"Storm Watch"

Newsletter of NZ1U – The Barnstormers Contest Group

"The Barnstormers News"                                                                                                                Volume 7 No.5, December 10, 2002

Halfway through our Major Contests

The CQWW half of our contest season is behind us now. As most of you know, we participated as a Multi/Multi entry again this year. The surprise was in CQWW CW. I received telephone calls from KC1Q and K1AM asking to come over and help out. Plus KM1X needed a place to operate for this contest. This meant was that we had plenty of good operators and we made the most of it. I believe we made an all-time high of 10,467,000 points, more than 4700 QSOs, and achieved 5DXCC in the single weekend. No, we didn’t challenge KC1XX but we ran right along side K1TTT and K1RX. Our three M/M entries contributed more than 30M points to the YCCC "Drive for Five". We welcomed Chris, WB2VVV, to the group in this contest. Being tutored overnight by N1XS, he got the hang of CT and worked some good DX both nights on 80 meters. Chris lives only about 7 miles away and wants to help out where he can. He is also a big VHF/UHF contester and has recently located here from NJ.

I felt the equipment and aluminum finally got the workout that we had been hoping for. We know our systems work well and with enough operators we worked the bands like never before. We were running on frequencies like 14001 and 21005. I have received many comments from other stations saying how KB1H was heard allot and held choice frequencies.

The 40M Four-Square performed great! No problem getting our JA multiplier and other juicy DX.

Thanks to everyone for a great effort and in both the SSB and CW weekends we are staying in the Top Ten reported logs thus far.

 

 

 

 

 

Reserve January 25, 2003!!!!

The 7th Annual Barnstormer Christmas Party will be held on January 25th. As usual the festivities start around 6P.M. and continue until??? Bring your drink of choice and something for the buffet table. We will of course have the famous and lethal chicken wings plus Kim has gotten some venison for his "Not a mystery any longer" Chili. We will be playing in the CQWW 160 contest as long as we can send code. Who’ll get the famous K1GX Award this year? Come and see, who knows, you might be the one!

To Fix List:

The only real failure during the CQWW CW weekend was the 10 Meter South antenna switching box. Kim is building a replacement and this will need changing.

The 2 element 40M beam is still vertically polarized on one element.

The beverage just doesn’t seem to be working! We need to see what is wrong. Maybe the termination boxes are toasted?

The 80M Phasing Box and dummy load mounting needs to be redone. Kim spoiled me with the great job he did with the 40M verticals.

We need to run the short East-West beverage.

The SB-220 conversion to 6 Meters needs to be finished before the January VHF contest.

The 6 Meter antenna resonants at 49.900 Mhz. Kim is thinking about getting a M2 antenna to replace the old KLM.

The 2 Meter node radio needs to be replaced with the 100W Motorola W1YRC has gotten for us.

Status of the "Dallas"

The elements are finished except for final pinning. Boy are they impressive! I need to get help carrying the boom over to my cousin’s so he can begin working on it. Though we do not have the prop pitch mounted on the ground yet, I think it would be a big help if we finished the beam and even mounted it fixed on Europe. This is my goal now. We will then pass the Four Square , 2 element beam fixed south, and the Dallas through the Stackbox for selection but not phasing.

 

Challenging K1TTT and K1RX

We now have Station #5 on the Internet. I have been toying with the idea that maybe we can go "real-time" with the logs during the ARRL contests. One problem might be that K1TTT and K1RX will probably be M/M and we are always M/2. That might change if again we get an abundance of operators. K1AM needs allot of antenna work and KM1X is still rebuilding his station. Maybe they will be back. If we went M/M I would like to connect somehow with at least K1TTT and K1RX for some "real-time" comparison. Maybe other YCCC stations as well. I suspect we have either here or there the talent to accomplish this. Does this sound like something that interest anyone?

 

ARRL 10 Meter Contest This Weekend

 

We will be playing in the ARRL 10 Meter Contest this weekend using our group call, NZ1U. So far Kim and Chris will be here. Stop by if you want a few hours in the chair.

 

Finally…….

I want to thank everyone for the help to keep the station going and on the air. Everyone has done something to get us where we are now. I also appreciate the help when it comes to paying for things like the outhouse or hardware we seem to use or lose. As you know, I get to operate the least of anyone but I get my enjoyment out of the team working together and getting better every contest. My time in the seat will be here someday.

 

73 and Happy Holidays,

Dick – KB1H