Tiny Elephant's Contest Corner

The Latest Contest News -
A NARC Bulletin Exclusive

A monthly column by Ed Deichler, K2TE

Greetings from the Land of Few Trees and Natural-born NY Cab Drivers, AKA, Saudi Arabia. A part of the month of December found me in a lot warmer place than New England as I was on business in HZ-land. I left Boston a few days after the NARC Christmas Party/Mother Nature Slam Dunk that littered NH with trees. I worked as much of the ARRL 160 Meter contest that weekend as power would permit. After several outages and restarts, I quit for good (a good 2 days, in fact) around midnight.

The next morning I found the landscape littered with snapped-off trees and branches sticking out of the heavy snow. It looked like the aftermath of the Raid Brigade attacking Roachville. Checking the important things, I was relieved to find the K2TE antenna farm survived largely intact. A big limb had broken off a towering oak tree and somehow managed to miss the TA36, support ropes for my 80-meter inverted V and WARC dipole, and the feedline tram to the big tower before nailing the dog’s run and ripping it out of the house. Two of the four elevated radials for the 160- meter inverted L were victims of fallen trees. Needless to say, the season’s first big snow provided an incentive to head half way around the world to better weather.

Getting off the plane in the capital of Riyadh was much like landing in Phoenix this time of the year: sunny and pleasant weather. The area around Riyadh is flat and open but more barren than Phoenix. I didn’t see any cacti, and sagebrush was pretty sparse, leaving the door open for legendary dust storms when the winds kick up. The Saudis are not into cultivating lawns like people in Phoenix; however, they do cultivate groves of date and other trees within their walled properties as evident by the number of trees I saw protruding over the walls of their homes. Every Saudi home is built of cinder block or concrete and is encircled by a privacy wall 8 to 12 feet high. From a ham’s perspective, the walls looked like a great place to run low-band, terminated receiving beverages in all directions. (Oh yeah; space is not a problem).

As far as hamming is concerned, I knew I couldn’t operate from HZ, but I was hoping to use the TS-950 in the lab to do some SWLing. I was in-country over the weekend of the ARRL 10 Meter contest, so wouldn’t it be neat to hear DX that I would hear stateside only during a sunspot peak? Unfortunately, work commitments prevented any play time. This did not prevent me from mentally constructing my HZ antenna farm as I drove to my work site out in the desert. The wide expanses of the Riyadh plateau were just crying out for - RHOMBICS! To the Southeast of the city a large escarpment rises 200-300 meters above the rest of the plain. I found myself constructing phased “near-verticals” for 160 from this area to the desert floor. It looked like an unobstructed shot to the Northwest toward Europe and the USA. I’m going to break out my ELNEC program and see what the performance would be for full-wavelength, phased- verticals on 160. With 2 officially licensed stations in the country, I wonder why HZ has not been a booming signal on 160?

Anyway, back home to cold and reality. After spending a month one week with the in-laws over Christmas, it was back to cleaning up. I managed to get on the air to work TO0R from Reunion on RTTY. This unusual call is assigned to the Heard Island Expedition, an international effort that plans to “hammilize” one of the most desolate spots on earth. (By the time you read this, this South Indian Ocean expedition should be history and hopefully a big success.)

I also got on for the ARRL RTTY Roundup the first weekend of January. I must apologize for the wrong dates in last month’s NARC Bulletin; it obviously was not Jan. 11-12. I managed about 210 stations in what was generally a disappointing contest from a DX standpoint. However, the month of February gives me another crack at RTTY contesting with the Worldwide Prefix RTTY contest. Here is a look at what is on tap after Super Sunday:

ME/NH/VT QSO Parties, 1-2 February.

The northern New England states have their respective QSO parties at the same time with similar rules. Why it is not simply the Northern New England QSO Party with one contest manager is beyond me. The ME and NH events run from 1300Z on Saturday to 0700Z on Sunday, while Vermont is any 24 hours of the 48-hour weekend with down times at least 6 hours long. These contests are all-band, all-mode since they allow CW/RTTY/Digital/SSB operation on 160 meters through VHF (no WARC bands). If you are out of state, send a report and your state; within a state, substitute your county for the state. Each state scores 1 point/SSB QSO and 2 points/other modes, with ME and NH counting 5 and 10 points respectively for QSOs with the club stations. Scoring for each state is the number of points times the number of counties in the state if you’re out of state. Within the state, total the number of counties, provinces, states, DXCC countries, and “honey-do” chores before multiplying by the number of QSO points. Logs must be submitted by 1 March 1997 to:

Maine:	Portland AWA, POB 1605, 
	Portland, ME 04104
NH:	GEARS, c/o WB1GXM
VT:	Central Vermont ARC, POB 674, 
	Montpelier, VT 05601.

Worldwide RTTY Prefix Contest, 8-9 February.

The first of the Worldwide triumvirate of prefix hunter contests, this one is open the whole 48 hours with operating limited to a maximum of 30 hours except for multi-multi stations. All digital modes are allowed, though RTTY Baudot) is usually used. Stations may operate on 80 through 10 meters in one of 6 categories, SWL included. An unusual twist for this contest is the use of packet spotting for ALL categories. Exchange is RST and a 3-digit serial number. Each different prefix counts ONCE as a multiplier regardless of the number of bands worked. Each QSO is worth 3 points of the upper bands and 6 points on 80 and 40 meters. Logs/disks go to K5DJ by March 9, 1997.

ARRL CW DX Contest, 15-16 February

The third round of the Grand Slam of DX contests is the ARRL CW DX contest that runs the full 48 hours. Operation takes place on 160 through 10 meters. Operating categories are divided as Single Operator and Multioperator with subcategories in each case. A single-op station can operate without packet on all bands running QRP, low power (<150 watts), or high power, and does NOT have to observe the 10 minute band occupancy rule. Multioperator stations may operate single transmitter, two transmitter, or unlimited (one transmitter/band, maximum). The multi- single and multi-two classes must observe the 10-minute band occupancy rule or else they get bumped into the unlimited category. For the exchange, we send a report and our state, while DX stations send a report and their power.

One other note: Stateside stations do NOT work VE stations; only work DX stations. This is one of the key differences between the ARRL contests and the Worldwide DX contests.

Logs go to the ARRL Contest Branch in Newington by 31 March 1997. This allows time to include the SSB contest scores since that contest takes place two weeks later.

CQ Worldwide 160-Meter SSB Contest, 22-23 February.

The last shot at contesting on Top Band takes place the end of the month. The SSB version starts at 2200Z on Friday night and runs for 42 hours. Exchange is report and state for us with scoring allocated as 2 points/stateside QSO, 5 points/same- continent QSO, and 10 points/other- continent QSOs. Multipliers are the total number of states, provinces, and countries worked. Contest logs go to K4JRB by 31 March 1997.

It looks like a good mix of contests to play with different antennas and modes. Hope the snow flies fast and furious so I can make the most of them. Good Luck de TE.