Results of the 2022 7QP contest have also been published. Alex, W6AFA took the top spot in the SOHP category. John, N6MU took first in the SOLP CW category. Nice job, guys!

Have you ever thought about the day when a contest or DXpedition operates from the moon? You KNOW that day is coming, right? It could even be in our lifetime. With the cost of major DXpeditions to rare entities skyrocketing into the hundreds of thousands of dollars these days, there is work taking place on devices some are calling "DXpedition in a box." The idea being that a self contained station or stations in a hardened enclosure could be dropped onto one of the hard to reach islands, eliminating the cost of transporting, housing and feeding an army of operators there. And yes, the antenna challenge in such a scenario is being addressed as well. Once this concept is perfected and implemented, it will only be a matter of time before it is used in a contest expedition. And with the proper clearance from space authorities, this could be executed for an operation from the moon! I'm not sure how HF signals play between earth and the moon and vice versa, but it's an interesting thought. We already know that we can bounce VHF and UHF signals off the moon in what is called EME on frequencies from 50 to 1296 MHz. In fact, the ARRL has the annual EME contest each October. A dropped in, unmanned station, remotely operated would be interesting (albeit not allowed in the EME contest I am sure). Path loss would be half that of EME, so much smaller stations would be capable of working the moon. And what would the call sign be for a station transmitting from the moon? Today there is no allocation for such a station there but perhaps 0MO (Zero M Oh) for the moon would work. 0MA for Mars, 0MV for Venus, 0MJ for Jupiter, etc. would follow when we can drop stations on those planets. We might have to think longer term though. Some planets besides Earth have moons, so 0EMO (Zero Earth Moon Oh) might have to be considered. Or new 3x1 prefixes (IE EMO1 for Earth's Moon, MAR1 for Mars, VEN1 for Venus, JMU1 for one of Jupiter's moons, etc.) might be in order. These considerations are coming, and with private space travel now on the table (SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and others!), this idea is not as far fetched as you might think! Is the IARU thinking about this? I dunno, but now we are!

CQ Magazine's print edition has returned! The April and May issues have arrived in mailboxes (the April edition began arriving in late April). The folks at CQ explain that the print edition had been halted for six months while awaiting approval of a federal "economic disaster" loan. All print subscribers have had their subscriptions extended to cover the missed issues. Those missed issues are available in digital form.

In the April issue, CQ also published an explanation on how and why they decided to disallow entries from Russia and Belarus in the CQ WPX SSB contest in March, and have contacts with those two countries count as zero points. They also published a broad cross section of emails, both pro and con, from hams around the world. The "executive summary" is that they came to the conclusion that "silence is complicity. Note that the policy remained in effect for the CQ WPX CW contest last month and also includes the Donbas Region of Ukraine.

In early May, DX-World.net published a "Solar Cycle 25 Update". The article shows that we are currently well ahead of predictions for this point in the new cycle. The article, using data from SolarHam.com, shows April SFI at 130.6 compared to a predicted SFI of 84.1. That's great news for contesters and DXers alike!

Tim Duffy, K3LR shared a collection of selected sessions from Contest University (CTU) that took place in May at the Dayton Hamvention. The recording can be found here on YouTube.

Strange but true...
It took the creator of the Rubik's Cube, Emo Rubik, one month to solve the cube after he created it. According to Guinness World Records, the current fastest time to solve the Rubik's Cube is 3.47 seconds by Yusheng Du in China. He did so on November 24, 2018.

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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If you are a user of Super Check Partial in your contest logging software, you should begin to see a large uptick in the number of call signs. This is due to a new API (Application Programming Interface) that allows for submission of logs directly to SCP rather than contesters having to email logs to the author. Users must opt in to this feature through the set up screen of their contest software. Logs are then signed and securely submitted to SCP. SCP API support has already been added to N1MM+, Writelog and a few others. Support will be added to the N3FJP contest loggers through the course of this year. The increase in the number of calls in the SCP database should make Super Check Partial more useful than ever.

The following came in via email to me. I of course have no pecuniary interest but pass this along for your review.

-----------------------------------

To DX’ers, Contesters and Friends:

Some of you probably know that VY2ZM is scheduled for de-commission starting May 15th, 2022 unless another amateur or consortium of contesters takes it over to continue the legacy of this premier amateur radio station on Prince Edward Island.

