10 and 15 meters were major players in the CQWW DX SSB contest in late October. There were some big QSO totals on those bands by club members. It was good to have those bands fully in play! Bill, N6RV recorded his highest score ever in the contest, with 2.6M points! He commented that disturbed conditions made it a slow drag until the end when things really picked up. Frank, WA6KHK said it was rough going with only a vertical at the new QTH but also said that will change soon! Marty, N6VI operated from his 20th zone in this contest, operating from Japan (Zone 25) as JF1NHD. Paul, W8GJK had good conditions on the high bands. Ken, K6LA operated VY2TT. He said he was deaf on 160 for some reason. He did very, very well on the other bands, recording a total of 4,472 QSOs! He said that Sunday was amazing! Don, N6IC said it was nice to have better conditions this year. He did single band 15 meters. Dick, N6AA was out in Hawaii at KH7M. There he recorded 4,608 Q's for just over 5M points. Dick, W6TK did multi-single with the XYL. 10, 15 and 40 meters were good for them but 20 wasn't so good and 80 was noisy. And yes, the YL voice (his XYL!) does make a difference in the pileups! Bill, W8QZA was QRP using club call W6QU as usual. He had a couple of thrilling QSOs, one of which he says was by far one of the best of his life. That one was BD4RQ in China on 80m meters Sunday morning 15 minutes before sunrise. He says BY is always tough for him at 5 watts, regardless of the band. And 80 SSB is the land of VE, KL7, KH6 and XE for him. He was stunned to work BY! Nice job, Bill!

Bruce, WA7BNM did single band 15 meters and said that conditions were good Friday evening with lots of activity from Asia. On Saturday morning, he worked a lot of western and southern Europe but heard very little from the eastern side of the continent. Sunday morning was better but he couldn't get anyone from Zone 20 to reply. He was mostly S&P during the contest but managed a couple of brief runs with JA, YB and BY. Dana, K6NR operated remotely and said things worked well for a change. He had fun working Asia and Europe on 10m again. Glenn, K6NA said he had limited time (28 hours) and yet put in a 1.5+ million score! Sheesh! He commented that he didn't run JA on 40 or 20 meters and thus got in plenty of sleep! He said that the SoCal openings to Europe were spotty and mostly to western and southern EU. JA openings on 10 meters were fairly good both days for a couple of hours prior to sunset. The afternoon JA/Asia openings on 15 meters were excellent, he said.

The following weekend was the ARRL Sweepstakes CW contest. Conditions held up and we had a good turn out once again. Dick, W6TK said he was surprised how 80 meters panned out. He made a healthy amount of QSOs there. He commented that operating assisted made getting the sweep easy. He was a bit surprised to have Santa Barbara and Los Angeles as his last two mults. John, KF6I put in a pretty serious effort, he said, and got the sweep for the first time in a long while. Joe, W6AYC did QRP for the first time. He didn't know what to expect but logged 658 Q's and 83 mults, pretty darn good; I would say! Ken, K6LA again operated VY2TT. With PEI now its own multiplier and the VY2ZM station now dismantled, there was good news and bad. He had a steady stream of callers on Saturday but still experienced slow going on Sunday. And naturally, he missed the PEI mult and thus missed the sweep. Joe, AA2IL had good conditions and did get the sweep. Kurt, W6PH has only one antenna up at the moment so he did a single band 10 meter effort with his 5 elements at 60 feet. It played well, I would say. 542 Q's and 80 sections in just nine hours! Jim, K6ZH did SOLP in memory of Paul, WN6K (SK) who always did that category in SS. Jim got his first sweep in quite a while. He needed three when he hit the hay Saturday night, and got those last three by 9:30 am Sunday. "Much to my wife's chagrin, I will buy yet another Clean Sweep coffee mug," he said. Dana, K6NR reported that the bands were in good shape with strong signals especially on 10, 15 and 80 meters. He started Sunday with just one mult left but worked that one mid-morning, the semi-elusive VO1HP. LAX was apparently quite the catch in this contest. Dana reported it as one of the last two he worked Saturday night (and other SCCCers reported it as one of their last too). He saw NI6W spotted Sunday and tuned in to find quite the pileup on him.

