Other Posts have made the case for the club multioperating this contest so I won’t repeat that information. It would be useful to know who will be available to operate at W1AN. Please enter a comment below about when you would like to operate.

As a reminder (not that we necessarily need one), the CQ WW RTTY contest is on this weekend, and we’re trying to drum up some support for a multioperator, two-transmitter effort. If you can manage the time, please make the trip to W1AN’s station and participate. I think you’ll find it to be a lot of fun!

As an aside, while thinking about posting this request I came to realize that in order to assure myself of reaching everyone, I need to post this on the Yahoo group and on the web site. I would sincerely like to see us migrate away from the Yahoo group and use the web site exclusively. I can’t understand why we are still posting the majority of messages on the Yahoo group when so much work has gone into creating a better environment on the web site.

If there are issues with the web site let’s please discuss and resolve them. If not, can we PLEASE exit the Yahoo group for good within the next week or so (and then simply delete the group)? Certainly we should be able to agree that we are worse off with two discussion forums as opposed to the one we used to have, can’t we?

73,
Pat, NG1G

 THE CONTEST YEAR AT-A-GLANCE

The 2011-2012 contest season is upon us. Time is running short to make improvements to our stations, get used to the new software that we downloaded, or get better acquainted with that new mode that we learned. One of the things that we should be doing as a club is deciding in which contest(s) we’d like to operate in one of the multi-operator categories. The following is a list of the major (and some not-quite-so-major) contests in which our club has participated in the past, with some recommendations for multi-operator efforts:

The CQ Worldwide (WW) RTTY DX contest is September 24-25. This contest offers an excellent opportunity for a multi-operator entry, either as a multi–single or multi–two. As I mentioned during the last meeting, as a club we seem to have really latched onto the idea of RTTY contesting and have gotten quite good at it. Because it’s a digital mode, it allows folks to sit around and chat while actively making Qs, as well as providing an excellent forum for contesting training and practice.

In October there are a couple of contests that, while not considered “major”, present good opportunities to practice or maintain skills, check out our stations, or work DX. The Oceania DX Contest Phone contest occurs on the first weekend. Many rarely-heard Pacific stations get on the air for this one, which provides a great opportunity to chase DX and test low-band antennas. Its CW counterpart is the next weekend. The Makrothen RTTY Contest is also the second weekend of October and provides some good DX opportunity as well as great RTTY contesting.

Of course, if we’re talking about October, then we’re talking about the CQ WW DX Phone Contest! This is one of the biggest and most popular contests of the season. Few contests provide the same excitement, DX, and fun as the CQ WW contests. DXCC is easily within reach during this contest. This is another good multi-op contest, although of course as a phone contest our ability to sit around and shoot the bull is significantly impaired. We do well in the Multi-Single category in this contest, and are always in need of overnight operators willing to do battle on 40M and 80M.

November IS Sweepstakes month! The ARRL Sweepstakes is a very old and popular contest, with the CW portion falling on the first weekend and the SSB portion on the third weekend. They are, in my opinion, a true test of an operator’s ability to copy exchanges, as it’s a lengthy one. With a modest effort, one can achieve Worked All States in a single weekend on both modes.

The very next weekend after the SSB Sweepstakes is the CW portion of the CQ WW DX Contest. This is a fantastic way to improve your code speed. But, you don’t need to know the code to work the contest. Interested in how to do that? Ask me!

Generally speaking, winter offers the best conditions for 160 Meters, as atmospheric noise in the northern hemisphere is at its lowest. The first weekend in December offers the ARRL 160-Meter Contest. This CW contest is one of the best chances to work both stateside and DX stations on Topband, and lasts 42 hours with no time limitations. The Stew Perry Topband Challenge is the third weekend of December. This self-styled “friendly” contest offers a lot of chances for smaller stations to work good DX as the band is less crowded. This contest runs concurrently with the ARRL Rookie Roundup’s CW portion, which is, as its name implies, specifically designed to get rookies on the air and work not only each other but “Old Timers” as well. It’s a great way to foster interest in those who are new to contesting.

January is a HUGE contest month, with something for just about everyone. The ARRL RTTY Roundup takes place the first full weekend of January and runs for 36 hours. It’s very popular with the US RTTY crowd and offers a great way to get Worked All States in this mode. It’s very friendly and you only give a signal report and your state for an exchange, so QSOs can go quickly. The second full weekend brings us the North American QSO Party, CW, which is just what it sounds like. It’s another great contest, only 12 hours long (so you won’t get quite as numb in the derriere), and its SSB counterpart is on the third full weekend. Part of this contest’s exchange is the operator’s name, and you get some pretty funny and weird ones. You can make one up just to make it interesting.

Following close behind is the CQ 160-Meter CW Contest, which is another great way to get those needed states and countries on 160 Meters. Throw a dipole up into some trees and try it!

Finally, for us RTTY enthusiasts, is the BARTG RTTY Sprint, a 12-hour contest that is concurrent with the CQ 160-Meter Contest. So you can stay up all night and work Topband and be up all day “diddling”!

