The Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) announced on New Year's Day the addition of a new section, the Prince Edward Island Section. In addition, it was announced that the border between the Ontario South Section and the Ontario GTA Section has moved. These changes take effect on April 1, 2020 (no, this is not an early April Fool's joke). Thus, certain ARRL contests will now have 84 multipliers rather than 83 (U.S. states and Canadian provinces). More info here and here. Note that your contest software will need to be updated once the author of said software makes the change.

ARRL has announced the availability of a new DVD that includes all 2019 issues of QST, QEX and of particular interest to us contesters, NCJ (The National Contest Journal). The DVD includes all text, photos and source code for project software. The DVD is for 2019 publications only. Wouldn't it be nice to have a new version will all NCJs from Issue 1 to now (hint, hint)? Maybe some day. More on the current offering can be found here.

The January ARRL NAQP CW contest, hopefully the last or second to last of Cycle 24, had us mostly crammed into 80-20 meters. 15 was open a short time in the afternoon but not heartily, and everyone quickly moved down to 20 after working out 15. If you have a modern rig, one built in the past five years or so let's say, you no doubt are really appreciating it about now. Essentially, we're no longer able to spread our CW CQs above about .070 on the bands because the Digital Modes now reside there, and they are quite popular. FB on them having a slice of spectrum to have fun while we do our thing contesting. We need to all remain very active these days while the 5G companies (and others, including the FCC) are looking for spectrum to grow their businesses. They are not likely looking for spectrum in the HF bands but there may be others hiding under the rocks wanting our freqs. Those with more modern rigs are no doubt enjoying all of the modern features in the receivers, allowing them to pick out signals in the often crowded lower three bands (80, 40, and 20). Improved IF shift, IF width, contours, notches, APFs, incredible dynamic range and 3rd order intercepts, and all of the other things on SDRs and SDR hybrid radios. Mostly gone are the days of needing a 300 Hz CW filter to pick out the signals in crowded conditions. We can now tweak a few knobs quickly and pick out stations in crowded and/or noisy conditions. Gosh, for those of us that been at this for several decades, can you remember back before this time when we had things like Heathkits, Swans, Collins, Signal Ones, and yes, even Drake twins?! We've come a long way, baby!

Here are some commments from the January NAQP CW:
Marko, N5ZO hosted Larry, N6NC and Eric, NC6K, and did an M2 operation, their first from the station in the January event. A great start on 15 and 20 had them way out in front on the live contest scoreboard. The east coast, as expected, ran past them once 40m opened up. John, W6JBR was trying to crack 100 Q's but didn't quite get enough BIC time in. Dan, N6MJ operated from N6WIN's new station in Phoenix. The team there has been working hard on the new QTH and it played well. 282 Q's in the first hour! This station is going to be a major force from the Southwest in coming years! Bob, KF6I put in one of his more serious efforts in recent times, and was rewarded with 323 Q's. Axel, KI6RRN operated NO6T to a 308 QSO first hour and has a 310 60 minute best in the contest! Dana, K6NR reported good conditions and was happy to catch the 15m opening. Paul, WN6K reported somewhat better conditions but experienced noise on 40 from the storms in the Appalachia Mountains. Vlad, KM6Z also reported noise. Bruce, WA7BNM was only on for a short time at the start and end of the contest. Dave, W6ZL reported a lot of QSB, especially on 40m. Dennis, NE6I noticed the same on 40. Jim, W6KC made his first ever QSOs on 160. Ed, AI6O found conditions to be very good on 40-15. In fact, he had what he called a hot run on 15. He reported 80 being noisy. Barry, N6VOH worked the contest while also repairing an amplifier. Vic, KI6VC used the contest to improve his CW skills, and reported that it really helped. Dick, W6TK had a lot of fun the first couple of hours but had only limited time to operate. Like others, he enjoyed the 15m opening. Tim, N6GP used "YYZ" as his name, a tribute to the recently passed away drummer of the rock band "Rush." The band heard the Toronto Airport code YYZ on a navigation beacon on a flight returning home. They liked the rhythm of it, and wrote an instrumental song incorporating the CW at the beginning of the song. As one might expect, Tim did receive a lot of rquests for repeats. As an aside, he upgraded his shack PC from Win7 to Win10 on Friday and did not experience any issues with the rig or interfaces. Whew! Steve, AC6T cracked that the new sunspot must have helped 15m! On the other hand, the low bands were noisy for him. Bob, NC6Q created a term alternative to S&P. He called it S&C, Scrape and Claw. For him, the middle of the afternoon was full of high noise and weak signals. 20m died on him between 4 and 4:30. And a grayline boost did not come. He also qualified for the (fictitious) Worked All SCCC Teams award.

The executive summary of the NAQP SSB, which was the weekend after the CW event, is that conditions were very poor. Participants reported relatively brief runs Saturday afternoon, and that it was pretty much a slog after that. The ARRL VHF January contest was the same weekend, and conditions there were poor as well. Even the big guns on the west coast were barely able to crack open the Sporadic-E nut.

The California QSO Party (CQP) results are out. Congrats to Ken who finished 2nd SOHP. George, W6AYC took top honors in SOLP with Eric, NC6K in 2nd. 3rd in the category was Levi, K6JO. Frank, WA6KHK finished 1st in SO(A)QRP. And ahem, with no other entries in the category, SCCC took top honors in the Medium California Club arena. The Mother Lode DX/Contest Club won in the Large California Club category with just 237k points more than us. Let's drum up a little more participation in 2020 and win that one. Full results can be found here.

