Bruce, WA7BNM reports that the NCCC, sponsor of the California QSO Party, is considering rule changes for 2020 to encourage more expeditions to operate from rare counties by awarding bonus points to club's aggregate scores. Although these are not final, the NCCC is seeking input from clubs regarding the potential changes. Please respond to the reflector or to Bruce (bhorn [at] hornucopia.com) with any feedback or suggestions for other changes. Thanks.

Proposed changes:

1. An expedition that makes at least 100 QSOs in any of the Top 10 rarest counties of CQP 2019, or to any of 25 other counties that were only covered by expeditions or were one station away from being on this Top 10 list: 100,000 bonus points for their club. List of these counties posted on cqp.org.

2. An expedition that makes at least 100 QSOs from any county not covered by #1: 50,000 bonus points for their club.

3. Any operation (does not have to be an expedition) that makes at least 100 QSOs from any of the Top 10 rarest states or Canadian multipliers: 100,000 bonus points for their club.

4. Mobile stations, MCE (Multi-County Expedition), county-line stations and remotely operated stations are also eligible to participate.

5. A club can claim a maximum of 500,000 bonus points. CA clubs and non-CA clubs are eligible for these bonus points.

6. Bonus points are per multiplier, not per callsign. Examples:
a. A club cannot have five expeditions to Trinity County and claim 500,000 bonus points. This would be a 100,000 point bonus.
b. A club can mount an expedition to Sutter County, have another club member rent and operate from the VY2TT lodge in Prince Edward Island, and gain 200,000 bonus points if each station makes at least 100 QSOs.
c. A mobile station that makes at least 100 QSOs in each of five different counties in #1 would contribute 500,000 bonus points to its club.
d. A county line expedition from GLEN/MEND making over 100 QSOs would contribute 200,000 bonus points to its club.
e. An MCE operation from Butte County on Saturday and Lassen County on Sunday, with at least 100 QSOs in each county, would contribute 200,000 bonus points to its club.

7. Bonus points are only added to club totals; individual station scores are unaffected. Bonus points are allocated to clubs in the same way as individual scores: in the case of a Multi-Op expedition where different operators are members of different clubs, the operators may elect to allocate bonus points proportionately across the different clubs.

An excellent CQP analysis write up can be found on pages 7-13 of the March edition of the NCCC Newsletter.

ARRL posted an interesting article about Ted Henry, W6UOU. Ted turned 100 years old on January 25. He is the founder of the original Henry Radio shop in Los Angeles (the first Henry Radio store was opened in 1927 in Missouri by Ted's brother Bob, W0ARA). I remember frequenting the L.A. store on West Olympic Boulevard many, many times, browsing all of the radios on the shelves, new and used. Many SCCCers, indeed many contesters and DXers around the country, owned the Henry 2K amplifier (and/or one of its descendants), a brute of an amp that could take the beating that contesters and DXers dish out. You might be surprised to learn that Henry Radio still makes amplifiers to this day, many of which are aimed at the commercial market. Henry Radio was synonymous with amateur radio for many years. You can see what Henry Radio is up to today as well as read about their history and old amplifiers here.

Bob, NC6Q worked at the Henry Radio Olympic store in the early 1980's, repairing Henry HT's, FMH2's and FMH4's. He worked with the infamous Frank Cuevas, W6AOA. Bob still has his 2m Henry HT purchased brand new, the model S-1! Arnie, N6HC owned the 2KD-5 desktop amplifier from about 1979 through the late 1990's. He ultimately sold it because he wanted an amp capable of the WARC bands and 160 meters. Tree, N6TR has a 2K Classic floor model (and still owes me a picture!). The 2K-3 was the first amp owned by Marty, N6VI. He later obtained a second one as well. He paired them with Drake rigs back in the 1960's and 70's. One was set up to run on 40 and 15 meters and other to run on 80, 20 and 10. This provided him the ability to operate on the two most active bands at the same time. He used a homemade box to switch PTT, key, microphone and headphones. Over the years, he made a couple of interesting modifications to the amps. One time, he added inductance and a customized input can to get the amp to operate on 160 meters for a contest with N6TR in the mountains. Another time, he shorted part of the output coil and added another custom input in order to get it to work on 6 meters. That helped him snag his first and only African contact (C5AEH) on the Magic Band! Jim, W6YA, in an email to NC6Q that he forwarded to me, wrote about his memories of Henry Radio starting about 1954 when he was first licensed. Jim remembers two small rooms on the side with used gear. He especially remembers an HRO50 or HRO60 that he says was the biggest treasure to admire. Jim bought his first 2K and a Drake line in 1969, and he was in heaven. Frank, W6AOA and he used to butt heads on the air (friendly competition) and became well acquainted. Frank later became Jim's dental patient! Around 1972, Jim obtained a 2K-3, a step up from the 2K as it was running 3-500Z tubes rather than 3-400's. He said the amps were very noisy back then, and some of the guys used big power resistors to slow down the fan speed.