Then, at the end of the month, we had arguably the SCCC favorite contest of the year, the CQWW DX CW Contest. While the SFI was a little lower and the A index a little higher than the two had been earlier in the month of November, 10 and 15 meters were popping, and it was great to have them pretty much fully back! On Sunday morning in fact, 15 was so crowded that stations could be heard all the way up to 21.130 MHz and above! The Contest Online Scoreboard (and by the way, where were all the SCCCers on it? Only four stations were reporting in! C'mon guys, get with the program! It's very easy to configure your contest logger to report in.) showed LW1F recording the highest hourly QSO rate at an incredible 443 Q's per hour! Now, most of us mere mortals have probably recorded only a few hours at or just over 100-120 Q's per hour in our entire lifetime. And think about that those of you that have. Everything went right, no? Good conditions, a clear run frequency, you were loud to a lot of areas at the same time, you were picking out calls easily, there weren't a lot of repeats needed, and you were on your game. Now take it the level of 400+ QSOs per hour! It boggles the mind! As for contest expeditions, we know that N6TJ was at KH6YY using the KH7Q call, often with a big signal into the USA, N6AA and two others were scheduled to go to Zone 38 in South Africa, and N5ZO was VK6N in Zone 29. I don't have intel on others at the moment but these three were copied tearing things up in the contest.

Paul, K6PO put in a little time doing single band 10 meters between his time at the multi-op NX6T effort. He said it was nice to see 10 open again. Paul, W8GJK had a goal of 100,000 points in his first CQWW CW contest with the new hexbeam and amplifier. He did the entire contest S&P and achieved his goal. Bill, N6RV commented that despite the relatively low SFI, EVERYTHING was open! He worked some Europeans on 10 and ran them on 20 and 15. He also said that long path was exceptional into Central Asia. Frank, WA6KHK experienced a power outage but managed 500 Q's with only a vertical. Jim, W6YA said it was nice to have 15m in good shape. He missed Zones 17, 21, 22, 34 and 37. Bruce, WA7BNM did mostly S&P. He did the first half of the contest from home. He operated remotely on Sunday using SDR Control and RemotePC to use his station. Dick, W6TK had pretty good conditions until Saturday evening and Sunday when noise cropped up. 10 meters stayed open longer than expected and 15 was gang busters for him. Mike, W4EF tackled some remodeling work at the remote site but played radio during breaks. He had some decent JA runs on 40, 15 and 10 meters. He didn't get on 15 or 10 either morning and thus missed Europe on those two bands. He couldn't get any traction on 160 on Saturday night and thought perhaps some high angle propagation mode was in play.

Jim, N6TJ used the KH7Q callsign at KH6YY. He didn't hear many Europeans and thought USA activity was down. He did have great signals and lots of them from China and Japan. He operated Single Band 15 meters this time around. Ken, K6LA was at VY2TT again this year but ran into a lot of rotator issues due to Hurricane Ida. He wound up leaving the 20 and 40 meter yagis fixed on Europe. Despite the handicap, he turned in a nearly 10M point total! Marko, N5ZO was VK6N at VK6ANC (as we mentioned earlier). He said that the contest began with good conditions and he spent all of Saturday on the higher bands. His expectations for 80 and 160 were quite low due to only having low dipoles available but he was pleasantly surprised to work a few Europeans, and that motivated him to try harder on those two low bands. Conditions on the high bands were much worse on Sunday. 10m didn't open until the very end when the USA west coast popped in. Sunday night, 40, 80 and 160 were very productive. This was his 35th Zone in CQWW. All 40 Zones are now showing at the end of the tunnel! Dana, K6NR said it was a great contest with activity from all over the world. The bands were open pretty well for him, though not quite as good as during the SSB contest. Early Saturday afternoon, he was hoping to run JA's on 10m but didn't hear any. He pointed the beam toward Japan and called CQ. He then spent the next two hours running JAs and a few other Asian countries. Bill, W8QZA was once again using the W6QU club call and running QRP. He agreed that conditions were pretty good, and he put in his highest score since 2015. He worked eight BY stations this time in fact. He says they usually can't copy his five watts. Tim, N6GP felt that he spent more time on 10 than he should have and that 15 was really his money band. Unfortunately, his yagi was stuck northeast, precluding working South America and Japan for the most part. He didn't get on 80m Friday night and when he did on Saturday night, it was dead. Quiet but dead.

CQ has published the raw scores from the recent CQWW DX SSB contest. These are the scores before log checking. Check them out here.

NCJ has now published the final results of the August NAQP CW contest. Marko, N5ZO took second place in the SO Assisted category. Congrats Marko! SSB and RTTY results have also been published.

