In the mail today, I received something totally unexpected—a certificate proclaiming WA2HOM to be the first place finisher in the multi-operator, single-transmitter category of the 2011 CQ World Wide WPX contest.
With such a low score, I don’t supposed that we had many competitors in that category, but it’s still pretty cool.
WA2HOM is far from a contest station, but we do enjoy participating in the contests, especially now that our beam makes gives us a decent signal on 20m, 15m, and 10m. Why? Because it’s fun. There are several ways to enjoy amateur radio contests even if you’re not a “big gun.”
Last weekend, for example, the CQ World-Wide (CQWW) SSB DX contest was on. So, what we did was take advantage of the contest activity to add countries to our DXCC list. Over two hours of operation, we managed to make 63 contacts, including at least five new countries. The new countries that we added to our log included Iceland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Cayman Islands, and Madeira Island.
None of these is rare DX, but for whatever reason, we hadn’t worked them before. Now, we have.
Operating in a contest is also a good test of our radio and antennas. It’s true that contest signal reports are basically meaningless, but if DX stations regularly hear you on your first or second call, then chances are your antennas are working well. If they’re continually asking for repeats or never hear you at all, it’s a good bet that you need to do some antenna work.
We were working most stations on the first or second call. I even tried calling CQ for a while. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very successful with that, so I went back to the “search and pounce” technique. This tells me that we still have a ways to go compared to the big contesters.
We also enjoy working the smaller contests, such as state QSO parties. One reason for this is that they are a lot more friendly and laid back than the big contests like CQWW. Phone operators, for example, will often comment on your signal or even offer a bit of information about their QTH. One thing’s for sure. You learn a lot of county names.
In the end, it’s all about having fun. We have fun working contests, even if we don’t have the time or the equipment to be truly competitive.
Ryan was one of the Cub Scouts who participated in JOTA 2011 at WA2HOM.
At the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum Saturday, we participated in the 54th Jamboree on the Air (JOTA). As the website says, “The Jamboree-on-the-Air, or JOTA, is an annual Scouting event that uses amateur radio to link Scouts around the world, around the nation, and in your own community.”
We didn’t have a big turnout, but we had a lot of fun. The hams that turned out included Pat, W8LNO; Quentin, KD8IPF; and Mark, W8MP. Pat and Quentin are both involved in the Scout leadersip; Mark’s 14-year-old son, Brian, KD8EEH, is an Eagle Scout. In addition to Brian, we had four Cub Scouts, whose names I didn’t write down (sorry!), and via 2m FM, Stuart, KD8LWR.
They all were able to talk to other Scouts, all on 20m phone.
The highlight of our operation was our QSO with XE1L in Mexico City. XE1L is the station of Luis, a friend of W8MP. This was not a scheduled contact at all. We just happened to run across them.
Brian, KD8EEH, made the contact, and spoke in Spanish with the two Mexican Scouts, Stephanie and Alex, for more than 45 minutes. I was certainly impressed with Brian’s Spanish skills. I don’t think that I could have kept up the conversation so long.
In addition to the HF station, I set up our 2m radio and connected to several EchoLink nodes at which hams were participating in the JOTA. One of them was in California, the other in Ontario. Stuart talked to several of the Scouts in Canada.
Next year, we might think about being a bit more organized. That might make the experience a little more educational for the Scouts, but just getting them on the air was a lot of fun.
I didn’t make many contacts today, but I had a great time.
First off, I had planned to put PL-259s on the feedlines for the dipole and the VHF antenna, but when I went to do so, I found that it had already been done! That was very cool.
Next, I hooked up the Icom IC-V8000 to see what repeaters we could hit. First, I tried keying up the ARROW repeater. Nothing. Hmmmmm, I thought, maybe it’s just down. Next, I tried the U-M repeater, which is less than a mile away as the crow flies. I was able to key it, but the S-meter showed only a couple of S units. Something was wrong.
I swapped feedlines, and voila! Everything worked as I’d hoped. Somehow, we’d mis-labelled the feedlines. Not only that, there’s still nothing connected to the end of the dipole feedline, so I was actually able to key up the U-M repeater without an antenna!
Anyway, after connecting the right feedline to the radio, I chatted a bit with both Ralph, AA8RK, and Pat, W8LNO. Talking to Pat was fortuitous because he’s involved with Scouting, and when I mentioned that we planned to operate the Jamboree on the Air next weekend, he volunteered to come down and help out. That means we will be able to operate two radios, the HF station on 20m and the VHF station through the U-M repeater to EchoLink.
After that conversation, I turned the HF rig back on, and thought I’d see what was on 15 m. Tuning around, I found a small pileup on 21.017. I called up DXWatch and determined that the pileup was for T32C, the DXpedition to Chrismas Island. I accessed their record on QRZ.Com, found the bearing, swung the beam around to 260 degrees, and heard them quite well. After setting the transmit incremental tuning to about 2 kHz, I worked them on the second call! I just love that beam!
I had a GREAT session at WA2HOM this afternoon: As I was setting up the radio, two 9-year old girls looked over the corral wall to ask me what I was doing. I told them I was going to talk on a shortwave radio and would they like to join me. They came down and I phoned my friend Denis WA5TYJ in New Mexico to give me call me on 20 meters.
