John's Blog

39 sent on Thanksgiving Day, the remaining 64 sent on Tuesday the 27th – Phew!  QSLing for a contest is a Big Job!

Yesterday I received first Sweeps QSL for WP2R in Puerto Rico.  Must be nice to have a QSL manager, Hi!

73

Nice suprise spotted on 17 today — Fred, KH7Y in Hawaii, and he was able to copy me (and my 15w pea shooter) at 51 though the QSB.  Wahoooo!!!

I’ve got to sort out my logs after last weekends contest, but I think that leaves CT, RI, NH, OR, and AK needed for worked all states (WAS) award — I’ve got to start working on 75/80m for the missing NE states.

CQ Alaska, CQ Alaska… that’s going to be the next tough one!

73,
-john – W1JKS

With 103 QSL cards needing to be prepared, The first thing I did was to knock-up a PHP script that would automatically fetch addresses from QRZ.com — it fetched all but about 7 or 8 addresses automatically into a TXT file.  I then manually cut and paste into Word’s envelope tool, rechecking those for clubs just in case the QSL should go elsewhere.  Finally, I went through and manually looked up the look-ups that failed.

Next I printed out 35 sheets of QSLs (105 QSLs) and cut them out. (Someday I really will order QSLs pre-made…just haven’t gottn that far yet!)

I’m currently working on filling in the QSL cards, and am about 25% done.  I’m writing a couple sentences on the back as a personal touch, and trying to get the names straight (e.g. is Robert Rob or Bob?  Or is the middle name preferred?  I’ve even found a case where a nickname seemed most appropriate!)

So I’ve got about 77 cards left to go, then I have to print out some SAEs and stamp (or enclose a greenstamp for Canada) and stuff and stamp the envelopes — Bryanna’s got the day off from school tomorrow, maybe I’ll put her to work stuffing and stamping — if, of course, I get that far!

73,

-john  — W1JKS

(I wonder how long I’ll last before I change my stance on QSL’ing 100%!  I’ll bet it has something to do with reaching WAS or DXCC :-)

I took part in my first Ham Radio contest yesterday. Well I guess I’ve taken part before, answering calls of “CQ Contest”, but I wasn’t directly entering the contest. This time I actually read the rules beforehand and had some idea of what was going on, Hi!

I’m not really competing with anyone but myself, and I had a lot of fun, so I guess I’m already a winner :-) Anyhow, the gist is to make as many contacts as you can with other participating stations in the US and Canada (the base score) in as many different ARRL sections as you can (the multiplier). The contest ran over a 30 hour period (4pm local Saturday to 10pm local Sunday) with a limit of 24hours of operating. I only managed 9 hours as Saturday was right out and Sunday was poker night. Even still I managed 104 contacts (one dupe) on four different bands, but 20m and 40m were the most productive bands. I also managed to contact 50 different ARRL sections (out of 80). I also added 4 states to the list of states that I have worked, SD, SC, ME, and VT.

I really liked the format too. There was none of that “you’re 59″ and “you’re also 59″ for every contact. This contest required each station to convey the following information:

• the QSO sequence number
• the Precedence (I was “A” since I’m between 5 and 150 watts)
• the Call Sign
• the “Check” (the last two digits of the year first licensed)
• the section (e.g. EMA for Eastern Massachusetts)

This was a fairly involved exchange of information and in some cases it was pretty difficult to get it all across. 20m was more jam packed with signals than I’d ever heard it. Usually, you would try to have 1.5-2 kc on either side of a QSO frequency, yesterday you were lucky to have 4 or 5 hundred. In some cases I heard two exchanges that sounded as if they were directly on top of one another. It was all quite exciting, however, and I felt my operating skills improve QSO after QSO. Having now gone through it once, here are my lessons learned (note to self, read this post before the next contest!):

• paper logging is a bottleneck — try and find something a little more modern, i.e. use the computer. I’ve tried a few logging programs, but still prefer the pen and paper method for keeping a log. However, dupe detection was lacking on my end — I would have had more dupes if it weren’t for other stations instant response of “We’ve already worked today” — and the more QSOs I had in the log, the longer it took to scan the list.
• 15 watts is ok, but is near the bottom of the “A” precedence (power) class (5w-150w). The 100w option for the Elecraft K2 would have helped me be heard in some cases where I wasn’t.
• Don’t spend too much time trying to answer a station when it’s obvious you’re not being heard — 15w is going to fall short often enough compared to the other guys legal limit (1500W).
• Don’t forget to try other bands — I actually made my first 15m contact during the contest…and it would have been two had it not been for the “dupe factor”.
• Try to work more hours on the air! Although I consider myself lucky to have been able to operate for the 9 hours I did with only brief interruptions from my XYL and/or daughter — in fact it was Bryanna who encouraged me to push on when I was getting tired towards the end — it was also around this time that I figured I would give 80m a try and was quite suprised with the results (not having a proper 80m antenna) — two of my four new states came on 80m, VT and ME.

Overall I’m claiming a score of 10,300 (103 QSOs x 2 points per QSO x 50 sections worked). Hopefully it isn’t penalized too much by the ARRL Awards Committee. Not really that important, though as this was all just for fun! And I’m not really competing with the big-guns and top-ops.

73,
-john W1JKS