September/October 2000 NCJ

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Contest Tips, Tricks & TechniquesGary Sutcliffe, W9XTw9xt@qth.comState QSO Parties—Part 2In this installmentof CTT&Twe’ll continueour look at stateQSO parties.Last time we discussedgeneraloperating practices.This timewe continue ourdiscussion ofstate QSO partieswith an emphasison mobile stations.W9XTWorking MobilesMobiles play a major part in state QSOparties. In an effort to activate as manycounties as possible, contest sponsorsoften have special categories for mobilestations. The mobiles may have specialincentives to activate as many countiesas possible. With a limited amount oftime, they may not spend much time in agiven county. If they are the only stationto activate a rare county, you don’t wantto miss an opportunity to work them.W5ASP suggests getting a detailed mapas an aid for tracking them. Whenever youwork one, Joe suggests you ask them whatdirection they are headed in and whenthey expect to cross into the next county.Some mobile stations publicize their itinerary,helping you make sure you get them inall the counties they are visiting.N6MU also stresses the importance ofkeeping track of the mobiles. John notesthat it can be quite a task if there are anumber of them, on both SSB and CW.W1NN and N6MU suggest moving mobilestations to other bands to increasethe number of contacts. N6MU mentionedworking WA4IMC 73 times as hemoved into new counties in the lastFlorida QSO Party.In the Wisconsin QSO Party the mobilestend to be on either 40- or 75-meterphone. Because of that, I try to spend alarge part of my time on those bands. Ineed to go to 20 or 10 for part of thecontest in order to work some of themore distant states and Canadian provincesthat also count as multipliers. Inormally don’t spend more than 15 or 20minutes at a time away from the “mobilebands” though. I don’t want to miss amobile that may be quickly passingthrough a needed county.Another thing to remember is thatmobile stations answering your CQs maybe very weak. Pay special attention toweak stations giving you a call. Theymay be in that rare county that you need.Operating MobileOperating mobile from the target state24can be a whole new contesting experience.Some contesters really put a lot of effort intotheir mobile systems. We have even had acouple of multi-multi mobiles in the WisconsinQSO Party, some running kW amplifierspowered by generators on trailers!W1NN finds mobile contesting to be theham radio activity that he enjoys the most.Hal likes the challenge of putting togetherthe best strategy. He gets detailed mapsand plans his route to find the right balanceof driving time and counties covered.He operates the Pennsylvania contestmobile every year and has alsooperated mobile from Washington, California,Illinois and Texas in their QSOparties. Hal has even operated them fromrental cars while on business trips!Another reason he likes operatingmobile is that it levels the playing field—mobile operating largely eliminatesthe equipment differences betweenstations. Any differences in performancecan be attributed almost entirely to skilland experience. Pulling off a successfulmobile contest operation requires a lotof planning. You need to plan everythingcarefully to maximize your score.Many of the serious mobile operationsemploy a dedicated driver, allowingthe operator to concentrate onoperating. If you are on your own,W5ASP suggests pulling over when youenter a new county. Work down thepileup before you continue. Work thestrays and spend time CQing.If you want to try something a bit different,but operating mobile is not your thing, try aportable operation. W5ASP suggests throwingup a wire someplace. Joe notes that a12 V marine battery will last quite a whilerunning 60 W or so. N0AX is contemplatinga camping trip to a county line between tworare counties for the Salmon Run.Which QSO Parties are Most Popular?The ones with the most activity naturally,say K9ZM, K3WW and others.The California QSO Party was mentionedthe most often. It certainly has anumber of things going for it—includingexcellent organization, large in-state participationand