pix_logo01 (5K)NAQCC News

Jul 25, 2009NAQCC Web Site Issue #099

In this issue:
1. August Challenge.
2. July Sprint Results
3. General Club News
4. Elmer Project
5. Latest Award Winners
6. News Items and Articles by Our Members

1. AUGUST CHALLENGE: This challenge is the brain child of our president Tom WY3H. He challenges you to make at least 5 QRP/CW QSO's on any 5 different bands during the month. That's a minimum of 25 QSO's to satisfy the challenge.

As you should do for every challenge, sprint, and award, read and understand the rules completely before you do anything. Here in the newsletters we just give a brief synopsis of what's going on.

Full Challenge info here.

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2. JULY SPRINT RESULTS: Once again quite a bit of the country experienced poor band conditions with signal levels down and noise levels up. Although things were not all that good here in WPA, I managed to make my 6th best total number of QSO's at 37. Bruce WY7N out in Utah had his best sprint ever with 20 QSO's which is very good from that part of the country. As a result of the poor conditions, our stats this month were down from the previous few months, but still very good as our sprints continue to get more and more popular in the QRP/CW world.

All but two folks used our autologger to report their scores this month which made my job of cross-checking all that much easier. There are still a couple of things you can do to make it even easier though:

1. In the new multiplier column of your log, number the new mults consecutively and if it's not a new mult, put a hyphen (-) there.
2. Do NOT put a colon (:) in the time, that is 0127, NOT 01:27.
3. If you're competing for the special award certificate, be sure to fill out the two appropriate fields in the autologger as instructed in the rules for that particular sprint.

Thanks in advance for following the above steps.

Here now are the full statistics clearly showing the slight downturn in participation and results we had this month because of band conditions.

STATS - current month, previous month, all time record, mo/yr (blue indicates a record set this month):
                  Jul   Jun   Rec   Month
Logs -             54    57    65   5/09 & 4/09
Autologger logs -  52    52    59   5/09
Stns in logs -     87    92   110   5/08
Hour 1 QSO's -    333   393   564   9/08
Hour 2 QSO's -    257   350   476   9/08
Total QSO's -     590   743  1040   9/08
20M QSO's -       116   209   209   6/09
40M QSO's -       429   491   720   5/09
80M QSO's -        45    43   481  12/07
WINNERS:

1st SWA East - K3WWP
1st SWA Central - W5YDM
1st SWA Mountain - WY7N
1st SWA Pacific - K6WLM
1st Gain - K4BAI

Special Award (most call areas worked)
Drawing Entrants: K3WWP, KD0V, WY7N, N4BP
Drawing Winner: KD0V

Congratulations to all including winners and non-winners. Actually everyone who participated and sent in a log is a winner because that shows the ham radio world that there are many folks still using and enjoying CW on the ham bands. That's one of our main goals here at the NAQCC.

Very special thanks to those who reported their results even though they made only a few QSO's. Your reports are important also.

We had 3 stations who didn't submit a log show up 6-9 times in the 54 logs we received and cross-checked. Hopefully those 3 and many others will be back next month AND submit a log. Remember submitting a log doubles the strength of your statement that you support CW operation.

We welcome these hams who submitted a sprint log for the first time. We hope they will continue to participate and report their results:
K6WLM, K9XE, KC2VFT, KW3U, VA3CWT, VA3PEN, W2VV, W9CPI, W9WOC, WB5FKC

The following hams have participated in, and sent in logs for 30 or more of our 57 sprints to date:

K3WWP - 57
KA2KGP - 50
KD2MX - 39
W2SH - 39
W2JEK - 38
WY3H - 38
W9CC - 37
K4BAI - 36
K4NVJ - 36
N4FI - 34
W2LJ - 31
Many others have been in 20 or more of our sprints. We must be doing something right for these folks to keep coming back again and again. Thanks go not only to these folks, but to everyone who has ever entered any of our sprints.

Full sprint info here.

