Contester's Rate Sheet for June 19, 2002
*********************** Contester's Rate Sheet 19 June 2002 *********************** Edited by Ward Silver, N0AX SUMMARY o Field Day this weekend and Canada Day on July 1. o W2GD joins the ARRL CAC as the Hudson Division representative o Logs Received now available on ARRL Web site o Several good headphone recommendations o Only 24 more days until WRTC-2002! BULLETINS o No bulletins this issue. BUSTED QSOS o Bill Tippett W4ZV caught this one regarding the June 5 issue's directions to comment on the FCC NPRM. "You gave instructions to READ comments. To submit comments, you go here: http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.cgi enter only 02-98 in Box 1, fill out all non-optional boxes and choose the method of input below (brief comment using the box provided or uploading files using the formats offered). You then confirm on the next page that appears and, if everything is OK, you will see a page with your name and a confirmation number. 73, Bill W4ZV" ANNOUNCEMENT & NOTICES FOR 19 JUNE to 2 JULY 2002 Logs are due for the following contests: o June 25 - His Maj. King of Spain Contest - email to: ea5al@ure.es, paper logs to: Vocalia Concursos URE, Apartado Postal 87, 12200 Onda, Castellon, Spain o June 25 - QRP ARCI Hootowl Sprint - email to: rfoltz@turbonet.com, paper logs to: Randy Foltz, K7TQ, Attn: Hootowl Sprint, 809 Leith St., Moscow, ID 83843, USA o June 26 - MI QRP Memorial Day CW Sprint - email to: n8cqa@att.net, paper logs to: L.T. Switzer, N8CQA, 427 Jeffrey Avenue, Royal Oak, MI 48073-2521, USA o June 30 - Manchester Mineira CW Contest - paper logs only to: CWJF Contest Committee, PO Box 410, Juiz de Fora - MG 36001-970, Brazil o July 1 - CQ-M International DX Contest - email to: cqm@srr.ru, paper logs to: CQ-M, Contest Committee, Krenkel Central Radio Club of Russia, PO Box 88, Moscow 123459, Russia o July 1 - Baltic Contest - email to: lrsf@lrsf.lt, paper logs to: Baltic Contest, PO Box 210, LT3000 Kaunas, Lithuania o July 1 - CQWW WPX CW Contest - E-mail Cabrillo logs to WPXCW@kkn.net, E-mail non-Cabrillo logs: n8bjq@erinet.com, paper logs to: CQ WPX SSB, 7354 Thackery Rd., Springfield OH 45502, USA or for EU logs, use the Spanish or French CQ Offices, or to OH1EH (OH logs only) - see http://home.woh.rr.com/wpx/. The following contests are scheduled: ARRL Field Day - 1800Z Jun 22 to 2100Z, Jun 23 - see http://www.arrl.org/contests/rules/2002/rules-fd-2002.html QRP ARCI Milliwatt Field Day - 1800Z Jun 22 - 2100Z Jun 23. Follows ARRL Field Day rules, see http://personal.palouse.net/rfoltz/arci/mwfd.htm for more information. His Majesty King of Spain Contest, SSB, sponsored by the Union de Radioaficionados Espaņoles (URE) from from 1800Z, May 22 to 1800Z, May 23. Frequencies: 160-10 meters using IARU Region 1 bandplan. Categories: SOAB, SOSB, and MS. Exchange: RST and serial number or EA province. QSO Points: 1 pt per QSO. Score is QSO points x EA provinces counted once per band. For more information, send email to ure@ure.es. Logs must be emailed or postmarked by 25 June (SSB by 30 July) to ure@ure.es or ea5al@ure.es or Vocalia Concursos URE, Apartado Postal 87, 12200 Onda, Castellon, Spain. Canada Day Contest - CW/Phone - sponsored by the Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) from 0000Z to 2359Z July 1. Frequencies: 160-10, 6 and 2 meters. Categories: SOAB-HP, LP, QRP (<5W), SOSB, MS. Exchange: VE1-9 send RS(T) and province or territory, VE0 and non-VE send RS(T) and serial number. QSO Points: VE and VE0s - 10 pts, non-VE - 2 pts, RAC official stations (suffix of --RAC) -- 20 pts. Score: QSO points x Provinces/Territories counted once per band and mode. For more information - http://www.rac.ca/CANDAY.htm. Logs due by July 31 to ve6sv@rac.ca or to Radio Amateurs of Canada, 720 Belfast Road, Ste 217, Ottawa, Ontario K1G 0Z5 Canada by July 31. NEWS & PRESS RELEASES The Hudson Division has a new Contest Advisory Committee (CAC) member - you may have heard of him...John M. Crovelli, W2GD, who can be reached via email at w2gd@hotmail.com. John is a world-class contester with many #1 finishes and records to his credit. No more will you have to wonder, "Did they get my log?" The ARRL log robot is now automagically