The warm up for CQWW DX CW was pretty amazing on Thanksgiving Day. Normally, I have a house full of people here and am busy in the kitchen as the head cook. This year was different. Most of my family was out of state, and the rest were out of town. I was home alone. You know what that means. HAM RADIO! I could see the slow build up of DX on the bands earlier in the week but Thursday was amazing. Contesters were busy warming up, testing their stations and checking propagation all day. The bands were lit up despite a meager SFI of 69. There was choice DX operated by experienced contesters on everything from 20 meters through 160, with a few racking up QSOs on 17 and 15. I might have to invite the family to go out of state again next year! I didn't realize what I had been missing!

Last month we talked a little about the young guns from SCCC operating at ZF1A. Elsewhere, there is another batch of youngsters that are starting to make some noise. Team Exuberance, as they are known, are out to prove that contesting is not just for us older guys and gals. Violetta (KM4ATT), Bryant (KG5HVO), David (VE7DZO), Chris (KD8YVJ), Dhruv (KC9ZJX), Marty (KC1CWF) and possibly Mason (KM4SII) are going to be traveling with their parents to the K3LR super station in Pennsylvania to operate the CQ WPX SSB contest in late March. You've probably already worked some of these kids in recent contests. They are very active. Some have already had the good fortune of operating from some other big MM stations. These 14, 15 and 16 year olds are coming on strong. To help pay for their trip to PA, they have established a GoFundMe page with a goal of raising $5,000. As of early December, generous contesters have already donated about $3,000! I know that several of you have already donated. All funds will be used for transportation, hotels, meals and other trip expenses. If you'd like to help support these youngsters, visit Team Exuberance. And if you'd like to read about their excitement around contesting, look up their calls on QRZ.com.

John, KK9A posted on the CQ-Contest reflector last month about a video he had found on YouTube. It's the story of the N2AA MM operation in CQWW DX Phone at the K2GL super station back in about 1981. Their main competition? The famous W2PV MM group! It's a fascinating story, dating back to a time well before computers became a fixture in our ham stations. The video is posted elsewhere here on our web site. Enjoy...

A fascinating discussion about radios and microphones for SSB contesting also took place in November on that reflector. Once upon a recent time, good quality boom mic headsets were few and far between, and contesters generally settled on the one or two models out there. Nowadays, the selection is larger. And some say that even inexpensive headsets work well with modern transceivers that now have microphone equalization capabilities. I hadn't thought about that but it makes perfect sense. We all want a headset that is very comfortable. And it has to still be comfortable some 48 hours later (for those super long contests, right?). That is first and foremost but a very close second is one with contesting friendly transmit audio. Some have options to tailor the frequency response across one or more settings. However, modern rigs allow even more customization. There is a whole discussion about rolling off low frequencies and focusing transmit power on somewhat higher audio frequencies. There is some thought that doing so provides more punch and more output power in the desired audio range. I'll leave that to others to debate. Me personally, I am attracted to a more rounded sounding caller than one who has radically rolled off the lows. It's easier for me to pick out someone with well rounded audio in a pileup than one leaning toward tinny. Each to their own of course. That aside, the discussion on CQ-Contest has been interesting. In case you missed it, you can find it in their archives. I would love to hear from SCCCers on this subject on our reflector. To start the discussion, I have a Heil Pro-Set Plus and have really liked it over the years. I haven't fooled around with my rig's mic EQ yet but it might be time to do so! What about you?

Did you ever think you would see an FCC Chairman on a tower? In August, Chairman Ajit Pai (center) climbed to the top of a 130 foot cell phone tower near De Beque, CO. Naturally, he donned the appropriate safety gear. The self supporting tower is located off I-70 between Aspen and Grand Junction. “The Chairman’s site visit served to reinforce the prominent role communications tower owners, contractors and technicians continue to play in enabling connectivity to all sectors of our diverse economy,” stated David Sams, Vice President of Risk Management at SBA Communications. Republican Representative (TX) Pete Olson had recently asked Pai when he was going to climb a tower, reminding him that his colleague, Commissioner Brendan Carr had now scaled two towers. Mr. Pai joked that he might climb a 10 ft. tower, noting Carr's youth and fitness. (Carr had previously climbed a 2,000 ft. tower in Rowena, SD.) He later committed to climbing the 130 footer.

“It was an honor to have FCC Chairman Ajit Pai join us today at one of our company’s towers in Colorado,” said David Sams. “The Chairman’s site visit served to reinforce the prominent role communications tower owners, contractors and technicians continue to play in enabling connectivity to all sectors of our diverse economy.”


