Operating

There is QRP, even “QRPp.” Aficionados get on the air, battery and spare battery in hand and see how many contacts—or how much DX—they can log. But have you ever considered how many QSOs are actually held in a single battery pack?

A few years back, a member (W1XP) of another club, the Nashoba Valley ARC up in the Pepperell­/Groton area decided that finding out would make a good club activity. Thus, the Lantern Battery Challenge (LBC). Participants were issued a 12V stack of off­-the-­shelf 6V lantern batteries. (You know the ones—they’re about two inches square and four or so inches high.)

Each participant was charged with making as many contacts as possible within four months, or until the battery was discharged beyond the point of usefulness. By the way, at the participant’s option the battery only had to power the transmitter portion of whatever station equipment was used. Well, with virtual meetings, things are pretty quiet in these here parts. I was thinking, maybe an LBC of or own would liven things up. Under the Vice President’s sponsorship, Algonquin (MA) Amateur Radio Club‘s LBC will commence at 0000Z on 1 December 2020 and conclude at 2400Z on 31 March 2021. You can join at any time during the “contest” period. Participation is voluntary, with only one stipulation: you get your own battery stack and you let me know that you’re playing in the game. OK, that’s two stipulations. And I’d like to know what you did and how successful you were. Is that another stipulation? I’ll work up some rules for the effort and post them on AARCList. Maybe we’ll have a party when our LBC is over.

-Skip, K1NKR, AARC QRZ, November 2020

Chuck Motes, K1DFS, writes:

I will be operating an amateur radio HF “Special Event” station between the hours of 1400Z and 2300Z (minimum) on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, November 6 – 8, 2020.

Operating frequencies will be near:  14.265 MHz Upper Side band and/or 7.265 MHz.  Lower Side band. 

The special event station call sign will be N1A.  (November One Alpha)  in Commemoration of the USCG Auxiliary 81st Anniversary. All stations (amateur) are encouraged to participate and contact special events stations during this period on HF and VHF frequencies.

Special QSL cards will be available.  Contacting stations should send QSO information (a QSL would be nice!) and an SASE that will accept a QSL card in return from this or any special events station to the station or stations contacted.  QST magazine (and the ARRL webpage) contains contact and mailing info.

Special Event Station N1A contact info:

Charles I. Motes, Jr., N1A
22 Woodside Lane
Plainville, CT 06062-1225

Please send this info and note to as many contacts as you can.  An “all hands” message from up the chain would be nice (hint, hint).

V/R,

Chuck Motes/NF013CT, USCG AUX, 013-09-06

ARS K1DFS

Contest Objective: To support amateur self-training in radiocommunications, including improving amateur operating skills, conducting technical investigations, and intercommunicating with other amateurs. Stations in the United States and Canada (including territories and possessions) exchange information with as many other US and Canadian stations as possible on the 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meter bands.

Dates:

CW: First full weekend in November (November 7-9, 2020).

Phone: Third full weekend in November (November 21-23, 2020).

Contest Period: Begins 2100 UTC Saturday and runs through 0259 UTC Monday.

Click here for updates on the Affiliated Club Competion program

2020 Update:

There are now a total of 84 ARRL/RAC sections, as RAC has separated Prince Edward Island (PE) from the Maritime (MAR) Section. Make sure your contest logging software and “country” (CTY) files have been updated so that those abbreviations are recognized and credited properly.

In addition, effective April 1, 2020, RAC has realigned the Ontario South (ONS) and Greater Toronto area (GTA) sections- with the City of Hamilton and the Regional Municipality of Niagara moving from ONS to GTA.

Visit contests.arrl.org/contestmultipliers.php for a complete list of contest multipliers and their abbreviations.

Contest rules are now maintained as a single downloadable document (see below).

For contest information contact contests@arrl.org or (860) 594-0232.

[For more information, visit <http://www.arrl.org/sweepstakes>.]

ARRL Contest Advisory Committee Chairman Dennis Egan, W1UE, writes on the YCCC mailing list:

By now, I’m sure most of you have seen the changes for just 2021, pertaining to multi-operator entries.  I’ll comment more on that, probably tomorrow.  For now, I’ll just comment on the changes for 2021.

1. Multi-single and Multi-2 entries will now be allowed 10 band changes per hour; old rule was 8 band changes per hour.
2. There are now online certificates available for SO Single Band HP, LP, QRP, SOU Single Band HP, LP, and QRP.
3. If you haven’t already seen them, the Rules Consolidation Project has produced a new set of rules for ARRL DX.  If you navigate to the ARRL DX page on the website and go to the bottom of the page, you can download the rules as a pdf.  I’d be interested to hear comments on them.
4. There is a new set of rules for Affiliated Club Competition, also on the ARRL.org website.

Dennis W1UE

From GBARC wiki:

The Greater Bridgeport Amateur Radio Club will hold its first ever Space Day on Sunday, October 25 2020 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.  This is an opportunity to learn about Amateur Satellites.  Lunch in the form of hot dogs and snacks will be provided. 

Additional Information about the satellite passes is posted at Space Day Satellite Predictions.

For information about what kind of satellite radios are needed see Satellite Radio Equipment.

Space Day will be held at the QTH of N1DID – 14 Three Trees Ln, Trumbull.  Call in will be on the GBARC Repeaters!

From ema.arrl.org:

Steve Ciavarini, NQ1F, writes on the Wellesley ARS mailing list:

From Central Vermont ARC  web site:

The next CVARC fox hunt will be held on Saturday, October 24th at 10 am.

Rules

• Fox will be hidden somewhere within Washington County, in a publicly-accessible location. You will not be required to pay to access an area to find the fox, or to walk onto someone’s property (but don’t discount the end of dead-end roads)
• The transmitter will be on the air by 10am on the morning of the hunt, and off at 6pm that evening. There will be an announcement on the Williamstown repeater before the box is shut off, so be sure to respond if you’d like more time.
• Fox will use the nationally-accepted 2 meter fox hunt frequency of 146.565 MHz
• Fox will transmit a short beep every two seconds, then transmit a CW ID on the FM carrier every 20 ‘beeps’.
• Fox will be receivable with at least an S1 signal from the Waterbury exit (10) of Interstate 89.

COVID-19 restrictions

• Teams of up to 3 are allowed but not currently recommended due to pandemic restrictions (unless team members are a family or happen to live together)
• Masks required in public when you cannot maintain a 6-ft distance from those not in your party

Scoring and reporting 

• The transmitter will have a laminated sheet with a marker attached for scoring. When you find the fox, fill out the sheet with your name or call sign, and local time at which you found the fox.
• Once you’ve filled out the sheet, leave the area – if others participating in the hunt see you hanging around, it may tip them off to the location of the fox!
• When/if you find the fox, please don’t announce it (on local repeaters, the fox output frequency, w1bd.net website, Facebook, etc.) – we want everyone to have fun with this, even those that can’t participate right at the start of the hunt.

Recommended gear

Minimum:

• 2 meter radio with a removable rubber duckie antenna
• Paper clip

Extra gear (not required, but helpful):

• Portable directional antenna (Yagi, Moxon, cubical quad)
• Adjustable RF attenuator, passive or active
• Receiver with SSB/CW mode capability
• Compass or GPS unit
• Map, atlas, or gazetteer