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3. GENERAL CLUB NEWS:

pix_blueball (1K) - One of the goals of many hams is to work W1AW and get a QSL from the ARRL Headquarters' station to hang on their shack wall. Thanks to Dennis N1IMW, #2460, that has just become easier to do. Dennis regularly operates W1AW around 7030 just to work QRPers. Now he has set up 3 special time periods to concentrate on working NAQCC members.

Dennis will be on 7033 kHz starting at 1:30 PM EDT (1730Z) on each of the following days: Monday July 27, Monday August 3, and Wednesday August 5. If 7033 is busy he will slide up the band to 7034 or to the first clear frequency.

In order to give as many NAQCC members as possible a chance to work W1AW, this info is only being published here in the newsletter. Please do not pass it to any non-members. W1AW generally draws a big crowd similar to a rare DX station when it goes on the air to contact hams. We hope to keep these sessions mainly for NAQCC members. We want to have as many members as possible work W1AW, so even if you have worked W1AW before, you're welcome to work them again. However please keep all QSO's short to give as many members as possible their chance.

With the big antennas at W1AW and their state of the art receiving equipment, there should be no problem copying your QRP signals. We know you want to make it a QRP QSO on your part although W1AW will be running higher power.

pix_blueball (1K) From Tom WY3H with additional info from Dave VA3RJ - Operators Tom/WY3H and his son Ethan/W3IRS, and also John/K3WWP will operate N3AQC (NAQCC and FISTS Club Station) as a special event station on August 13th from the submarine USS Requin roughly between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. EDT (1400 - 1800 UTC). A special QSL card will be sent to all contacts. Operation will be near the QRP frequencies on 20 (14.060) and 40 (7.040) meters, CW only, of course.

The USS Requin [sand shark] (SS/SSR/AGSS/IXSS-481, Tench-class submarine), is dry-docked in the Alleghney River in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania near the Carnegie Science Center. Her keel was laid down on 24 August 1944 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine. She was launched on 1 January 1945 sponsored by Mrs. Slade D. Cutter, and commissioned on 28 April 1945 with Commander Slade D. Cutter in command. Initially, Requin carried heavier armament than usual for a fleet submarine, perhaps because Commander Cutter was one of the most decorated submarine skippers going to sea. She had an additional five-inch/25-caliber deck gun, as well as two 24-tube five-inch (127 mm) rocket launchers, which were intended to be used to provide offshore bombardment during Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Kyushu and Honshu.

pix_blueball (1K) - We have a brand new Awards Manager for the club. Fred KC8FS will now be taking over all the duties associated with our NAQCC awards. So from now on, please send your award applications to Fred at pix_email_kc8fs (1K) or:
Fred Soper, KC8FS
4640 W. Hallett Rd.
Hillsdale, MI 49242

As all of you who have won any kind of certificate know, Fred has done a magnificent efficient job of mailing out our club certificates since he became our certificate mailer over a year ago. We know he will be just as good from now on with his additional duties.

pix_blueball (1K) - Preparations for our 5th anniversary event in October are coming along nicely. There is still time for you to sign up to help with our special event stations operation the week of October 12-18. We have ops from all 10 US call areas, but don't let that deter you from signing up. We can always use more to cover the times that others might not be able to cover.

We'll start sending out our informational emails to all ops probably around the middle of August. Those will contain all the info needed by our ops for the event.

pix_blueball (1K) - We're continuing with the hidden call sign idea suggested by Bill KB3XS. Somewhere in this newsletter is a call sign of a member. Not to be confused with the many other call signs in the newsletter, this one will be in a place that is definitely out of context and will contain a mix of upper and lower case letters. If it is YOUR call sign and YOU find it, email us BEFORE the publication date of the next newsletter (August 8) and win 100 NAQCC QSL cards donated by KB3XS. If it is NOT your call sign, and you find it, all you get is the personal satisfaction of finding it, nothing else. A call sign is only used once whether the ham finds it or not. So far none of the four call signs have been found by their owner, including the latest one, KG4SGP. Good luck. Oh, and no use using your browser's search feature to find it. That won't work.

pix_blueball (1K) - We need articles for our newsletter. If you would like to write something about QRP and or CW that relates to the NAQCC and its activities, we would be glad to publish it. Some article ideas might be ones concerning strategies for our sprints, review of a QRP rig you use in our club activities, story of the keys you use in our club activities, just about anything you can think of hc005 (1K) that relates to the guidelines above. Send them to our club news editor Paul pix_email_kd2mx (1K). As we approach 4,000 members in the club, there are bound to be many of you who have writing talent and would produce some very interesting material for the newsletter.

