Call: NG1M
Operator(s): NG1M
Station: NG1M

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: RI
Operating Time (hrs): 11
Location: USA

Summary: Compare Scores
Band QSOs Mults
160: 0 0
80: 217 37
40: 43 18
20: 47 18
15: 2 2
10: 0 0
Total: 309 75 Total Score 23,175

Spent Saturday on the radio. Learned a few things:
1. Need to be brave and call CQ from the onset. My run on 80M was generating rates over a 100!
2. When running you can be squeezed off the frequency by more powerful stations
3. People wanted RI – another blinding flash of the obvious
4. Bands don’t last a long as one expects – people moved off 20M & 40M early
5. Need to get the voice keyer working
6. Need to get the 160M antenna off the basement floor & up. Was asked by several folks on 80M to just to 160M for a Q / multiplier
7. AND contesting is easier when there’s no football on!

I was setting up to operate the ARRL VHF Contest this past weekend and had the idea of also using my recently purchased IC-7300 as a Panadapter/Band-Scope to monitor the Receive IF Outputs of my VHF/UHF transverters. I don’t have much experience using Band-Scopes and figured it might be helpful, and that it should work since a VHF band is converted to a 28 MHz IF, and the IC-7300 could be set up to show 200 KHz of that 28 MHz IF output on its Band-Scope screen.

While I was cabling it to my transverter control box I thought to myself it could be very bad if I should accidentally find a way to transmit on the IC-7300 up into my transverters’ RX outputs and also into my main JRC IF transceiver’s receiver. It only took a half hour to make up the Receiver Protector in the picture, and it turned out that I was actually glad I did. At several points due to inactivity on the IC-7300 controls its screen timed out and went blank with the power button flashing, so I tapped the power button for the display to come back to life. About the third time I did that, I accidentally also hit the “Transmit” button which is immediately below the power button and the IC-7300 went into transmit. Within a couple of seconds I hit that button again to stop it from transmitting, and thankfully no harm was done. Funny that I had forgotten all about the front panel transmit button when I was removing my microphone and hand key connections. Maybe it didn’t actually transmit much as its mode was set to SSB with no microphone connected and the power turned down, or possibly there was a small spike and the Receiver Protector actually did what it was supposed to do.

My conclusion was that having a Band-Scope was in fact helpful, and the under $1K brand new deal I got on my IC-7300 from DX Engineering was now even sweeter in that it added a Band-Scope to my existing VHF/UHF setup. The Contest was however as lackluster as January VHF contests typically are, with the highlights being some microwave enhancement/scatter during the heaviest part of the snowfall, and working a Rover on 50/144/222/432 MHz with “no gain” horizontal omni loops on his vehicle up on Hogback Mountain in FN32.

This type of receiver protector could be helpful with separate receive antennas for the low bands, and also to protect an SDR dongle being used as a Band-Scope with a PC. The “Antenna” jack in my case was the end connected to the potential RF source, my IC-7300. The “To Receiver” end went to my IF connection to protect the transverters’ IF outputs and the IF transceiver’s receiver input. It’s a very simple circuit which in testing both in the line, and out of the line, showed no receive loss while receiving a weak VHF beacon on the IC-7300 via the transverter, visually looking at the CW characters formed on its waterfall display as well as just listening to the beacon on the IC-7300. The beacon was the same strength with and without the Receiver Protector.

Best 73, Chris WB2VVV

Anyone else going to be doing WFD?  Here at NC1CC/wa1bxy going to be running a home station little to cold for this guy…. Going to be doing a LP M2 setup. If anyone is looking/wanting to operate for few hours or?  Going to have 2-7300 setup using mostly all wires from 160-10. but also have hustler 6btv that works extremly well, and that can be shared thru A TRIPLEXER.. If anyone is interested send me a email/message.