February brings us the contest in which I think we have been most successful as a club, especially from a multi-op perspective. The CQ WW RTTY WPX Contest is a slugfest that provides great excitement and fun for RTTY operators. Our club has won #1 World in the Multioperator, Two Transmitter (M2) category from NP3U, as well as US and North American M2 awards from KI1G and as single operators too, so we pretty much have this contest down. It’s a prefix contest, meaning the multipliers are based upon the call sign prefixes worked. If you have a fairly unique prefix you become very popular.

The ARRL International DX Contest, CW, is February 18-19. In this contest, we are the DX, so you can call CQ and have many DX stations answer you! This is a great contest for low power operation, because the DX stations are looking for us. The next weekend is the CQ 160-Meter Contest, SSB, which can be an especially tough one for low power operators or those of us with small antennas for Topband. But the results can be worth the effort, so give it a try!

Rounding out the month of February is the North American QSO Party, RTTY. This is as much fun as its CW and SSB counterparts.

The first weekend of March brings the ARRL International DX Contest, SSB. Just like the CW version, we are the DX, so everyone is listening for us. March provides interesting propagation, and next year I would expect some decent high band activity. The third weekend gives us the BARTG HF RTTY Contest, a 48-hour RTTY-thon that has really gained popularity the last few years. If you’re serious about RTTY contesting, this is not one to miss!

That same weekend is the Russian DX Contest, which is very popular in our club and the contesting community in general. So if you get tired of hearing diddles in your head you can switch to this contest and work zillions of Russians as well as other DX.

The last weekend of March is for the 36-hour CQ WW WPX, SSB Contest. Good propagation should prevail, so dust off that microphone (if you can find it) and give it a whirl!

April doesn’t have what most contesters would consider to be “major” contests, but there are four state QSO parties (MI, GA, MI, FL) and one Canadian province QSO Party (ON) to keep you busy. I’m sure the April showers will keep us inside on at least one of these weekends. Might as well contest!

The first full weekend in May provides us with “our own” contest, the New England QSO Party. This is a very popular contest in the US, and thanks to John, W1XX, our club has really gone all out to make it fun and full of RI and CT signals. Next year I expect we will be challenged to do even better than 2011 (which CTRI won in the club category). There is talk of us getting special 1×1 call signs for this event, which will make us even more desirable to work, so stay tuned!

The last weekend of the month is for the CQ WW WPX Contest, CW. Lots of good DX is to be found, and don’t be shy about working CW!

June is the beginning of the VHF contesting season, and the ARRL June VHF QSO Party is the second weekend of the month. This contest has gained some popularity in our club, as members have found that they can actually win a certificate with modest participation. 6 meters is a fun band to work with 100 watts and a simple antenna, and when conditions are good you can work all over the US and beyond. If you have 2 meters you might be surprised at what you’ll work. Just last weekend during the ARRL September VHF QSO Party, I worked into Delaware and northern Vermont on 2M, using a 13-element beam at 25′ and 160W!

ARRL’s Field Day is the last full weekend in June, and provides the opportunity to find out if you can operate under emergency conditions (but you don’t have to). There are many stateside stations on the air, so it’s also a great way to work those last few states for WAS.

Many people don’t normally consider July a good contesting month but nothing could be further from the truth. The 24-hour IARU HF World Championship falls on the second full weekend and is a fast-paced DX contest with lots of participation. In 2014 New England will host the World Radiosport Team Championship, which is a sub component of this contest. It’s a huge world-wide event and will surely bring the entire radiosport community’s attention to our little corner of the US.

The next weekend is the 12-hour North American QSO Party (NAQP), RTTY. This is the last big RTTY contest of the year, and gets lots of activity. It coincides with the CQ WWVHF Contest, which lasts 15 hours longer, so you can work both contests. It’s an interesting mix of HF and VHF, RTTY, CW, and SSB, all in the same weekend.

The first full weekend of August brings the NAQP, CW. The North American QSO Parties are good fun and give us a chance to work each other in a competitive but friendly way. The third weekend is for the sideband version of this contest.

There are a multitude of other contests during the year, of course. Many state QSO parties, DX contests, etc. The best place to see the entire contest calendar is Bruce’s, WA7BNM, Contest Calendar web site at http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal/index.html. There’s something for everyone, so jump in and check it out!

73,

Pat, NG1G

This is an interactive meeting notice.

What, you may ask, is an interactive meeting notice?

As the phrase suggests, it is a meeting notice what requires interaction by the readers. For example: we need to have topics for presentation at the meeting; we need presenters; we need volunteers to provide lunch; we need to know who is coming to the meeting so the quantity of lunch portions may be determined, and so on.

This post will be updated as interactions (comments) are appended.

Topics

1. World Radio Team Competition 2014
2. CQ WW RTTY contest
3. What I did on my vacation.

Lunch provider:

Coffee by: K1DM

Lunch fixins by:

Members who will attend:

W1PN, W1AN, NG1G, KA1GEU, K1DM, W1XX, K3IU, KS1J, K1NEF

This is an interactive meeting notice.

What, you may ask, is an interactive meeting notice?

