“The Barnstormers News”                                                         Volume 8 No.7, November 24, 2003

Less than 5 days to CQWW CW…

 

Yes, the starting gun is getting very near. This past weekend was like all those since before CQWW SSB. People came and did what needed to be done. Mark, Dave, Frank, Kim, and Chris ran a new rotor cable out to the 20 Meter tower and all is good with it now. We have four stations set up and ready to go with all computers talking. I can’t remember us being this ready!  This is going to be our best and most serious effort to date.

 

Our Goal:

 

Our goal will be of course to do the best we can. Realistically we want to be up there with other YCCC M/M efforts such as K1TTT and K1RX. Bob, KM1X, noted that last year we only were 179 QSOs and 39 Multipliers behind K1TTT with most of that being 160 Meters QSOs and mults. I am hoping for allot more QSOs (maybe 150) and more Mults (hopefully around 30-40) on 160.

 

A big goal is to have all the seats filled all 48 hours. The operator schedule I have worked up should help us achieve that goal. More on that next.

 

Operator Scheduling

 

I will be attaching to this Storm Watch the latest operator schedule. Unfortunately I tried to insert the file but my MSWord did not have the correct utility to do so.  There is still some last minute tweaking and moving around going on but I do not expect it to change much more.

 

During the daylight hours we don’t expect 4 bands to be open. If there is, great! If not the fourth operator’s duty is to relieve the other three and also call CQ on 40 Meters so we can work a few Canadians. Remember, we are constantly placing down the results because of lack of QSOs. Calling CQ and running gets the multipliers. We have proven that over and over again and still lack to do so. In the evening I expect there will be 4 bands that we can call CQ on, 160 – 20 Meters. We need to push all night as it seems as though this is one area where we loose ground to others.

 

 

YCCC Eligibility

 

As a reminder, I have almost always required operators to be a YCCC member for the four major contests. CQWW DX and ARRL DX.  We can make exceptions in ARRL because as long as 50% of the operators are YCCC members then the whole score goes for YCCC Club Competition. CQWW is different. The total score is divided by the number of operators and only the YCCC member shares are submitted for the club. Simple example, 8 million points divided by 8 operators of which only 6 are YCCC members means the club gets only 6 Million of the 8.  This means 25% of the score goes uncounted. Those are the rules so you can see why I insist on the YCCC membership. It is an easy task now. No meeting requirement. We call a quick impromptu meeting this weekend, get $15 for annual dues and that’s it. Oh yea, we vote on your acceptance but usually no one can leave the room before the vote is taken on them.

 

 

As usual, bring you drink of choice, snacks or food. Get ready to run, run, run. This contest we will see the payback for all the hard work you all have been doing.

 

See you Friday, KB!

 

73 Dick