Briefly, here are the most important facts about this opportunity:

The station sits on 38+/- acres and includes an executive 3500SF home with 4BR and 3.5 baths in immaculate condition
It is offered TURNKEY which means this includes all furnishings, linens, towels, tools etc – you just move in with a ready-made station that is also included.
The parcel has 333 feet of salt water ocean frontage with concrete steps to a private beach
The offering includes 10 existing and fully permitted towers with capability from 160m-10m.
The home has a 22KW GENERAC generator with a 200A automatic transfer switch
There are (3) independent thermostatically-controlled heating systems to heat and protect the home and a DISC alarm system that is monitored 24/7/365.
Access is via a well-maintained gravel driveway and will include a snowmobile/sled combination for the winter months
Over the course of 21 years this station has a history of top-ranked scores on the low bands to include at various times several world records, North American records and legendary performance on 160m. Something like 15 top W/VE scores have been achieved in ARRL DX and 3 top national scores in ARRL SS Phone. Starlink Internet has been installed to enable high speed internet access in the home which can be used to allow for REMOTE access should the new owner wish to consider installing it.
INCOME OPPORTUNITY: 3 bedroom homes like ours are allowed to offer Bed & Breakfast rentals under PEI regulations; estimated income at $200-250 per night or $3,000 per weekly rental, in season.
Additional useful information:

Under existing treaty, US amateurs can freely travel to CANADA for 6 months per annum on their US passport. Covid rules have already been largely lifted and this unfortunate situation will soon be a memory. US amateurs can operate immediately using their home callsigns/VY2 under treaty and, with a Canadian Advanced Amateur license, can legally operate remotely from the USA into Canada. (I happen to be a CANADIAN VEC and can provide testing for anyone interested.)
Reaching the station by car: Travel times from Cape Cod to the station are roughly 13 hours by car over good roads through New England, New Brunswick and over the Confederation Bridge into PEI.
Reaching the station by air: We have a nice airport in the capital city of Charlottetown, which is 50 mins west of the station. To get to PEI via air usually means that one flies initially to either Montreal, or Toronto or to Halifax from the US, and then connects to Charlottetown from one of those connecting cities. In the summer season, some US airlines do come into PEI directly but this is usually only a seasonal summer service that is offered. Your US dollar is worth more than the Canadian dollar allowing many things at a 20% discount – although Canada does have an HST akin to the VAT system in Europe.
The capital city of Charlottetown offers excellent restaurants, shopping akin to the USA in almost every way, eg: Walmart/Home Depot and is roughly 50 minutes away from VY2ZM as is the PEI airport.

Pricing:

VY2ZM is available as a complete, turnkey situation and is priced at $750,000 USD.
This is a very special, unique opportunity to own one of the most competitive DX and Contest stations in North America – where European signals on 160m sound like those on 20 meters all year long. During the Winter months, it is possible to work into Europe on 160m for upwards of 20 hours a day. I would dearly love to have the legacy of this place continue – it would be a shame to see it all come down.

Thanks for your consideration.

Jeff Briggs, K1ZM / VY2ZM

For more details and pictures, or to inquire about this properly, see the listing at:

www.hamradiohomes.com/listings/monticello-prince-edward-island/

Reminder! Jim, N6TJ and five others will be operating as NH7T at the QTH of KH6YY during the upcoming CQ WPX CW contest. They will be multi-multi. Jim will be one of the 15 meter operators.

Jim, K9YC has published a plethora of interesting amateur radio articles over the years, many of which are very pertinent to contesters. You will find them here. One that caught my interest initially, and prompted me to pass along his library of publishings, is this one entitled "Building Contest Scores by Killing Receive Noise. Very informative.

So Who Was the Most Trusted Ham in America?

In close to 20 years behind the CBS Evening News desk, Walter Cronkite was the steady voice Americans trusted to inform them on major events such as the assassination of JFK, the moon landing, and the Watergate Scandal. He was the most trusted Ham in America!

Cronkite’s radio engineer at CBS, Steve Mendelsohn W2ML, told ARRL that over the years he had several opportunities to discuss the hobby of amateur radio with Cronkite and that his interest gradually increased. Though Cronkite had a receiver and would listen on the bands now and then, he declined to take the licensing test due to the difficulty of the Morse Code portion.

One day in the studio before their nightly broadcast, Mendelsohn needed to test the tone of the audio recorders. Knowing that Dick Muller, the CBS Evening News Director, was a Ham as well), Mendelsohn grabbed a copy of the New York Times and sent Morse Code with the tone key for 10 minutes. After the broadcast that night, Cronkite walked into the control room and presented his script to Mendelsohn and Muller. On the back of the script was the entire text sent via Morse Code before the broadcast.

The two Hams looked at the copy of the code, looked at each other and informed Cronkite he just passed the Morse Code test. Cronkite laughed and asked when the formal test was, only for Mendelsohn to remind him that it only requires two general classes to validate the test and he had formally passed the code test.

Weeks later Cronkite took and passed the written test and the most trusted man in America was officially a licensed amateur radio operator with the callsign KB2GSD. "And that's the way it is."



Strange but true...
The television was invented only two years after the invention of sliced bread!

