Aron, W1AKI, Abby, KC1FFX and her dad Jamey, KC1ENX operated in the ARRL Rookie Roundup on Sunday, April 16 as a Multi Op Entry from the AB1OC/AB1QB QTH. They had a constant stream of callers throughout the 6-hour contest and made a total of 273 QSOs and earned a score of 15,437.
This was the club’s 2nd consecutive year operating in the ARRL Rookie Roundup and it was great to see how Aron, Abby, and Jamey have improved their contesting skills over the past year! They are now seasoned contesters!
Jamey, KC1ENX and Abby, KC1FFX operating in the ARRL Rookie Roundup SSB
The N1FD team took first place in the Multi-Op Area 1 category and had the highest score of all entries in the contest, narrowly beating out KM4LAO, the top single op who was operating from Michigan.
Here are some comments on operating in the contest from Aron, W1AKI:
It was a lot of fun! The pileups weren’t too bad, and people were very patient, which made it a really friendly environment. Everyone could take their time to make sure that the exchange was made correctly. (This was especially important since there were several other contests going on over the same weekend.) We made a QSO with a KL7TH, rookie in Alaska and she seemed at least as excited to get NH as I was to get Alaska. I got a generous handful of calls from hams who got their licenses back in in the 1950s. I made a DX contact with someone in the Caribbean who got their first license a while back in the UK, and another DX contact with Italy.
Thanks go to Anita AB1QB and Fred AB1OC for the use of their station and for their guidance! We were all limited to 100W, but I could really hear the Alaska station come up loud and clear as I swung the 4 over 4 SteppIRs around to the right heading, and it became an easy QSO to make. I also got great signals from a few mobile stations and a few QRP stations.
Looking at the results, I am struck by two things: (1) KM4LAO, the YL in Michigan who came in a very close second to us did it working all by herself, and (2) there were so few entries! Whether it’s your first contest, or you’re working your way up the learning curve, or you want to help others learn what it is about contesting that you’ve been enjoying for years — and give them another point, the Rookie Roundups are a great opportunity. You don’t need to worry about “mic fright” because there are no serial numbers in the exchange: you give the same information to everyone.
The upcoming CW and RTTY Rookie Roundups are a great incentive for me to work on my code and to try out digital modes. There aren’t many better places to make your first contacts in a new mode.
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Take a trip down our Club’s Memory Lane or catch up on some topics from one of our many Tech Night sessions. There is lots of material here to use for fun and learning.
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Thanks to all of our members for making so many great memories! We are looking forward to much more to come…
This past weekend Abby, AB1BY and I participated in the CQ WPX contest working mobile! My mobile set up consists of the Icom IC-7100 and various hamsticks We took part only to have fun and to increase our totals towards our DXCC and we did both! We totaled right around 50 contacts for the weekend which we thought was really good seeing that we only worked when we had to go somewhere in the car and I was at work all day on Sunday.
This was a great contest for us as many of the big stations were out and not only do they put out a great signal, for the most part, they hear very good as well! We were actually able to work 20 meters the whole time and we were on late on Friday night and still making good contacts. I would encourage anyone that is new or has a young ham that is showing some interest in the hobby to get involved in one of these contests as a leisurely participant. It’s fairly easy to make contacts and it’s great for DX.
Some of the places we worked:
Ireland, Northern Ireland, Bonaire, Puerto Rico, Cape Verde, Manitoba, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Netherlands, Venezuela, Spain, Slovak Republic, Russia, Aruba, California and Pepperell, Massachusetts!
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