BIC. The acronym is well known by contesters. Billing Item Code? No. Barring Incoming Calls? No, but if we can figure out how to do so for the many robocallers, then YES! Best In Class. Well yeah, maybe, huh? Because I Can. Definitely! But none of those are what us contesters know BIC as. We know it as Butt in Chair. It has to do with being at the operating position as long as possible. If you aren't there, you aren't working the other guys. A good debate took place on the CQ-CONTEST reflector recently on operating chairs. As is often the case on that particular reflector, there were dozens of personal opinions. Some I agreed with and some I didn't. In the case of an operating chair in the shack, we need to find one that meets OUR needs. Comfortable. Not just initially when we sit down but after hours and hours of contesting. Sometimes we sit in that chair for a full 48 hours, or close to it. In such case, it had better be darned comfortable and not be killing our backs hours into it. High back, short back or medium back? Arm rests or no arm rests. These are personal preferences. As is the material. Leather? Faux leather? Cloth? While it's very interesting to hear and read about all of the personal opinions, only YOU can determine which chair fits the bill for you. I would only add this. Don't skimp on your chair. And don't hang onto an old chair that once was your favorite but is now causing some discomfort. We spend a good deal of money on our radios and on our antennas. We should never settle for a chair just because it was an incredible bargain. If you get a quality chair and one that is right for you, it will add to and prolong your enjoyment of the hobby. And you won't limp out of the ham shack after a few hours chasing contest Q's. Get a good one. BYC. Because You Can.

Strange but true...
You may be surprised to learn that a Boeing 747 jet is longer from wing tip to wing tip than the distance of the Wright Brothers' first airplane flight!

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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You may not have heard but a group of young (compared to me anyway!) contesters, including some from the SCCC, headed to Cayman Islands in late October to operate the CQWW DX SSB contest as ZF1A. The group included N6MJ, KK6NON, KI6RRN, KI6SMX (KI6RRN's brother), N6WIN and JH1NBN. It's great to see some of the younger contesters getting to operate from the other side of the pile in such a large contest. For those that don't subscribe to the SCCC Reflector nor watch the comments on 3830scores.org, what follows is Dan N6MJ's comments on the experience.

A big thank you to Andrew, ZF1EJ, and CARS for allowing us to operate the contest from his home QTH on the beautiful island of Grand Cayman.

Originally Yuki, JH1NBN, was going to operate this contest as a M/S with Joe W6VNR. Joe did this contest from ZF for many years. Unfortunately Joe passed away earlier this year. He will be missed. I reached out to Yuki to see if he would like to team up with us and he was kind enough to allow us to join him. As we started to form the team, we decided to do a M/2 so we could invite some of the younger members of the club. Axel KI6RRN, Adams KI6SMX and Levi KK6NON are all low 20's or younger and were a big part of the team. It was nice to be able to involve some of the younger operators and give them a chance to operate from the DX side.

This was our first time operating from ZF1A as a M/2 in CQWW SSB. Most everyone was here for the first time. There was a ton of work to get done before the contest started. Luckily most of the operators were able to arrive either on Monday or Tuesday before the contest to get everything done. John K6AM wasn't able to join us onsite but he was on call as our technical advisor. He helped design the station layout and was able to walk us thru all the problems we encountered.

We were very fortunate to be sponsored by Icom. We were able to operate with 3 IC 7610's and everything worked great even in the tough multi op setting. In addition to that, Vibroplex allowed us to use the new Inrad W1 headsets for the contest. The headsets were a big hit and everyone was happy with their performance.

The biggest project was building and installing a C31XR that N6WIN donated to the station. It took many long hours but we finally had it up and running Friday morning. One of our team mates, Scott K7ZO, was unable to make it at the last minute. Fortunately he was still a valuable asset to the team and without his input we wouldn't have been able to get everything done. Hopefully he will be able to join us next year.

Conditions were great leading up to the contest. Some of that carried over to the contest, but 10m was mostly dead other than a short opening on Saturday. On Sunday, 15m was a real struggle until the afternoon when it finally opened all the way.

We hope to be able to come back again next year as everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves.

Thanks to everybody for the QSO's.

73,
Dan N6MJ

I reported some of this in the May issue but missed some pieces of the puzzle, so I'll restate it all again this month and try not to leave out any gaps. Congratulations to Wayne, N6NB who won the Classic Rover category in the ARRL January VHF Contest! Wayne visited 10 grids and operated on 11 bands. The ARRL writeup notes that he used FT8, which is unusual for a rover (yes, he used other modes as well). Also, congrats to John, K6MI who took the win in the Unlimited Rover category! John did 11 bands from 10 grids. Meanwhile, Bruce, KG6IYN set a new Single OP FM record in the Southwestern Divistion with a score of 8,172 by making 156 contacts on all four contest bands. Greg, W6IT set a new Single Op Low Power record in the Division with 31,196 points on all bands from 50 MHz to 10 GHz! And ahem, the SCCC took the Medium Club category this time around despite only five entrants! Our 563,408 score bested PVRC's 406,783. Great job! (We need to get more of you to use that 6 meter position on your band switch! And maybe some other bands...) The full contest write up can be found here.