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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We had a good turn out for last month's ARRL DX SSB contest, and conditions were reportedly good although not what could be called great. Dick, W6TK thought conditions were better on Friday evening than most of Saturday, and Sunday afternoon was not so good on 20 meters. The A index had climbed to 18. Overall though, he said things were better than last year and he worked a lot of Europeans. Ken, KA6KEN was only able to operate for an hour but thought these were the best conditions that he's experienced on 10 and 15. Jeff, W6JK did 10m single band. He worked 1 Asian, 2 Africans and no Europeans even though the band was open all day. Jim, W6YI felt conditions were down compared to the CW contest in February. Low bands were very poor due to QRN and solar conditions. He said the 20 meter pileups were very challenging. Ryan, W6ZAR has not seen 10m open for so long in his short time as a ham. Bill, N6RV had a blast! He worked Italy on a skew path on 10 though the sun negatively affected his rates. 20 meters was a disappointment for him. All said though, this was his first time breaking the 1 million point threshold. Paul, W6PNG had fun and found that his QTH isn't a bad RF location after all. It was his first time working into Europe from home. Bruce, WA7BNM worked a lot of Central and South Americans that he never heard on CW in February. However, he worked very few JA's and far fewer Europeans.

Frank, WA6KHK said it was good to have 10 meters open. Chip, K7JA said conditions were very disturbed and polar paths were poor. Sunday was particularly bad. Even LZ5R was only S2 at best. Jim, N6TJ was again out in Hawaii at KH6YY using the KH7Q club call. Low bands were very challenging Friday night. He worked a lot of new to him calls which he feels bodes well for our collective contesting futures. Bill, W8QZA (as W6QU) was QRP as always. All of his statistics were much better than last year. He had most of his Q's and mults on 10m, confirming that we are past the solar minimum. He found it surprising that he heard so little activity on 20m and never worked any Europeans. Dan, N6MJ was at TI7W (8.8 million points!) where he found a station issue just an hour before the contest. Fortunately, he had time to remedy it. He started the contest on 15 and put 200 Q's in the log in just 30 minutes! He had a lot of fun with 10m during the contest and operated there much of the two days. The low bands were terrible for him, just as others experienced. John, W6JBR reported that 10 and 15 were excellent though no Europeans heard. Ken, K6LA at his VY2TT station couldn't get much going on the low bands Friday night and slept most of Saturday night. He said Saturday morning was great on 20 and 15 but Sunday not so much. He had too much QSB on Sunday. He would hear calls at S9 and never hear them again. Crazy! Ron, N6XT only had time for a couple of hours of operating and his smaller antennas made things challenging this time around. John, N6QQ reported that 10 was open to Europe with strong signals. He worked DXCC in the contest, his first time doing so.

In early March, I realized that I had not received any issues of CQ Magazine in the mail for several months. I couldn't remember the last time I received one but it had been a while. My subscription is good through July so it wasn't due to me failing to renew. I shot a couple of emails off to them, one to circulation and one a couple of days later to the general inquiry address. I received a prompt response from Dottie Kehrwieder at CQ (general inquiry address) informing me that the print editions are running extremely late and that CQ subscribers are not being charged for them. Therefore, expiration dates are being extended. She was also kind enough to send me the past six issues in PDF format, including the March issue. So...be patient and if you want to catch up on missed issues, send an email to them. It is disappointing that they are struggling with the print issues again. They were nearly caught up a while back. In my opinion, CQ is a good magazine and worth supporting. They are supporters of some of the highest profile contests too. I may decide to switch to the digital subscription if print edition problems continue, though I am old fashioned enough to prefer reading print editions of magazines. Some on the CQ-CONTEST reflector have stated that there is a severe paper shortage that is affecting magazines.

SCCC's Wayne Overbeck, N6NB has published some interesting material about RF safety, something as you know that has become important to the FCC in recent years. In fact, most hams are now required to do "routine evaluations" of their stations for RF safety and compliance. I've written about this in the past but am certainly no expert. Far from it, in fact. Wayne's website has a good deal of information on the subject including an informative presentation and a very easy to use calculator for Windows. I ran it here on my antennas with my operational situations and found no surprises fortunately. Check out Wayne's page on RF safety here. And don't stop there, Wayne's main website has a ton of fun stuff.

Our members webpage list has been updated. A couple of links that were broken have been removed and one new one has been added. If you have a ham radio personal website that you would like to have included, please let me know.

The following came in on the CQ-CONTEST reflector.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 17, 2022 Contact: Rich Moseson, W2VU, Editor w2vu@cq-amateur-radio.com

STATEMENT OF CQ COMMUNICATIONS, INC., REGARDING CQ CONTESTS AND THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE

(Northport, NY 17 March, 2022) - CQ Communications, Inc., publishers of CQ Amateur Radio magazine and sponsor of the CQ World Wide DX and WPX Contests, announced today that in light of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and Belarus, it will not accept competitive entries in any of its sponsored contests by amateur radio stations in Russia, Belarus or the separatist Donbas region of Ukraine (unofficial D1 prefix). Logs submitted by these stations will be accepted only as checklogs. In addition, contacts with these stations by other participants will have zero point value and will not count as multipliers.

This is in line with a similar action taken by the Radio Society of Great Britain, following the lead of other international sports federations around the world.

"We regret the need to take this action," said CQ Publisher Richard Ross, K2MGA, "and recognize that the vast majority of our fellow amateurs who are affected by it are innocent bystanders who had no role in their government's decision to invade another sovereign country. However, in light of the great suffering being inflicted without cause on the people of Ukraine by Russia's leaders, we cannot in good conscience stand by and do nothing."