As the phrase suggests, it is a meeting notice what requires interaction by the readers. For example: we need to have topics for presentation at the meeting; we need presenters; we need volunteers to provide lunch; we need to know who is coming to the meeting so the quantity of lunch portions may be determined, and so on.

This post will be updated as interactions (comments) are appended.

Topics

1. A club station on wheels
2. FunCUBE Dongle Demo
3. CTRI CG Group activities – equipment setup/testing
4. It’s time to start plans for the upcoming contest season. What contests do we want to concentrate on? How are we going to prepare for the world record RTTY quest from KP4 land?
5. A stealth/Field Day/DXpedition 20/40 antenna Part I
6. Dan Roy will be doing shadow puppets of various tower configerations
7. Club Size

Lunch provider:

Coffee by: K1DM

Lunch fixins by: NG1G

Members who will attend:

W1PN, K1DM, K1FUG, KA1GEU, W1XX, NG1G, KA1BNO, NR1H, W1WBB, K1JSM, KS1J, K1NEF, W1AN

Fellow CTRI’ers,

     Due to it being summer, the meeting scheduled for July 23, 2011 is cancelled, and we will meet in August at the regularly sheduled time and place.  Keep checking the web site  for updates in the latest news.

73’s,

Mike, K1DM

W1XX has posted a suggestion for a club “LIMO” on the Yahoo site.  I think this is an interesting concept.  It certainly sounds more fiscally feasible than acquiring several acres of land and erecting several towers adorned with aluminum Christmas Trees.

Perhaps we should discuss this at the upcoming meeting.

Mike, K1DM

This is a copy of an email sent by W1AN in December:

The following Saturdays will be reserved for the 2011 meetings. There
should be no conflicts with the major contests. Please note that Feb 5
will be for the After Holiday luncheon. I think the consensus is that we
should have this again at Greggs’s in North Kingston and that Chuck
volunteered to spearhead the effort. and get room and menu information.
We can see what the menu costs are to decide how much the club can chip
in to level the cost to a reasonable amount.

The Crandall House is now available We will look into the possibility of
internet access. I will provide the coffee/ donuts for the meetings.
Lunch will be brought by member volunteers and a donation can will be
available for costs. Please advise at the prior meeting and on yahoo if
you will be providing food.

Jan 8
Feb 5 After holiday Luncheon
Mar 12
Apr 16
May 14
June 11
July 23
Aug 13
Sep 17
Oct 22
Nov 12
Dec None

We are always looking for programs. If you have a small project you are
working on or some ham related experience you would like to share with
the group it will be welcome. I would like EACH member to prepare at
least one small presentation. I now have an lcd projector available to
help with your presentation.

Some Ideas for programs:
LOTW
Terrain modeling for antenna performance
Antenna modelling EZNEC
Simple 160M antennas
Remote antenna switching
SO2R contesting
FD
N1MM
Ham Radio Deluxe
Writelog FKeys Setup
Network Analyzer Use/Antenna analyzer Use
Photo Slide Shows
My greatest antenna
My Shack
Hints and Kinks
Contest Aids
CW Practice
Contest College
IARU NE Contest Participation
DXPeditions

73, John W1AN

Rep. Karen MacBeth (D-Dist. 52, Cumberland) presents a House resolution designating this week as Amateur Radio Week to, from left, Robert Beaudet of Cumberland, American Radio Relay League Section Manager for Rhode Island and Blackstone Valley Amateur Radio Club (BVARC) member, and Richard Langlois of Burrillville, BVARC president.

BVARC invites the public to discover the fun, excitement and services provided by amateur radio during its annual field day starting Saturday at 2 p.m. through Sunday at 5 p.m. on the grounds of the North Scituate Senior Center, the former Chopmist Hill Inn, 1315 Chopmist Hill Road (Route 102). Visitors will have the opportunity to operate radios and make contacts with other amateur stations worldwide.

I hope youse guys new to 6 meters have been monitoring the band on a regular basis looking for openings especially to Europe.  Yesterday afternoon, Saturday 6/18, we had probably the best opening of the season to Europe with many many signals both SSB and CW.  I had a run going on 50.162.5 where I had to sort out the many callers from G, GM, DL, OZ, SM, I, F, etc which didn’t quit for a couple of hours.  I may have missed some of it as I came in from outdoors doing a home project around 3 PM and checked the band and it was wide open.  I proceeded to find a clear frequency and call CQ and then the fun started.  A bunch of callers each time I stood by.  I didn’t slow down til about 5:30 when I think I was running out of stations to work…as I still heard EU stations calling for North America.  I didn’t count the number of contacts but it was well over 100.  I did hear Will K6ND who was on.  A guy in Plymouth, MA who was portable at a campground called in to say he had worked some EU with a marginal setup….so it apparently didn’t take much to make it across the pond.  Hope some of you caught it….and keep an eye on 6 meters for DX.    BTW, it’s been open to the Caribbean often late in the afternoon …if you can hear the C6 beacon on 50,040 you know something is cooking.  Look for PJ4E, HI3TEJ, a bunch of FGs.  GL!

— John, W1XX