The ARRL Contest Branch has announced that FT8 will be permitted in the 2019 ARRL RTTY Roundup. The next edition of this contest is in January. “Even though digital modes other than RTTY have been permitted in the RTTY Roundup for 30 years, FT8 was excluded in 2018, because it could not manage the required exchanges,” ARRL Contest Branch Manager Bart Jahnke, W9JJ, said. “Through the work of the WSJT-X development team, the latest version of FT8 can handle the necessary exchanges that earlier versions were unable to do.” WSJT-X version 2.0 or later is required. Note that if you are currently running an earlier version, newer versions can be installed in their own folder and run separately without conflict of your older version. Just don't try to run them both at the same time. Full article is here on the web site. Be sure to pay attention to the DG versus RY mode designation in Cabrillo logs in the article.

From the SCDXC newsletter (October, 2018), Joe, K5KT was awarded lifetime membership into the South East LA Amateur Radio Club. That's LA as in Louisiana. The club is located near Joe's hometown of Hammond, LA. As we know, Joe has been an active contester from SoCal for many years.

The Visalia DX Convention attracts many of the top contesters and DXers from around the world, including many SCCCers.
2018 was no exception.
The full array of photos can be found here.
Photos courtesy N6TV




Strange but true...
Ever wonder why blue jeans are blue? When they were first designed by Levi Strauss, the people most likely to wear them were those who did a great deal of manual labor. Strauss rightly assumed the work was likely to be dirty, so he dyed his new trousers indigo to help hide stains.

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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The 2018 CQWW 160 meter contest results have also come out. By all accounts, it was pretty tough slogging this year. Glenn, K6NA took third place on CW in Zone 3. Alex, W6AFA finished sixth in Zone 3 on SSB. SCCC posted just under 1.6 million points with 17 entries.




Another blast from the past. This is the HQ3Z QSL from the 2008 CQWW DX Phone contest. The operation included Marty N6VI, Dick N6AA, Wild Bill Wiederhold WB6BFG, and Art W6XD. Arlen K6VNX is the QSL manager for this operation.






Just before the September NA Sprint CW, K6NA contacted me to join a team but told me he was going to be operating with a "hobo-setup." He explained that a pipe had burst under the sink. Naturally, that happened while they were away for a five hour outing. They had to remove everything in the house as well as the ham shack to let things dry out. So Glenn had set up a "hobo" station in his 95 degree garage. He is used to a much more advanced set up, so I could feel his pain as he explained, "I have manual antenna switching only, 100ft away from the op position. Most of my convenience details can't be used, except at least I have PC logging. Also I have an amp that works, BUT no station ground and no time to check for 'new' RFI, so things could fall apart in a hurry if some kind of RFI problem rears up."

His 3830/SCCC reflector summary explains the "hobo" contest experience. "Shack is fully dismantled for remodeling the house. Wanted to participate in Sprint, so extended some feedlines into the garage. No amp, so set up Low Power FT5000 and a folding chair, in the 101-degree heat. PC logging ok, but no other automatic-anything-else, or conveniences like selecting different antennas within a band. Of course, typical K6NA scramble and late start; first QSO logged at 0051z - duh. Sorry for the clunky exchanges at first, hadn't checked my function-key file - another duh. New respect for the LP and QRP guys who slug it out in Sprint: My CQs were mostly lost in the QRM. Settled mostly on S&P in order to work couplets on a channel, but lost out during many of the jump-balls. Band conditions? Very well described by many others; no need to repeat here. 73, Glen K6NA"

Hats off to Glenn for recording 188 Q's, 39 mults, and 7,322 points under seriously adverse conditions! The rest of us no longer have any excuse!

There was an article in the September/October 2018 issue of the National Contest Journal that I found very eye opening. It's titled "Radiosport 2.0: Predictions About the Future of Radio Contesting." No, it's not another article bemoaning the dearth of young contesters. It's a summary of a talk held at the VIsalia International DX Convention. K3LR, AI6TK, K6WX, W5ZN, K6TD and N9ADG talked about their predictions for the future of contesting. The article's author, K0MD described them as both exciting and disruptive! Things such as mandatory real time online logs, a contest category where a single operator is managing up to five computer/radio combinations at the same time, awards and merit badges that measure personal progress (to encourage the casual contesters to get more active), WRTC having operators switch stations virtually every ten minutes to level the playing field even more and several other interesting thoughts. Get your hands on a copy of this issue if you haven't already. As a bonus, there is an article about some US contesters evaluating their transceivers. I found that one particularly interesting as well.


I'm a little late with this but it has just come to my attention that Kip Edwards, W6SZN passed away this past June. Kip was an active contester and DXer. He is a past President of NCCC, past Director of NCDXF and past Secretary of the Yasme Foundation. He was also a regular financial supporter of DXpeditions. You'd often find his call on that list for many a rare one. His call appears in the list for the upcoming VP6D DXpeditons for example. Many of us will find his call regularly in our contest logs too. Bottom line, Kip is one that enjoyed our hobby to the fullest and gave back regularly. Our condolences to Kip's family for their loss. We in the amateur radio will miss him too.