The CQ policy will take effect with the 2022 CQ WPX SSB Contest on March 26 and 27. Future events will be considered on a case-by-case basis, depending on the situation at that time.



JOKE OF THE MONTH! It IS April Fools Month after all! With the release of the Yaesu FTDX-101MP, the Flex 6700 and the Elecraft K4, other manufacturers needed to come up with something new to compete with these top of the line radios. Kenwood has come up with the new TS-999000 ultimate contest machine! Their entry includes creature comforts so contesters do not have to get up from the radio as often. As we all know, the more BIC time, the more contest points! Coffee/iced coffee maker, microwave oven, and mini frig. Now we’re talking! Couple this with a small camping toilet near the radios and I think we have the cat’s meow!



Strange but true...
Windmills always turn counter-clockwise, except in Ireland!

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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The ARRL DX CW is one of the most popular contests of the year. SCCC members reported improved conditions, especially on 15 and 10 meters. Bill, N6RV said conditions were great! His European run was longer than his JA runs! He thinks this year was his personal best. Jim, W6YA did a single band 15m effort and was surprised at just how good the band was. However, the only continental African he heard was CN8KD. Ken, K6LA was at VY2TT and said that 15 was amazing. 10 only opened for him for a handful of Europeans. Kurt, W6PH reported conditions were like the old days except that 10 wasn't quite open and 15 is getting there. Mults were way down for him but he found plenty of stations to work in EU and Asia. He also put a ton of JA's in the log on all bands except 10. There he had just one JA. This was only his second entry in this contest from California. He had gone to VP9 for the previous 20 years. Marko, N5ZO operated casually, stating that his station is built more for domestic contests. He played with his IC-7610, spending time comparing it to his K3. He said that the 7610 seemed to receive a bit better on the high bands but it also seemed to experience a bit more hash from the K3 during SO2R. Dick, W6TK reported better conditions than recent years. He decided to go unassisted and had fun "tuning the knob" and picking out stations. He lamented that some of the DX stations don't ID often enough. He was pleased with the JA showing in the contest!

Larry, K6RO did his operating between packing boxes for his upcoming move to Fallbrook. He too was happy to have the high bands playing nicely. Roger, W6LAX echoed that. He mostly ran low power and did all S&P. Bruce, WA7BNM did single band 20 meters and found conditions into Eastern Europe great on both mornings of the contest. He observed that participation from SA, Central America and the Caribbean seemed to be down. Dana, K6NR said these were the best conditions in a long while. He was able to run a lot of JA's on multiple bands. Paul, K6PO got his amplifier and yagi working and had a lot of fun with those. He had some good JA runs on 15m with OH and SM coming in over the poles at the same time. Terry, N6CW was out in Arizona at W6XI where he put up a 3-band inverted vee to compliment the existing 160-40 antennas. He set a goal of 1,000 Q's and 1M points for himself, and easily achieved both. He reported fair conditions Friday night, good conditions Saturday during the day and a nice opening to Europe on 160 that night. During the last hour on 15m, the JA's were so loud that he decided to switch from S&P to run mode. He put 120 Q's and 7 mults in the log in that last hour! Tim, N6GP experienced very good conditions at the beginning and end of the contest but not as good in the middle. He also reported 40 and 80m being surprisingly quiet. John, W6JBR said that conditions were so good that he decided to run barefoot. Having 10 and 15m open was great, he said!

On February 7, it was announced that Bob and Sarah Heil have transferred ownership of the well known Heil Sound company to current President and CEO, Ash Levitt, and Director of Operations, Steve Warford. Sarah Heil has retired, but Bob will continue to do outreach work and product design within the amateur radio space under the title Founder and CEO Emeritus. Heil Sound has a long history of helping hams (and the pro-audio field) achieve great sound. Read more about it on the Heil Sound web site here.

ARRL has announced a new World Wide Digital Contest to debut on June 4. All non-RTTY modes are permitted and 160-6 meters (excluding the WARC and 5 meter bands) will be permissible. The ARRL RTTY Roundup will revert back to a RTTY only contest going forward. More information can be found here.

The 2021 CQP (California QSO Party) results are in and SCCCers set some new records! Marko, N5ZO operated with the club call NT6Q and took 1st place SO HP and Kurt, W6PH took 2nd! Axel, KI6RRN won the SOLP category. George, W6AYC was 2nd and Paul, WN6K was 3rd. David, N6AN used the W6AQ club call and took the top spot in the SO QRP category, giving the SCCC first place finishes in all three categories this year! Bruce, WA7BNM placed 3rd and David, K6FA was 4th. In the SO(A) HP category, Jim, W6KC using the W6ML club call was 4th with Paul, W7IV using the KK6P call in 5th and set a new single Op SSB only record. SO(A) LP had Frank, WA6KHK on top. Dave, W6ZL right behind him in 2nd and Roger, W6LAX in 5th. Ryan, AI6DO placed 2nd SO(A) QRP with Ron, K2RP using K6P finishing 4th. The SCCC amassed 4.3M points with 30 entries to win the new Joshua Tree Club Competition. Congratulations to all!

