NCJ_2011_01_02.pdf

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■ A Texas-Sized Band Decoder

■ Using Cross-Polarized Yagis

Instead of Stacks

■ Results : Fall 2010 Sprints

(CW, SSB and RTTY)

■ Results : August 2010 NAQP

(CW and SSB)

■ We Hear From Our Readers

Top Photo : The 8 P3A crew deployed a Spider-

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Details from VE3DZ inside!

Bottom Photos : 10-year old Anna Veal, WØANT

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NCJ 1/2011

TableofContents

The National Contest Journal

Volume 39 Number 1  January/Feburary 2011

National Contest Journal (ISSN 0899-0131) is published bimonthly in

January, March, May, July, September and November by the American

Radio Relay League, 225 Main Street, Newington, CT 06111-1494,

USA. Periodicals postage paid at Hartford, CT and at additional

mailing ofices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: National Contest Journal,

225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111-1494, USA.

3 Editorial Al Dewey, KØAD

FEATURES

4 LetterstotheEditor

Publisher

American Radio Relay League

225 Main Street, Newington, CT 06111

tel: 860-594-0200

fax: 860-594-0259 (24-hour direct line)

Electronic Mail: hq@arrl.org

World Wide Web: www.arrl.org/

Editor

Al Dewey, KØAD

ncjeditor@ncjweb.com

Managing Editor

Rick Lindquist, WW3DE

ww3de@arrl.org

NCJ WWW Page

Bruce Horn, WA7BNM, Webmaster

www.ncjweb.com

ARRL Oficers

President: Kay C. Craigie, N3KN

Executive Vice President:

David Sumner, K1ZZ

Contributing Editors

Gary Sutcliffe, W9XT—Contest Tips, Tricks & Techniques

Ralph Bellas, K9ZO—Contesting on a Budget

Jon Jones, NØJK—VHF-UHF Contesting!

Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA—Propagation

Don Hill, AA5AU—RTTY Contesting

Tom Menas, K3WT— NCJ Proiles

Bill Feidt, NG3K—DX Contest Activity Announcements

Bruce Horn, WA7BNM—Contest Calendar

Don Daso, K4ZA—Workshop Chronicles

Kirk Pickering, K4RO—Contesting 101

North American QSO Party, CW

Bruce Horn, WA7BNM

4225 Farmdale Ave, Studio City, CA 91604

ssbnaqp@ncjweb.com

North American QSO Party, Phone

Bruce Horn, WA7BNM

4225 Farmdale Ave, Studio City, CA 91604

ssbnaqp@ncjweb.com

North American QSO Party, RTTY

Shelby Summerville, K4WW

6500 Lantana Ct, Louisville, KY 40229-1544

rttynaqp@ncjweb.com

North American Sprint, CW

Boring Amateur Radio Club

15125 Bartell Rd, Boring, OR 97009

cwsprint@ncjweb.com

North American Sprint, Phone

Jim Stevens, K4MA

6609 Vardon Ct, Fuquay-Varina, NC 27526

ssbsprint@ncjweb.com

North American Sprint, RTTY

Ed Muns, WØYK

PO Box 1877, Los Gatos, CA 95031-1877

rttysprint@ncjweb.com

Advertising Information Contact:

Janet Rocco, tel 860-594-0203;

fax 860-594-0303; jrocco@arrl.org

NCJ subscription orders, changes of address, and reports of missing

or damaged copies should be addressed to ARRL, 225 Main St,

Newington, CT 06111 and be marked NCJ Circulation . ARRL

members are asked to include their membership control number

or their QST mailing label.

Letters, articles, club newsletters and other editorial material should

be submitted to NCJ , 14800 38th Pl N, Plymouth, MN 55446.

The NA Sprint and NA QSO Parties are not sponsored by ARRL.

Yearly Subscription rates: In the US $20

US by First Class Mail $28

International and Canada by airmail $32

All original material not attributed to another source is copyright

be excerpted from the NCJ without prior permission provided

that the original contributor is credited, and the NCJ is identiied

as the source.

In order to insure prompt delivery, we ask that you periodically

check the address information on your mailing label. If you ind

any inaccuracies, please contact the Circulation Department im-

mediately. Thank you for your assistance.

