We have a confirmed reservation for the meeting room at the North Kingstown Library from 9:00 AM to 12:00 pm on Saturday, Nov 13. We will continue the discussion we began last Wednesday regarding the future of the club. I look forward to seeing everyone in person, and I will send out an email announcement to the general membership about a week prior to the meeting. Please let me know if you have any questions.

The CTRI Contesting Group will hold our regular meeting tonight at 7:00 via Zoom. You should have received an email containing a link to the meeting this morning. If you did not, please email me or any other member of the executive board.

73,
Charlie
K1ECU

Member posts should be working now. Let me know if you are unable. Some of you may have a new password, so email me if you are locked out by new security policies…
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Class: SO Unlimited LP
QTH: FN41bi

Summary:
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80: 89
40: 82
20: 53
15: 12
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Total: 236 Sections = 69 Total Score = 32,568

Had another commitment Saturday evening, so the show didn’t start until Sunday. Could not find many VE sections. Finally worked PE and DE near the end. Almost had PAC, but he couldn’t quite copy me. Never heard AK. Overall, a bit better than last year, but if I really want to work all those rare or distant sections
I’ll need that tower…

Did change the EQ on my mic settings after Lars suggestion to compress the daylights out of it, but my options on this rig vy limited. Had fun overall, but it’s getting harder to beat my past scores just S&P.

Charlie

I saw in the rules that at least 4 members of a club need to submit logs for the club to be listed in the club competition. I operated SO Unassisted for a few hours yesterday on only 20 meters, only S&P for around 18K points and submitted my log for the CTRI Contest Group. Logs need to be submitted within 5 days of the end of the contest.

OK, I don’t often operate CQ’s contests and this was the first time I ever saw in the rules a requirement for keeping an audio recording from both earpieces (as two separate channels) of your headset to be provided upon audit?!? Does anybody actually do this? I think it only applies to the top 5 stations, which I’m clearly not. I don’t even know how I would do this, and my HF headphones are all mono and wired Out-Of-Phase, LOL, so both channels would be the same…

I was “searching up in frequency” and came across several large pile-ups on a few of the rarer stations, where I called a few times and gave up and wrote their freq/call info on my pad and continued searching to try again on my next search up the band, after the stations with obviously better propagation had already completed their contacts and left the pile-up. I was able to work all of those stations on my second pass – except the guy from Namibia that was running his pileup by call areas. An hour later when he was back to running a regular pileup I worked him on my second call. There were also a coupe of interesting long-path contacts.

Anyway it was a good reason to fire up the woodstove in my shack out back.

Best 73, and Stay Well, Chris WB2VVV

From the ARRL:
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05/28/2020
With one month to go before 2020 ARRL Field Day, June 27 – 28, the ARRL Programs and Services Committee (PSC) has adopted two temporary rule waivers for the event:

1) For Field Day 2020 only, Class D stations may work all other Field Day stations, including other Class D stations, for points.

Field Day rule 4.6 defines Class D stations as “Home stations,” including stations operating from permanent or licensed station locations using commercial power. Class D stations ordinarily may only count contacts made with Class A, B, C, E, and F Field Day stations, but the temporary rule waiver for 2020 allows Class D stations to count contacts with other Class D stations for QSO credit.

2) In addition, for 2020 only, an aggregate club score will be published, which will be the sum of all individual entries indicating a specific club (similar to the aggregate score totals used in ARRL affiliated club competitions).

Ordinarily, club names are only published in the results for Class A and Class F entries, but the temporary rule waiver for 2020 allows participants from any Class to optionally include a single club name with their submitted results following Field Day.

For example, if Podunk Hollow Radio Club members Becky, W1BXY, and Hiram, W1AW, both participate in 2020 Field Day — Hiram from his Class D home station, and Becky from her Class C mobile station — both can include the radio club’s name when reporting their individual results. The published results listing will include individual scores for Hiram and Becky, plus a combined score for all entries identified as Podunk Hollow Radio Club.

The temporary rule waivers were adopted by the PSC on May 27, 2020.

Almost all DX stations are sending cut numbers or shorthand (KW) for their power. I’ve just been entering the literal exchange (5TT, etc). Do I need to convert these to the actual digits before submitting my Cabrillo file?

The club will meet next Saturday, November 9 at 9AM at the North Kingstown Library. See the Agenda here.

This month will feature a raffle of a brand new ARRL Antenna Book (24th ed.) generously donated by Rick, K1PAD. This is the new, limited edition, multi-volume boxed set showcasing 80 years of antenna know-how.

We will gladly accept donations of any other materials and include them in the raffle as well.

Please review and comment on the attached agenda. Apologize for submitting as an image, but web site does not allow me to upload other document formats. If you are unable to read it, please let me know and I will email a copy to you.

The satellite station is coming together nicely. My first attempts at a “minimum viable configuration” proved adequate, but still posed the problem of signals going from full-quieting to pure noise as the satellites tumble through the sky and the antenna polarization changes. Today I assembled more parts from John (W1AN) soldered up a couple of cables, and put the 2m elements of my two portable Arrow antennas together in an attempt to make a circular-polarized yagi. It seems to be working (SWR under 1.5), although I have no idea about the polarization. I’ll have a better idea as I try it out over the next few days. Ahhh, summer!

I did make one contact on FO-29 today, which is a linear satellite with 2m uplink and 70cm downlink. I was transmitting on the crossed arrows and received a 59 from AB1OC in Hollis, NH. I met him at Boxboro last Fall where he was demonstrating the latest version of his satellite station. You can read all about it at https://stationproject.blog/.

Very excited to have made my second ever qso with the frozen continent. My first was to DP1POL using the JT9 digital mode as a freshly licensed extra just over three years ago. LOTW confirmed, this one brings my CW DXCC count to 95! I’m hoping to close in on the 100 mark as the ARRL DX CW confirmations keep trickling in. Thanks to CTRI members for all your support and encouragement with my CW. 73, Charlie K1ECU

I’m spending this week with six other teachers at the ARRL HQ learning about remote sensing, satellite comms, and other fun RF topics at the Teacher’s Institute. We will likely be operating the W1AW station while we’re here6, possibly tomorrow, perhaps during the lunch hour 12-1 pm. Some of us will operate SSB, which I’ve done once, so I plan to ask Joe Carcia, NJ1Q, if I can operate CW. I post this for any of you who happen to be interested and available to respond to our CQ’s. We will likely beam toward the southwest, but I’m sure some of your stations will be 59+ on the side lobes. 73!

Charlie,
K1ECU