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It was nice to see the bands very active with DX for me it was from 15m to 40m. The Endfed I have at the moment will not get me onto 80m BUT the new Endfed I purchased (going up in warmer weather) will give me 80m and maybe more. This year I spent a bit more time in the chair operating than I usually do. I was operating as a single operator, all band and low power (100 watts)
Score breakdown:
I was not able to snag any rare DX and in fact, I really only heard manly Europe, nothing from the middle east or Asia this year. During the late afternoon on 15m, I had Central and South America open up and I was able to get some contacts from there in the log. I only made 126 QSO's I was in and out of the chair and I really have to get to the point in my CW career to feel comfortable calling CW contest and stop the search and pounce only routine. The only Murphy moment I had was when my Bluetooth keyboard's rechargeable battery when dead. I had to hunt down my USB keyboard before continuing in the contest. The lesson learned here is to set the Bluetooth aside and use the USB keyboard for contesting.  The next contests in my schedule are the North and South Carolina QSO party contests the first weekend in March.

Using Dual watch

There have been some blog posting regarding the ARRL State QSO party challenge. After looking over the ARRL site regarding this "challenge" it is something that can fit right into my schedule. My wife Julie works most Saturdays and Sundays, our weekends are Tuesday-Wednesday. This leaves me with time to jump into the weekend QSO party fray! In the past (post-retirement) the weekends were occupied with yard work, food shopping and cleaning house BUT now that I am retired all these things can be done during the week now.
The kickoff (Super bowl lingo) to the ARRL QSO party challenge was very busy with 3 QSO parties this weekend. The BC QSO party, Minnesota QSO party and the Vermont QSO party were in full swing this weekend.  The challenge to me was how to participate in 3 contests using only one contest software program?  The software I have used in the past for contests were N1MM+ and N3FJP's contest software. I did read regarding Scott's N3FJP's contest software that you can run multiple contests using API (application program interface). Now I never claim to be a computer guru and API meant nothing to me until Thursday last week when I read about it on the N3FJP software user group site. For this weekend I used N1MM+ and loaded all three QSO parties and just loaded the contest I was logging in and for the time being, it worked just fine for me until I can read up on this API thing.
Why has the ARRL QSO party challenge appealed to me:
- I have the weekends more or less free now.
- These contests are not a full 48-hour effort.
- They are local meaning North America and low sunspots do not have as much of an effect.
- Maximum power is 100 watts so most of us are on the same level of playing field.
- The modes are CW, Phone and in some QSO parties, the digital mode (FT8 and FT4) has been            embraced so there are lots of opportunities no matter what your choice of operating is.
- If CW is your forte I have found the speeds are slower and sometimes a TU (thank you) and 73 is      added to a contact.

BC QSO party shot

So how did the first weekend of QSO party contest go.......
Vermont QSO party:
This was a tough one as I made only 2 contacts both on 40 meters and I felt because Vermont is close to home my contacts would be ground wave. I was not able to hear any Vermont stations on 20m at all. I had to settle for 2 contacts with a score of 16. When I visited the contest score webpage 3830 I was shocked to see that all others had scored low as well.
Minnesota QSO party:
There was more action in this contest but for some reason, the only station I heard were ones I already worked (Dupes).  I ended making a whole 7 contacts in this contest for a final score of 98.
BC QSO party:
In this contest, I was able to hear lots of BC stations but the conditions were changing very fast such that I would make the contact but then they went below the noise level. I ended up making 6 completed contacts with a score of 116 but lots of contacts that ended up being incomplete as they were washed up in the noise floor.

The benefits of the these QSO party contests:
- It gets me on the radio as most of the time just planning to get around to it never happens.
- I want to enter the CW category this will help me improve my code.
- When CW slows and if the contest allows digital FT8/FT4 I will give this new way of contesting a       go. 
- Allows me to learn more about my Icom 7610 in contest situations.

who have a real yen for Amateur Radio contesting and Radiosport competition in general ........... I ran across this announcement on the ARRL Webpage the other day.


The State QSO Party Challenge is a competition comprised of other contests, namely state and provincial QSO parties. As explained on the website, the annual cumulative score program is open to any radio amateur who participates in any approved state QSO parties (SQPs).

Participants just need to submit their QSO party scores to 3830scores.com to enter the challenge. Participants’ cumulative scores will be calculated by totaling up the number of reported contacts and multiplying by the number of SQPs entered in the year to date. Periodic standings will be posted to 3830scores.com, the QSOParty Groups.io forum, and the StateQSOParty.com website.

“Using the number of QSO parties entered as a multiplier is expected to encourage radio amateurs to enter more state/province QSO parties,” the program’s organizers said. “The first SQPs in 2020 are the Vermont, Minnesota, and British Columbia QSO Parties in the first weekend of February.”

