Imabug's journey into electronics and amateur radio as AB4UG and VA6BUG
Saw that the SC QSO Party results for 2013 were posted a little while ago. A record year for logs submitted, QSOs made and counties activated (all but 2 SC counties were activated).
My 30 contacts and 360 points were good enough to get me 3rd place in the single-op low power category. Woohoo!
The 2014 SC QSO party happens during the weekend I’m back in Edmonton, so I’ll be missing it this year. Next time though.
Another Field Day has come and gone. I was able to get the laptops set up and networked just in time for the action to start.
This year, the 2PM start didn’t sound quite as chaotic or noisy as it did the last couple of years. I’m either getting used to listening through the noise, or it just wasn’t as busy this year, or both. I’ve seen other people mention that band conditions weren’t all that great.
I spent the first couple hours logging and keeping tabs on the network connection between the two laptops. Got in a bit of operating before the skies broke open and the torrential rain started. It was bad enough that we had to break down both stations and get them inside out of the rain.
Rain kept us off the air for a couple hours as more rain passed on through, but later in the evening the rain cleared out and we were able to set up one of the stations again.
I headed back home around 8PM and got back to the ship the next day for the last couple hours of Field Day. Weather was much nicer, and band conditions seemed to be better. I got in an hour of operating and was able to make 10m and 15m contacts into the northeast and northwest.
Looking at the counts in N1MM, we made somewhere between 600-800 contacts. Because of the wifi dropping out and having to break everything down for the rain, the logs on the two laptops got out of sync. Some operators also didn’t want to computer log, so there are some paper logs to add in as well. I think next year one of the things I’ll have to do is send out some instructions on how to do the logging, and make a cheat sheet available at each station.
Had lots of fun again this year, and looking forward to next year’s Field Day.
Another Field Day is coming up in a couple of weeks and once again I’ll be playing radio with fellow WA4USN club members on the USS Yorktown with CARS. I hope to spend a little more time operating this year.
I’ll also be paying closer attention to the generator and battery hook ups to learn how to set up the rig in the shack on portable power. Hopefully the weather is nice and the propagation is good.
Final scores for the CQ WW 2013 contest are available and the 60 828 points I racked up in the Single Op Low Power All Band category got me #819 in the world, #280 in North America and #49 in the US 4th call area. With the Rookie overlay, it puts me at #55 in the world, #19 in North America and #4 in the US 4th call area.
For my first big contest effort, I’m pretty pleased with that.
There were a bunch of QSO parties happening this weekend: MI, ND, NE and ON along with the ARRL Rookie Roundup (SSB). I didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend playing on the radio this weekend, but I did spend a few hours juggling log files tuning around for QSO party contacts. Caught handful of MI stations and a few ON stations, but didn’t hear any ND stations and only a couple very faint NE stations.
Michigan QSO Party
Band QSOs Pts Mul
7 3 3 2
14 5 5 4
Total 8 8 6
Score: 48
Ontario QSO Party
Band QSOs Pts Mul
14 3 12 3
Total 3 12 3
Score: 36
Tuned around for a little bit during the last half of the Rookie Roundup, but didn’t hear too many stations playing. Found four stations wandering around 20m. This will be my last year as a “Rookie”, so I figured I might as well take part in the Rookie Roundups while I can.
ARRL Rookie Roundup (SSB)
Band QSOs Pts Mlt
14 4 8 4
Total 4 8 4
Score: 32