It’s that time again. If you are familiar with the interactive meeting notice skip down to “Topics“. This is an interactive meeting notice. What, you may ask, is an interactive meeting notice? As the phrase suggests, it is a meeting notice which 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. Contest Report
2. WRTC-2013 Test Run
3. W1XX Disaster Recovery
4. 2013 NEQP in early May
5. May meeting place
6. Assisted Operating
7. Matters Arising

Lunch provider:

Coffee and Drinks by:

Members who will attend: W1PN, K1DM, K3IU, W1XX, KS1J, K1FUG, NG1G, K1SD

Venue: Crandall House, Ashaway, RI at 10:00am

CTRI’ers:  As many of you know, the W1XX station antennas incurred some serious damage during Blizzard Nemo in February and also during Hurricane Sandy.  The biggest loss was my “killer” 40 Meter 2 element Yagi at 100 feet.  1/2 of the reflector sheared off and fell to the ground…plus some other damage to the linear loading.  I at first anticipated getting some CTRI assistance to do a fix..Rick KI1G and others offered to help.  Upon further reflection however and not to impose too much on the club’s generosity…I pursued a claim on my homeowners insurance for a professional takedown and replacement by XX Towers who did the original tower installation.  The estimate has now been approved and I will shortkly be scheduling Matt & Co. to proceed with the take down of the damaged antenna and replacing with with a new one.  The end result will be that I will end up with an extra antenna on the ground that can be repaired at low cost (which I will do).  Someone in the club may be interested in having a 2-element rotary on 40 meters.  If so, this is the ticket.  This is a big antenna:  www.m2inc.com and find 40M2L antenna.  This will be VERY resonably priced. If you think you might be interested, contact my off site at:  w1xx at cox dot net.  Come some much warmer weather, I would still like to schedule a meeting at my house to hopefully raise by then  repaired 80 and 160 (again!) verticals…we just bought a new grill for hotdogs and hamburgers that proved popular at previous work-party meetings.  73!!!

— John, W1XX  

Results for the 2012 NEQP are in, and once again CTRI is the leader of the pack in club competition, with some very impressive single- and multi-op scores!

Check it out at http://www.neqp.org/2012/2012-results.html

73,

Pat, NG1G

Hello all.  As you may know, I’m selling my towers and accessories.  All radios and amps have been sold.  These parts that I have listed MUST GO.  They are all listed on eham.net, but wanted to give the club members a chance to get in the action.  You have all worked on my towers, and know what kind of condition they are in.  Below is a pasted copy of my ads, including a couple items that are not on eham.

Selling a HyGain TH5 Triband antenna. No abuse, in excellent condition. Asking $350 for it. Sells for $699.95 new. No rust, no cracks, no missing parts. Comes with the standard HyGain mast mount clamp. If you would like pictures of this item, please feel free to email me.

Selling 5 1/2 sections of Rohn 45 tower. Asking $200 for each section. Also I have a BPL 45G Top Plate which I am asking $125. Lists for $250 new. Also have the R-BPC 45G base plate, asking $75. Pictures available upon request.

3 Rohn 25G tower sections with a tilt over base plate.  No bends, slides right together. Asking $75 per section.

I also have 2 Ameritron Antenna switches (Remote Coax Switch).  $75 each, or $150 for the pair.  They run $159.99 New from ameritron.

Astron RS-35A power supply.  Lists for $239.99 New, but asking $100 for any of the club members.

Alpha Spid Rotator.  You can look this rotator up on alphaspid.com  I paid $600 for this rotator.  I’m asking $300 for it.  Needs a new plastic cap from when the top section of the tower decided to shorten the length of the gin pole hihi.  If you buy this rotator, I have all the rotor cable to go with it.  Come with the control box and control mouse to control it.

That’s all I guess.  Contact me if you’re interested.

Bill N1HRA

For anyone interested, you have a chance to upgrade your license.  We at W1CGA are hosting a licensing session on Saturday morning 10:00, April 27, 2013.  If you might be interested, contact K1DM so we can make sure we reserve a large enough room.  There are several cadets who will be sitting for their Technician Licenses.  All license class exams will be available.  Testing fee is $17.00 (last time I checked).

There’s plenty of time to get your brain sharpened up, and get that next class of license!