5 UsingCross-PolarizedYagisInsteadofStacks

Al Christman, K3LC

8 ALittleSparkLightsUpaBigGun

Anna “Sparks” Veal, WØANT

10 ATexas-SizedBandDecoder

Bob Evans, K5WA

14 ARRLDXCW2010—The8P3AStory

Yuri Onipko, VE3DZ

COLUMNS

16 NCJ Proiles:JohnBaumgarten,NØIJ

22 Propagation

Tom Menas, K3WT

Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA

18 ContestingonaBudget

24 Contesting101

Ralph Bellas, K9ZO

Kirk Pickering, K4RO

19 RTTYContesting

26 WorkshopChronicles

Don Hill, AA5AU

Don Daso, K4ZA

20 ContestTips,TricksandTechniques!

Gary Sutcliffe, W9XT

CONTESTS

27 Results :NorthAmericanSprintSSB—September2010

Jim Stevens, K4MA

30 Results :NorthAmericanSprintCW—September2010

Boring Amateur Radio Club

35 Results :NorthAmericanSprintRTTY—October2010

Ed Muns, WØYK

38 Results :NorthAmericanQSOParty,SSB—August2010

Bruce Horn, WA7BNM

42 Results :NorthAmericanQSOParty,CW—August2010

Bruce Horn, WA7BNM

46 Rules: NorthAmericanSprint(CW/SSB/RTTY)

47 Rules: NorthAmericanQSOParty(NAQP)CW/SSB/RTTY

ADVERTISINGINDEX

AlfaRadioLtd.:34

AmericanRadioRelayLeague:1

ArraySolutions:COVERII

Bencher:7

ClarkElectronics:17

DXEngineering:23

GreenHeronEngineeringLLC:25

IcomAmerica:COVERIV

IdiomPress:48

InternationalRadioINRAD:15

KØXGSystems:18

Radioware&RadioBookstore:21

RFParts:21,23

SuperBertha:41

TexasTowers:COVERIII

TopTenDevices:36

UniiedMicrosystems:41

W2IHYTechnologies:29

Al Dewey, KØAD

Editorial

Assisted Operation: Shades of Gray

The idea of assisted operation is per-

haps the most hotly debate topic within the

contest community. The debate has been

going on for decades and shows no sign

of abating. On one end of the spectrum,

proponents of assisted operation claim it

is merely another technological advance,

such as memory keyers, computer logging,

exchange lookup databases, panadapters

or spectrum scopes, and so forth. Some

even see no reason to put assisted entries

into a separate category. At the other end

of the spectrum, purists feel that assisted

operation fundamentally changes the

nature of radiosport. Part of the skill and

strategy, they claim, is inding stations on

your own rather than having someone (or

something) else ind them for you. Some

of the bad behavior on spotting-induced

pileups adds even more fuel to the ire.

Many years ago, most major contests

sponsors, including the ARRL and CQ,

dealt with this problem by simply deining

assisted and non-assisted categories.

Some still contend the categories should

be combined, pointing to instances of

suspected cheating (ie, contesters using

spotting networks but claiming unassisted

operation). For the most part, however, this

separation has worked until recently.

Several years ago, the introduction of

CW Skimmer by VE3NEA opened up a

whole new debate about what constitutes

assistance in CW contests. All of a sudden

there were some shades of gray between

assisted and non-assisted operation. With

a software-deined radio, a reasonably

sized computer and some antenna switch-

ing, it became possible to see a completely

populated band map of CW stations calling

CQ, all without any outside assistance. CW

Skimmer was probably even more accurate

than the traditional spotting cluster, since

it did not include bad spots posted by con-

testers who were not copying carefully (eg,

“BY1V” instead of “6Y1V”). Also this band

map truly represented stations that were

heard at your station on your antennas.

The debate over whether CW Skim-

mer — more generally “multi-channel CW

decoders” — constitutes assistance has

been long and heated and persists today.

As mentioned, proponents of allowing CW

Skimmer in the Single Operator unassisted

class argue that disallowing it would stymie

technological advancement in contesting.

Opponents argue that it is the same as

on-line spotting assistance and funda-

mentally changes the nature of the Single

Operator class.

Another shade of gray here is that the

Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) has

basically put spots created by a remote

skimmer on the Web, so if you connect

your logging program to a speciic Telnet

address, you can see band-decoder spots

similar to what you might get if you built

your own CW Skimmer setup. One could

argue that there is really no difference

between generating spots locally with

a CW Skimmer -type band decoder and

connecting to a Telnet address and getting

the same spots generated by a remote

CW Skimmer .

I have to admit that I am very conlicted

here. If I were put on the spot, however,

and had to state what constitutes “as-

sistance” and what does not, I would say

that any technology that is completely

self-contained within a station and not

connected to the outside world via any

means (other than HF radio, or course) is

unassisted. The minute you get additional

information from another person over the

Web or via a VHF spotting network, you

are receiving assistance.

Once I made peace with myself about

how to view CW Skimmer and assistance,

however, along came another argument

about “blind” spots. Blind spots basically

are spots that are identiied on a band map

without a call sign. They can be identiied

simply as stations or as stations calling

“CQ.” Essentially, they are “blips” on a band

map, not unlike what you might see on a

panadapter. What if you get blind spots

over the Internet, just to see where there is

activity on the band? Should this be treated

any differently than using the built-in band

scopes found on many HF radios today?

More shades of gray. Still, I believe that I

would go back to the rule that any technol-

ogy that is totally self-contained within the

station and does not rely on any informa-

tion from another person or external source

is legal in the unassisted class.

I want to stress that these constitute

my opinions. Even though I might believe

something does not constitute assistance

in a contest, I will abide by the contest

sponsor’s deinition of “assisted” for that

particular event. Also, just because a

contest allows a certain technology in the

unassisted class does not necessarily

compel me to use it. In the ARRL No-

vember Sweepstakes CW, for example,

a big part of the fun for me is trying to

get a “clean sweep.” It just would not be

the same experience if I had something

pointing to exactly where that VY1 or ND

multiplier was located. On the other hand,

if I am doing a part-time effort or operating

at a multiop, having spots available can

add to the fun.

Finally, I think it is important to clarify

where the NCJ -sponsored contests stand

on this issue. For the North American

Sprint, the use of spotting information from

any source other than the station operator

is not allowed. This includes automated

tools. Because of the QSY rule, of course,

spots are really irrelevant. In the North

American QSO Party, spotting information

obtained from external sources is not al-

lowed in the Single Operator class, except

if this information is derived from auto-

mated tools entirely contained within the

station. Therefore a local tool such as CW

Skimmer would be allowed in the NAQP,

as long as that tool had no connection to

an outside source, such as the Internet.

As always we invite you to share your

views and perspectives on these and other

issues that affect Amateur Radio contest-

ing. E-mail me at editor@ncjweb.com .

We extend our wishes to all for a happy

and successful 2011!

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