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4. ELMER PROJECT: From John K3WWP - Don't forget our NAQCC QRS Net that meets each Sunday evening on 7.122 MHz at 8:30 PM EDT. NCS is Karl N3IJR, our Elmer Project co-director. Alternate NCS is our President Tom WY3H. Karl will be sending a net report for each end-of-month newsletter listing check-ins for the month as well as other comments on the net.

Remember also that Karl has a list of Elmer's who are willing to help on an individual basis, all you have to do is drop Karl an e-mail to pix_email_n3ijr (1K) and he would be glad to hook you up with a Elmer.

Our Elmer project is starting to roll now, and we need you to keep up the momentum.

If you are interested in helping out or need help with any CW and/or QRP matters contact:
K5DUZ - pix_email_k5duz (1K)
N3IJR - pix_email_n3ijr (1K)
Also see Elmer Project on the web site.

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5. AWARD WINNERS THE PAST TWO MONTHS:

1000 MPW:
#0058 - K7OLU

2XQRP:
N8ZYA - 50 pts - Web site listing
N8ZYA - 100 pts - Web site listing

30-30 Magnum:
#0004 - GW0VSW

Alphabet Prefix:
USA #0008 - WY7N

Suffix Words:
WY7N - #0003 - SWA Category

Suffix Words Honor Roll:
WY7N - 50 - SWA Category

Worked Members Advanced:
K3WWP - Endorsed for 1300 points

If you glossed over it above, please go back and read the news item about our new Awards Manager. It's very important if you plan to be applying for any of our club awards.

Remember our incentive to work towards and earn our NAQCC awards thanks to Gregg WB8LZG. Gregg has donated a set of beautiful knob inserts for the K1 and K2 rigs. The Giveaways page in the main section of the web site has more info and a picture. You can win one by earning and applying for any TWO of the following NAQCC awards. It's first come, first served, so make haste.

QSO-A-DAY
30-30
Alphabet Prefix
Worked Members - Advanced
Suffix Words

Check the 'Current' page in the 'Awards' section of the web site for rules for these awards.

Only new applicants on or after October 1, 2008 are eligible.

Full List of all award winners here.

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6. NEWS ITEMS AND ARTICLES BY OUR MEMBERS: This section is a forum for you to tell other members what you've been up to on the ham bands or to submit an article dealing with some aspect of CW and QRP operation or equipment. Send your news items and articles to our news editor Paul KD2MX at pix_email_kd2mx (1K). Deadline for submitting news items for the next newsletter is May 14. For your convenience any links in this section will open in a new browser window so you can come immediately back here to the newsletter just by closing that extra window.

pix_blueball (1K) From John K3WWP #0002 - August 4 marks a milestone for me in ham radio. If I continue making my daily QRP/CW/simple wire antenna QSO through then, it will mark 15 years without missing a single day. Sometime around that date also, I will have hit the 50,000 QSO mark in the 'streak'. I never envisioned the 'streak' lasting this long when back in 1994, Eric KB3BFQ wondered how many consecutive days it would be possible to make a QSO using QRP/CW/ simple wire antennas. If I reach August 4, we know it will be 5479 days for sure, and I have no intention of voluntarily stopping then. For more info on the 'streak' if you're interested, visit my web site at http://k3wwp.com.

The publication of our next newsletter will be announced via email to all members for whom we have a valid email address unless you specifically have unsubscribed from the email.

Past on-line newsletters beginning with issue #042 are now archived on the site. So if you missed seeing any past issues, you can check them out in the archives.

Unless otherwise credited, all items are written by K3WWP.

If you came directly to this newsletter, we invite you now to browse the NAQCC Web Site.