The annual Six Meter BBQ was held September 21 and 22 in Austin, TX. There are always some interesting presentations for 6 meter enthusiasts. This year, there was also an informative one on grounding and bonding that applies to HF as well as VHF/UHF stations. It's well worth the read. Find all of the 2018 and 2017 presentations in PDF format here.




The California QSO Party is coming October 6-7. Last year, we as a club took first place in the Medium Club category (34 entries) and earned a plaque! Really, we should be able to win this every year! Right? Let's get on and rock it again this year! We are the DX in this contest! Rules can be found at CQP.org.







73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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The following was published in the Ohio/Penn DX Bulleting (No. 1378) on 27 Aug 2018.

YASME PRESS RELEASE (dated August 21st). THE YASME FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES ELECTION OF A NEW DIRECTOR -- The Board of Directors of The Yasme Foundation is pleased to announce that it has elected Marty Woll, N6VI, as the newest Yasme Foundation Director. Marty brings a wealth of experience in ham radio including nine years of service as Vice-Director for the ARRL South- western Division and Life Member of ARRL, past president of the Southern California DX Club, past president of the Los Angeles Area Council of Radio Clubs, past chair of the ARRL’s Contest Advisory Committee, and founding member of the Southern California Contest Club. Marty is also active in public service as Training Officer for the Los Angeles Fire Department's Auxiliary Communications Service. He authored a chapter of the ARRL's Introduction to Emergency Communications course and is a popular speaker at clubs and conventions.

While on the subject of announcements, John Dorr K1AR announced on August 28 that Ken K4ZW decided to step down as czar of the popular Contest Webinars sponsored by WWROF (World Wide Radio Operators Foundation). Former SCCCer Mark Beckwitch N5OT (ex WA6OTU) will be taking over for Ken. Mark was first licensed in 1971 as WN6OTU. He has been both a successful single-operator at HC8U, K6RR, W6AQ, W8JI, W6UE and his own contest station, and a multi-operator team member at such stations as HC8N, PJ2T, TI5N and PJ4R. In addition to his ham radio pursuits, Mark is also a free-lance choir director, orchestra conductor and stage director. Needless to say, the Webinar program will be in capable hands.

NEW this month is the SCCC Monthly Poll. Be sure to visit it on our home page (just above the link to the monthly news) each month. Should be fun to see the results! It is totally anonymous.

Other preliminary contest results...The August 2018 NAQP CW. Our SCCC #1 team placed #4 in the team results! N5ZO is atop in the sixth district and KI6RRN is fourth. N6WIN, K6NR and W6TK also appear in the top ten in California. Awesome showing!

Tim Duffy, K3LR has posted some papers from the Antenna Forum at the 2018 Daytom Hamvention. A five element parasitic rotatable vertical yagi for 160 meters?! I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it! Plus three other articles. He also has others dating back to 2004 on the web site. A PDF reader is required.

The authors of WSJT-X software are busy working on Version 2.0, and it has some nice enhancements to FT8 and MSK144 for contesters. It's amazing how quickly this software is evolving and improving. Read up on what is in store at the WSJT-X web site.

"Back in the day," 4U1UN, the United Nations Amateur Radio Club headquartered in New York City was often heard in DX contests. They were an easy snag for USA contesters and DXers alike. However, the station has been mostly silent for many, many years. Their QRZ web page mentions a weekend operation in October of 2015 as 4U70UN. W6ISQ wrote an article that appeared in the July 1989 issue of QST that is pretty interesting. 4U1UN is now #34 on the DXCC Most Wanted List. Let's hope 4U1UN returns to the air soon and provides many contest QSOs and helps fill in some DXCC slots. (Rumor has it the station was on very briefly last month doing some on air testing.)

Yaesu was set to announce a 200 watt version of its upcoming 101 transceiver at the Tokyo Hamvention in late August, billed as the FT-101MP. The two SDRs will be otherwise similar, rumor has it, with features such as:
9MHz IF Roofing Filter Producing Excellent Shape Factor
400MHz HRDDS (High Resolution Direct Digital Synthesizer)
Hybrid SDR: Direct Sampling & NBW (Narrow Bandwidth) SDR
Completely Independent Dual Receivers
High-Q VC Tuning Front-End
YAESU Renowned Interference Reduction System
Large Touch-Panel Precision Color Display
3DSS (Three Dimension Spectrum Stream) Waterfall Display
Active Band Indicator with LED illumination of the operating band, enables rapid band changes
MPVD (Multi-Purpose VFO Outer Dial) provides Sub VFO dial, Clarifier operation. VC-TUNE adjustment, VFO fine tuning or a CS (custoin selection) funiction




