“Storm Watch”
Newsletter of NZ1U – The
Barnstormers Contest Group
“The
Barnstormer’s News”
Volume 5 No.5 April 21, 2000
Contest Season 1999-2000 Over…. Almost!
With the conclusion of ARRL DX SSB weekend the last of the four major contests is history. Generally we did better than last year but had a few visits from Murphy during the ARRL contests. Antenna relays, amps, connectors all gave us fits and without a doubt stopped us from coming out of the gate better at the start of the weekend. Despite all this we set new station records and even climbed a few notches in the scoring of the CW weekend. SSB we might have slipped down a little but everyone reported large increases over last year’s score.
Since then we have operated the CQWW WPX SSB weekend with the YCCC club call AJ1I. I think we are holding down the 3rd spot as a Multi/Single U.S. category. Next will be the CQWW WPX CW scheduled for May 27th & 28th. This is Memorial Day weekend so I do not plan on a big effort. We will be playing and probably working on things around the station that weekend. Come if you like. There will probably be more about this later.
Other operations planned are:
June 10th & 11th – VHF QSO Party. 6M/2M/70cm(440) should be ready for this. We found that a similar contest in September gave us great practice in passing multipliers up the bands. So far KB1H, KB1DFB, N1XS have signed up. Not much activity but lots of fun.
June 24th & 25th - ARRL Field Day. It looks like we will be entering the 2B category. Plans are for two transmitters, one for CW the other for SSB. Running less than 5 watts and battery power. Kim and I had a blast last year as 1B from the tree house. I think so far we have KB1DFB, KB1H, and NB1U operating. Anyone else??
July 8th
& 9th - IARU Radiosport.
This contest runs from 8AM local time Saturday until 8AM local time Sunday. We all know that we will be NU1AW for this contest. We will be combining efforts with KI1G. Last year the combined K1KI/K1ZZ made more than 8000 QSOs. I hope we can make a decent showing of ourselves. The first organizational meeting will be held on Saturday, 21 April. Stay tuned for this one. We expect to be running 4-5 stations here.
To
do list:
With preparation for the IARU contest this list is too long to put here. A partial list is:
1.
Build and put up the 203BA
that Kim and I picked up a few weeks ago. This will be a 3 element 20M beam
fixed south.
2.
Build switching boxes for
the “Fixed South” antennas. It looks like the 15M Auxiliary box is acting up
again. After all the trouble we have had with the WX0B supplied units I am
researching a source of relays and we will build the new one for 20M ourselves
and make three more units for replacements and/or spares.
3.
I have found a source for
the hardline connectors that have failed on the 40M tower. These need replacing
when they arrive.
4.
The 40M selsyn needs the
indicating O-Ring replaced.
5.
Station #4 needs 220v and
it’s own 110v circuit run.
6.
Temporary Station #5 needs
to be prepared.
7.
The Ethernet network for CT
needs to be installed.
8.
WE have to get serious about
building the “Dallas” 40M antenna.
9.
The barn needs reshingling
and then the tri-bander put back on a tri-pod. We will need this antenna for
IARU.
I finally found my tri-pod
for the video camera. I plan on setting this up during a few contests for
recording our activities plus help in analyzing our operating practices.
NB1U and I will start to
rebuild our web site very soon.
We should have an early
Summer meeting to discuss our hopes for the Contest Year 2000 – 2001. Stay
tuned for that date.
I know for a fact that
Frank, K1EBY, needs some antenna work done. We need to plan on helping Frank
out some weekend.
Anybody else need a hand??
Enough for now….
73, Dick