The CTRI Contest Group is an ARRL affiliated club. When the club was first started it was located in southeastern Connecticut and southern Rhode Island however over the years it has gained members from all over New England. As our name implies, we are specifically interested in contesting.
The club was started back in 1992 as a project to setup a station where club members and other amateurs from around the area could go and operate. Being that the major players in the group were all into contesting, the station started to take shape as just that, a place to contest from, along with an open door policy for anyone that needed a place to operate during the contests, or just to work some DX. After an eight-year run and many multi operator operations, and many new people introduced to contesting, the CTRI club station was dismantled in the year 2000. We will always be thankful to Andy KA1VMG for letting us use his property. In the eight years the club station was operating, many members bought homes and setup stations of their own. CTRI is still growing to this day and still has a open door policy at many of it’s members stations. Many members put on Multi operations from the homes and invite all interested to come join the fun.
We have sponsored a large group of students at the Dunn’s Corners Elementary School in Westerly R.I. in the SAREX program. This class which was run by Ken Chaffee, WA1QXR, ran for seven years ending in 2003. The CTRI Contest Group also runs VE test sessions headed by Joe Natale, K1JN. We also provide an annual subscription to QST magazine to a different local area school or library each year. Past schools have been: Wheeler High School in North Stonington, CT. Block Island school on New Shoreham, The Westerly library in Westerly, RI, and Cross Mills Public Library in Charlestown RI.
The Biggest project the group took on was the “2002 Grenada Computer project” and with the help of the YCCC Membership we were able to ship 12 complete computer systems and more than enough computer gear to make up another 12 systems which the kids will build themselves.
The CTRI Contest Group sponsors a number of other things, too. We provide the plaques for a number of contests throughout the contest year. Some of the past plaques were for the Rhode Island section winner of the New England States QSO Party, the CQ Worldwide DX SSB and CQ Worldwide DX CW contests in the World Single Operator, Unlimited category. Back in (2004-2005) CTRI added couple of ARRL contests to the list and continues to support many contest Plaques.
CTRI members have made the trip to DX locations to operate during some of the big four contests, CQWW DX Phone, CQWW WPX Phone. These trips started with Grenada in 2002 operating as J3A, Bermuda in 2002 as VP9I and in 2004 operating as NP3U at the “Mi Casita” Contest Station in Puerto Rico. Member also headed back to Bermuda in the fall of 2005 to operate during the CQWW WPX Phone contest once again using the Call VP9I. In 2007 eight members traveled back to Puerto Rico for the CQWW WPX Phone operating once again at the “Mi Casita” contest station of Carlos WP4U in a Multi-2 operations that ended up with the guys putting over 6000 Q’s in the log and over 23 Million points. In the year 2008 members traveled back to Puerto Rico to operate in the CQWW WPX RTTY where they beat last years record by over 7 million points. The group put just under 15 million points in the log with 14,905,00 points and holds to this day the World record and North American record.
If you have any questions regarding the CTRI Contest Group operations and/or membership please contact any of the officers or drop a general e-mail to wa1rr