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON USE OF PHONETICS

by Marty Woll, N6VI
Contesters are regular users of phonetics, both during contests and otherwise. The ICAO phonetic alphabet is probably considered the “gold standard” and is used regularly in military and aviation operations as well. Its advantages stem from the uniqueness of vowel sounds in each “letter”. In difficult conditions, the consonants are usually the first to become unintelligible. When the ICAO alphabet is used correctly, the combination of vowel sounds is unique for each character, thus making letters easier to distinguish. Compare this with, say, the APCO phonetic alphabet used by many law enforcement agencies. I’ve witnessed repeated copy errors when Paul was heard as Tom or Ida heard as Adam. The words (mostly names) are common enough, but some of them lack the uniqueness that makes them easy to understand coming from a weak or noisy station. It’s no surprise, then, that contesters tend to default to the ICAO phonetic alphabet.

During my recent CQ WW DX SSB contest operation from Japan (October, 2022 - ed), that’s just what I did. For over a day I was using “Juliet Foxtrot One November Hotel Delta” when calling another station or calling CQ. However, I found that I was getting what I considered an unusually high number of requests for fills or repeats. This led me to trying alternate phonetics, and I experienced an immediate reduction in such requests once I made the change. What was the magic combination? It was “Japan Florida One Norway Hotel Denmark” (substituting “Honolulu” for Hotel “ in a few stubborn cases). Why did this work more effectively, I wondered. After all, Florida isn’t even a country. However, upon reflection, using “Japan Florida” has become such common practice for Hams with JF prefixes that it seemingly gets instant recognition. For another, “Delta” was often misheard as “Papa”, probably because so many people incorrectly accent the first syllable rather than the second, making the vowel combination less unique than the designers of the ICAO alphabet intended.

The lesson I took home was to try something different when the “right way” is not achieving the desired result.

My deepest thanks to my host, Norio Inomata, for the opportunity and hospitality he provided.

73,
Marty N6VI



While S&Ping in the CQWW DX CW contest last month, I came across (more than once) the famous west coast call sign W7RM. This prompted me to look up the call on QRZ.com and see who had it now days. Turns out the Williamette Valley DX Club thankfully has custody of the call. Rush Drake (SK) made a name for himself on the air with his very big and highly respected station up in Washington. Rush passed away back in 2005 and is an inductee of the CQ Contest Hall of Fame. According to the QRZ write up, nearly 100 operators contested at his station over the years, including SCCCers N6MJ and N6TR. The QRZ write up is a fun read and and has many old photos. It's a great look back in time. Check it out here.



One of the greatest "DX" antennas on the planet will not be rebuilt. In 2020, the 1,000 foot wide Arecibo radio telescope collapsed making it unusable. Many scientists hoped that it would be rebuilt or replaced with something even better. The facility had contributed to many breakthroughs in astronomy and cosmology. It also played an important role in SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. However, the National Science Foundation announced in early October that it won't do either. More on the story can be found here.

WWROF Announces New Scholarships

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(please forward to contest and DX club email lists)

Cleveland, OH – November 16, 2022 – The World Wide RadioOperators Foundation (WWROF) is pleased to announce a new scholarship program.

The WWROF will award up to two scholarships of $2500 each to amateurs who demonstrate active on-the-air operation, including entering contests or achieving awards such as DXCC or WAS. There are no restrictions on applicant nationality, place of residence, location of institution, or intended field of study. Preference will be given to applicants 25 years of age or younger.

The WWROF scholarships will be administered by the ARRLFoundation. Online applications are now being accepted for the 2023 awards.The deadline is Wednesday, January 4, 2023, at 12:00 PM (noon) EST (1700 UTC).

WWROF Chairman Tim Duffy, K3LR, commented, “We have received several donations earmarked for Youth programs. The WWROF created these scholarships to enable active young operators to continue their studies.”

For information on applying for these scholarships, see www.arrl.org/scholarship-descriptions.

About WWROF

The World Wide Radio Operators Foundation (WWROF) was created in 2009 by a group of radio operators who saw a need for an independent organization devoted to the skill and art of radio operating. We believe that amateur radio contests provide a means of testing operating skill and that worldwide contest sponsors can benefit from the support we can provide. WWROF owns, operates, and maintains the log-processing systems and awards programs for contests sponsored by CQ magazine and others. For more information visit www.wwrof.org

If you need a break from contesting for a few minutes, check out this 25 minute video broadcast recently on Montana's PBS station. It's a fun amateur radio show that touches several ham radio specialties that we enjoy. One of the great things about being a ham is the large number of different things we can participate in. And this video reminds us of that. I think you'll enjoy it. Check it out here.