Entrants must make at least two contacts in a QSO party for it to count as a multiplier. Full details are available on the State QSO Party Challenge website. Challenge sponsors expressed appreciation to Bruce Horn, WA7BNM, for developing the SQP Activity Tracker on 3830scores.com.

This is interesting in a few ways.  Even if you decide to not formally participate in this, it can be taken on as a real personal challenge. "How many State QSO Parties can I participate in?". For me, it would be a big deal to participate in all fifty, plus Canada  This kind of reminds me of the QRP-ARCI Golden Jubilee event a few years back, where the goal was to work K6JSS stations in all 50 states.

Secondly, would I be able to make "at least two contacts" in all of these? With band conditions the way they are - the state QSO parties in Alaska and Hawaii and some of the Canadian Provinces might prove to be a real challenge. But then, going back to the QRP-ARCI Golden Jubilee event, Alaska and Hawaii were NOT the two states I missed!

Thirdly, this would be a great way for those who are on their way to earning Worked All Sates to actually accomplish that.

Fourthly, for those of you out there who complain about the bands being "flooded with contests" every weekend (you know who you are), this would actually make that a good thing. Instead of disdaining these QSO Parties, it would be an incentive to jump in and make them into an enjoyable and an interesting experience for you. After all, you don't have to stay in them for the entire event if you don't want to - but can you make just two QSOs in each?

I just might be tempted to take on the personal challenge myself!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

just wait five minutes, as the "borrowed" old saying goes! I guess that holds for long range forecasts, too.

I've been keeping an eye on the long range weather forecast via WeatherUnderground for this coming Saturday - FYBO day.

A couple of days ago, they were calling for a wet weekend. This morning, they were calling for an ice storm in the morning with some showers in the afternoon after a warm up.

NOW it's supposed to be "just" a cloudy day with just a chance of showers. Meanwhile, last night on the news, the local weather prognosticator was calling for a possible Nor'Easter this weekend. It's enough to make your head spin!

No lack of action

The CQ WW DX  CW contest this weekend was the first contest as VE9KK unfortunately, most of Saturday and into the evening I was not feeling well at all. I gave the contest an off and on again effort during this time. Sunday was a very late start as I wanted to get my rest to get over this bug I had.  In summary, the weekend went as follows:

        Band     QSOs     Pts  ZN   Cty  Pt/Q
           7       6      18    3    5   3.0
          14      10      29    6   10   2.9
          21       2       5    2    2   2.5
       Total      18      52   11   17   2.9


            Score: 1,456

I found Sunday to be a tough one my signal was just not being heard and I am guessing it was just the propagation? The few times I was on the radio on Saturday I had no issues making contacts. Some of the bonus things here at VE9KK were:

- The new Astron power supply worked just fine. 

- I was able to work Europe on 40m which never happened at the old QTH with the MFJ 1788 antenna. 

- Speaking of antennas it was a joy to use the End fed antenna, I was able to change bands without returning. The magloop I used for so long had to be re-tuned on the same band and for sure on band changes. 

- On Saturday (when I was on) I was able to get into Europe, Central America and South America without issue. 

During my time on Sunday during the contest I was greeted with an on screen message that N1MM+ stopped working as it was not able to communicate with com3. Com3 is my CAT control for the Icom 7610 and in a nutshell, this meant I was having RFI issues with one or more of my USB cables. I thought I had solved this issue already with snap on chokes?? I had a fast glance at the snap on chokes an noticed some had "un-snapped". I shut things down and spent well over an hour to fix the situation once and for all!! More on that later this week in another post. I restarted the rig and software and did a few tests and I was good to go, but the bands did not seem to want to co-operate. Having said that the bands sure were alive with opportunity. I heard nothing from the south pacific or Asia. Overall, I had a great time while in the chair at the radio and am looking forward to other CW contests. 

Once again the Novice Rig Roundup (NRR) has come and gone ... and once again, it was the most enjoyable 'contest' of the year for me.




What I have come to enjoy most about the NRR is that most participants do not really treat it as a contest but more as an opportunity to spend some relaxing CW time enjoying some of their favorite vintage rigs ... spread out over nine days of activity. Since there was never a Novice-class program in Canada, I was never a Novice, but the NRR brings back all of the good memories experienced as a newly-licenced radio-crazed 15 year old operator!

Back in those times, there was a gratifying sense of achievement with every contact. My clap-trap collection of parts and tin gutter-pipe verticals, mounted atop our old four-story city house, magically sent my tiny signal from coast to coast and over the pole.







Those were the dying days of big-daddy Cycle 19, and my station was proof that just a tiny bit of RF was all that was needed under such amazing solar conditions.






