Posts Tagged ‘Contesting’
Last weekend was a contest in the park.
August 30th, 2012 | 
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| The setup at the park |
CW Ops contest this weekend
The following article appeared on eHam – may be of interest to those of you who like CW contests:
CW Open Contest Sept. 1 and 2:
Ed Tobias (KR3E) posted on August 27, 2012
Second Annual CW Open THIS WEEKEND!
Are you ready for one of the most unique and fun contests on the air? If so, jump into the CW Open, organized by the CWops club…it’s three-contests-in-one!
Like most contests, the goal is to work as many stations as possible (in this case CW stations only). Each station may be worked once per band.
Unlike other contests, however, in the CW Open there are three separate competitions at three separate times — each is called a “session”. You can enter one, two or all three of these sessions. Each session is scored separately. For those who enter more than one session, there is also a multiple-session category that combines all your session scores into one grand total score. So, if you enter 2 or 3 sessions you will be competing in each individual session plus the multiple-session category. More chances to win!
Join us for as many sessions as you can make.
Session 1 September 1 1200-1559Z
Session 2 September 1 2000-2359Z
Session 3 September 2 0400-0759Z
The exchange is easy: just a serial number and your name.
Awards: (Sponsored by ICOM America)
•Trophy for 1st place in each time period.
•Plaque for 1st place in each power level in each time period
•Trophy for over all combined score of all three time periods.
•Plaque for 1st place for each power level in the combined score group
Note: if the same entrant wins multiple awards, they may be combined).
•Certificates for achieving more than 100 QSOs in any or all time periods.
Is it fun? Here’s what some of last year’s contestants said:
“A fun, new way to contest. Many thanks to the organizers!” – AE6Y
“Running QRP 5W from IC-7400 to a trap vertical. First time in this contest. Very enjoyable pace. Look forward to next year. – G6CSY
“Good traffic and very quick ops. Hats off….See all you next year. Ciao.” – IK0HBN
“Enjoyed every minute and looking forward to next year! 73.” – KA3DRR
For more information and full rules go to: http://www.cwops.org/cwopen.html
73 de Ed, KR3E – CWops #133
72 de Larry W2LJ – CWops #1005
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
Skeeter hunting fun
I had a real good time during the 1st Annual Skeeter Hunt today, although the outlook appeared bleak from the very beginning. Just as I was heading out the door to go to the park, our vacuum cleaner decided to give up the ghost. It made a real funny noise and a burning smell. I tried troubleshooting it quickly; but it turned out we needed a new one. Of course, my XYL didn’t want to wait; so it was off to Target to buy a new one.
That chore taken care of, I headed to the park (dressed in my WGØAT “Old Goats Rule – QRP Adventures” T-shirt!) – nearly an hour and a bit into the contest. Fortunately, everything after the vacuum cleaner incident went as smooth as butter!
The weather here in Central NJ was gorgeous! A high of about 84F with sunny, blue skies and lots of white, puffy clouds. The humidity was not bad, and the only Skeeters that I had to worry about were the ones on the airwaves.
The wrist rocket got a line up over a pretty high tree branch on my first attempt. The PAR antenna went up without any trouble at all and and didn’t even cause the KX3’s autotuner to even so much as burp – 1:1 SWR on both 20 Meters and 40 Meters. The little box to the right of the KX3 is the PAR matchbox. I used my Whiterook single lever paddle today. And of course, you can see Ol’ Blue, my battery, up there in the upper left hand corner of the camping table.
And the good SWR on 20 and 40 was a very good thing, because unlike the Flight of the Bumblebees, I was to find a lot of activity on 40 Meters. In fact, a little after 20:00 UTC, 20 Meters became dominated by European stations and I was barely able to hear any Skeeters on that band after that point.