prizes. Its early fall datemakes it a good opportunity for a shakedowntest for the fall contest season.The next most often mentioned wasthe Pennsylvania QSO Party. This eventalso has great organization and lots ofparticipation. Other state QSO partiesmentioned as having good activity bytwo or more respondents include Wisconsin,Michigan, Florida, Washington,Ohio, Texas and Virginia.Wherever you live, K1KY stresses theimportance of supporting your own stateQSO party. Promote the contest, andget on and operate it. If you really wantto be popular, go mobile and activate afew of the rarer counties.This wraps up this installment ofCTT&T. Thanks to everyone who respondedto the call for comments onoperating state QSO parties includingAD6E, K1KY, K3ANS, K3WW, K4BAI,K5RT, K7SV, K9ZM, N6MU, W1NN,WA3SES, W4AU, WU4G and W5ASP.Topic for November-December 2000(Deadline September 5, 2000)Tips for younger contesters.Surveys show that the average age ofcontesters and hams in general is increasing.What tips do you have for youngercontesters? How can we make contestsand contesting more interesting? Youngercontesters, what got you interested andkeeps you interested in contesting?Send in your ideas on these subjectsor suggestions for future topics. You canuse the following routes: Mail—3310Bonnie Lane, Slinger, WI 53086.Internet—w9xt@qth.com. Be sure toget them to me by the deadline. ■
VHF-UHF Contesting!Jon K. Jones, N0JKn0jk@hotmail.comLots of 6-Meter DX to work in the June 2000 VHF QSO PartySome of the best E sin years appeared inthis year’s June VHFQSO Party. The southernand eastern statesseemed to be favoredbut contest ops all overfound plenty of stationsto work. A number ofoperators reported thattheir grid totals wereway up this year.Numerous DX stationsjoined the fray and N0JKadded to the excitement.GW3NJY ran New England opson 50.093 CW around 1730Z on June11 th . Other DX stations reported on 6meters in the contest include CO2OJ,XE2HWB, XE2EED, XE2BHU, XE2DN,TI5KD, TI5BX, HP2CWB, WP4O,LU6DRV, V31PC, TG9NX, KB6SL/KP4,KP4UK, KP3AR, KP2BH, WP4MSL,YS1AG, VP9ID, TI2NA, PZ5RA,K9KNW/C6A, VO1TJM, KL0RG,EH8BPX, W1LP/MM and many Canadians.The East Coast seemed to enjoy thebest conditions to both Europe and CentralAmerica. The 1s, 2s and 3s workeddouble hop E sto Central America Sundayafternoon. Griff, NE3I, “ …did worksome interesting grids in Central America(including Nicaragua, which is tough towork on the low bands) and the Caribbean.Thought I had an EA8 or EH8 on6 just before lightning hit, but I couldn’tsnag him for sure.”As predicted in the July/Aug NCJ—E sto F 2propagation did appear during aVHF contest this year—but in June! (F 2propagation is very rare in June.)KA5DWI in EM12 worked LU6DRV inGF05 at 2121Z Sunday afternoon.Some very unusual 6-meter propagationon northerly paths occurred earlySunday morning. W7XU/0 in SouthDakota heard Alaskan 6-meter beaconsaround 1000Z and managed to make acouple of KL7 QSOs.I operated QRP portable from EM08Sunday afternoon and made around 100QSOs on 6 meters from a wheat fieldeast of Lyons, KS. Had to work all daySaturday and Sunday morning. The bandwas wide open to Canada at 2200Zwhen I got the antenna up and workedsome rare grids like DN79, 89, andWB0OAJ DN86 in North Dakota. ClintWalker, W1LP/MM, was very loud Sundayevening into central Kansas fromall-water grids EL45 and 46. I heard himrunning 8s and 9s. WB2WIH in EL96 inFlorida was loud and busy, too—workingsingle hop into the Midwest anddouble-hop out to the West Coast. Asthe sun set, 6 meters opened up to thePacific Northwest. K7RAT (operated byTree, N6TR) in CN85 called in at 0033Z.The band shifted and the Gulf Coast andCalifornia boomed in up until the end ofthe contest. XE2EED was the only “DXstation” worked. You don’t have to be a“Big Gun” or work the whole contest tohave fun. I had a great time handing outa rare grid running 10 W Sunday evening.HSMS in the June ContestA number of stations used HSMS(high-speed meteor scatter) to work newgrids on 2 meters. W3CCX, the clubstation of the Pack Rats Mount Airy VHFRadio Club ran HSMS from their contestsite on Camelback Mountain in FN21.For 