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.
2017 ARRL Rookie Roundup SSB Results
The full results can be found at http://www.b4h.net/arrlrr/rr_scores201704.php
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.
We’ve decided to collect all of this great content in one place here on our website so that our members can enjoy it. You can view it via the following links:
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.
Most (but not all) of this content is in members-only sections of the pages so be sure to log in to our website to view all of the media that we have collected.
Thanks to all of our members for making so many great memories! We are looking forward to much more to come…
I wanted to provide an update to all club members on our progress related to Field Day 2017. We had our second field-day meeting yesterday at the Nashua Public Library. I’m pleased to report that we have selected the Hollis Brookline High School for a 2nd year as our site. Paperwork has been submitted to the school seeking formal approval.
Now that a site has been identified, formal station planning has begun. Once again, we will be operating this year as a 7 Alpha, which means we will have 7-transmitters, plus a GOTA and a Satellite station. We will setup the following stations:
10/15/80m SSB
20m SSB
40m SSB
10/15/80m CW
20m CW
40m CW
6m VHF
A Digital Station
A “Get on the Air” GOTA Station
Satellite Station with computer-controlled Azimuth / Elevation rotor
A VHF/UHF “talk-in” station
As there are many new members in the group, I wanted to take a minute to explain the complexities of this type of setup. Operating so many transmitters in close proximity is a recipe for disaster unless proper precautions are made. We must do this right so all the stations will be able to operate without interference to one another. If we don’t, it would be very easy to have de-sense or worse case physical front-end damage to a receiver where it would require repair.
To combat these issues, we are going to erect 3 towers this year, each separated by about 300-feet. Each of them will have a tri-band HF beam antenna directed to the southwest and pointed perpendicular to the axis of the towers. In addition, we will be using a device called a triplexer to separate the single antenna feed coming from the tribanders into individual 10m, 15m and 20m feeds to the radios. Each of these feeds will be further protected with a band-specific Band Pass Filter (BPF). This will allow 3 separate radios to transmit and receive simultaneously over a single antenna.
There will be several new concepts introduced this year, including the addition of a Wi-Fi Mesh LAN environment to connect all the sites computers together. This LAN will provide shared internet access as well through a 4G cellular connection.
WiFi Mesh Topology
We will be running the N1MM logger in network mode this year as well. This will allow for real-time tracking of our combined score, with a “dashboard” being available in the public information tent.
Another new concept will be a remote radio setup. Given the layout of the Hollis Brookline site, the third tower will be located remotely on a lower field. Although it’s still within the 1,000’ transmitter perimeter allowed by ARRL, the third tower will be quite isolated. We have decided to place two Flex Radio’s at the third tower for our GOTA and Digital operations. The operators will connect to these radios over the Wi-Fi Mesh network, allowing them to be anywhere on-site. The user interface for the GOTA station will be a Flex Maestro controller, which emulates a traditional “knob and button” radio.
Our primary objective is to make sure there is something for everyone. We want to be inclusionary, and give anyone that’s interested an opportunity to participate.
We have established a regular bi-weekly planning meeting at the Nashua Public library. Generally, the meetings are held on Sunday’s from 1 – 3 PM. However, the next meeting will be on Saturday, April 8th from 12 – 2 PM due to lack of availability of facilities on Sunday. We will resume the normal schedule on Sunday, April 23rd from 1-3PM.
I will be sharing additional details at club meetings and through N1FD.ORG as things progress.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.