On a totally different note, a non-contesting one in fact, I became a proud grandpa once again last month. Probably the last grandchild to join the Younker family on my particular branch of the tree, although rumor has it the parents may try for their second before long. My only child without a child of her own had her first on November 8 at 6:08 pm, a beautiful little girl named Ruby who joined us quite healthy at 7 lbs 2 oz and 20.5 inches. Naturally, she mostly kept her momma awake her first night home on the 9th. Both are doing very well and getting used to a new normal. Will Ruby become a Younker SCCCer one day? I hope so!





Strange but true...
There is an opposite of albino animals, which aren't white but black. These are known as Melanistic animals.

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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As always, the California QSO Party (CQP) drew a lot of SCCCers to the contest. SFI was up but so was the A and K indeces. Did that stop anyone from having a lot of fun and turning in good scores? Not really! Kent, N6WT set out to increase the record in Kings County. He had noticed that the SOLP record was only 33,961 points, set back in 2001. It appears that he has nearly doubled that this year. See his writeup here. Paul, W8GJK broke tradition and operated HP instead of QRP! He used the call N6C and had a lot of fun with that despite high local noise on Saturday. Joe, AA2IL found conditions to be very good on all bands Saturday. He only had a couple of hours to play on Sunday and found conditions much more challenging. Frank, WA6KHK was happy to see 10m open. Murphy visited him though and his computer crashed four times. He also blew his tuner again. Ryan, AI6DO had a new laptop ready to go for the contest but had some antenna SWR problems on Saturday. While troubleshooting, the antenna "fixed itself" and let him continue. 40m was his money band, providing low noise most of the time. He ran QRP 5 watts with a fan dipole on 20, 40 and 80m. Dave, K6FA had a goal of 400 QSOs and reached that easily enough. Steve, AC6T put together a rookie team to operate the UCSB college club station with their new vanity call of N6RA. They did well logging 550 QSOs. Ken, K6LA found long openings on 10m both days but not enough activity there. CW on the other hand was hopping on all bands for him. Murphy visited him a bit, rendoring audio issues with his USB mic adapter for his Heil microphone into a new computer. He also had the 20m position fail on his antenna switch, forcing him to go with a work around. He misted Yukon/NWT for the sweep.

Dick, W6TK gave his new RF2K-S a good run - it worked very nicely. He ran into problems because his SteppIR didn't want to tune up on 40 because of cool, wet weather - that was a bummer, he said. He did get the sweep, working all 58 mults. David, N6AN operated from/as W6NL and recorded an incredible 880 Q's and 172K points using QRP, which appears to easily be a new record! Marko, N5ZO was again using club call NT6Q. He experienced great conditions on 10 and 15 this year. He wasn't all that motivated at the start of the contest but quickly got sucked in. Before log checking, he appears to have broken the CQP CW QSO record set by N6TV last year. His observation is that many California stations don't do much S&P and thus leave a lot of Q's with CA stations on the table. He worked hard to get those CA stations in his log on as many bands (and both modes) as possible, a strategy that seems to have paid off. Dana, K6NR operated as K6VO from San Bernardino County. He found the activity to be fast paced, especially in the early going where some out of state stations had more Q's than he did! When the dust settled, he had a clean sweep. Bruce, WA7BNM had more fun than he expected. He started on 10m with one S&P Q and then started CQing, working his way down the bands. He finished the first night at 0400Z on 80m. Sunday morning was reasonably productive and he then worked the opposite direction, starting on 80 and working up to 15m before having to QRT at 1630Z.

Kurt, W6PH was pressed by CQP Chairman Dean, N6DE to operate the contest because there was no CW activity planned from Inyo County (where Kurt lives). He and his neighbor kid put up a couple of yagis on Friday morning. Kurt reported that band conditions were generally very good but he had a lot of fading at times. He logged all 58 mults and a great score. Dick, N6AA was thrilled to have no power line noise but he missed ND and VE8. Tim, N6GP had fun being called by Europeans. He also enjoyed posting on and watching the online contest scoreboard. He found that very motivating! Jim, W6KC did a County Expedition to Mono County as W6ML. About an hour into the contest, VY1CO called him giving him his NT multiplier early! He wound up completing the sweep in only four hours! Paul, W6PNG teamed up with Scott, N6MI and Drew N7DA for a multi-multi county expedition to Ventura County using the call W6E. They camped at the 8,000 foot level in the Los Padres National Forest. There, Paul operated from his Jeep equipped with a K3S and KPA500 feeding a HexBeam and OCF. Scott operated from his rover van and Drew bounced between the two stations. Paul wishes he had installed a voice recorder prior to the contest. Instead, he had to "manually" call CQ for twelve hours. He commented that 10m was fantastic and accounted for just over 600 of their QSOs.

