CCARC NEWS 12-14

 THE PERIODIC NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTRAL COAST AMATEUR RADIO CLUB

ISSUE No 12-14   15th. April 2012

In this Issue:

1. QRP contest report.
2. Wednesday meetings – Winter Schedule.
3. New web section – upcoming events.
4. Use of AX call sign on Anzac day.

1. QRP “hours” contest 14th. April – report.

So how many members took part? I didn’t manage to work any CCARC club members but this may be due to propagation, which was quite variable. If you did take part and are emailing your entry in, please copy me (Ed VK2ARE – news-editor at ccarc.org.au) on your entry, so that I can include you in the club table. Even if you only had a few contacts (like me) please send your entry in, in any case.

Here is my entry report:

Hi Mike,

Thanks for organising the contest. This was my first attempt in a QRP contest and even though I did not work many stations, it showed me that I need to look at the receive side, to see what I can improve.

The set-up here is a Kenwood TS-2000 set back to 5W output, to a trapped wire dipole covering 80/40/20 & 15m at 1.5m above the house roof, so about 7m AGL, which will be about 8m ASL.

I was using an RF-Clipper speech processor from DF4ZS but I’m not sure if it helped my audio readability or not. I need to do more tests. The other thing I need to do is connect the antenna cable directly to the TS-2000 in any future QRP contests as at present it goes through an antenna switch, a power meter and then through a small linear amp (turned off of course) before it gets to the rig, all of these connectors will lose a little signal along the way.

I’m happy to have worked QRP stations in VK1 and VK4 but of course distance doesn’t matter in this contest as its one point per contact. You may want to consider changing that rule as at the moment those living in heavily populated areas have a distinct advantage. All in all however it was a fun contest and I even managed to have three “pile-ups” with multiple people calling me. Conditions seemed very variable almost from minute to minute! A station that was very weak when they called me suddenly came up two S-points and unfortunately the opposite happened on a couple of occasions as well, meaning I missed a couple of possible contacts.

OK, so here’s my short log of contacts,

Section: SSB.
Station name: VK2ARE – Ed Durrant.
Location information – Woy Woy on the Central Coast QF56PL
Start UTC     End UTC       all sign    Report Sent    Report received
11:01            11:03            VK1MDP        55001                59001
11:04            11:05            VK2ACD        56002                59001
11:05            11:06            VK2IG            56003                56001
11:11            11:12            VK2UH          57004                57003
11:35            11:36            VK2ASU        59005                59011
11:40            11:42            VK4ZW         56006                54005
11:43            11:45            VK2IR           59007                59002
11:50            11:51            VK2AAV      59008                59004

Total points  8.

—
73 Ed VK2ARE

2. Wednesday social meetings during the winter months.

Bob VK2PEP wishes to inform all members that during the winter months (April – September), he will only be opening up the club rooms on the first Wednesday of the month, not every second week as has been the case up until now. As always check the club calendar on this website (https://www.ccarc.org.au/wp/calendar/ or via the link at the top of all club website pages) for the most up to date information on club events.

3. New section on website – upcoming events.

To make it easier to see upcoming events that are of interest to the club members, I have created a new post on the website that I will update as time goes by. I will mention items such as this editions item number 4 below which will also be in the list however for an overview it’s going to be easiest to go to the list. The list will contain events that may be of interest to club members, not just what is in the club calendar.

To check the list, click the following link to go to the post: https://www.ccarc.org.au/wp/?p=43706

4. Use of AX prefix on ANZAC day – April 25th.

ANZAC day is one of three occasions in the year (World Telecommunications Day and Australia Day being the other two) where all Australian Radio Amateurs are allowed to change the start of their call sign from VK to AX. So for example VK2ARE can become AX2ARE for the day. This is an optional change, you don’t have to change your call sign for the day.

CCARC online links:

https://www.ccarc.org.au/wp/?p=43682

For what’s coming up in the next few months at the CCARC, please check the club calendar, accessible from the header on any page on the website.

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