Dan, KI6X sent along the pictures above. The 2K-3 was bought about 1970 for use at the Autonetics Radio Club, WB6YPX, and AF MARS AFC6YPX/AFC6RI in Anaheim, CA. The club has since become K6NX. In the 80's the 2K-3 was used for contesting and sometimes They contested under his call to make it easier. Collins gear eventually replaced everything for MARS use. The problem with the 2K-3 beyond some rectifier replacements, and a tube socket, was that the meters are at chair height and the chair bashed into it one too many times (see broken meter on top). The meters are nearly impossible to find or if found priced too high. The meter box on top is an added plug-in meter to use in its place. This amp has become amp #3 and not currently in use. The other amp, the 2K Classic, was from the early 80's and used at the McDonnel Douglas club, W6VLD, in Huntington Beach, CA. It also saw a lot of contesting in the 80's as W6VLD. It is used very lightly as a second amp at a second club station set-up. There are only enough antennas for one station so it gets very little use. These two clubs have since combined in Huntington Beach, CA with Rockwell and McDonnel Douglas Aerospace companies becoming Boeing and then the closing of the Anaheim facility.

Comments from the ARRL DX SSB contest last month:
Bill, N6RV said it was a rough one. Jim, W6KC reported that he worked most of what he could hear, and was happy to work 4U1UN on 40. Marko, N5ZO operated about 24 hours, which was more than he expected. Sunday morning was good into Europe but he already had most of the stations in the log. Nothing much long path that morning. John, K6AM along with Levi, K6JO and Tim, N6WIN operated from ZF1A. 10 meters was a big fat zero. 15, however opened nicely both days. 20 was their money band. Bruce, WA7BNM did his usual SB20 operation, all S&P during the first 24 hours of the contest. He never copied any Asians other than JAs. He heard some eastern Europeans but was unable to work any. Dick, N6AA had his usual power line noise and had to have the K3's noise reduction and blanker on on all bands. Dennis, NE6I had a new Yaesu FTDX-101MP acquired a couple of days earlier. There were a lot of buttons and menus to learn, and some reading of the manual to do! He reports that the receiver is everything it's cracked up to be! He didn't expect the 3D spectrum scope to be any big deal, having not experienced a good spectrum scope in the past, but wow, Yaesu got it right! it's very configurable and quite helpful! Ray, N6HE commented that he seemed to get through quite well despite using just a 25 ft high end-fed antenna. He was thrilled to work KL7 on 160 barefoot with a high SWR. Larry, K6RO once again had tennis matches interrupting contesting, not to mention some other things going on. Saturday's signals were better for him than Sunday. Dan, N6MJ was at the TI7W station. He reported that 10 was a major disappointment, and only logged 27 Q's there. 15 was much better. 40 proved to be "magic" from that station, as he put it. Bob, KF6I used an inverted-L that worked very well for him. He worked all that he could hear. Bill, W6QU operating W8QZA QRP (as usual) said conditions seemed worse than during the CW weekend in February. He did manage 3 Q's on 10 meters. No EU or JA on 15 though. He He managed 3 EU both days on 20, did well into the Caribbean on 40 and worked two JA's on 80. Jim, N6TJ operated from KH6LC and was almost always loud at the QTH of NE6I. And I might mention, he had beautiful audio!

Speaking of the ARRL SSB contest, Randy, K5ZD posted some interesting comments about his operation at V47T. As well, you can listen to audio captures of his contest audio by scrolling down to the rate sheet, select an hour and click on Listen. The links seem to be March 8 but if you want to hear March 7 audio, change the date in the URL.

Did you catch it? The February, 2020 issue of CQ Magazine is the annual QRP issue. In it, SCCC member Bill, W8QZA / W6QU is featured in the article entitled "I'll Get it Done With QRP or it Won't Happen!" We also get to see pictures of his shack and antennas (different from those posted on his QRZ site). Bill is an avid QRPer and regularly turns in amazing contest scores.