The raw scores for the ARRL January VHF Contest have now been published. Tim, N6GP is currently showing as 3rd place in the Limited Rover category. This can be a tough contest for SoCal stations this time of year. Check out the scores here.

Preliminary NAQP CW results from the January event have also been published. Tree, N6TR on SCCC #1 placed 9th overall in the Single Op category. Marko, N5ZO finished 2nd in SO Assisted. The SCCC #1 team finished 8th overall. The scores can be found here.

In the February 16 ARRL Contest Update, a new spotting rule was announced and it goes into effect starting in June for all ARRL HF Contests. "Starting with the ARRL International Digital Contest, in all categories that allow assistance (Unlimited), the use of online and other non-amateur radio platforms including but not limited to social media, live video streaming, and internet chat rooms will be allowed. In all Unlimited and Multioperator categories, the prohibition of self-spotting, and asking another station to spot you, will also be removed." In reviewing the CAC report of July 20, 2021, Section 2020.5, the committee recommended this change, noting that CW and Digital are already self spotting due to Skimmers. This rule change simply brings SSB into the fold. The report makes for interesting reading, especially in light of the debate that immediately appeared on the CQ-CONTEST reflector. Read the report here.

Another "contest" update coming this year pertains to Field Day. That's "contest" in quotation marks because the ARRL does not consider Field Day to be a contest. The SCCC over the years has sometimes disagreed and gone all out, balls to the walls, and even set a record or two in this "event." But I digress. After conducting a "FIeld Day community survey," some new rules will be implemented this June. Those are:
(a) the maximum PEP transmitter output used by anyone submitting a Field Day log will be 100 watts. The high power category will be removed from the rules.
(b) "A couple of changes instituted initially as accommodations for the COVID-19 pandemic will remain. Class D (Home) stations will continue to be able to earn points for contacts with other Class D stations. The club aggregate scoring change initiated in 2020 as a temporary measure will become part of the permanent rules. In the aggregate scoring plan, the scores of individual stations are combined under the score of a single club."
(c) Field Day participants will now be required (emphasis is mine-editor) to obtain publicity and to demonstrate same for the event.
Read up on these changes here on the ARRL website.

Another couple of SCCCers have appeared recently on the QSO Today podcast hosted by Eric, 4Z1UG. Arnie, N6HC was the subject of Episode 389. Arnie was first licensed in 1957 at age 13 and is an active DXer and CW op. He tells how he got into amateur radio, how he chose the medical profession, and a bit about the SCCC. Mark Beckwith, N5OT (formerly WA6OTU) was the subject of Episode 368. Mark grew up in SoCal and was a founding member of the SCCC. He talks in the podcast about how the SCCC started. I remember first meeting Mark at an SCCC meeting in Pasadena way back in the late 1970s. Mark talks about his mentor, Dave, W6AQ and other topics. Mark now resides in Oklahoma. Both podcasts are a lot of fun. Enjoy! (QSO Today podcasts can be listened to on the web or on many podcast apps. It is audio only...there is no accompanying video. However, there are show notes on the web.)

Check it out! Way back in late 1980, the SCCC Sprint CW team was organized by Jim, N6TJ. He came up with a new team name at the time. WASP. Winning Alliance of Sprint People. This story appears in the October, 1980 club bulletin and is shown in our Historical pages. Check it out!

The CQP Contest Committee is looking for a few plaque sponsors for the 2021 event this past October. The notice from Dean, N6DE follows.

Here's your chance for your callsign to appear on a California QSO Party (CQP) plaque, recognized by a high performing CQP effort, and listed on the CQP.org awards and results pages as a plaque sponsor.
Out of 49 plaques earned in the 2021 CQP, we have sponsors confirmed for 45 of them. Thank you to all our amazing plaque sponsors for their support! We have 4 plaques remaining that are open for sponsorship:
CA Top YL - HP
CA 1st Place Multi-Single, Fixed Station CA 2nd Place Multi-Multi, Fixed Station US/VE/DX Top S/O-Assisted QRP

Sponsorship is $60 per plaque.
You do not have to commit to sponsoring any of these plaques forever. We're just looking for CQP 2021 sponsors. Next year, you'll be given the first option to continue sponsoring your plaque, with no obligation to continue.

Please email me at cqden6de [at] gmail.com if you're interested.

73...
-Dean - N6DE
CQP Chairman






Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA was the presenter at the February San Diego DX Club meeting. The topic was Solar Cycle 25, our current cycle. It was a very interesting one. One of Carl's charts was a prediction using the precursor method. Using this method, it as been shown that the shorter the solar minimum, the smaller the next cycle peak will be. This suggests a small Cycle 25. Drat! Let's hope this one breaks the trend! He expects it to peak in 2025.





Strange but true...
The U.S. Mint once considered producing doughnut shaped coins!

