Riding the Radio Waves By K4SAC

Contesting, Dxing, and Ham Radio in general

July 29, 2010

2010 WRTC Results

by k4sac @ 3:26 pm. Tags: , ,
Filed under contests

The eagerly anticipated 2010 WRTC is finally done and in the can and the results have been announced.

In a very close competition, Vladimir Askenov RW1AC and Alexey Mikhailov RA1AIP using the call R32F won a very narrow victory over Team Estonia, R33A operated by ES5TV/ES2RR in the 2010 World Radiosport Team Championship.

In a demonstration of how close the competition was, Team Estonia garnered 4,084,889 points, 99.675% of the winning Russian score. The R32F team won with a total score of 4,098,162.

Even though R33A came in 2nd place overall they did win the award for most SSB contacts and multipliers.

Operating as R33M, Dan Craig N6MJ and Chris Hurlbut KL9A came in 3rd place with a total score of 3,942,904. Dan and Chris managed to make 3,549 contacts and lost no multipliers during log checking.  The competition was so close, had Dan and Chris made just 16 more mults, they would have won overall.

For fourth place S50A/S57AW, they had too many log errors and ended up losing 8.5% of their QSO’s – 323 in all, dropping them from second to fourth.

In fifth place, K5ZD/W2SC had the same problem as N6MJ/KL9A – not enough multipliers.

Final Scores of WRTC 2010 Teams

1 – R32F   RW1AC/RA1AIP 4,098,162
2 – R33A   ES5TV/ES2RR 4,084,889
3 – R33M   N6MJ/KL9A 3,942,904
4 – R39D   S50A/S57AW 3,907,540
5 – R34P   K5ZD/W2SC 3,889,908
6 – R32K   RV3BA/RA3CO 3,776,544
7 – R32R   LY9A/LY6A 3,615,024
8 – R31X   UA3DPX/UA4FER 3,594,820
9 – R37M   G4PIQ/G4BUO 3,558,636
10 – R36C   LY9Y/LY7Z 3,502,044

By all accounts, the competition was a success and fair.

You can read more at Radio-sport.net

(credit: Radio-sport.net)

73, Jack K4SAC

July 19, 2010

Dx Spider cluster

by k4sac @ 1:09 pm. Tags: ,
Filed under digital, dx

The old pc for the K4SAC-1 dx spider cluster finally died. After giving it the burial it deserved, I set up the spider cluster software on the new pc along with perl, and now it is humming along nice and content.

If you need a telnet connection for your logging software, you can use k4sac.brescia.edu port 7300

Please respect the system.  A user manual is located http://wiki.dxcluster.org/index.php/DXSpider_User_Manual

Abusers are banned.

73, Jack K4SAC

July 11, 2010

ZL8X Kermadec Island dxpedition

by k4sac @ 10:46 am. Tags:
Filed under dx, dxpedition

November 19, 2010. That is the magic date for the 2010 Kermadec Island dxpedition.

The team  (DJ5IW, DJ7EO,DK1II,DL1MGB,DL3DXX,DL5CW,DL5LYM,DL5XL, DL6FBL, DL8LAS, DL8O, and SP5XVY) are scheduled to arrive in New Zealand on November 14, 2010 and be on the air by November 19th.

They plan to have 7 stations online, and will be operating CW, SSB, and RTTY.

They will be traveling to the Kermadec Isles aboard the MV Claymore II.  

For more information, visit their website.

To donate to the dxpedition and help offset some of the costs, please click here. 

June 23, 2010

Field Day 2010

by k4sac @ 2:47 pm. Tags: ,
Filed under ARRL, Field Day

ARRL Field Day is the single most popular on-the-air event held annually in the US and Canada.  Each year over 35,000 amateurs gather with their clubs, friends or simply by themselves to operate.

ARRL Field Day is not a fully adjudicated contest, which explains much of its popularity.  It is a time where many aspects of Amateur Radio come together to highlight our many roles. While some will treat it as a contest, most groups use the opportunity to practice their emergency response capabilities.  It is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate Amateur Radio to local elected community leaders, key individuals with the organizations that Amateur Radio might serve in an emergency, as well as the general public. For many clubs, ARRL Field Day is one of the highlights of their annual calendar.

To learn a little bit about the history of Field Day, you can check out an old post of mine …click here

73, Jack K4SAC

Credit:ARRL

June 16, 2010

FCC Seeks Comments on Amateur 5 MHz (60 Meters) Allocation

by k4sac @ 7:29 am. Tags: ,
Filed under FCC, emergency

The FCC has released a NPRM ET Docket 10-98 proposing to modify the allocations on the 60 meter band.

Comments must be filed by July 15th, 2010. reply comments must be filed by July 30th, 2010.

The 60 meter band is from 5060-5450khz. There are 5 channels allocated on a secondary basis to ham radio

5332 kHz, 5348 kHz, 5368 kHz, 5373 kHz and 5405 kHz.

The NPRM is seeking comment on adding an allocation at 5358.5 and dropping the allocation at 5368khz.