Tim, K3LR will be hosting Team Exuberance again this year, this time for WPX CW. The team is made up of a group of young contesters (teens and early 20-somethings) that are making some serious noise in the radiosport world. They took first place in North America in the Multi-Two category last year in WPX SSB. They have a GoFundMe page to help pay the estimated $8,000 needed for airfare, hotel, transportation and meals during the contest. This year's lineup does not currently have any SCCCers.

The September VHF contest results have been posted by ARRL. Wayne, N6NB piloted his rover station to first place in the Classic Rover category with just over 162K points! Wayne has a long history of roving in various VHF contests, and now has at least a division win in each of the past seven decades! Tim, N6GP was also a rover in the contest and placed 5th overall in the Limited Rover category.

The November, 2019 SSB Sprint results are out. Levi, K6JO placed fourth and Marko, N5ZO placed sixth overall. Nicely done, guys. The next edition is April 5 at 00Z.

Also recently published are the preliminary February, 2020 NAQP RTTY results. SCCC #1 appears in 10th place by the slimmest of margins (188 points!). Our entrants were more on the casual side than serious.


On March 24, RSGB announced that it will not accept contest entries from portable, alternative addresses, or multi-op stations in light of Great Britain's recently updated position on people's movements (think COVID-19). They are also not enouraging travel to island locations for the July IOTA contest. More on the subject can be found here. Will other organizations and contest committees follow suit? These are trying times for all of us. Be safe! COVID-19 is serious stuff! Practice your social distancing at all times!

Cartoon used with permission of renowned disc jockey Bobby Ocean! Bobby's resume includes runs at legendary stations like KGB, KCBQ, KHJ, KFRC, KYNO and KWST.



Strange but true...
Most lipstick contains fish scales!

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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Our March, 2020 poll was "Did you ever operate the Novice Roundup back when it existed?"

43% said yes, they did as a Novice. 29% never did. 19% said they did both as a Novice and later when they became a General or higher class license. 9% were licensed after the demise of the Novice Roundup.

Our February, 2020 poll was "What is your thought on the new digital modes as it pertains to contesting?"

27% said great! And another 27% said "not for me." 21% said "they are poisoning amateur radio contesting." Wow, brutal. 14% said they haven't tried them. 8% said "not bad" and 3% said "unsure / too early to day."

Our January, 2020 poll was "Have you ever operated in a RTTY contest?"

86% said yes and 14% said no. 

Our December, 2019 poll was "Have you ever operated in a VHF contest?"

86% said yes and 14% said no. 

Our November, 2019 poll was "Do you operate in very many contests just to have some fun / hand out some contacts?"

86% said yes and 14% said a few.

Our October, 2019 poll was "LOTW has revolutionized QSLing. How do you respond to hard copy QSLs that you receive after a contest?

87% said they send a return QSL the same way the incoming card was received (direct or via the Bureau). 13% said they send electronic QSLs only (IE, LOTW, eQSL, QRZ and/or other).

Our September, 2019 poll was "If you could go or are going on a Contest Dxpedition next year, where would you go?"

75% said to the Caribbean! 25% said somewhere in the Pacific.

Our August, 2019 poll was a two parter. "Do you miss (or wish we had) SCCC pizza meetings?"

20% said Yes, I really miss them. Another 20% said Yes, I hear they were a good time. 10% said I could take them or leave them. Another 10% said No, I'm not that interested in attending meetings at this time. 60% said I probably wouldn't be able to attend many of them due to distance or other reason.

The second question was "If we had SCCC meetings, I would..."

10% said Attend as many as possible. 20% said Attend them if they were less than an hour's drive. 40% said Attend now and then. 20% said Might attend some of them, and 10% said Probably wouldn't attend any of them.

Our July, 2019 poll was "When was your first contest?"

16% said 2010 or later. 5% said 2000-2009 and another 5% said 1990-1999. 32% said 1970-1979. 26% said 160-1969 and 16% said 1950-1959.

Our June, 2019 poll was "Have you ever operated a Dxpedition in a contest?"

25% said yes, as part of a multi-op DXpedition. 25% said no. 20% said yes, as a single op. Another 20% said no, but I would like to! And 10% said yes, both as a multi-op and as a single-op.

Our May, 2019 poll was "Have you ever operated mobile or portable in a contest (not a DXpedition)?