A blast from the past...
This is the JY7Z QSL (above) from the 1986 CQWW DX Phone contest. Among the group of operators were Dick N6AA, Phil N6ZZ (SK), Jim N6TJ, Terry W6MKB (now K6JL) and Marty N6VI. Others were JY3ZH, JY4MB, JY4YJ and W6NV.
Special thanks to Arlen K6VNX for providing the QSL for publication.
Have you ever sampled any of the many amateur radio Podcasts? It seems that the number of Podcasters is growing by the month. These Podcasts cover any number of interesting subjects, including contesting of course! For example, Eric, 4Z1UG has had many distinguished contesters on his Podcast "QSO Today"). There are many other podcasts as well. 100 Watts And A Wire, Ham Talk Live!, and ARRL's The Doctor Is In are just a few of the many Podcasts out there. Some have more contesting subject matter / guests than others but they all offer some interesting subject matter. You can access these through your smart phone, tablet, or computer free of charge. They are typically available via iTunes, the Google Playstore and/or other sources. And by the way, since I mentioned K3LR above, I should mention that that he was on QSO Today episode 038. It was a good one! If you haven't checked out Podcasts yet, you're missing some interesting stuff! I find it to be a great alternative to morning talk shows on FM radio during my drive to and from the office every day.

Are you subscribed to the SCCC Reflector? If not, why not?! It's a good source of information; a good place to ask questions; a good place to talk about contesting; a good place to be! Reflector posts come to the email address that you sign up with, and can be configured to come one at a time or in a daily digest. Frankly, we don't get so much traffic that the daily digest is necessary in my opinion but you may feel otherwise. To get yourself subscribed, click on this link.

Need to get your contest fix during a non-major contest weekend?! Don't we all?! As I write this on the last weekend of August, there are ten contests going on. Four are stateside QSO Parties, always good for some rate as well as good S&P practice. Hit our QSO Party button on this page or check out Bruce's WA7BNM Contest Calendar to get your contest fix.

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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In the February NAQP RTTY contest, SCCC #1 placed 9th overall. KI6RRN, K6PO, WN6K and KA6WKE logged 172,932 points. KI6RRN finished in 9th place with 101,908 points!

In the February NA Sprint CW, SCCC #1 finished 4th, scoring 56,005 points! It was N6WIN, N6AA, N5ZO, K6LA and AC6T driving the bus on that team. SCCC #2 (K6AW, K6PO, W4EF and NE6I) finished 16th with 21,702 points. Tim, N6WIN finished 3rd in California posting 13,156 points. 20 meters was only open a short time for this one, so 40 and 80 were the money bands. Good show, guys! Some good scores in the results!

In the January NAQP CW, KI6RRN operating at K6NA and using Glenn's call took 4th place overall with 318,886 points! N5ZO was right behind him, finishing 5th with 303,580 points! K6LA finished 4th in California at 185,444. The SCCC #2 team placed 11th overall with 769,102 points. SCCC #1 was 13th 737,513 (only 4 of 5 members submitted logs).

KI6RRN placed 5th in the 2018 CQWW WPX RTTY contest in the USA all band low power category. SCCC had 19 entries and 3,3333,848 points.

Axel also placed 7th in the 2018 ARRL RTTY Roundup in the single op low power category (and tops in W6). K6LL took top honors in the single op unlimited high power category! N6ZFO placed 8th in W6 in the all band high power category. The club had 8 entrants and 212,805 points.

Conditions have definitely left something to be desired so far this year, so all of these scores are especially impressive.

Contest University has published many of the videos from the 2018 sessions. You can find them on their web site at www.contestuniversity.com

On a humorous note, we ran off on a Palm Springs getaway during the CQWW VHF Contest weekend (July 21-22). I figured I'd slip in a few afternoon QSOs when we got home Sunday so I turned the rig on Thursday night to see how the band was doing. Ugh! Receive was fine but there was no transmit audio using WSJT-X! It was working a few days earlier so I started checking my settings and cables. Nothing seemed to cure it. I only had a couple of hours Friday morning to troubleshoot before heading out on the trip with the XYL. I frantically tried this and tried that between packing my bag and loading the truck. Nothing seemed to work. I normally run a Rigblaster so I tried using the internal PC sound card and listened for audio on the output jack of that card. VOILA! I had audio there. Could the Rigblaster have gone south on me? Sure seemed like it. I rebooted it and double checked the cable connections. Nada. I tried reloading the driver for it but that didn't work either. Drat. And now I was out of time. I powered everything down and headed out for a weekend of sun, pool time and adult beverages. I returned Sunday to a parched yard (heat wave in SoCal ramping up!). After watering the thirsty lawn and plants and unpacking from the trip, I sat down at the computer to update the SCCC web page with the NAQP RTTY results. Then I turned on the rig and opened WSJT-X. I changed the settings back from the internal PC sound card to the Rigblaster. And VOILA! All was working again! Who knows what gave there but I was pretty darned happy! Maybe the cat got bored, did some troubleshooting in my radio room, and fixed the problem. I dunno, but I'm not going to complain! I clicked the NA VHF Contest box in the software (thanks for the reminder from N6GP on the SCCC reflector!) and started CQing. In short oder, N6QQ answered. We did the contest exchange and I logged the QSO. This at 2135Z. As I started CQing again, I checked WA7BNM's Contest Calendar to look up the contest. Double Drat! The contest had ended 35 minutes earlier at 2100Z! Oh well, at least the software was working again...