Holy moly! On October 6, Marko, N5ZO posted on 3830Scores.com that he had just completed his 995th CWT contest! That's just crazy! By now, I'm sure he has crested the 1,000 plateau!

QST, QST, QST. As in, are you an ARRL member receiving QST Magazine? The November, 2022 issue has a special "Contest Season 2022-2023" supplement in it. The section has some good articles for newcomers and old hands alike. Even the experienced contest ops might benefit from reviewing the articles there. You know? If you are not an ARRL member, you can pick up the November issue at your favorite ham radio store. And don't forget, an ARRL membership comes with a free digital subscription to the National Contest Journal! (Photo clip courtesy QST, Nov, 2022, ARRL)

The organizers of the Visalia International DX Convention have announced the keynote speakers for IDXC 2023. Kenneth Opskar, LA7GIA and Adrian Ciuperca, KO8SCA of the 3Y0J Bouvet 2023 Team will share their story of one of the most anticipated DXpeditions in some time. The pair will be fresh back from their January-February adventure and this will be one of their first opportunities to share their experience. Bouvet is currently the #2 Most Wanted DX Entity on ClubLog.

On October 7, Jeff Clarke, KU8E posted on the CQ-CONTEST reflector that the PJ4G contest station on Bonaire is available for some contests this Fall/Spring contest season. The station can be rented for either an on site operation or operated remotely via BeLoud.US. The CQWW DX contests are already reserved as of his post. See the PJ4G website for more information.

Strange but true...
In 2014, Sony made a cassette tape that can store 185 TB of data!

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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Weclome aboard to new SCCC member Vadim, W6MSN from Valley Village. Vadim was licensed in 2020 and has already entered several contests. He's running a modest station at present and hopes to learn a lot more about contesting.

CQ has published the final results of the 2022 WPX SSB contest. Congrats to Bill, W8QZA who piloted W6QU to 4th place USA in the Single Op All Band QRP category! As of this writing, the results were published in the magazine but not online. They should ultimately appear online here.

The ARRL September VHF contest was a bit of a bust for SCCCers. There was no Es propagation and thus the pickings were slim. Pretty much all contacts were locals or nearby grids worked via Tropo or meteor scatter. The photo to the right is Joe's AA2IL "VHF Command Center" set up inside a shipping container. This was shot just before the rain arrived from Hurricane Kay off the coast of Baja California.


NCJ has published the final results of the September NA Sprint CW. Dan, N6MJ took 4th place overall and logged just TWO band changes! Old school! David, N6AN took 3rd place in the QRP category. Our SCCC #1 team finished fourth in the team category.

NCJ has also published the preliminary results of the September NA Sprint CW contest. They haven't released the Top Ten or Team winners yet but you can glean that for yourself from the prelim results. Dan, N6MJ has the top score for logs with 12 band changes or less (he recorded 18,972 points!).

And, NCJ has also published the prliminary NAQP CW and NAQP SSB results. Marko, N5ZO holds 2nd place in the SOA category in the CW contest.

So how is Cycle 25 doing? Very fine, thank you! While we have had quite a few disturbances caused by solar storms, flares and that sort of thing (which is normal with an "active" sun), we have also been able to enjoy much higher sunspot numbers and solar flux index (SFI). The K7RA Solar Update posted on ARRL.org underlined this fact in its September 16 edition. The average sunspot numbers that week, it said, were 92.7 and the SFI average was 141.3. The article goes on to state that two years ago, there were NO sunspots and the average SFI was 69.7! That issue also predicts good numbers for the CQP and CQWW SSB contests. I think we all have seen great improvement in 15 and 10 meters this year. Let's hope we don't get any solar disturbances that rain on our parade during these two contests!

The WRTC is calling for volunteers. The following came in on the CQ-CONTEST reflector from Claudio Veroli, I4VEQ. The contest is presently schedule to take place during the IARU HF World Championship in 2023.

Call for volunteers at WRTC2022
"Without volunteers there is no WRTC"

A link to the call for volunteers can be found here. Go to Italy and be a WRTC volunteer? This may be right up your alley!

Need 6 dB of gain for the upcoming contest season? Who doesn't?! Click here for yours!

Strange but true...
Ketchup originated in China as a boiled down brine of pickled fish and spices called "ke-chiap.".