35% said both, 35% said no, 20% said portable and 10% said mobile.

Our April, 2019 poll was "For manual CW sending, what do you use?"

65% of our respondents said a keyer. 35% said contest software. 12% said a straight key 
and 5% said a bug. 8% said other.

Our March, 2019 poll was "What logging software do you use in contests?"

75% of our respondents said N1MM+. 10% said Writelog and another 10% said N3FJP. 5% each said 
TRLog/TR4W, Win-test or other.

Our February, 2019 poll was "Do you use high, low or QRP power in contests?"

56% of our respondents said high power. 21% said low power and 13% said QRP.

Our January, 2019 poll was "What brand of radio to you use primarily in contests?"

25% of our respondents said Yaesu. 18.75% said Kenwood. 12.5% said Icom. 6.25% said Flex, & 43.75% said Other. 
We should have included Elecraft! 

Our December, 2018 poll was "Have you ever hosted a guest operator at your station?"

11% of our respondents said yes. 89% said no.

Our November, 2018 poll was "Have you ever operated multi-op in a contest (home or away)?"

80% of our respondents said yes. 20% said no.

Our October, 2018 poll was "What is your favorite contest mode?"

76% of our respondents favored CW. 12% favored SSB and 6% favored RTTY. 6% had no favorite mode.

Our September, 2018 poll was "What is your favorite contest?"

CQP took the top spot. CQWW DX, WPX, NA Sprint and Sweepstakes all tied for second.

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West Mountain Radio RIGblaster Advantage Purchased a couple of years ago but never used. West Mountain list price is $209.95. $100 + $10 shipping Seller: Jim, K6ZH jnprice [at] pacbell [dot] net Posted 3 March 2019 I have a two year-old SteppIR DB36 with 80 M dipole option for sale. The stepper motors, controller, etc all work perfectly, and the boom and trombones/straight fiberglass poles are in good shape. You will likely need to replace some of the small parts (some bolts and Nylock nuts), but can have a working DB-36 for less than half of what it cost new. I'm selling the antenna because the trees near the antenna became so large that tilting it over was becoming impossible, and I purchased a DB-18E to replace it. I have some extra fiberglass poles that I will include, and I guarantee that the antenna will work (motors, etc.). Due to the weight and size, I'm thinking it's going to have to be a pickup in the San Diego area. I might be willing to remove the heat shrink couplings and try to box it if the buyer covers the shipping charges (FedEx ground). Asking $3500 for everything. Seller: Eric, NC6K egruff [at] cox[dot]net Posted 9 Oct 2018, renewed 3 Mar 2019

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Perhaps one of the more well known products now on the market is the Geochron World Clock and their Digital 4K version. They are beautiful devices and quite functional.

The new kid on the block is the Veritium HFClock, manufactured by Veritium Research. Veritium's primary business is medical equipment but the engineers are hams, and they created the HFClock as a side project. They released it to the market about a year ago, and it has evolved steadily since then through approximately monthly software updates.

The HFClock is much more than a clock. Most of the screen space is occupied by the Mercado map with daylight and darkness shown. And it doesn't end there. The Clock comes in a few different desktop models with frame as well as a Raspberry Pi version that connects to the user's own external monitor. These Clocks are currently available exclusively through Gigaparts.

It was this latter version (Model 1850-RP) that caught my attention. I was interested in running it to a large monitor hanging above my ham station.

Mine arrived quickly and I set about to get it operational. Unfortunately, the one I received was running a little older version of software and the short and sweet quick start flyer did not match the software on the unit.

The first step upon booting the unit up is to connect to the internet, either wired to your modem or router, or via wi-fi. I chose the latter since my router is across the room from my ham station where the HFClock was going to reside. I made three attempts to connect to my wi-fi but was met with failure each time. The Clock told me an invalid username or password had been entered. There is only one user review at the Gigaparts site as I write this, and he too could not get wi-fi working. I reached out to WB0OEW because it appeared to me (thanks to our world wide web) that he was the creator of this device. Within an hour, he responded but asked me to contact Veritium support. Per his agreement with them, they handle all inquiries related to this product.

So I did. Veritium is in New Jersey and it was now well past their closing time. Never-the-less, a response came back from Gino Morello, N2TBN within minutes. He happened to be at home and saw the email come in. He inquired as to which model I had. I sent my answer back and headed to dinner. His response came back quickly but I did not have a chance to see it until the following morning.