Also the FCC is proposing to add 3 new emissions  (CW)150HA1A, (PSK31) 60H0J2B, and (PACTOR-III) 2K80J2D and increase power output limits to 100 watts instead of the current 50 watts.

For more information read the NPRM here

May 17, 2010

2010 Dayton Hamvention

by k4sac @ 8:25 am. Tags: ,
Filed under hamfests

Well the 2010 Dayton hamvention has come and gone.  I didn’t get to go this year due to work issues.

However according to ARRL, there were several new products shown:

Flexradio showed off their new FLEX-1 500 5W software defined radio (SDR)  160m-6m

They also showed off their FLEX-VU5k a 60W 2 meter and 70cm transverter module.

Kenwood showed off their new TS-590 HF transceiver.

Yaesu showed off their new FTdx-5000 series HF-6M radios.

So lots of good stuff coming from Dayton this year. Mark your calendars for next year, May 20-22, 2011.

73 , Jack K4SAC

(credit: ARRL)

April 9, 2010

NEW ARRL CONTEST

by k4sac @ 9:37 am. Tags: , ,
Filed under ARRL, contests

The First Rookie Roundup — Coming April 18!

Back several years ago, there used to be a contest called the Novice Roundup. It was contest where the old timers would get on the air and work only novices.

Well the ARRL has decided to re-invent the Novice Roundup into a contest called the Rookie Roundup.

The first Rookie Roundup is scheduled for April 18th, and will be SSB. The six hour event — from 1800 UTC-2359 UTC — will be held on the third Sunday of April, August, and December. SSB, RTTY, and CW will be featured in the different months

Now you might be asking who is defined as a rookie? Well the qualifications are that you must have been licensed less than 3 years, no matter what license class you hold.  If you received your license in 2008, 2009 or 2010, you’re eligible to compete as a Rookie.

“The ARRL Rookie Roundup also embraces a lot of new technology, including live scoring and reporting of the results within a few hours after the event ends. Thanks to Gerry Hull, W1VE, and the team at getscores.org, results will be available very shortly after the event. To officially enter, stations should log on to getscores.org and choose one of two ways to report their score: by using a Web browser logging page to enter QSOs in real-time or from a standalone log, or by reporting their score summary using getscores.org‘s Universal Score Uploader. Both Rookies and Non-rookies must complete their entries within one hour after the contest ends. More details are available on the Rookie Roundup blog.” (credit ARRL website)

The CW event will be in December with the RTTY event following up in August 2011.

This should be a fun 6 hours event, so get out there and work the newbies!

73, Jack K4SAC

March 24, 2010

CQ WW WPX SSB

by k4sac @ 6:30 pm. Tags: ,
Filed under CQ WW

This weekend is the CQ WW WPX SSB contest.

You can find the rules here

The 2009 CQ WW WPX SSB set a record last year with 4087 log received with 1,819,311 QSO’s from 209 DXCC entities.

The USA had 464,627 qso’s logged.

Last year, Jim W7EJ pushed CN2R and won the SOAB (Single-Operator All-Band) High power category.

The top USA high power SOAB score was by N3KS, Kamal, operating WY3P.

The top low power SOAB score was by John, KK9A operating P40A.

The top USA low power trophy was won by Ed N1UR, operating NV1N.

Click here for the full 2009 results.  (adobe acrobat required)

Get on the air and operate!

73, Jack K4SAC

March 20, 2010

FCC releases National Broadband Plan

by k4sac @ 5:20 pm. Tags: , , ,
Filed under ARRL, FCC

On March 16th, the FCC released its report entitled Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan.

The FCC unveiled this plan to Congress, calling it “an ambitious agenda for connecting all corners of the nation while transforming the economy and society with the communications network of the future — robust, affordable Internet”

According to the FCC report, 100 million Americans lack broadband access at home and 14 million Americans do not have access to broadband.

The ARRL’s interpretation of the report is that BPL plays a small role in the report.

ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ. “There is no mention of BPL as a means of implementing the Plan‘s goals for broadband deployment. In short, the FCC sees no role for BPL in providing broadband Internet connections to more consumers.”

The highlights of the Plan call for:

  • 100MB service to 100 million households
  • 1GB service to anchor instiutions such as universities, hospital, and military installations.

The FCC has released a spectrum dashboard to allow the public user friendly access to ata regarding licenses and spectrum bands.

The Plan was mandated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009 and produced by an FCC task force.

So take some time, download the plan and take a look, our national interests and future depends on it……

73, Jack K4SAC

Credit: FCC, ARRL

March 5, 2010

ARRL International DX Contest SSB

by k4sac @ 3:30 pm. Filed under ARRL, contests

This weekend is the ARRL International DX contest on SSB.

You can find a copy of the rules by clicking here

The contest runs for 48 hours and starts at 0000 UTC Saturday and ends at 2400 UTC Sunday.

All non WARC bands 160-10 are eligible for contesting.

Entries for the Phone competition must be emailed or postmarked by 2359 UTC Monday, April 5, 2010.

73, and have fun! de K4SAC

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