RAC Winter Contest

Every December the Radio Amateurs of Canada sponsor the Canada Winter Contest. This is a 24 hour contest starting at 0000 UTC to 2359 UTC of the chosen Day. This year it started for Me at 6:00 PM CST on Friday December 18th and ended Saturday at 5:59 PM. No contest I participate in ever sees Me in the shack for very long. This one was no different with some time spent on Friday evening and again Saturday Afternoon for a total of about 2.7 hours!

Several weeks ago I noticed this upcoming contest and decided to give it a try. Always nice to contest with Our Canadian neighbors and this time was no different. They again were very cordial and relaxed and made this a fun contest for all!

Friday night I did not start to operate till after contest began and was quickly tired from a long work week. Conditions were noisy on 75m where most of the activity was occuring. Hoped Saturday would be better which it proved to be. Again did not start till lateer because of two exciting Basketball Games My Daughter Katie played in. 20m was the better band now and I received many good signal reports of 20 over and also gave many good reports. The band was excellant! Kathy, My other Daughter sat with Me for a time enjoying the Canadian contesting style. Eventually duty called and had to leave when conditions were still good.

I returned for the very end of the contest but 20m had died out and 40m and 75m were again very noisy so called it before the end of this contest. I later uploaded logs to eQSL, LOTW and of course RAC. My totals are not competitive but I had a great time and it was extra special spending some of it with My Daughter and answering Her "contesting" questions! Maybe a future contester!!

Here are My totals, not too bad for time spent and just "S&P" mode. ( Search and Pounce for the non-contesters!!)
38 QSOs 384 Pts 16 Sec

for a Total : 6,144

Teacher said to pay attention....

I tend to try to multi-task which means listening to the radio and browsing the internet, checking emails or benchwork. A good DX pile up is fun to listen to and somewhere during the free for all I'll usually try My turn at a QSO. This particular Night I was listening to KH6TE from the Hawaiian islands work a good sized pile up. He was a 5/9 signal on 20m and commented on being able to continue long past sundown! Eventually I finished what I was doing and heard him "QRZ?" and no takers so I threw out My call. Imagine My surprise when He came right back and gave Me a 5/5 signal report!

After the ARRL 10m contest My confidence in My Butternut Vertical had fallen and that was the antenna I was on. I honestly did not expect to hear My call answered and proceeded to stumble and basically sound like a real "newbie". The operator at KH6TE, Daryl was very professional and probably couldn't wait to proceed to the newt QSO ,but didn't show it. After completion I felt very foolish and promised Myself to pay more attention and always expect a reply to My calls.

I sent a request for a QSL card today! I'm not proud!!

ARRL 10m Contest

I've been anticipating this contest after missing out on CQWW and ARRL DX in October and November. With My new ( old) HF6V vertical and My exsisting wire and smaller vertical antenna, I'd be ready. One week before contest, I checked into local 10m SSB net and HF6V worked and tested well. Then during the week the weather turned very cold and it didn't load as well but does appear to still work-- we will see.
Just before contest start time , the smell of something burning in the basement temporarily sidetracks contesting. After partially resolving that issue , I turn to the radios! The bands are not being kind! Occasional whispers and then nothing! One complete QSO before calling it a night! Worse than last Year. Looking at the Dx-cluster band maps, most activity does not reach up to the far North! Familiar map I see way too often!
Woke up at 4:30AM , back sore and wondered about contest. After powering up the station noticed only activity is in Europe! North America band map empty! Eventually before sunrise the east coast started waking up. On and off all morning and thru the afternoon watched as the band map left out My area and filled east then south and finally west with hardly a green trace up to my area! There was activity in the CW portion but being a SSB kind of guy, left Me out. I did during the day use a CW decode program and it did decode many signals so... need to continue learning code!!
The magic time of zero UTC did give Me another contact and appeared like the floodgates were about to open! East coast coming thru the ether but the opening seems more like a meteor scatter 6m opening with signals fading in and out real fast. Eventually signals did seem to settle down but was not able to get a running frequency going so had to settle for S & P which seemed more painful than normal. I just was not being heard, took way too long for QSO's. It had been a long day so shut it down for the night and hoped for another opening Sunday. I really want to increase last Years score!
Sunday did not have any surprises. Similiar to Saturday with another opening but luckily earlier this time. Did manage to up QSO count but did not surpass last Years totals. Still no luck with a run frequency, so only S & P mode so again very slow log additions.
I still managed to have fun contesting and even finished some inside and out projects and chores so not to impose on the weekend too much. Next Year hope to finally put up the cushcraft ATB34 triband antenna so I'll have some aluminum in the air!
Totals- less than 50 contacts and only about 20 mulipliers for all that work!! I think I'm in the Midwest Blackhole! This Years totals did not beat last Years!! Bummer.