Gino recommended that I temporarily connect the Clock via CAT5 to my router, boot up, and select YES to udpate to the latest firmware. I was then to power off and disconnect the CAT5 cable, then power the unit back up and go into Setup. Then enter my wi-fi info. He told me he would be in the office and provided his direct telephone number.

His instructions worked perfectly and my new Clock connected to the wi-fi router without issue. I decided to call Gino anyway and ask him to quickly walk me through the many onscreen options. He was more than happy to do so, and in fact, I could tell how excited he was about this product! He sounded like a kid in a candy store!

As you can see in the photos, you can enter your call sign (we hams are vain son of a guns, aren't we?) and your grid indicator. Naturally, you can change the font color and background color of your call sign to something that you prefer. The clock connects to an NTP server via the internet for very accurate time. UTC time is displayed in the upper left and your local time down lower on the left side. You can elect to turn off NTP and manually change UTC time to whatever you like, allowing you to see daylight and darkness areas at that time of day. Nifty!

You can click anywhere on the map and see information related to that location (displayed in the lower left where it says "DX." That box will include distance from your QTH and beam heading. You can click on the heading line and toggle between short path and long path headings.

The box to the right of your call sign can toggle between VOACAP info (MUF and LUF), sunspot numbers, and solar flux. The next box over along the top can display a DX Cluster, Planetary KP, or GOES 15 Xray information. I had some trouble getting it to connect to several clusters but finally found one that worked. I don't find that display particularly useful because there is no way (that I know of) to set filters, but it's an entertaining piece of the display. It may be that if one logs into the cluster via the web or a cluster client, sets the filters, then connects via the HFClock, the filters may work. I haven't had a chance to try this just yet. I should mention that you can click on any displayed call sign in the DX Cluster window to instantly see information about that location in the DX window in the lower left.

To the right of that box is a display of the sun. The user can toggle through several options there as well. Composite, Magnetogram, and 6173A related to the Solar Dynamic Observatory are the options.

The upper right corner of the display shows the NCDXF beacon key. Clicking on this box toggles display of those beacons on the Mercado map. There is also an option to turn your display on and off at times you specify within this box. This, like most other things in this product, was suggested by a user. His display was in a room where he wanted it to automatically turn on and off at times he desired without any interaction on his part.

By the way, the windows on the left side of the screen (DE and DX) also show sunrise and sunset times for you and the DX location you have clicked on.


The user can click on the letters "DX" in that lower lefthand pane to bring up a list of satellites. You may select any one of them to display tracking information on the Mercado map in real time. During my call with Gino, we looked at a couple of them together. Ironically, the International Space Station (ISS) was flying overhead above my QTH, and we watched it pass through the window showing potential reception at my location (also displayed on the map). Very cool! Gino tells me that the user may edit the satellite list and RSS feed sources (described below) by tunneling into the HFClock using SSH (IE, via Putty or similar software) from another PC elsewhere on your network.



In the very lower left of the Mercado map, you will see a small box that says "RSS." Clicking on that toggles a news feed along the bottom of the map. The user can click on any news item to get the full story on that headline. As I type this, I am seeing some DX news (including the recent VP8PJ DXpedition).

The unit itself is very small, about the size of a pack of playing cards. I was happy about that because I don't have a lot of room on my desk. It does have four USB ports (in addition to the port for CAT5). I use a wireless mouse to click around on the display. I used a wired keyboard in my first attempt to do wi-fi set up but this is not required as the unit displays a screen keyboard that can be used in conjunction with the mouse to enter text. The unit does run a bit on the warm side so I recommend taking that into account when deciding where to place it. It should be able to be placed on the back side of your monitor using Velcro or something similar if desired. Video out to the monitor is via an HDMI cable (not included).

Gino tells me that coming soon is the ability to control certain models of antenna rotator by simply clicking on the map (and I presume a DX spot)!

I must say, I am really enjoying this HFClock, and I found Gino's enthusiam exciting. He told me more than once that if I had any suggestions for further improvement or display options to please let him know. The product's evolution has been driven by user feedback! I have mine connected to a 32 inch display hanging on the wall above my station. You are limited in this regard only by your creativity.

The manual for the unit can be found on Veritium Research's web site, and a couple of videos can be found on YouTube.




Kudos to Veritium for a very fine line of products! Click here for more information about their clocks, and remember, Gigaparts is the current U.S. distributor.


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