2-meter HSMS they had two 13-element Yagis and 300 W. They ran sixskeds and completed with W5SNX,WB5APD, N0UK and W8WN. The extragrids helped the club score, and Joe,K1JT, notes “ …certainly made someadditional believers (and potential converts)to the HSMS mode.”W3CCX ran their HSMS skeds from0600 to 0930Z. The skeds were 30 minuteseach. This is a great way of increasingthe grid count during slack periods inthe contest. Russ, K2TXB, observesHSMS is effective for low power stationsthat may have trouble working the DXcontacts via non-meteor scatter means.Of course it is useful for us QRO types,too; but the percentage increase of scorewill be much greater for the low powerstations. A Web site with lots of info onhow to get started on HSMS can befound at http://www.qsl.net/w8wn/.50 MHz Spring Sprint from theUniversity of Texas Amateur RadioClubby Kenneth E. Harker, KM5FA “VoxClamantis in Deserto”I operated in the 50 MHz Spring Sprintthis year, and made 117 QSOs in 36different grid squares from South Texas(EM10dg) using the station and call signN5XU. This is my personal best QSOtotal for this contest, but shy of my personalbest multiplier total (47 in 1998). Itwas a very fun evening.I’ve been disappointed with activity onthe other bands in the Spring Sprints. Inthe 144 MHz Sprint, we even had a tropoopening to Florida, and I was still unableto break the 20 QSO barrier. I made justfive QSOs in the 222 MHz Sprint, despiterunning 400 W, constantly CQingand working an all-time new grid square!But the 432 MHz Sprint was the worst.After a single contact in the first minuteof the contest, I could not find one otherstation on the band to work!So, you can imagine my dismay startingthe 50 MHz Sprint and not evenhearing another station on the band forthirty minutes, and working just onecontact in the entire first hour! It is attimes like these that I have to focus hardon advice given to me by my VHF contestingElmer, George, K5TR: “Neverleave the chair. You never know when aband opening will happen, or how long itwill last.” For a four-hour Sprint, this iscertainly possible. As it happens, therewas a good E sband opening for about2 1 /2 hours. I worked Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin,Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Ontario,New York, Kentucky, Tennessee, NorthCarolina, Alabama and Mississippi.Looking at the “worked grids” map, itseems to me like there were probablytwo E sclouds, an early cloud thatpermitted long distance single skip toW0/2/3/8/9 and VE3, and a later onethat was permitting shorter single skip toW4/5. There’s kind of a gap betweenthem across Kentucky. Both cloudsseemed to disappear about the sametime. There were no openings to thewest or south—I only worked eight stationsin Texas, all of them in my own gridsquare.I find that VHF contests—particularly6-meter contests—are great for neweroperators who are not yet active on HF.Working 6-meter E sopenings and thentalking about it with other members ofthe University of Texas Amateur RadioClub is what got me interested in DXingand contesting.Check out our Web sites at http://n5xu.ae.utexas.edu/vhf/ and http://n5xu.ae.utexas.edu/n5xu/.73, Kenkharker@cs.utexas.edu■25
Page 4 and 5: The National Contest JournalVolume
Page 6 and 7: The Polish Yagis vs QuadsBig Gun Sh
Page 8 and 9: “Team New Hampshire”—(left to
Page 10 and 11: stay off. During that time, we were
Page 12 and 13: tained stations at home as well.Aft
Page 14 and 15: To Contest—Covenants Be DamnedMik
Page 16 and 17: Antennas with Gain andBandwidth for
Page 18 and 19: Figure 5—The SWR plot for the N6L
Page 20 and 21: failed and Ann and I had to start o
Page 22 and 23: International ContestsJoe Staples,
Page 24 and 25: on the availability of electricity
Page 28 and 29: Contest DX-VenturesThe Contest Trav
Page 30 and 31: DXpedition DestinationsSean Kutzko,
Page 32 and 33: Contesting for FunBob Patten, N4BPn
Page 34 and 35: Trooper was eating lunch across the
Page 36 and 37: on your toes. Very strange, though,
Page 38 and 39: Table 1The approximate total time s

September/October 2000 NCJ

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