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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Results of the NA Sprint CW September edition have been published by NCJ. Axel, KI6RRN powered NO6T (@WA6TQT) to third place in the high power category, a mere 13 Q's from the pole position! Dan, N6MJ took 8th place. David, N6AN using the W6AQ call sign took 2nd in the QRP category and also recorded a Golden Log! The SCCC #1 team finished 2nd in the team category. Congrats to all! Full results can be found here. The upcoming February Sprints will again start at 2300 UTC on Saturday.

If you and I were experts on radio wave propagation, we would instantly catapult ourselves higher in the contest standings and higher up the DXCC standings as well. Alas, the basics are well known now but there is still a lot of magic around the subject. And that is perhaps what makes playing amateur radio so much fun. Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA is well known in amateur radio circles for his research and articles on radio propagation. His web site is chalk full of interesting information on not only propagation but other topics of interest to us hams. Check it out!

Have you ever experienced RFI in your ham shack, your home, or egads, at your neighbor's house? I would bet that the answer is yes. In fact, you might even be experiencing some now, perhaps all the time or intermittently. And let's face it, identifying the source/cause of the RFI can be frustrating and maddening. Now that we have computers and sometimes multiple computer monitors in our shacks and homes, the problem has become increasingly common again. "In the old days," we mostly had to chase down and solve TVI problems with our neighbors. Their TV antennas, twinlead feedline, and their old, unshielded Zenith or RCA TV were magnets for TVI. If we were lucky, a high pass filter installed on the back of their TV solved the problem. In the 1980s, I used to clobber a little old lady's TV next door to me. We lived something like 60 or 80 miles north of Mt. Wilson. Anyone trying to receive over-the-air TV with an antenna there was really struggling to begin with. Add a contester/DXer ham next door with yagis for 10-40 and a full kilowatt, well, you can imagine the result. I spent many hours cleaniing up her antenna system and doing this and doing that, including installing a high pass filter on her TV, a low pass filter on my amplifier output, changing her from twinlead to coax, etc. I mostly solved the TVI but if she was on just the "wrong" channel and I was beaming through her house toward Europe (OF COURSE she lived in just the right direction for maximum interference from me when calling Europe!), she would still get some lines in the picture. And I might get a knock on the door. I'm sure we can all tell these types of horror stories. Lately, my RFI problems have been around my home theater system and in my shack. The home theater system was getting RFI whenever I was on 6 meters and the yagi was pointed in the general direction of the living room. I traced it down to the subwoofer and installed a kit from Palomar Engineers specifically designed for subwoofers. I still have some fine tuning to do but the kit has drastically reduced the interference. In the shack, I began having problems with all three of my computer monitors but only when on 30 meters and when running more than about 50 watts output. I tried several of the ferrites I had on hand but only had limited success. I purchased another kit from Palomar, this time one made specifically for my transceiver. I haven't used all of the ferrites in that kit yet but have reduced the problem very significantly. Again, I still have some fine tuning to do but I am confident I will succeed in completely eliminating the RFI in both cases. I am willing to bet that many or most of you have experienced RFI both "in the old days" and/or in today's world with computers now sharing the household. I stumbled across a white paper written by Jim Brown, K9YC. Jim is a retired engineer whose specialty was pro audio and he has also been a ham for 60+ years. His white paper is quite in depth but is interesting reading. I know I learned a lot from it. Check it out on his K9YC.com web site. You might find other articles of interest to you at his main web site at http://www.k9yc.com/publish.htm Some other interesting info on the topic can be found in an SEDXC article at this web site.

The 2022 International DX co-Chairman Bill Kendrick, N6RV has announced that the 2022 convention in Visalia has been cancelled due to the current COVID threat. He directs those with hotel reservations to contact the hotel to cancel their reservation. The committee looks forward to 2023. Their web site has been updated with this news.

On the other hand, the Dayton Hamvention in May is still a go. Tickets for the contest dinner are only available online. No tickets will be sold at the door.

DX-World.net reports that Cycle 25 is outperforming the official forecast thus far. It's obviously early but sunsport counts have exceeded predictions for 15 straight months according to the article. Does this have us leaning toward a higher peak than we've seen in recent cycles? To early to tell but one can hope! Read their article here.


We all know that solar storms are not particularly welcomed by ham radio operators. HF propagation often suffers, sometimes tremendously. But did you know that solar events have destroyed electrical grids, set wires on fire and downed satellites? A fascinating article on the subject appeared last month in Electronic Design. It's crazy to think how an event that occurs 93 million miles away can detonate magnetic sea mines in the earth's ocean, and a lot more.



The January edition of the SCDXC newsletter mentions two free upcoming amateur radio courses on February 5 and 12. Please pass this information along to anyone who might benefit from these. A Technician course will be held at 9:30 am to 1:15 pm both Saturdays (bring your own lunch) and a General course will be held 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm both days. At the start of the February 5 Technician course, a member of the Palos Verdes Amateur Radio Club will give a 30-minute presentation on how to get further involved in amateur radio. There is no charge for the courses. FCC license testing will be held 10:00 am to noon on Saturday, February 19. A $15 fee is due for the FCC testing. Class location is Fred Hesse Community Park, 29301 Hawthorne Blvd., Rancho Palos Verdes. Please confirm attendance by emailing Walk, K1DFO at wfordway at juno.com. More info in the newsletter. If you know of other upcoming license courses in SoCal, pleae let me know.