NCJ published several official contest results in their Jan/Feb 2020 issue. Let's take a look.

The January 2019 NAQP QSO Party CW is first up. SCCC took the top two spots overall! Marko, N5ZO took second and Axel, KI6RRN operating NO6T finshed 3rd overall. Congrats guys on a super finish! The SCCC #1 team, which of course included Marko and Axel, finished second in the team competition, a mere four percentage points behind the Arizona Outlaws - Bad Boys team. N2IC on that team turned in a super human effort that powered the Outlaws to the top spot.

In the NAQP CW August 2019 contest, conditions were not smiling on us, and we had no top ten finishers. Our SCCC #1 team finished 13th.

And then in the August NAQP SSB contest, Levi, K6JO piloted NT6Q to a 9th place finish. Our SCCC #1 team placed 3rd.

Lastly, in the NAQP RTTY July event, we didn't have any top ten finishers but SCCC #1 placed 10th. Not a bad showing because fall conditions are not sweet for us west coasters.

Joe, W6AYC has some interesting articles on his web site. He recently posted on our reflector a blurb about a 2 element 160 meter receive array. How cool is that? He also has a number of other interesting articles there so be sure to check them out.

Speaking of which, we are happy to list SCCC member web sites so let us know if yours isn't listed. Those with broken links were removed in January. Click on "Member Links" on our top menu.

The ARRL has released a new book, Amateur Radio Contesting for Beginners written by Doug Grant, K1DG. The book is said to describe equipment needed for contesting, typical contest formats, operating techniques and more. This might make a great gift or suggestion to hams you know that are interested in the great sport of radio contesting. The book is also available on Amazon Kindle for just $8.99.

For VHF contesters and aficionados, the ARRL VHF contests (January and June) provide opportunities to work a lot of stations. Activity is way up compared to normal, and we often experience Sporadic-E conditions, especially in June. One Southern California operator has been VHF contesting for a long, long, LONG time. Wayne, N6NB is well known in the VHF, UHF and microwave circles. His rover activities in these contests are legendary, and caused more than one rule change by contest officials. Wayne now has 63 years of amateur radio under his belt, and says that if his score holds up in the latest contest in January, he will have "won at least an ARRL division-leader certificate in a VHF contest in seven decades." It all started back in the 1960s. Crazy. Wayne did a write up about his VHF contesting in the November, 2018 SCCCORE. At the time, he stated that his roving days were winding down. You can find the writeup on the web site here under Past Feature Stories. He did say "winding down" though, not "over." And this past January, he was back at it and turned in a 293K+ score (before log checking)! He posted a great write up about it on 3830Scores.org, and you can read it here.

The WRTC 2022 qualification standings were updated last month. A half dozen contest scores were added to the standings. Axel, KI6RRN is currently on top and the only USA operator in the top ten (as of Feb 1). Way to go, Axel! More info can be found here.

Going to Dayton this year? The 2020 Contest University course outline has been posted along with the calls of the instructors. There will be some awfully good courses in there, so be sure to get a seat if you can. See the CTU web site for the course outline webpage. Additional details along with the Registration page are also on the web site.

A team of contesters has put together The State QSO Party Challenge, a year long event to stimulate participation in those contests. Sounds like a fun one!

Strange but true...
One car out of every 230 made was stolen in 2017.

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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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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Shown in the picture above are Denny, KX7M (dark shirt, back to the camera), Dick, N6AA (top left) and Dave, K1ZZ (top right, blue shirt).

Olof was no stranger to operating from this part of the world, having activated both Mauritius and Rodrigues multiple times in the past. He and his wife had also vacationed frequently at L’Ilot, a spacious, comfortable home on a small man-made peninsula on the northeast coast with roughly 300 compass degrees of salt water shoreline. This time he put the lovely vacation spot and the radio exploits together, and L’Ilot’s ocean-facing veranda became our station location. As a bonus, our rent included the services of two very nice local ladies who cooked delicious meals for us and cleaned up every day.


Olof brought ground-plane verticals for 40, 80 and 160 meters built using Spider Beam fiberglass masts and wires; they went up fairly easily and performed very well. I brought a golf-club case loaded with aluminum vertical dipole arrays for 20, 15 and 10 meters. Within two days all the antennas and feedlines were in place with coax running to a large table at the center of the veranda. Each of three stations included an Elecraft K3 and a solid-state amplifier (two SPE’s and a THPL), and a fourth K3 ran barefoot. All four positions had WinTest logging, and combinations of bandpass filters and stub filters helped minimize interference between stations. Keeping the RF out of the computers was actually one of the toughest challenges; Denny put his IT skills and Olof’s supply of ferrites to work to resolve those problems.

We all spent time on the bands in the days before the contest, making note of likely opening and closing times as we formulated an operating plan. Although our location was surprisingly quiet, we found significant atmospheric noise, most likely from thunderstorms in the regions of Indonesia to the east and central Africa to the west. We sometimes needed multiple repeats to get a call sign right because a crash would take out one or more characters.



The contest itself went smoothly, with no hardware crises and sufficient operating time for all of us. We logged over 8,600 contacts, 175 band-zones and 570 band-countries for a raw score of just over 19 million points. Considering how far we were from the heavily populated parts of the world and where we are in the solar cycle, we were happy with that result. I was pleased at how well the personalities and skills of the team members blended. Everyone pitched in willingly to do whatever work was needed, and spirits were high throughout our stay.

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