Contesting

I spent most of the weekend of January 25-26 at Morrow Mountain State Park in Stanly County, just east of Charlotte. Saturday morning started with teaching a few chapters of Technician license manual at the RARS Tech class. Once that wrapped, I went home for a quick equipment costume change, picked up John K4EB, and we were off to the state park for the weekend! Our plan was for John to enter Winter Field Day (WFD) and I would enter the CQ World Wide 160m CW contest. When the 160m contest slowed down, I would jump over to Winter Field Day. By the end of the weekend, we would both put the brand new Pinecone Amateur Radio Club on the air in its first contests. All contacts made would also count towards our Parks on the Air totals. ...

This year for the North Carolina QSO Party I had the opportunity to operate the Morse code (CW) position at the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society’s (RARS) N4RAL bonus station. As one of the sponsors of the contest, RARS was asked to operate as a bonus station (more points for stations who contact us) and submit a check log for the contest. N4RAL log window from N1MM. RARS president Fin Gold NC4FG hosted the station at his QTH. There was plenty of room to accomodate a two-operator phone station and a single operator CW station. Additionally, there was space for people to congrate, snack, and chat. Sandwiches were provided for lunch and the snacks provided a nice break from the radio. It was a lively place midafternoon. ...

This year’s North Carolina QSO Party was very fun. I operated from my QTH for the duration of the contest, breaking for a 30 minute lunch and for the occasional stretch break. The propagation was better than last year, going by the numbers, Again this year, I used my Icom IC-7300 running 100W to an MFJ-986 tuner connected to ladder line and a center-fed Zepp dipole antenna. All performed well. Two days prior to contest, during good weather, I took down the dipole for inspection. I checked continuity between the feed point and each element and replaced aging zipties that were growing brittle. Maybe next year I’ll swage the ends and do away with zipties altogether. ...

This past weekend I participated in the IARU HF World Championship contest. I chuckle at the phrase “world championship” because I’m a casual contester, a Sunday driver. I took this opportunity to practice my CW operating, as I have in other contests recently. My goal this year was to make 250 QSOs to qualify for the fancy certificate. This goal would require me to be a run station: sit on a frequency, call “CQ”, and copy other stations callsigns and exchanges (sent via Morse code) as efficiently as possible. I also thought 250 QSOs would be a good goal considering that I didn’t expect to be at the radio for the entire 24 hour contest period. ...

Today marked the beginning of a new CW contest geared towards the intermediate CW operator. I’ll put myself in that bucket. The Medium Speed Contest is geared for operators aiming to work at speeds of 20-25 words per minute. The exchange is your name and a serial number. My goal is to use this contest for practice. That means I’m sending by hand with my Bench BY-1 paddle and I’m not using spots. I’ve been participating regularly in the K1USN Slow Speed conTest (SST), and I’ll likely add this contest to the rotation. ...