NAQCC News

Oct 6, 2007	NAQCC Web Site		Issue #056

In this issue: 1. October Sprint. 2. September Challenge Results 3. Latest Bear Hunt News 4. General Club News 5. Member News

1. SPRINT: Our sprint is this Tuesday evening, Oct. 9th at 8:30-10:30 PM EDT (Wednesday 0030-0230Z). This section contains a lot of special info about this special sprint. Please read carefully if you're going to enter the sprint, and we hope you plan to do so. There is a lot going on in this month's sprint. It's the third anniversary of the founding of the NAQCC, and we have our special event call of N3A being operated by 12 club members at various days, times, and frequencies from 7 call areas. However in the sprint we will have all 10 call areas active at the same time with additional operators for only the sprint. Here is a list of the sprint operators: W1 - N3A/1 by N1LU (NH) W2 - N3A/2 by KD2MX (NJ) W3 - N3A/3 by WY3H (PA) W4 - N3A/4 by AA4W (FL) W5 - N3A/5 by AE5BH (TX) W6 - N3A/6 by K6BBQ (CA) W7 - N3A/7 by WY7N (UT) W8 - N3A/8 by WB8LZG (MI) W9 - N3A/9 by W9ILF (IN) W0 - N3A/0 by NO2D (CO) If that isn't enough excitement, we have a special giveaway this month - A Hendricks DC40 QRP transceiver kit donated by N3IJR. As decided by club president Tom WY3H, that will go to the highest scorer who has never won a first or second place certificate in any of our sprints. Then of course (yes there's more) our monthly giveaway of the CW books on CD donated by Chuck K7QO who also is including his wonderful CW learning/improvement course on CD. There are currently 12 books included in Chuck's offer valued over $100 normally but given free to the highest scorer in our sprint (who hasn't already won the CD's previously). Not to mention our 4 beautiful color certificates that go to our first place finishers in the SWA and Gain divisions (or first and second if we have entries in only one division), our Special Award certificate, and our Top Non-Winner certificate. I won't explain all that here except to say our Special Award this month goes to the one who works the most different N3A/# stations. Ties are broken by higher score. Whew, it's going to be a busy sprint, and after it's over, don't forget to submit your log via our autologger. We've got it working perfectly now for any browser/operating system combination. If you use paper logging during the sprints, we have a log and summary form available for you to download and fill in with your text editor to email to us or you can transfer the info to our autologger mentioned above. Download here - Form - Instructions. If you use GenLog for the sprint, be sure to get the latest GenLog data file here. I've coded in all our N3A/# calls. Be sure you enter the full call in GenLog, not just N3A, but N3A/1, N3A/2, etc. If you're entering one of our sprints for the first time, we welcome you and hope you will be a regular participant from now on. Last month we had 12 hams who submitted a log for the first time ever: KG4W, K8DD, W0JFR, K5BGB, K9DXA, K8AZT, WA1LWS, KE4I, AA9L, WA2DTW, K6BFA, KG2GL. Full Sprint info here. 2. SEPTEMBER CHALLENGE RESULTS: The deadline for reporting your challenge results is still a couple days away as this newsletter is posted, but I can say we had more reports for this challenge than for the August one. We will need a true drawing this time to determine the winner of a set of bug/paddle handles donated by Gregg, WB8LZG in conjunction with our challenges. Our giveaway of the handles will continue for each challenge at least through September 2008. They are just beautiful to look at, and anyone would be proud to have them on his or her paddle or bug. Having seen them in person so to speak, I can say that they appear even nicer than the pictures on Gregg's web site. Our first winner of the handles, Bruce WY7N agrees with me about the beauty of the handles as we mentioned in the previous newsletter. Those mastering the September 2-4-10-30 challenge and reporting so far are: N1LU, K3WWP, VE3HUR, W2JEK, KU4A, NU7T. Full challenge info here. 3. LATEST BEAR HUNT NEWS: From Bear Master Ron K5DUZ - The Bear Hunt is having one last hurrah with Dale, WC7S roaming the forest 10/8 - 10/14. Check the NAQCC WAS Bear Hunt webpage for his schedule. Dale is the most outspoken supporter of the Bear Hunt and doesn't want to see it slip into permanent hibernation. If you need Wyoming on 40/80/160 meters CW QRP here is your chance. Dale is open to schedules at times other than those posted. An extended period of hibernation for the Bear Hunt will begin after 10/14 due to the lack of interest recently shown and several other reasons, unless members have a change of heart and request its awakening. Your suggestions on how you'd like the Bear Hunt to resume when it does are welcome. We just don't want it to be a clone of other organization's events like the Fox Hunts, so don't suggest that. We want it to be something unique since we do not copy other clubs' ideas. Email with your suggestions Full bear hunt info here. 4. GENERAL CLUB NEWS: - Roger KS4VX sends along this comment about the newsletter and the club in general. I feel I should share it with all of you since it applies to all our officers and members. "Thank you very much for all of the time and talent you've provided the QRP community, and me! 8-)" That's what the NAQCC is all about. - The N3A operation is off to a good start despite horrible band conditions the first few days of October so far. We have perhaps 60 or so QSO's in the various N3A/# logs as of when this is being written on October 3rd. We hoped for more in the Spartan Sprint, but according to an informal survey, conditions were especially poor all around the country on Monday evening. N3A/4/-AA4W made 17 and N3A/3-K3WWP made 14 with other ops also adding QSO's, so you see what I mean about conditions. Our first 2X N3A QSO took place when N3A/3-K3WWP worked N3A/4-AA4W on Tuesday evening on 40M. You can find out all the