Speaking of VHF contests, there has been much discussion on various reflectors, forums and in the mags lately about FT8 usurping VHF activity, especially on 6 meters. While much slower than CW and SSB, the mode allows for QSOs up to -24 dB S/N! That gives it a distinct advantage over the other two modes from a signal level standpoint. This has driven an amazing increase in activity on all bands, 6 meters included. Many have lamented that most contesters are no longer bothering to tune CW and SSB portions of the band, or at least spending very little time there. It's probably not hard to understand why. Contesting is about making QSOs at the highest rate possible. While no one would argue that FT8 is slower than CW and SSB, no one would argue that FT8 has a distinct signal level advantage. And many (most? all?) of the little pistols and casual contesters are spending most of the contest on FT8. So where do the serious contesters go? To where the QSOs are of course. And right now on VHF, that's FT8 (and to a lesser extent, MSK144). That said, it might be a good thing if we agreed to check the CW and SSB portion of the band at some point every hour. I'm mostly talking about 6 meters here but this applies to the higher frequency bands as well. Perhaps at the 30 minute mark. This strategy has been used with great success on other bands long before FT8 came along. In SoCal, we used to tune a narrow segment of 10m during down years of the sunspot cycle and work each other fast and furiously. We've also done this in CQP years ago, tuning 40 and 80 meters during the day at a pre-determined time when propagation was very short on those bands. We were able to log dozens of "local" contacts that we would never had logged at night, or that would have just "got in the way" of working longer distances. So this technique is not unprecedented. Give it some thought and talk it up on the SCCC reflector. It's a very healthy discussion with FT8 storming the bands and contesters figuring out how to leverage it while balancing it with the legacy modes.

By the way, the developers of WSJT-X are working hard on version 2.0, currently expected to be released in mid to late September. The new version addresses some VHF contest issues currently being experienced. For example, if only one of the users in a VHF contest QSO has the "NA VHF Contest" box checked, exchanges do not work properly. Additionally, rovers (who of course need to append /R to their callsign) have had trouble running FT8 and MSK144. By increasing the number of bits from 72 to 77 in the transmission, the developers are able to cure both ills. And there are other benefits anticipated. You can read more about this at this site.

Parting shot.
You probably won't be surprised to learn that it was Albert Einstein who made the following sage observation: "A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it."

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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The ARRL June VHF Contest was held June 9-11. June is typically has the best Sporadic-E propagation of the year. The new FT8 mode played prominently last year, and was used heavily again this year. MSK144 (meteor scatter) was a good place to be during times of no SpE and having worked all of the locals on ground wave. Known operations were N6GP/r roving through six to eight grids and running SSB and CW with some FT8 sprinkled in; and N6VHF running all modes on 50, 144, 432 and 1200 MHz (possibly 10 GHz for good measure!) as well as FM only on 902 MHz. And HOPEFULLY, everyone remembered to also tune the CW and SSB spectrum to pick up even more contacts!

A reminder, WRTC 2018 is July 14-15. Defending champions N6MJ and KL9A will be back. N6TR will pair up with N9RV on NA Team 6. David N6AN will be one of the referees. WRTC takes place during the IARU Championship (as a contest within a contest) and pits the world's currently most accomplished contesters against each other using similar stations and antennas, all within the same geographic region.

The ARRL DX CW contest results were released on June 13. Congratulations to W8QZA who operated W6QU in the Single Op QRP category and finished 8th nationwide. Congrats also to W6YA who placed 6th in the USA in the Single Op 20 meter category.

Field Day took place the final full weekend of June. Propagation wasn't the greatest (high A index) but it sounded like the groups were having a lot of fun. The Ventura County Amateur Radio Society (VCARS), The Simi Settlers Radio Club (SSRC) and members of the SCCC joined forces at The Ronald Regan Presidential Foundation and Library in Simi Valley, operating as N6R. Other SCCCers headed out for stints with local radio clubs.

40 years ago, the SCCC did some serious Field Day contesting, hauling numerous tower trailers and big yagis up on mountaintops. That crew took home two #1 overalls and one second place finish. In 1980, they set an all time scoring record that stood for 14 years! More details and some pictures can be found on the N6NB web site.

The CQ WW DX Committee has made some rule changes that will be effective with the 2018 contests. You can read about them at cqww.com/blog/.

