the tower getting my antenna project ready. I’m planning to erect a 3- element 80-meter inverted Vee beam to take aim at the rest of the country. I had been modeling several designs over the winter using the ELNEC program. I came up with a reasonable design that looked like it would give me about 3-4 dB of gain, not much but worth a try. However, NE1V urged me to take a look at ON4UN’s book Low-Band DXing for some ideas. Sure enough, John has a similar design that uses capacitors and shorting stubs to improve gain to about 4.5 dB. The nice thing about this design is that element separation is only 1/8 wavelengths (10 meters) instead of the usual 0.2 to 0.25 wavelengths, making it easier to fit the Field Day site.

Once I get the antenna assembled, lets see what is out there to test it on:

RSGB National Field Day, 1-2 June.

The British are coming and they have beaten us. As a preface to Field Day, The Radio society of Great Britain is sponsoring the “Queen’s version” of Field Day the first weekend of the month. Like the “colonies”, this contest runs for 24 hours beginning at 1500Z on June 1st. I don’t have any other details on the contest, but that should not matter that much. If you run across some of them on phone or CW, just listen a bit to find out what the exchange is supposed to be and you’ll be off and running. This should be a good contest for some initial Field Day equipment checkout.

ANARTS Worldwide RTTY Test, 8-9 June

This is another in the growing series of RTTY contests. This one comes to you from Australia starting at 0000 Z June 8 and lasting 48 hours, with a maximum allowed time of 30 hours for single operators. Although this is a contest, it has its own set of “Australian rules”. First, although multioperators are permitted, only one transmitter at a time can be activated. Second, contest exchange consists of RST, time, and CQ zone. Third, if you want to keep track of scoring, get a chart from the ANARTS contest manager. Finally, QSO emphasis is on working VK stations with 100 points per VK station on 28 MHz, and increasing in 100 point increments to 500 points/VK QSO on 80 meters ! All contest information can be obtained from ANARTS, POB 860, Crow’s Nest, NSW 2065, Australia.

All-Asian CW DX Contest, 15-16 June

I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of details on this one. Given the time of the year (and the sunspot bottom), finding stations from the Far East will be difficult. Nevertheless, it will be a chance to see how the bands open up to the Northwest/Southwest and how long they will open. It is also a good test of antennas for Field Day. As “Reverend Billy” says, “Just listen, listen, listen...and ye shall hear thy contest station, and it shall indeed utter glorious exchanges, and ye shall rejoice “All RIGHT! A NEW COUNTRY!! (say amen..).”

ARRL Field Day, 22-23 June.

At last we get to the main event for June: FIELD DAY. As always, Field Day takes place the fourth weekend in June with two setup times authorized. Stations may begin setting up at 1800Z on Friday afternoon, or they can wait until 1800Z on Saturday to begin setup. Setting up on Friday allows stations to start operating at 1800Z on Saturday, June 22, for 24 hours. Those stations that wait until Saturday afternoon to setup (usually 1-2 person operations) are allowed to operate until 2100Z Sunday afternoon, June 23. Needless to say, NARC is in the former category.

The operating classes for Field Day cover the variety one would expect in a country- wide emergency situation. There are 5 classes, lettered A, B, C, D, and E. Class A stations, by far the most numerous, are further subdivided as portable (that’s us usually) and battery operation. The class A category applies to three or more stations operating from a site. Class B stations, also distinguished as portable or battery, are those stations with one or two transmitters in operation. Class C applies to mobile stations which can be anywhere from a bicycle to an 18-wheeler outfitted with several stations (the RFI would be unbelievable!). Stations that operate from home using normal commercial power lines are classified as class D. The class E stations are the same as class D except they operate from an emergency power source, usually something like draining the generator before storing it until next winter. Any class station can work any other class station with the exception of class D stations who cannot work other class D stations.

One of the unique things about Field Day is that operation is encouraged on as many amateur bands and modes as possible. Most of the transmitters that we put on the air running under emergency power count as 100 points apiece. The rules do NOT count a transmitter for the Novice/Technician bands, nor a transmitter on satellite or one transmitter on VHF/UHF. What this means, in the case of VHF/UHF, is that we can put 10 transmitters on all these bands but only 9 will count toward our category. There are up to 10 incentives for bonus points in addition to the number of transmitters. Each bonus condition adds up to another 100 points to our score. What does all this mean? Well, if we run our “usual” NARC effort of 15 transmitters under emergency power and satisfy all the bonus requirements, we would have a total of 2500 bonus points for our score.

The exchange during the contest is our operating category and ARRL section. Thus for NARC, we send “15A NH”. Whether you’re new to a NARC Field Day or a veteran, it's always worth a chuckle when other stations are surprised at the size of our operation.

73 de TE

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