03/11/12

Okay – the ARRL CQ DX Competition was held on the weekend of March 5 and 6th.  It started at 4:00 p.m. local on Friday and ended at 4:00 p.m. local on Sunday.   As a group we decided to work high power, so we used my Flex 5000A and the Expert 1.2KW amplifier.  I worked one or two contacts on Friday evening, and then was down there at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday.  Jeff was there a bit later, and we got into the swing of things.

Guest operators over the course of the contest included Ben - VA7BKL, Al – VA7MP, Dave – VE7DPE, John – VE7EEX, Jeff – VE7JR, Paul – VE7PCA, John M. – VE7TDI, and myself – VE7XS.

Basically, if we could hear a station we could work them.  Above is a table of who worked what.  A total of 122 country/band combinations – and 67 plus distinct entities.  There have been tremendous changes in what qualifies as an entity, and I used QRZ and Hamcall.net to look up call signs – in retrospect, not the best approach.

The number of contacts was typically tied to when the operator was on the air, and how many hours they could work.  A couple of the guys could only fit in a short amount of time, less then an hour.  Jeff and John M. they worked through the night Saturday night (animals).  I went home for about 5 or 6 hours on Saturday night, and was back there on Sunday a.m. about 4:00 in the morning

I had some challenges with my radio and amplifier – self induced when I tried an upgrade before the contest.  Despite this, all things worked well and we were racking and stacking them.  A number of the guys haven’t worked a lot of contests, and this was a good learning experience for them.  As a group, we like to encourage people to grow, and a number of us are more than willing to give up our ‘seat time’ and help a newbie get some experience.

It is important to remember that we have an A3S up about 32 feet as our only yagi at this time.  We have dipoles on 40 and 80 meters – at about 52 feet.  I’m happy with how we did – it is only going to get better.

From Jeff VE7JR

Contest Weekend Report

First things first. A very big thanks to all who showed up, helped out and operated the contest on the weekend of the 5th. We had a large turnout of drop by's and operators who together made this event the success it was.

For those of you that were there and experienced the best band conditions we've had in a long time, let's do this again real soon.
Saturday morning started out with a big bang. I met Bill at the farm just after 6am and the bands were alive. I sat down in front of Bill's Flex and was shown the ropes (there's no big knobs Bill ((except for the operator))). For me there was a learning curve to overcome, this was the first time I've used a software defined radio. I have to say I was impressed to be able to see the signal I was hearing (very cool).

As the day passed, people came and left. some operated and some just hung out. That's what this group of people is all about, having a good time playing radio together.

At times we worked the contest hard and others we  worked the newcomers into the role of contester. I had a great time working with who ever wanted to learn contesting. To John and Paul, I hope to see you guys back again for the next contest (great work guys).
Saturday day turned into Saturday night and Al took over the "Q". That was a great feed of chicken done just right there big Al. There was never a dull moment or a time the Flex was sitting alone as Ben stuck around till about 9 or 10pm( nice to have a kilowatt to play with hey Ben).

Now that the day crowd left it was up to John (7TDI) and myself to get down to some serious business. With John working the mike and me working the keyboard there was "no rag chewing on the band".  The next thing I knew it was around 4 am and Bill was sending me text messages saying do we need anything?

With the dawning of the new day appearing out the sliding door, it brought back memories of the remote mountain top contesting I used to do.  People were starting to show up for the morning gray-line opening and the breakfast was being cooked ( thanks Bill ). I stuck around until about noon and then had to pack it in (I needed some sleep).
 

From here I am not sure who came by but I did see 7DPE's call sign on the log (sorry I missed you Dave). To sum it up check out the stats Bill posted and give yourselves all a big pat on the back.

Let's do this again real soon.

73
VE7JR

My Thoughts – From John VE7EEX

First of all my thanks to Bill for all the pre planning and organizing this event.  Also to Jeff, for his expertise and patience when dealing with newbie’s.   This was my 2nd time taking part in a DX competition and I felt more comfortable this time sitting down in the chair.   After a few minutes of re-training, I was off and running and listened to all of the activity on the air.  

The logging software still looked like a 747 cockpit but I soon learned where to look and make changes on the go.  It was also helpful to have Bill in the background lessoning and offering assistance when I appeared lost or had a question.  Later his assistance was replaced by snoring on the couch. After all he’d been up for a few hours. Hi Hi…

My best contact took about five or ten minutes to complete. You never know where you are going to end up when searching for a contact. It ended up being Asiatic Russia about 6000 miles away.  After that contact it was high five’s with Bill.  There were smiles all around.  

After getting home I down loaded the NIMM program from Bill and opened up the file.  I used QRZ site to look up the call signs and locations of my contacts.  Amazing who you can talk to by pushing a PPT button. Thanks Bill , Jeff and the rest of the Hams for making this another successful event. The cold beer was good to.  Looking forward to the next even

Thanks

John

VE7EEX