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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Looks like everyone had a lot of fun in the recent CQ WPX CW contest! There were some big scores turned in by SCCCers, and several commented about how late 20m remained open to Europe on that Friday night.

SCCC #1 finished 10th in team scoring in the January, 2018 NAQP SSB contest. Team members KI6RRN, WN6K, N6WT, W6AFA and K6LA put up 313,891 points on the board. Our friends up north, NCCC #1 took top honors.

CQWW DX contest results are out.
In the SSB contest, W6TK, W6AFA and K6NA finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th respectively in the 6th District all band, high power category. N6RV took the top spot in 6-land in the all band, low power catetory. WN6K was second. W6PH was tops in the all band, high power, assisted category. N6WIN and W6YI were 3rd and 4th respectively.

In the CW contest, SCCC placed 7th in the USA in the club category. Nice job, all! W6YA took 1st place, 6th District on 21 MHz. N6RV took 1st in the all band, low power category in 6-land. W6PH took 1st in all band, high power, assisted.

Full write-ups and line scores can be found on the CQWW web site.

The SCCC has won the Medium Club category in the 2018 ARRL January VHF contest! Five entrants put together 563K to take the gavel. PVRC was second (31 entrants, 406K points). N6NB won the Classic Rover category running 11 bands and visiting 10 grids. Wayne has now been contesting for more than 60 years! W6TE was second in the category. W6IT won the Southwestern Division Single Operator Low Power category. Meanwhile, KG6IYN set a new national record in the FM Only category! Congrats to all!

W6YI and team won the Multi-Op HP category of the 2017 ARRL November Sweepstakes Phone contest. W6AFA was the Southwestern Division winner Single Op, High Power. KK6ABZ won in the Southwestern Division QRP category. NX6T (op KK6NON) won the Southwestern Division Single Op Unlimited HP category.

In the 2017 ARRL 160 Meter Contest, K6NA placed fourth in the West Coast Region and tops in the SOHP category in the Southwestern Division.

The television sitcom LAST MAN STANDING featuring Tim Allen as Mike Baxter, KA0XTT (Tim's show call sign--his real call is KK6OTD) was cancelled by ABC in May, 2017. The show has been picked up by and will return on Fox this coming season. While Mike is not a contester on the show, nor is his show station shown all that much, any exposure on a national TV show is good exposure. And who hasn't strained to see if their QSL card is on his wall? (I'm guilty!) Tim and his TV crew were influenced by a crew member to get their amateur radio licenses. Does Tim get on the air and work us mere mortals? Of course he does!

Many of you have undoubtedly heard about the new Elecraft KPA1500 amplifier. The April, 2018 issue of CQ Magazine has a nice writeup on the amp written by W9KNI. Bob makes mention of things like small size, quiet operation, 32 watts drive for full 1.5 KW output, seamless intergration with the K3 transceiver, and a feature he really liked. The K3 can go automatically to a different preset power setting (typically 100 watts) when the amplifier is switched to standby.


Speaking of ham gear, Kenwood announced the new TS-890S at the Dayton Hamvention last month. The new transceiver sports a 7 inch TFT display, healthy receiver specs, and what appears to be a clean and easy to use front panel layout. Kenwood is billing this rig as "Best Performance for your DX life." This type of thing usually means great for contesting as well. Some dealers are now taking order reservations.

Yaesu also announced a new transceiver at Dayton, the FTDX101D SDR. And yes, it is an SDR radio with front panel knobs and buttons. Like the TS-890S, it has a large front panel display. The radio is designed with contesters in mind, harking back to the legendary FT-101 days. Look closely at the picture and you will see two front panel USB ports! Like the 890, some amateur outlets are already accepting order reservations.

According to an ARRL article, ICOM also debuted it's 7610 transceiver at Dayton. It too has a 7 inch display, something that is becoming more common in advanced transceivers. The 7610, like the FT-101D, is an SDR radio. And again, some outlets are taking order reservations. Both the 101D and the 7610 are not yet FCC Type Accepted and thus not available for sale in the USA as of yet.