This year's NRR began by making a couple of contacts with my Drake 2NT and VF-1 VFO but my newly-finished 1936-style Jones Push Pull Oscillator was begging to be put to the test. This meant that the remainder of the week would be spent using crystal-control and in all likelihood, sending a hundred or more 'CQ NRR's, hopefully attracting some of the crowd.



Due to previous commitments, I missed a few nights of operating but ended up with 53 NRR contacts in 23 different states or provinces. Operating on 40m in the late afternoon and then for a short period on 80m after dinner, proved to be the best use of my time, as usually, much of the eastern activity had closed shop for the night, just as the band was getting good. There were two nights of superb 80m propagation but with very little NRR activity ... unfortunately for many participants, late-night operating (even with wonderful propagation) is not in the cards for those that must rise early for work the next morning!

There were several highlights for me once again and being able to create them while using my new homebrew rig was very gratifying.

Roger, VA1RST, back in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was one east-coaster that seemingly cherished the midnight-oil! His great Drake 2B ears were able to copy the little 'Jones' on 80m with no problem and his participation added an exotic DX-flavor to the NRR.



Michael, W3TS, managed to squeeze enough RF from his one-tube 6AG7 crystal oscillator to be heard and worked here on both 40 and 80m, with a respectable 559 on 40 and 569 on 80!




It wasn't until after the NRR was over that I realized why Mike's call was familiar as we had worked a couple of times already this winter on the 630m band (475kHz) ...doh!




More transcon magic was made when Tom, K3AJ, finessed a few watts from his single 6CL6 crystal-controlled DX-machine to the west coast on both 80 and 40m. The propagation gods must have been paying close attention as his 40m signal was a solid 579 while his late-night 80m signal was a whopping 589 here ... 80m propagation just like the good old days!




Not to be outdone by Tom, ex-Nebraskan Andy, KØSM in New York, kept his vintage '42' clipped together long enough to be worked back here as well. With just a couple of watts from the early '30s tube, his signal was no problem on both bands.



Gary, W8PU, with his newly-built mid-30s 6L6 tri-tet oscillator, was another treat from the east when his 559 80m signal arrived here from Ohio in good form.



A little closer to home, WB2AWQ, Howie down in Reno, had a whopping signal all week whenever I heard him on 40m. Howie can always be counted upon for 'NV' in most vintage rig operating events, including the 1929 BK Party. This time 'round, he was using his BC-458A, crystal-controlled at 35 watts out. It's a good bet that hundreds of Novices got their start with a surplus Command set such as this, which often sold for just a few dollars in the 50s ... still new in the box!



Even closer was new Oregonian, Dave, WB7WHG, who was still getting set up at his new location on the east side of the Cascades in Bend. Dave keyed his Knight T-60 for our NRR contacts on both 80 and 40 and was very much louder than when I used to work him at his midwest WB9WHG QTH!

The T-60 is a popular choice among NRR ops and it's diminutive size is somewhat misleading as the current-hungry sweep tube used in the PA stage packs a big wallop. If you happen upon one of these under a fleamarket table, don't pass it up ... it"s a lethal NRR weapon!



Heathkit stations were as popular in the NRR as they were in countless Novice shacks decades ago ... and they sound just as good now as they did back then.

KN8RHM (N8XI), Rick, made Michigan proud with his HW-16 transceiver, while Mark, VA7MM, handed out 126 contacts from western Canada with his all Heath vintage station. His newly added homebrew TR switching system provided hands-free break-in, saving wear and tear on the DX-60's precious function switch.






Not many Viking Rangers were heard this year but the one keyed by Markus, VE7CA, sounded very 50s-like with its oscillator being crystal-controlled for the event.



K9SB, Tim, used his Johnson Adventurer and Hallicrafters SX-101A vintage setup as well as a vintage Drake station to hand out 'IL' to many NRR ops.





There seems to be no shortage of era-appropriate Novice gear out there but as the years progress, it will get harder and harder to find and probably more expensive to own. It's wonderful to see so many amateurs that understand and appreciate this older gear and are doing their best to keep it all working ... and the NRR is just one of many opportunities to let these old beauties demonstrate their capabilities.

From what I can tell, NRR activity continues to increase every year and will hopefully be even bigger next year. If you were a participant, don't forget to get your log completed along with your photos and soapbox comments, all of which can be done through the NRR website here. If you enjoyed the NRR, all run by volunteers, consider making a small monetary donation to keep the event going. You can do this via the NRR site as well.

If you're one of the many NRR participants that didn't want the event to end, don't forget that every Monday is the NRN (Novice Rig Night). A short 'CQ NRN' in the usual CW watering-holes, will often provide some nice rag chew time with like-minded operators.

Thanks to all organizers and participants for the CW fun and for another great ride in the NRR time-machine ... see you again next year!