updating a public list of logs received on the ARRL Web site on an hourly basis. See http://www.arrl.org/contests/claimed/ for logs back through 2001 Sweepstakes. Only logs that have been accepted by the robot without problems are listed. Paper logs are not listed until the log submission deadline is passed and all logs have been processed by ARRL HQ staff. This automated system be utilized for all future ARRL-sponsored contests that are supported by the Cabrillo format and the Contest Robot. Note that Field Day is NOT supported by the Robot. Field Day logs will be posted once all initial data entry for the event has been finished. (Thanks, K1RO and N1ND) TECHNICAL & TECHNIQUE Here are some interesting products in the interest of better hearing: "I route my headphone audio through an AMCOM (1-888-803-5832) ClearSpeech Digital speaker. (Model CSS-1) The results are remarkable. Often it sounds like the band is dead as there is no noise whatsoever unless you are receiving a station. There is a minimum amount of digital ringing on strong signals which can be controlled by reducing the receiver gain. I have frequently found that a station is Q-5 through the CSS-1 and simply not there without it. On the TI9M DXpedition I found that I could cascade the CSS-1 with the DSP noise reduction in the ICOM 756 PRO II and have total noise silence on 160 meters. This let me copy stations that were so weak that they only hissed in the headphones. Without the full cascaded system they simply weren't there. It also allowed much better discrimination between tones when pulling stations out of pileups." (Thanks, Larry N7DF) Rick, N6XI (among others) strongly endorses the Bose Active Noise Reduction headphones (http://www.bose.com/noise_reduction/). The smaller ones designed for jets seem to work very well. You'll have to figure out how to attach the boom mike on your own, though. Another guy you might have heard of, Jim Neiger N6TJ offers that, "...on the well-beaten-down subject of headphones, the ONLY headphone I will ever use again is the FOSTEX T-20 (http://www.fostex.co.jp/int/pages/products/access/heads.htm). Cost is about $80. I wear them without any discomfort for 48 hours straight. Simply epoxy a Heil boom mike with HC-4 element (naturally) to the side." There is always room for another propagation Web site, as well. Here are several good ones to try: http://dx.qsl.net/propagation/ http://www.spaceweather.com http://hfradio.org/propagation.html http://sec.noaa.gov/today.html http://www.maj.com/sun/noaa.html http://sec.noaa.gov/rt_plots/dregion.html And a couple of nice 6-meter web sites that are especially helpful for those of us that are just getting our feet wet on the Magic Band. With the summertime sporadic-E season heating up, these are good to keep on-line for up-to-the-minute information: http://6m.dxers.info/ and http://dxworld.com/50prop.html Or you can just enter "6-meter" into one of the big on-line search engines and have fun! CONVERSATION Antenna builders interested in Moxon rectangles will be interested to know that L. B. Cebik, W4RNL, developed an algorithm for calculating the dimensions of a Moxon Rectangle antenna. Recently Dan, AC6LA wrote a small utility program to implement that algorithm. A free copy of MoxGen.exe is available at www.qsl.net/ac6la/. (Note - If you see an error message referring to COMDLG32.OCX when trying to run MoxGen, , please download the package http://www.qsl.net/ac6la/MoxGenOCX.zip. That package does a regular Windows setup routine and includes the COMDLG32.OCX file. The drawback is that the size is 313 KB versus 17 KB for the original. It was assumed that most users would have this component available already on their system, allowing the download file to be small.) - Thank you, Dan AC6LA! (From the QRP-L mailing list) If God intended you to be on single sideband, he would have given you only one nostril. - Steve, K2PTS (SK) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Contester's Rate Sheet wishes to acknowledge information from the following sources: WA7BNM's Contest Calendar Web page - http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal/ ARRL Contest page - http://www.arrl.org/contests/ SM3CER's Web site - http://www.sk3bg.se/contest/
