Contesting – Page 13 – AB4UG Radioblog

I’m in QST!

Well, the back of me is in QST anyway. If you flip to page 82 of the latest (August 2013) issue of QST magazine, the bottom half of the page talks about the upcoming August Rookie Roundup (RTTY) contest.

Last year I got to participate in it with a few other people from the club. The accompanying photo, taken by Tom (AJ4UQ), is of me and fellow rookie Warren (KK4EVI) trying to make sense of what the software was telling us.

The only problem with the photo is the caption is incorrect, and gives the wrong call sign (and therefore name) for me and Tom. Here’s what the image caption should read

Warren Richey, KK4EVI, and Eugene Mah, KK4JRP, used the Rookie Roundup as an opportunity to learn RTTY operation by activating the Charleston (SC) ARC station in the club’s EmComm trailer. [Tom Glaab, AJ4UQ, photo]

The red bandage around my arm is from donating platelets earlier that day.

It was fun participating in the roundup last year, and I got a good introduction to the digital modes, including packet radio and even sending email using the radio. I hope we’ll be able to do it again for this year’s Rookie Roundup (August 18, 2013).

Field Day 2013 Part 2

Decent weather, no rain and partly overcast skies kept Field Day today from being too sweltering hot and made operating tolerable. Spent the bulk of today logging, and got on the radio for the last hour of Field Day to make a few more contacts. The club managed to get a little over 500 contacts on the SSB station and I think about 80 or so CW contacts.

I was even hearing a little bit of activity on 6m through my HT, which is something I practically never hear around here. I couldn’t make out much of anything, but I was able to tell that it was Field Day activity. No idea where it was coming from though.

Having a little more radio experience under my belt made this Field Day a more enjoyable experience than last year (not that I didn’t have a good time last year). Knowing a little more about what’s going on really helps and I feel like I was able to make more of a contribution this year.

Looking forward to Field Day next year.

A view of the Charleston peninsula and Charleston harbour from the USS Yorktown hangar deck

A view of the Ravenel bridge and the Charleston harbour from the hangar deck of the USS Yorktown

Field Day 2013 Part 1

Had a most excellent time at Field Day yesterday on board the USS Yorktown with CARS. I was put in charge of IT, which meant setting up the two laptops and a little local wifi network so that they could communicate and share a log file.

At 1800UTC (2PM EDT), the chaos the activity started. I spent the first few hours in seek and pounce mode (S&P), tuning around 40m at first and then moving up to 20 and then 15m. Was able to rack up a bunch of contacts, but it wasn’t easy. Thunderstorms to the southwest and in Georgia were causing static crashes because of the lightning. I’d be trying to work some strong stations, then 20-30db of noise would just wipe everything out on the frequency for a second or two. That went on for a few more hours, and then the rest of the evening was relatively clear. Then the problem went back to trying to pick out the Field Day exchange with neighbouring stations or groups of Boy Scouts stomping by behind us drowning everything out (the usual chaos).

I stayed on the Yorktown until around 10ish. A few other club members operated and got some pile ups going. I spent some time hanging out at the CW and digital station, taking photos and helping out with the logging on the phone station.

Field Day on the Yorktown offers a great view of the harbour and the Charleston penninsula while we’re operating.

This is the CW and digital station in action. Last year the CW station was set up in the club communications trailer out on the pier, but didn’t work out so well there, so it was brought up to the ship this time. The digital station was having a similar problem with noisy bands that we were having on the phone station so I don’t think there were too many contacts being made there.

Back for more Field Day fun today until 1800Z (2PM EDT) and then breaking everything down.

If you’re on the air for Field Day today, listen out for WA4USN. It might be me that’s operating!

Field Day!

Another ARRL Field Day is upon us!

ARRL Field Day 2013 logo

Like last year, I’ll be helping out with the CARS Field Day activities over on the Yorktown. Now that I’ve got a little bit more radio experience under my belt, I’ll be able to help out more with the preparations and will enjoy playing with the radios more than last time.

In preparation for Field Day, I’ve been given the task of getting the club laptops ready: installing updates and performing maintenance, updating the logging software (N3FJP), and getting them networked together so that operators at each station can see what’s going on.

TARC will be having their Field Day activities up in Goose Creek at the Marguerite H. Brown Municipal Center.

If you’re in the vicinity of either one of these Field Day locations, stop by and check out the amateur radio operations!

Working on 6m

Well, not only does the radio tune the antenna on 6m/50 MHz, but the radio and antenna seem to work pretty decently.

Spent about 3 hours tuning around on 6m in the Central States VHF Society 6m Sprint contest last night in seek and pounce mode. Tallied up 10 contacts all from grid squares in the northeast plus one in Wisconson. Got some VA3/VE3 stations too. All of them were coming in pretty loud here. I came across several other stations that were just barely audible in the noise. I could hear something there, but not enough to try to work them. Most of the activity I heard was in the lower portion of the 50 MHz band, below 50.3 MHz. I went as high as 50.5 MHz, but didn’t go much higher.

A bit of Googling brought me to this ADIF mapping utility by K2DSL that puts my contacts onto a Google map based on the grid square. It’s kind of neat to see where the signals are coming from.

View Larger Map

I think I’ll add some kind of 6m antenna to the list of Things To Build for the summer. Will be interesting to see if I can make some more distant contacts with a dedicated antenna.