K1DM

Please post your results here by adding a Reply to this posting. Thanks! Don’t forget…

All log  entries must be emailed or postmarked NO LATER than April 6, 2013 for SSB section.

73, Ken K3IU(Keeper of the Champions Leaderboard)

The CQWW WPX Contests have grown in recent years to become some of the most popular worldwide contests.  The  48 hour SSB version takes place this weekend and the bands will be full of domestic and international stations.  Unlike ARRL DX and CQWW DX the WPX contests also provide points for domestic contacts so other U.S. stations can be worked for points (and their many prefixes counted) by us.

See the rules at the CQWW WPX website for the *many* operating categories (by power, assisted or unassisted, single band or all-band, single op or multi-op… and the ‘tribander/wires’ as well as ‘Rookie’ {licensed 3 yrs or less} overlay categories!) , scoring details (more points for low band contacts on 40, 80 and 160m) etc.  Note: Off-times must be a full 60 mins, logs are due NLT 5 days after the contest, and LP output pwr is 100 watts amongst other contest-specific rules… go to:   www.cqwpx.com

Callsign prefixes are the sole multiplier — so many rare and unusual calls will be heard, provide an abundance of contest multipliers throughout the weekend and help contribute to an exponentially growing final scoring total which makes for a lot of fun.  The many available prefixes also count towards the various WPX awards available through CQ magazine and which are now  tracked as part of ARRL’s Logbook of the World  electronic QSL tracking system.

The solar flux is expected to slowly increase thru this weekend and lowband conditions should improve as the geomagnetic indices decrease each night.

A record 5300 + logs were submitted for the 2012 CQWW WPX event and well over 1700 unique prefixes were available so the HF bands WILL be busy this weekend.  So check that microphone out, verify your logging software is up-to-date and then make some QSOs this Saturday and Sunday.

Good luck in the contest…73,  Bill  W1WBB

 

 

Received this from CQ Magazine this morning.   Look who made the cover of WorldRadio!  Jose, KP4JRS.  Operating NP3U during our own 2013 CQ WW WPX RTTY effort.  Great shot and kudos to the CTRI op who submitted the pix!

73 James K1SD

Hope all is well in CTRI land…  will be heading East in mid May

timeframe.  Does anyone plan on a Multi op effort for WPX CW weekend in May

OR want their station to be activated that weekend??  I’m REALLY into contesting

CW.  Let me know so we can plan.  Hope to work some of you guys this

weekend, we use callsign AK7AZ will be M-2

(hope ur winter ends soooon!!)  Later Foster N3KCJ

 

Gentlemen,

I wanted to let the Group know that I have the CTRI Gin Pole as well as the bag of 1/2″ rope.

Pat NG1G came by Saturday to deliver them and got a quick look at the outdoor layout for the upgraded tower.

73 James K1SD

401.884.2654

Sorry to be late in posting this. This is clearly one of the Champions competition contests. Mea Culpa! (again)

Ken K3IU

PS: Jim… I’ll copy your results from the email to here.

Bill N1HRA is looking for a pair of 572b tubes.  The amp is for sale on eBay, end when going to wrap the tubes for transport, 2 of them are shot.  If anyone has some for sale, please let him know.  Thanks

73

Jay kb1lcq

I am still receiving QSL cards for Special Events other than ours from the NEQP last year. On qrz.com there are still quite a few of the 1×1 call signs we used that reflect me as the QSL manager, which in part explains why I am still getting such cards sent to me.

If you obtained a 1×1 call sign and have not done so already, PLEASE go to qrz.com, sign in, and contact the Help Desk to have our information deleted from the call sign’s database. It seems that many people simply pay no attention to the QSL information on the page and just send me a card. It’s only a nuisance, but one that can be fixed in a few minutes.

I’d very much appreciate those of you who have not already done so taking a few minutes to rectify this.

73,

Pat, NG1G

If you played in this contest earlier this year, then you probably received the e-mail giving the URL for the results.  I spotted three other CTRI call signs that I recognized.  There may be more.

Here is the link for those interested:   www.darc.de/referate/dx/contest/waedc/archiv/resultate/rtty/

73, Mike, K1DM

0200 GMT March 16th through 0200 GMT March 18th

Anyone have any plans to get into the fray and make a few QSO’s?

Just post your plans, invites, needs right here, and we’ll see what we can come up with.

73, Mike, K1DM