From a CQ NEWS RELEASE:
The 2018 inductees to the CQ Contest Hall of Fame are:
    Andy Blank, N2NT - Nominated by the Frankford Radio Club, Andy has been the director of the CQ World Wide 160-Meter DX Contest for the past decade. A world-class contester with wins stretching back to 1979, Andy has also competed in five Word Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) competitions and was Director of Competition for WRTC-2014, held in Massa- chusetts. He is also a member of the advisory board of the World Wide Radio Operators' Foundation (WWROF).
    Tom Wagner, N1MM - Nominated by both the Yankee Clipper Contest Club and the Northern California Contest Club, Tom is best known for his development of and ongoing upgrades to the N1MM Logger, which has become the world's most popular contest logging software. The program supports more than 240 different con- tests, multiple operating modes and integration with any number of transceivers and station accessories. Tom now leads a team of developers who are developing further en- hancements and were recognized with the YASME Excellence Award in 2015.
    The CQ Contest Hall of Fame was established in 1986 to recognize those amateurs who have made major contributions to the art of radio contesting. This year's inductions bring the total number of members of the CQ Contest Hall of Fame to 71.
br> Should SCCC sponsor a contest plaque? I've floated this idea back in the 1980s as a Club officer, and I float it again now. I think we should. It's a way to give back to the contesting community. As a sponsor, we have a lot of options. We could sponsor an open plaque (that is, one needing a sponsor) in one of the major contests, domestic or world-wide. Or we could focus on a plaque awarded to a Southern California contester in a contest we choose. I've long thought we are missing in the California QSO Party, but I've had the same thought about some DX contests. We're better than this. Today, we don't sponsor any plaques at all as a club. Plaques cost about $80-$100 these days. AT $100, if 20 of us gave back $5 to the contesting community every year, we'd be in. I suspect most of us can afford five bux. Heck, skip one Starbucks or one time out at the fast food joint, and we're good. Some of us potentially could afford more. And believe you me, having myself donated in recent years to some things I care about (including amateur radio), putting in $10 or $20 (maybe more?) to a contest plaque (you wouldn't have read this far if you weren't interested in contesting) would go a long way. Sure, we get the SCCC name some recognition, but much more importantly, we reward a contester for a job well done. And encourage him or her to come back next year. And the year after that. A win-win in my humble opinion! Email me (webmaster) if you have thoughts on this subject and/or would like to contribute.

W6KY SK. SCCC sends its condolences to the family and friends of Art, W6KY. Art passed away last month. Services were held May 25 at Miramar National Cemetery.

Coming up:

June 9-11
The ARRL VHF Contest. With Sporadic-E season in full swing, 6 meters will likely be alive and kicking! FT8 on 50.313 will undoubtedly be the place to be, but CW, SSB, JT modes and even MSK144 should provide plenty of action. And don't forget the bands ABOVE 6 meters!

June 16-17
All Asian CW. Arguably, the west coast has a bit of an advantage versus the rest of the country in this one. And it's a lot of fun to work all of the Asian contesters on the other side of the Pacific!

June 16
Kids Day. Invite one or more kids to your QTH and show them how fun amateur radio is! If nothing else, get on the air and work the kids! They love it! Some will be motivated to get their own license and some day get a station of their own. It's these little things that got us all hooked!

June 23-24
ARRL Field Day. Many say "this is not a contest." But don't tell the SCCC that. Back in the day, the SCCC rolled out and put on full blown efforts, often winning their chosen category by a landslide. Whether you participate in a group that way, or just to have fun, do get out there with a local club and have a good time. Do some mentoring if you are joining a club effort where that club normally doesn't do any contesting. Most importantly, be a good ambassador of amateur radio!

Reminder. If you have station updates, pictures, your new ham web site, upcoming build or contest plans, etc, please send them to me for consideration in this space. Maybe you picked up a new rig, antenna, or accessory recently or would like to submit an equipment review. Let's get active, shall we?

73 for now,
--Dennis NE6I

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And in the the 2017 ARRL Sweepstakes Phone contest...

W6AFA was the Division winner in Single Operator, High Power.
KK6ABZ was the Division winner in Single Operator, QRP.
NX6T operated by KK6NON was the Division winner in Single Operator, Unlimited, High Power.
W6YI, and team took top honors here too in the MultiOp, Single Transmitter, High Power category. It is their fourth win in a row in this category!

All four of these plaques sponsored by Icom America. Congrats to the winners and a huge thank you to Icom America!

Coming up:

May 26-27
The CQWW WPX CW Contest. This one is super fun! Work the world and work the USA too! Every new prefix is a multiplier! The rate remains high throughout!

June 9-11
The 2018 ARRL June VHF Contest. Look out! If conditions are even remotely decent, some big scores are likely to appear! FT8 has taken the VHF world by storm! But don't rule out CW, SSB and even the JT modes. Tons of fun! Never tried VHF? Surely your current rig has 6 meters. No 6m antenna? Throw up a dipole and try FT8 using WSJT-X software. It doesn't have to be up in the air very high. Try it. You will be hooked!

June 16
Kids Day. Invite one or more kids to your QTH and show them how fun amateur radio is! If nothing else, get on the air and work the kids! They love it! Some will be motivated to get their own license and some day get a station of their own. It's these little things that got us all hooked!

And a parting shot...

If you enjoy VHF/UHF contesting, DXing or just making contacts on the bands 50 MHz and above, you might like to check out The Cali VHF UHF Page. This chat page allows you to keep track on what others in California are seeing and doing, and arrange contacts on the upper bands. Click on the Register button to allow for posting there. No spam, no junk, just VHF enthusiasts.

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