My 40m rotary dipole had twisted on the mast from the recent winds we have had and today I went up to re-align it. The wind had settled to under 20 mph by late afternoon, but by the time I got up there a snow squall started – really more like ice pellets. All in it was less than a 2 hour simple job, but I thought I would share a picture of the now re-aligned booms (which mitigate interaction between the antennas). My XYL took the picture of me up there. I would also have liked to have included front and back pictures of me in my full body harness with fall arrest, lanyards, and my add-on Kangaroo Pouch for tools, but was unable to select more than one image to add tp the post. That would have made a good follow-up to the recent tower safety presentation we had! Best 73, and Happy New Year, Chris WB2VVV

I didn’t even know we had a Facebook page! I liked it, then clicked on the “Learn More” button. It took me to the old -wa1rr- page!`

Fast and fun CW action. This one is good for lazy contesting using the call history file, but look out for the many club and memorial names being used. Unfortunately I will be away. In fact ur contest mgr has somehow got travel planned on almost every meeting weekend this season.
Time local 1pm Sat–1 am Sun, 10hr max for SO
Bands 160–10
Exchange Name, State
Work stations once per band
Note 100w max power.
Rules http://www.ncjweb.com/NAQP-Rules.pdf

ARRL RTTY Roundup - 2020

Call: W1AN
Operator(s): W1AN
Station: W1AN

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: USA
Operating Time (hrs): 8.5

Summary:
 Band  RTTY Qs  Dig Qs
-----------------------
   80:    99       0 
   40:   203       0 
   20:   265       0   
   15:    13       0  
   10:     0       0          
-----------------------
Total:   580       0  State/Prov = 50  Countries = 41  Total Score = 52,780

Club: CT RI Contest Group

Fun contest. Very little on 10/15M but plenty of activity to enjoy. Good to see NG1-Mike Mike active! Anyone use FT8?
Need to study the “two break rule” which limits off time to two minimum 30 minute periods. Is it too restrictive? I can see where this would penalize those who can’t dedicate full weekends. Maybe topic for discussion at next meeting.

73, John W1AN

The CW Operators Club is celebrating its 10th anniversary with an event running throughout January – details in attached flyer. Get in on the fun and maybe pick up another piece of paper to decorate your shack with!

73 de John AJ1DM
CWops #1973

K1SX SO LP
34 qso’s, 391 raw points, 2 hours or so
Genesis G11 sdr, 100w sspa brick, 65/65′ inverted L with 16 radials

I have AB1BX and AI1TT in the log, and see KA1J posted–anyone else get on?
With my limited experience, I thought conditions were pretty good, and now I see from the comments on 3830 they might have been historically good! Unfortuately I could only put in small blocks of time, so i decided to just chase dx, and there was a lot to chase, many workable on one or two calls. It really was amazing. But it also seems it was just EU and AF here, not Pacific in the morning. RW7K my best, in itself a first for me. — Dave K1SX

This is the main running of the TBDC and usually brings out a big turnout both DX and domestic.
It’s a pretty friendly contest. Action starts around 4pm or so local.

In spite of high A and K index, 160m has been pretty good this week, with quiet weather and long hours of darkness. I’ve worked several Europeans with 100w.

In fact I’m wondering if the popular space weather info box seen on the QRZ front page and elsewhere, is stuck. It’s been showing A-13, K=2 for days. NOAA has A index forecast at more like 4 or 5 and K of 1 or 2 for the weekend.

Local times: 10am Sat–10am Sun

Bands: 160m only
Mode: CW only
Exchange: 4 character grid
Multipliers: None
Assistance: None allowed
Scoring: Points based on distance and power levels. 1 pt. for every 500km increment. After log cross-checking, you get double for working an LP station and 4x for working a qrp’er. They have their own web page to display scores, and your score increases as others send in their logs. You get more data about your log than any contest I know of.
Rules: //www.kkn.net/stew/

HNY and 73 to all!
Dave K1SX

Happy holidays everyone. Hopefully, there was something under your tree to help you have more fun as a ham.
73, Ken K3IU

Hi All –

A reminder re: all ARRL contests… logs are due within 7 days of the completion date/time of the event. Subsequently, ARRL says they will continue to accept logs via its on-line web app page [ https://contest-log-submission.arrl.org/ ] another 5 days after the log submission deadline (likely as checklogs, without explanation of late submission).