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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News came in last last month of the passing of Kurt Andress, K7NV (formerly NI6W and a very active SCCCer at the time). Our condolences to his family. We have lost a good one. See elsewhere here on the website for more.

We had a good turn out for the NAQP CW contest last month. Marko, N5ZO reported that 15m conditions were great. He thinks he worked more on 15 than ever before in an NAQP from his home QTH. 20 was also great he said. He had noisy conditions with QSB on 160-40 meters. Dana, K6NR had generally good conditions. He started on 10 and went to 15 when that slowed down. Joe, AA2IL had a lot of fun and recorded a personal best in the contest despite spending a little too much time S&Ping. David, N6AN was portable at a campsite north of Big Bear Lake. He used the W6AQ call sign. Paul, K6PO/VE7 got on using using a wire run through the trees up there in BC. Dick, W6TK got off to a great start in the contest. He did a lot of band changing chasing good conditions. 80m was a bust though. Sounds like everyone had a great time.

I'd like to see more of you sign up for SCCC teams during these contests. It really doesn't matter whether you plan to operate full time or part time. Even if you can't be sure that you will be on but are hoping to be, do sign up. I'll get you on a team. The more teams, the better. In some of these contests, we have more people not signed up but submitting scores than signed up for a team. Please consider joining our team efforts going forward.





Tim Shoppa, N3QE of CQ Magazine posted this "Updated CQ COntest Policy Relating to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine" on August 31. Click on the thumbnail to the right to enlarge. You may also need to zoom further to enlarge the image.










Just a reminder that we are always looking for your station pictures, antenna pics and award pictures/scans. Also pictures of any expeditions or multi-ops. These are always a lot of fun for everyone to see. So send them in and we'll get them posted. (Note: CQP is coming next month. Have you received a CQP certificate and/or bottle of wine over the years? Send a picture!)





This flyer was published in the summer edition of the NCDXF newsletter. It pertains to the 2023 International DX Convention, which as you probably know, caters to both DXers AND contesters. Click on the thumbnail to the left to view the flyer. The IDXC is currently a go as an in person gathering!





News and happenings have been pretty thin this summer. So, I thought I would share this fun little non-ham related video. This is a vintage video clip showing Sony manufacturing plants and products in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As hams, most of us are pretty serious techies so we can appreciate this stuff. In fact, you may even recognize some of the products, despite their vintage. I do too. At 1:29 minutes in, a shot of an early Sony Trinitron TV brought back memories for me. That particular Trinitron was widely used as a studio monitor at my place of employement back in the day. It's resolution and color reproduction were unmatched at that time. Check out this 11 1/2 minute video and enjoy the trip back in time. Click here and enjoy!

Strange but true...
In 2005, a fortune cookie company called Wonton Food Inc. correctly foretold lottery numbers, resulting in 110 winners and an investigation. No fraud was found to be involved.

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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Kurt up a tower in 1984 (photo from his Facebook page)





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The IARU HF World Championship occurred July 9 and 10, and was popular with SCCCers. For Paul, W8GJK, it was his first time in this one and he really enjoyed it. He had his new Hexbeam up and that really improved his S&P results. Bruce, WA7BNM used his newly acquired Elecraft K4D for the first time. He reported that its CESSB capability seemed to provide more talk power on SSB. His highlight of the contest was working South Africa long path on phone. Don, NK6A reported that 20 meters was open all day and through the night. Dana, K6NR was able to put in ten hours despite visitors and general fatigue. He had some good conditions into Asia Saturday morning and so-so into Europe a bit later on 20. He had pretty good conditions into EU on 15. 10 meters was a bust for him. Unfortunately, he had bad QRN to the northwest in the afternoon. Bill, W8QZA (W6QU) had terrible conditions the first half of the contest but 20 opened up after dinner and he worked Europe until almost midnight. He never heard any workable stations on 80. (He was of course QRP as always.)

Joe, AA2IL got sucked in. He didn't plan to get into the contest but turned on the rig in the early afternoon to see if there was anything interesting going on. The next thing he knew, it was 3 am! One of next year's WRTC ops, Marko, N5ZO (as NT6Q) recorded his personal best in this contest, posting a 1.7 million point score! He made 25 less QSOs but 28 more mults and a somewhat better point per QSO ratio. 15 meters was much better this year than last for him. He said it was great to have the problem of 40, 20 and 15 meters open at the same time for many hours. Early Saturday afternoon during lunch, he told his wife that conditions were poor. Then at dinner, he told her the bands were hot and he needed to eat at the radio! He says he enjoys the live contest scoreboard to keep things interesting. Jim, W6KC (W6ML) was operating portable at Mammoth Lakes. He said that 15 and 20 were great on Saturday night. He made most of his DX contacts between 0400 and 0600 UTC. Mike, W4EF was using the call NI6W. He got off to a slow start (still reeling from a COVID booster earlier in the week). 20 meters was disappointing during the day but improved immensely that night. The next morning on 40, he had a nice run of JAs answering his CQs (running a dipole at 45 feet). Glenn, K6NA had bad QRM on 80 and 160, and essentially no prop on 10. That said, he still recorded a total of 1,392 QSOs!