Conditions were really good and the girls and Denis chatted for around 40 minutes about Anasazi pueblo ruins, giant lava-tubes, Indian re-settlement policies in the 19 century, whether Denis spoke Spanish to his neighbors in San Raphael, and did Denis know he looked like a Southwest sheriff. I had posted Denis’ QRZ entry for the girls to see during the QSO–this is what prompted the comment about his mustachio! The girls giggled their questions to Denis and their mother observed the proceedings smiling the whole time; Denis said he really enjoyed talking to our young museum goers–all in all, a perfect WA2HOM moment!
The next group was a father and his two kids visiting from Namibia…
I’m usually not one to work the big contests, but there are some advantages to participating, even if you don’t have a lot of time or plan to submit a log. One of the advantages is that there are a lot of countries on, and you can add to total of countries that you’ve worked.
This weekend was the CQ WPX CW contest. I only operated for about three hours, the bands were kind of lousy on Saturday, and I only worked 15 meters, but even so, I managed to add eight countries to the WA2HOM log. They include:
• HK1R – Colombia
• SZ1A – Greece
• 6W/RK4FF – Senegal
• HQ9R – Honduras
• EF8M – Canary Islands
• J7A – Dominica
• J39BS – Grenada
• HC2SL – Ecuador
It’s nothing real exotic, but new ones nonetheless.
To break in the new beam yesterday, down at the museum, we participated in a couple of contests: the CQ Manchester Mineira DX Contest (MM) and the Michigan QSO Party (MIQP). All I can say is, “WOW!!”
I got there just before 11 am. Jim, K8ELR, was already there making out QSL cards. Since the MIQP didn’t start until noon, I thought I’d tune around and see what bands were open. I first tried 15m CW. That’s how I discovered the MM DX contest. The band was very open to Europe, especially with the new beam. In short order, I worked a dozen or more Europeans and Caribbean stations.
What a difference the beam makes! With the 20m inverted vee, nearly every QSO was a challenge, but with the beam, I worked every station I called, usually on the first try. This was so amazing that I was actually getting a little giddy.
About 11:45 am, I decided that I better get set up for the MIQP. I had brought my WinKeyer (since the Omni VII doesn’t have a memory keyer!), and wanted to hook it up to the N1MM program. I had done this quite easily at home, but I could not, unfortunately, get it to work on the computer down at the museum. The computer seemed to be talking to the keyer, but the function keys didn’t work. (If anyone has any ideas on what I’m doing wrong, I’d be happy to hear them.)
A little after noon, I decided to give up on this, and just program the keyer itself and operate stand-alone. About 12:10, we were working the MIQP on 20m using the callsign W8CWN, the callsign of H. Richard Crane, a distinguished professor of physics at the University of Michigan and one of the founders of the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.
Again, the performance of the beam was just spectacular, at least compared to our 20m inverted vee. We pointed the beam west and easily worked stations on the West Coast. We pointed the beam east and got calls from Europeans and the East Coast.
Using the beam, our noise level seemed to be lower, too, although not as low as I would like it. We’re going to have to work on that some more.
We worked a lot of 40m, too, using our 40m inverted vee. That antenna has always worked pretty well for us, and the band was in good shape yesterday afternoon. There was a lot of short skip on 40m, allowing us work quite a few Michigan counties.
Overall, we made 195 contacts in nearly five hours. That’s certainly not championship form, but it’s a lot better than we’ve done in the past, and we really had a blast, both operating the contest and explaining what we were doing to the museum visitors. It’s just too bad that the museum closed at 5pm and we had to stop.
Ovide, K8EV, our “kid wrangler,” did his thing yesterday and we were able to get three kids on the air. Seven-year-old Jack was our first kid communicator; he spoke to K9IRO. Peter was our second, and Brian our third. A good time was had by all.
We were very fortunate in that band conditions on 40m were very good. All three stations we talked to were 57 – 59, and no one had to strain to hear one another.
Tower Update
We’re making progress slowly, but surely on the tower project. Over the course of last week, I mounted all the lightning arrestors to the mounting plate that goes in the NEMA box. On Friday, Jack, Dave, and I lowered the tower and mounted the rotor plate and rotor. We mounted the thrust bearing, too, but after inspection, John decided that it needed some kind of cap to prevent water from pooling in it.
Football Saturdays are always very slow down at the museum—at least as far as the number of visitors is concerned—but I still go down there anyway. As far as operating the station was concerned, it was a lot of fun.
First of all, I managed to work several special event stations:
Right after I broke with N4J, he got a call from W4JAM. I listened intently, with the idea that I’d get a chance to have a contact with him. As soon as they ended their short QSO, I yelled out, “CONTACT!” Fortunately, N4J broke for me, and John, W4JAM was still listening.
We had a very nice chat, and as it turns out, his wife has the callsign W0MAN! So, he’s going to send me both cards. I got two for the price of one! Both John and his wife, as it turns out, are both Honor Roll DXers.
I tried to work a couple more special event stations, but I wasn’t able to copy any more of those listed on the ARRL website. There were two that I really wanted to work, too: the Blackeye Pea Festival at the East Texas Arboretum and Botanical Society and the Nowhere, KS Special Event. Maybe next year.
Hi everyone. 20 and 15meters were really jumping this weekend. The California QSO party was going this weekend and I made 10 ssb CA contacts on 20meters Saturday. I was very surprised to hear so much activity on 15 meters. So I made another 10 ssb CA contacts on Sunday.
Also on Saturday and Sunday I made a few contacts using psk31, psk63. Man that was a blast.
Come down to the station and join us. I can be contacted at my call (K8ELR) at arrl dot net.
73!!!!!
Jim K8ELR