information about our N3A special event operations on a special page on the web site here. The info includes scheduling of operations, how to obtain a certificate or QSL for working N3A, and general news about N3A. - Perhaps we should explain our newsletter publication schedule as someone emailed and asked why we didn't mention the upcoming sprint in our last newsletter. The newsletter is 'published' twice a month. Once the Saturday before our upcoming sprint (the even-numbered newsletters), and once the last Saturday of the month (odd-numbers). The even-numbered newsletters promote the upcoming sprint and report the results of the previous month's challenge. The odd-numbers promote the upcoming challenge and include the current month's sprint results. So the main thrust of this newsletter (056) is the promo of Tuesday evening's sprint along with the September challenge results. - PLEASE if you have a web site, a listing on QRZ or other Internet presence, be sure to proudly display your NAQCC number with a link to the NAQCC site if possible. Remember if you want to make the link a bit more fancy, our logo is available in different sizes for download here. Many folks still don't know about the club and may find out through your web site or QRZ listing. Another thing you can do to publicize the club is to be sure to include your NAQCC number proudly in any signature you have for your ham radio related emails. Also of course on your QSL cards. Don't forget your eQSL card as well. - With all the giveaways we have going, we've made up a special page to keep track of them. To check the status of all the giveaways, see here and make plans now for what you are going to try to win. 5. MEMBER NEWS: Thanks to your news submissions, this is becoming a very popular section of the newsletter. We hope you will continuing telling us of your QRP/CW doings and including the wonderful pictures as well. Remember we only accept POSITIVE news here unlike the TV newscasts. There is so much that is wonderful going on in the world, it's a shame only the negative is emphasized in so many places. Send your news items to our news editor Paul KD2MX at . From Rem, K6BBQ #1644 - Next week is my five year anniversary on HF and I've been having fairly regular CW QSOs since January of 2006. This is the first time I've been a special event station (N3A/6) where I'm making CW QSOs. This is fun and surprising to see where the ham will be who will answer my QRP CQ. I live in an apartment and have a modest station, a Yaesu FT-857D and a Buddipole with the 16 foot mast. I am 100% Buddipole and Buddistick (half of the Buddipole becomes the vertical Buddistick) for all of my QSOs. The first night as N3A/6 I had a station in Cedar City, Utah answer my CQ. Both of us were running 5 watts. With as noisy as the bands are and hams talking about how hard it is to make a contact, I about fell over finding out this ham's QTH was UT. I thought if I was lucky I might get to Oregon but this was a pleasant surprise. The second night as N3A/6 I had a station in Oregon answer my CQ. Still good to know my small signal was getting out big. I had my first 20 meter QSO today and the ham was in Iowa. A new state for me as N3A/6. I also did a new operating tactic today. After calling CQ for close to 15 minutes on the 20 meter QRP frequency, I dialed down to the bottom of the band. It was very quiet, too quiet. The Hamboys had left town. Ok, no old wild west jokes. I got down to the bottom of the band and started tuning up. Finally I heard a signal, a BEAUTIFUL signal and to boot he was calling CQ! It was Rich, WB0JXR from Shelby, Iowa. He was sending a bit faster than I am used to sending or copying but I could copy most of what he said. I explained our special event station and ended up having a nice, 20 minute QSO with him. His call and town seemed familiar and after the QSO I looked in my log and saw we had QSO'd back in March 2006. That was my third month of starting to have CW QSOs regularly. So I would have been much slower back then. What a difference having QSOs often makes as my CW has improved since then. I will always start out listening and calling on the CQ QRP fishing frequencies. However, if there aren't any bites, I'm moving to another section of the pond and seeing if I can find anyone there. From Geo, N1EAV #1679 - Have managed to make nine qso's so far using the N3A/1 callsign. Spent most of the time calling cq....Band condx not very good up here in the northeast. Made two on 20M, 1 on 40M, and the rest have been on 30 meters...Will try to keep plugging away at it each day. Have to take time out to watch the Red Sox though..hihi. The setup here is a Kenwood TS-570 at 5 watts and an indoor random wire. From Rick, AA4W #1628 - Here is a summary of my contacts with N3A/4. N3ZL is also using N3A/4. Up to today I have made 17 contacts in 15 states and Canada. I have worked 2 members. John Shannon (K3WWP) and I worked N3A/3 to N3A/4. Below is the transmitter I am using on 40 meters. It's a simple 6L6 crystal oscillator. If I load it heavy it'll do 8 watts but I normally run it at 5 watts. The Heathkit SB-303 works well with it. John asked me to send the picture along. This is the rig I was on when John and I worked. From John K3WWP #0002 - As I said I would, I'm having a ball operating our special event call so far this month. I don't have all that much time to do it what with co-ordinating all the N3A/# operations among my usual NAQCC work and other activities. Still when I do operate the call, I get a thrill from being able to hand out a 'special' QSO to someone, and perhaps recruit a new member in the bargain. I'm going to try to get at least one N3A/3 QSO each day in October, but it won't be easy with my limited time and the poor conditions. Overall I'd like to make at least 100 QSO's and give Tom a big job printing and mailing out certificates and QSL's. HI.

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