Dean Wood, N6DE reminds us that the California QSO Party is coming soon. The largest state QSO Party of them all is October 1 and 2 this year. Dean says:

1. Please indicate your CQP 2022 operating plans at: https://www.cqp.org/register.html

2. Review 2022 rules and awards changes at: https://cqp.org/pdf/cqp2022_changes_summary.pdf

3. CA County activation plans are updated every 24 hours on the County Tracker page: https://www.cqp.org/tracker.html

4. The CQP web page has been updated for 2022. If you still see stale 2021 pages when you visit different tabs on cqp.org, you need to hard refresh your browser's cache. Try Control F5 with Windows browsers when on various cqp.org pages. https://fabricdigital.co.nz/blog/how-to-hard-refresh-your-browser-and-clear-cache

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For those of you that enjoy the non-RTTY digital modes, the WSJT-X team has released v.2.6.0-rc2 (release candidate 2, a beta version). In my experience, it has been rare to experience trouble with the beta versions but to be safe, I recommend installing all new WSJT-X versions in their own separate folder. Create yourself a new shortcut for the new version on your desktop or taskbar. You will not need to change or update configurations and your existing WSTJ-X log and all.txt files will remain in tact. That way, you can easily switch back to the last good, working version on your PC if you run into trouble with the new version. When the time comes, you can delete the old version and the old betas. Release notes can be found here and the new release candidate can be found here.

Strange but true...
According to The K7RA Solar Update posted at ARRL.org on July 8, "Unlike here on Earth, the sun's eastern horizon is on the left."

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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The WPX CW contest took place at the end of May. Conditions were reported to be somewhat disappointing but it sounds like everyone had fun. Jerry, N6RV had just a few hours to play and said conditions tanked on Sunday. Paul, W8GJK did S&P only and feels like he recharged his CW muscles. Frank WA6KHK was very happy with his score of 1M+. He's been hamming 62 years now. Bill W6QU (@W8QZA) felt conditions were good other than Saturday morning. He was QRP and recorded his highest score since 2018. He logged 64 Europeans! Paul, K6PO ran high power for the first time and liked the extra dBs. Unfortunately, conditions weren't particularly good for him. Steve, AC6T did a remote shake out of the UCSB W6RFU station. Jim, N6TJ was part of the NH7T M/M effort and the team has reportedly broken the Oceania M/M record in this contest.

Ken, K6LA was at his VY2TT station. He had some rotator troubles but reported this was his first time using two K4 radios. He is really enjoying them. Perhaps not surprisingly given the current Russia-Ukraine situation, he worked only three Russians (which count for zero points and zero mults). Terry, N6CW used the NA6TT call at the K6NA station. He said that 20 meters was "wild and crazy." It stayed open until 11 pm Saturday night. Bruce, WA7BNM found conditions to be very poor (he was SOSB 10m hoping to complete his WAS on 10). He operated Saturday only. Dana, K6NR reported lots of activity and decent conditions. He found 20m open to Europe and other parts of the world during a large part of the contest. 10m was mostly South America. Marko, N5ZO (as NT6Q)said conditions on Sunday were miserable. Fortunately, his strategy of operating the first 24 hours paid off in that regard.

Last month we mentioned that Dan, N6MJ had piloted TI7W to the top spot SOHP in last November's CQWW DX CW contest and that he averaged 236 Q's per hour, including an astounding 464 hour! Now you can hear that hour for yourself by clicking here.

The following came in from Tim, K3LR ("For the Contest Hotel Committee" at the Dayton Hamvention) via the CQ-Contest reflector. Note though that the rooms could already be taken...they do go quickly!