The National Contest Journal, perhaps better known as NCJ, turns 50 years old in 2022. The magazine dedicated to amateur radio contesting has established itself as the magazine for those that enjoy radiosport. Incredibly, the first issues in 1972 cost just a dollar a year! The first issue went out to some 400 subscribers. Tod Olson, K0TO was the brainchild and original publisher of the NCJ newsletter, and 50 years later, it has easily met and even surpassed his vision. In addition to all of the great technical information and stories in the maagzine each issue, NCJ administers the NAQP and North American Sprint contests. Interestingly, these were not part of Todd's original vision. The contests came much later. The fascinating history of NCJ appears in the January/February and March/April issues (a two part story). The electronic edition of NCJ is now free to ARRL members and available online. You won't want to miss it. (Note that a print edition is available via subscription.)

Strange but true...
The electric chair was invented by a dentist!

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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Ryan, AI6DO had originally planned to operate Sunday only but family plans changed and he found time Friday night and the first half of Saturday. He felt that propagation was poor during those times and he had trouble working much of anything. Signals had severe flutter on them and were QSB on Friday and Saturday. Kent, N6WT was happy to have 10 and 15 alive again. Bill, N6RV reported that conditions were not as good as during the SSB weekend. Sunday seemed to have been the better day. 10 was flat but 40 through 15 meters were great. Steve, AA6AA did single band 20 meters from the W7RN station and said that the conditions were great! Morey, W6GMU had little time to operate and reported conditions as fair. David, K6FA had a great time and logged on paper since his typing skills aren't the greatest. Ken, K6LA was at his VY2TT PEI QTH and heard a few Europeans on 10 on Saturday but said the band didn't really open that day. Sunday was a different story though and at times the opening was strong. He recorded 212 Q's on 10. His score of nearly 8.9M points is a hefty one!

Eric, NC6K ran his new Elecraft K4 as SO2V. He said there are some great features and some issues with the K4 in its current state, but overall he said that it performed very well. Conditions were so-so at night for him but daytime was much better, especially on Sunday. He had a great run of about 150 Asians in the last 2-3 hours of the contest. He said it was great having 15m wide open for several hours at a time and actually making QSOs on 10. Jim, N6TJ has been doing CQWW contesting for 67 years now. He was at KH7M on the big island of Hawaii again this year and had a great time. Mults were down compared to his last trip there in 2018. He got to use the new Elecraft KPA1500 amp and called it a "contester's delight!" Half tongue in cheek and half not, he suggested a Senior's Multiplier for those over 80 years old. And why not with all of these Rookie and Classic Overlay categories, right? It might be time the other end of the spectrum gets some attention. Bob, KF6I focused on the upper bands and said that 15m was hot. He also had fun working Europe on 40m on Saturday night. "There were several good Qs for me in this contest. On 40 Meters, using a trap dipole only 32 feet up, I managed to work CR3W (who always hears me, somehow!), ED1R, and CR6K. On 20 Meters I got 3B8M when no one else was calling him, and then, with 30 minutes to go in the contest snagged VK6T on the LONG PATH. Finally, I got mega-station JA3YBK on 10 Meters at 23:59. They were the only JA I heard on 10 Meters. QSOs like these make this contest for me. The thrill lasts for hours and sometimes days. ...and you really can't explain it to anyone outside the DX community."

Dan, N6MJ has been at ZF1A the past six years but the island was closed so he would have been stuck operating remote again. Instead, he operated from Kam's excellent TI7W station in Costa Rica. He had most of the tough mults calling him for once! He had large pileups and didn't get much time for tuning for mults, so that worked out well (them calling him, that is). He called conditions good but not great. He has a plethora of detail about the operation posted on the 3830scores web site. Jim, W6YA was surprised to not hear a single VK or VK6 but said that 3B8M was heard no matter which direction his antenna was pointed, often with an S-9+ signal. Jim had severe line noise show up at the station two days before the contest with periods of S-7 for about 30% of the time. Ouch. Bill, W8QZA was again W6QU and QRP. His first radio contest ever was CQWW CW back in 1956 at a friend's QTH. Two years later, he did it from his own station for the first time. He too reported poor conditions the first night but they picked up for him Saturday morning. And things were good the rest of the time. Marty, N6VI had limited time available due to an out of town trip but had fun, even with low wire antennas.