In all, I managed 28 QSOs – 13 were on 20 Meters and 15 were on 40 Meters. Best DX was working Mike DJ5AV from Germany on 20 Meters at 18:55 UTC. I only got a 529 from him; but there were a lot of strong signals on both bands and I received quite a few 579s to 599s in addition to the “normal” 559s.
Tear down was just as easy as set up. After the contest ended, I was able to pack up things and be out of the park in less than 10 minutes.
I would like to thank all of you who took the time to participate in this first ever NJQRP Skeeter Hunt. I think a good time was had by all; and this will definitely become an annual Summer QRP event.
Remember, logs are due by September 12th, after which I will post results. Log summaries are fine – details of each QSO are not necessary – but if you want to send a log in that way, that’s OK, too! And any pictures, especially those of you who home brewed keys for the event will be greatly appreciated!
I’ve gotten a few logs in already and I hope to get many, many more. In fact, Jim W1PID, posted another of his great stories today – this one about the Skeeter Hunt:
http://www.w1pid.com/skeeter/skeeter.html
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
The first annual skeeter contest….done!!
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| Packing up for the contest |
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| The weather to look forward too |
watts with me calling CQ and not searching and pouncing.
The weather was a mixed bag from nice sunny skies (very rare) to very threatening overcast that did let go
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| The setup...with a bit of rare sunshine |
with rain at times.Over the last month the temperatures have been in the upper 30's and low 40C...today it was nice and cool almost to the point of putting on a long sleeve shirt (which was used to cover the rig during light rain). The location I chose was about 15 minutes from my home and offered a pic-nick table, trees and what I consider a luxury when operating out and about a portable washroom!! The bands were busy with not only the Skeeter contest but the WAE contest as well. I did have some European stations involved in the WAE contest respond to my "CQ Buzz contest" Thats ok they gave me their report and serial and I asked for their power output and then they moved on this made it a skeeter contact....I believe anyway???
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| Covering for rain drizzle |
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| When it really rained |
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| Finally...a must have!!! |
Weekend happenings……..
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| During the NAQP CW contest |
On Saturday I took part in the NAQP CW contest. It was this day and mostly early evening and evening that the thunder and lightening storms came my way. This limited my on air time in the contest. I entered as QRP at 5 watts and was going to lower the power into the mW range but the conditions would not allow it. I was having a hard enough time making contacts with 5 watts.
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| First time it has been blank |
So that is how the weekend more or less went here at VE3WDM!!
IOTA contest and CY9M DXpedition
On all my contacts I tried with the lowest power possible and worked my way up until I made contact. If I was at full output (5 watts) and still could not make contact it was time to move along.
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| Pile up for CY9M on my P3 |
ATS Sprint
There was a new QRP operating event taking place on the HF airwaves tonight – the ATS Sprint. Meant mostly for operators of Steve KKD1JV’s famous little trail radios, it was open to all QRPers, no matter the rig chosen to use.
I snagged six participants on 20 Meters including G4ISJ/P in England. Band conditions weren’t the best and I spent a goodly amount of time trying to track down Dale WC7S, who was a big promoter of the event. I heard a few stations successfully work Dale; but I never heard him myself.
Most of the activity seemed to stay on 20 Meters. I switched over to 40 Meters and there was a lot of RTTY around 7.040 MHz, but no QRPers that I was able to hear. I thought I heard Nick WA5BDU calling “CQ ATS” somewhere around 7.039 MHz. If that was Nick the QSB was bad and he was in and out.
I sure hope that the organizers feel that they had a decent enough turn out so that they will schedule this event again. Even though I wasn’t using a KD1JV rig to participate, it was a lot of fun. I hate seeing QRP Sprints go the way of the Dodo bird. Some folks feel there are too many; but my philosophy is “The more, the merrier!”. These contests are usually very friendly and are never cut throat affairs. I tend to think of them as on the air QRP community gatherings rather than out and out contests.(That may be because I never place highly!). It’s through these events that I’ve gotten to know and become friends with so many other QRPers over the years.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