Attention Contesters and DXers!
Room reservations will be taken by the Hope Hotel for Hamvention week 2023 starting on Monday, June 6, 2022 at 9 AM EDT. Do not call them before that time. You can get room reservations by phone only. If you try to book on line you will see that there are no rooms for those dates. Every room in the Hope Hotel has been blocked for Contesters and DXers for Hamvention week.
Starting Monday June 6, 2022 at 9 AM EDT, you can call 937-879-2696 and ask for a reservation in the Contest University 2023 room block. There is no minimum night commitment. The room rate is $145 per night plus tax and that includes a hot buffet breakfast each day of your stay. The room rate is the same for a single queen, two queens or a single king with a pull out.
Good details are here:
http://contestsupersuite.com

Tim also published the link to the 2022 Contest University files. Click here to check them out.

And Bob, N6TV has published his photos from this years Dayton convention. Pictures from the Contest Dinner are here and photos from Contest University can be found here.

We have learned that Vibroplex has become the new USA and Canada distributor and service company for SPE Expert Linears. Bob, W5UQ is retiring and sold the SPE business to Vibroplex. The Expert Linears web site will remain up until further notice according to word on the street. Old timers may remember when Vibroplex was that little old company that made (excellent) bugs and straight keys. They've come a long way since then, baby!

The notice below came in from Claudio, I4VEQ regarding site sponsorships for WRTC (to be held in July, 2023).

"WRTC 2022 Announces Site Sponsorships

In July, 2023, elite amateur radio competitors from every corner of the world will gather in northern Italy to compare their skills on an even playing field in what has become known as the “Olympics” of amateur radio competitive events, the World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC 2022). The competing teams will operate from sites in Bologna area, and the Organizing Committee for WRTC 2022 is seeking site sponsors to help provide suitable facilities for each team. Site Sponsorships will help cover the cost of all items needed at each of the 65 operating sites.

Since WRTC 2014, site sponsorships have provided a means to recognize clubs, “silent keys”, and other supporters. Each site will be prominently identified during the competition as sponsored by the club or group, in memory of a silent key, or otherwise as designated by the sponsor. Requests to sponsor the site for a specific team or winners of a specific geographic region (such as “NA1”) will be honored on a first-come basis, so committing to sponsor a site as soon as possible will increase chances that your specific request can be honored.

Site sponsorships also will be acknowledged by WRTC 2022 in printed, web, and video materials in addition to being displayed prominently at the station location. Multiple sites can be sponsored, and special recognition will be given to the club, group, or individual that sponsors the most sites. Clubs from all over the world showed their significant commitment to the WRTC idea with a site sponsorship donation in 2014 in New England and 2018 in Germany. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the WRTC 2022 committee has been unable to solicit support in person, so your expression of support through tent sponsorships is especially needed now.

Site sponsorships are available immediately to clubs, groups, and individuals for 1200 Euros.

Please refer to our list of geographic competitive areas to sponsor a tent for your local area (see Section 3 of the Rules here:
https://www.wrtc2022.it/en/site-sponsorship-21.asp.

SCCC is the official sponsor of the NA9 site that will be used by KI6RRN and N5ZO. The sponsorship fee was funded by the generous donations of K0XP, K6AM, K6LA, K6LL, K6NA, K6NR, K6PO, K6ZH, N6AN, N6CW, N6NC, N6VOH, N6ZFO, NE6I, VE4EA, W4EF, W6TK, W7IV and WA7BNM.

Claudio also sent the following notice calling for referees at the next WRTC in Italy.

Want to be a referee at next WRTC in Italy, July 2023?

After having published the list of TL and TM qualified at WRTC2022 it is now time for the referees.

A referee will be on site at each of the 65 competing stations to verify compliance with the rules and make decisions on any rule questions by the teams. Referees require excellent knowledge of CW, and SSB skills, as well as the ability to stay awake for the entire duration of the test (24 hours). Referees must know and apply the WRTC2022 rules when they are published.

If you want to participate in the next WRTC as a referee, find the online application HERE or visit www.wrtc2022.it Competition --> Referees

1) fill in and submit your application form
AND
2) send an email to referees@wrtc2022.it with your CV (max 1000 char) and a close-up photo (JPEG, GIF, BMP,PNG Max 500KB)

Please submit your application no later than 2359 UTC 10 July 2022

The selected referees will receive a further confirmation.

73 de
WRTC2022 Organizing Committee

This one is not contest related but is a fun read and I thought everyone might enjoy it. The article starts out with the comment that "With all the changes and advancements in technology, it is remarkable to see one particular hobby last more than 100 years even in times of trouble. That’s amateur radio." One cannot argue that point, for sure! Check it out Ham radio operators: A long-lasting technology

Strange but true...
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. The stripes are like human fingerprints in that no two tigers have the same pattern.

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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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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