Jim, K6ZH was up at the KL7RA Multi/2 operation, and it's looking like they will perhaps finish #3 in North America behind a couple of East Coast stations. They appear to have had a whole lot more Q's but way less mults. They powered their way to 9M+ points. They experienced a four hour radio blackout early Sunday morning. Such is the way in KL7! Photo at left is Jim working 15m at KL7RA. He is working on an article about the operation that will appear here on the SCCC web site. Bruce, WA7BNM debated whether to go single band 20 or 15 but wound up going with 20. He too reported poor conditions Friday evening but improved Saturday morning. He crashed the pileup for 3B8M and that afternoon had a nice run of JAs. Drew, N7DA again operated from a nearby park with a decent horizon to the east through the north. He went there to work Europe in the morning and then went home to do some other things. And then back at it for Asia in the afternoon. He didn't hear any VK or ZL this time, which he says is unusual.

Jeff, W6JK said it was good to work some CW again. His highlights were working Mauritius on 20, Romania on 40 and South Americans on 10. Dick, W6TK did about half of the contest. He said conditions seemed good Friday night and Saturday morning, but things got noisier after that. He had a lot of JA QSOs and some good EU on 40 including long path in the mornings. He had trouble with the 9G but finally logged him. He snagged the 9X4 also but could not get the C9. He never could hear the 5V. He did work the EL2 on 20m late Sunday. He was hoping to work Jim at KH7M on five bands but only managed three. Don, N6IC said that 15 was full of JAs. He looks forward to 10m getting better.

A mere one week after the contest, the CQWW DX Contest Committee posted the raw scores for the contest. Dan's N6MJ SOABHP score from TI7W leads the pack, and by quite a bit. Ken, K6LA and his VY2TT score is 5th. These raw scores are before duping and log checking by the committee.

As a reminder, if you have moved or are planning to move out of the SCCC area, please let us know so that we can update the roster and provide a more accurate membership list to contest committees that require one for their club category in contests. We can't know that you have moved unless you tell us. We will move you from the list of Full Members to the list of those outside of the ARRL 175 mile radius. Please notify Bruce, WA7BNM and CC Dennis NE6I. Thanks!



Just what we need, huh? The IARU is reporting that a new Over-the-Horizon radar system is being built in India to keep a close eye on Chinese movements in the Indian Ocean region. As of the report in late November, the design is complete and the next step is to prototype it. As you are likely well aware, OTHR systems often create strong interference in the amateur radio bands. Ugh.




Jim, N6TJ will once again be out in Hawaii next month for the ARRL DX CW contest. He'll be using the call KH7Q. He will also be in Hawaii for the Phone contest in March as well as both CQ WPX contests coming up. For updates on other contest expeditions, keep an eye on the Contest Expeditions web page (button located on the righthand side of this web page).

As contesters (and most of us are also DXers), we are all very familiar with the solar flux (SFI), A index and K index. Or, at least we know that we like to see the SFI as high as possible, the A index as low as possible and the K index at 0 or 1. But do you know how the numbers are derived? You can learn about it in the article found here. It's some interesting reading.

The Dayton Hamvention will return in person this coming May. And with it, Contest University will return in person. The web site says, "Don’t miss this rare opportunity to gain knowledge that may take you years of practice, trial and error or lost time to learn otherwise. Get the edge to improve your scores and put your station in the winners circle today!" Find out more and register at the Contest University web site.

Bruce, WA7BNM reminds us of a couple of contest rule changes that are effective in 2022. The ARRL has reduced the maximum power allowed for low power entries in HF contests from 150 to 100 watts. This also includes the IARU HF but excludes Field Day. Also, the NAQPs will recognize a separate Single-Op Assisted category. Such entries will no longer be considered M/2. NAQP teams can consist of a mix of SO and SOA entries.

Just a reminder about our For Sale/Wanted listings on the home page. Peter, NI6E listed his TV van complete with generator and mast in early December. Good looking van! Great for contesting, VHF/UHF roving, POTA, SOTA, etc.! If you have any for sale or wanted items that you would like listed, please let me know.



The moon as a new multiplier?! Well, not quite yet but... A Japanese moon lander will possibly be placed on the moon next month and will include a beacon at 437.41 MHz (amateur radio 70 cm band) using FM, PSK31 and PCM-PSK/PM. It probably won't be long before someone places an amateur radio transponder on the moon, and frankly, it might not be too awfully long before a ham operates from the moon. Imagine the pileups! Read more about next month's moon lander here.




EZNEC (PRO/2) is now free (effective January 1, 2022). Yes, you read that correctly. The author, Roy Lewallen, W7EL is retiring after 31 years of coding EZNEC and its predecessors. For various reasons, he has decided against selling or transferring ownership to someone else, and he does not plan to release the source code. There will be no support for any of the EZNEC programs foing forward. Yes, he is "cutting the cord" completely and retiring in full. However, EZNEC Pro2 is now available for download and free use. EZNEC is an antenna analysis and modeling tool and has been used by more than 13,000 customers for many years. More information can be found at the EZNEC web site. A similar piece of software is 4NEC2 by Arie Voors. 4NEC2 is also free. Both of these softwares have a bit of a learning curve but resources can be found on the web.

Strange but true...
The only member of the rock band ZZ Top without a beard is Frank Beard. Ironic.

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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