It came to my attention that a few CTRI CG entries in the recent ARRL 160m Contest have not yet been submitted! We are currently just shy of 700k club points in this event. So, get your logs in!
73, Bill W1WBB

http://www.arrl.org/arrl-contests-changes-for-2019-2020

Take a leap of faith and visit 10 meters some time this weekend.
Last year t there was activity (outside local) during most of the daylight hours, including propagation to PY and LU. In CQ-WW a few weeks back, I worked V5 and 6W with my 100 watts to a wire.

Period: 7pm local Fri–7pm Sunday
Modes: CW, SSB, mixed
Exchange: RST + state. DX will send RST + SN.
Mults: Per mode, SPC + countries + (unique to this contest) Mexican states
Scoring: 2 pts per qso SSB, 4 pts CW

This antenna is basically one half of a full wave loop held up by a single support, over a counterpoise wire laying on the ground with ground rods at each end to complete the loop by mirror image, and fed at the close end for vertical polarization with a 4:1 balun for an easy match for the tuner. A pdf doc can be emailed to anyone requesting it.

Back in the 1990s when I lived in NNJ on a small lot in dense suburbs I had a pretty compact antenna system for 160m and started operating the ARRL 160m contest. I made antenna improvements and tracked them with contest results. Before long I was also given the opportunity to guest op at several stations with larger and more elaborate 160m antennas than mine. In reference to the experience gained operating a number of different antennas on 160m my conclusions for this particular simple antenna are as follows:
1. Very Quiet Antenna – Hears better than most other stations hear.
2. Only requires a single support 35 to 40 feet high.
3. Requires 2 ground rods (8 feet long), one at each end, and a counterpoise wire laying on the ground between them.
4. Antenna is Grounded from Lightning.
5. Requires a 4:1 Balun for feeding at the closest end, to match to inexpensive RG-6 coax feedline running to the shack, and is an easy match for a tuner.
6. Handles 1 KW power – if the balun is up to the task (mine seems to be).
7. Can work both DX and local with this antenna. Works to Europe, California, Texas, Florida, as well as in between. It really doesn’t seem very directional.
8. This single transceiving antenna performs at least as well as many typically installed separate transmit and receive antennas – by eliminating noise coupling from the noisy transmit antenna situated too close to the quiet receive antenna(s).
9. This antenna outperforms an inverted vee that would fit in exactly the same space, and also a much larger horizontal loop 540 feet around.
10. This simple antenna can be outperformed by more elaborate antenna systems including a good vertical or inverted L with many radials for transmitting, spaced over 500 feet from an array of switched directional receive-only antennas with a preamplifier and incorporating receiver protection during transmit.
73, Chris WB2VVV

This weekend during the annual 160 meter International Contest I experienced heavy interference on 1.840 MHz, up to 18 dB above my noise floor from 1.835 – 1.845 MHz, and knocking out some ten (10) lanes of potential CW operation during a once per year international operating event.

I also regularly encounter this same type of interference on 40 meter CW at 7.045 – 7.060 MHz where SKCC members and others operate slower conversational CW with straight hand keys/bugs and often antique radios. This is a small area of the band where CW skill building is commonly taking place – until you plop a 10 KHz wide noisemaker there.

In all cases this digital interference sounds like what I hear on 50.3 MHz – which is why I think it is the new modern digital modulation which some misinformed folks say causes no interference to other operators. I do agree that up on 50.3 MHz this causes no interference to the Beacons, CW, and SSB operation.

I have already written Bob W1YRC about this growing interference problem, and asked for escalation.