NAQP-SSB contest

 The contest club I'm a member has added this contest as part of the season and so I decided to participate. I've never played in this contest before but updated logging program and several Microsoft updates and I figured I was ready. 

 I started soon after the official start and after My first contact realized My computer and radio were not exchanging information properly. I have documented my setup, and I used that as a reference to stare and compare. It took some time but finally I discovered several parameters with the USB/Com ports which seemed to be setup different. The parameters in question concerned RTS/DSR and how they were being utilized. After changing these and also changing stop bits from 1 to 2 it now seemed to be working, and it only took me an hour to find the issue! -oh well!

 This contest exchange is different than most because a participants first name or similar is used instead of signal strength. This actually I found makes for a very congenial exchange---first name basis exchange! I had several DX stations give me a S9 exchange instead of a name, but the logging program accepted it. I also noticed some states gave only two letter states instead of a three letter like some of the ARRL contest exchanges. 

  This contest is 12 hours from noon till midnight CST although I only participated till suppertime which lately has been my cutoff time. The upper bands were open so I spent more time up there but even 20 and 40m were decent. I didn't have a big score but did okay-85 Contacts. I did read later the lower bands into the evening performed quite well!

73--Tim

 

Arrl RTTY RU 2026

 This contest runs from Saturday at 12:00 CST to Sunday 5:59 CST. I like RTTY contests and the bands in the far north were in fairly good shape all weekend. My antennas cover 40m through 10m very well and also 160m and 80m although lots of tuning because of narrow bandwidth especially on 80m.

  I operated on and off Saturday till around supper time and very little after dark. There wasn't much DX but stateside stations were abundant especially on 10m which I started the contest operating on before eventually switching to 15m,20m and around sunset 40m before calling it a day. I quit Saturday with 100 QSO's in the log.

  I was up before sunrise Sunday and started operating on 40m and added around 20 Q's before breakfast. I continued during the morning and early afternoon slowly switching bands as they opened during daylight hours and eventually ended participation with 187 Q's for a point total of 10,742 before log checking. 

 This was a fun contest with lots of stations to chase and I feel my station did okay considering I was using a ground mounted vertical for all bands except 10m.

 73--Tim

ARRL 10m contest 2025

 Friday night the contest started after sunset up North so I wasn't sure how the band would perform.  It was not good here-I could hear many stations, but they couldn't hear me so after an hour I shut off the radio and started again Saturday morning. Conditions were very good, but I had family committants so only operated a short time. Sunday I had more time but was having touble again being heard till later in the day. This was a fun contest when I was able to be on. I didn't make my usual goal of 100 contacts but thats OK-  92 was close!

73---Tim

ARRL November Sweepstakes SSB 2025

 I enjoy this contest even though it has a very long exchange. It tends to slow everyone down a bit and by Sunday even the big gun stations are hearing us little ones better! As usual I wanted to have a fairly decent score but the weekend was very busy. I did manage over the weekend to contact 150 contesters and recorded 60 sections--short of the 85 needed for a clean sweep but still respectable.

 My butternut ground mounted vertical did a decent job being heard on 40-15m and I was glad that 10m was open a bit so My yagi at 25' was useable. I didn't hear much workable on 160 or 80m so all contacts were 40-10m.

 My final score was 18,000 before log checking. It was a fun contest .

73--Tim

QSO parties

 I participated in several QSO parties to help the MWA compete in the QSO party challenge. The Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois QSO parties were all within weeks of each other and I was able to spend some time participating in each one. I didn't have very high scores but I did enjoy the activity and had one fun QSO with a Vikings football fan from Pennsylvania--- Ham radio ,always fun!!

73--Tim