Butternut HF6V Vertical antenna project

Top picture shows the homemade base and ground radials for the vertical antenna. I drilled about fifty holes for radials and four ground rods. Center hole was done with a Hydraulic punch!

Bottom picture is the Butternut antenna in the woods - stealthy!!

I had an opportunity to purchase a used Butternut HF6V vertical antenna from a Ham friend . I aquired it in the spring and had all Spring,Summer and first part of Autumn to think about the installation. This is typical for most of My antenna projects, most other projects are higher priority!

I used a two foot square piece of steel as the base and and prepared it as explained above. Ground rods were driven thru four corner holes in the base mainly for stability. I used copper strap to connect rods to the base and also used strapping at ground side of matching coil at base of antenna. I used stainless steel hardware to attach ground radials by first inserting a two inch bolt from underneath and using lockwashers and nut to secure to base. Enough bolt was thru to attach several radials to each of forty, yes forty radial attachment points. Eventually I had one-hundred and twenty radials attached to the forty outside perimeter bolts!

I cleared a circular area big enough so the antenna wouldn't be blocked too badly by trees. Takeoff angle for DX is important and didn't want vegetation to attenuate the signal too much. Winter will probably be better for using this setup!

I was finally able to install this antenna and found the ground very wet and swampy! Perfect! I was almost able to insert ground rods by hand until last few feet.Antenna was also easy to sink in to the correct depth. I was hoping to have this done by CQ WW DX contest late October but was short on radial count. It received well but didn't appear to be heard very well. Only found out later the first night of the contest conditions were not good! Busy with My Family Saturday and was called into work on Sunday.

Since then I've been able to attach the rest of the radials but not fan out properly thru the trees and brush. Now its snowy and cold out and I'll wait till spring to finish. The antenna seems to work great even with the compromised radials and I'm very pleased with its performance!!

Contesting !

My first introduction to contesting was before I was even a Amateur Radio operator. A Gentleman I worked with was a licensed Ham and spent two weekends in November losing sleep during ARRL Sweepstakes. He seemed to enjoy the whole "contest" but I thought it was sort of madness!

Fast forward 10 years and I'm now part of the Amateur ranks, having fun with My privledges on 6m and up. I eventually was invited to participate during the June ARRL VHF contest with a group of Hams. They all had participated in contesting and I learned alot.
I did part-time VHF contesting at My own shack and with the Group for several years and then after upgrading , tried the Minnesota QSO party. Eventually I joined The Minnesota Wireless Association and started participating in many HF contests.
Compared to most contesters I'm definately a beginner or novice, and consider Myself a "casual contester". I don't believe I'm aggressive enough to ever be a great contester, maybe just a competant one. Fellow Hams who complain about the contest weekends usually comment about the RUDE contester who CQ's over a Net frequency, ignores polite urgings to move or is just plain obnoxious! Since I'm not aggressive but polite, I'll never contribute to the "rude contester" complaints. Maybe I'm not such a bad contester after all!

Ham Shack Redo!

Top picture shows My Ham shack after a total rebuild. Left picture is the before!

The shack originally consisted of about 1/2 the equipment I now have and the need to have most of it behind closed doors to keep curious Cats from playing with the wiring.

I was lucky to find a FREE computer desk to add to the shack, some reinforcing and clean-up and it was good! I spent about two days on a total redo and I'm happy with the results. Now I have some extra room to add more Radios!!

Social Networking and Me

Ok, so I've tried Twitter and Facebook, My own homepage and now finally Blogging. Each has its own pros and cons! I'm basically a very private person unless behind a microphone hidden in My basement. Twitter is great for following chatty hollywood stars or for small snippets of thoughts,but not great for a non- news worthy guy like Me. Facebook is a little scary for a private person with all the add people options! Trying to start My own homepage with a less than user friendly interface was terrible. Homepage sits unused!
After last Years ARRL SSB Dx contest I discovered Ham Radio Blogs with a Wealth of information and very nice " you are there" feel to the stories and pictures. My writing skills are not great but maybe good enough to write an interesting story or two!
Now i just need to find interesting topics to write about.Stay tuned as I explore this hobby called Ham Radio!
73 for now-- Tim N0UJJ