The San Francisco Radio Club has announced its 5th annual 2 meter FM QSO Party on August 24th.https://www.sfarc.org/2019-2m-fm-qso-party.html
This is a fun event — hams head to the hills in SF and try to contact as many zip codes all around SF and in the Bay Area as they can. One end of the QSO has to be in San Francisco but there are plenty of zip code “mults” out there both inside and outside of SF.
73, Mark W6IA
Category Archives: Contests
June 13th WVARA Meeting – N1MM+ Logger Review + Field Day Strategies
It’s time for the June WVARA meeting! June 13th at 19:00 in Meeting Room 5 at the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, 2731 N. First Street at Plumeria Drive (southwest corner) in San Jose. Talk in is available on the association repeaters, 2m is a good choice.
I’m sure none of us have forgotten, but just in case, Field Day is June 22nd-24th, and when we’re this close to Field Day, it’s hard not to talk about Field Day.
In this meeting, we’re going to do a deep dive into N1MM+, the logging software we’ll be using at field day this year. Last year, standardizing on it ended up working out really well — but this year we’ve refined some rough edges, learned from a few mistakes, and are using a few new features. Specifically, the waterfall bandmap will likely be of interest to a few people as well as the use of skimmers (which according to the ARRL, believe it or not, is allowed on Field Day.) You don’t have to have to be an expert at N1MM+ to use it by any means, but knowing a few shortcuts probably won’t hurt our score. Additionally, we’ll talk about some strategies and operating tips for the various modes. Perhaps we’ll even have time to make some eyeball-QSOs. I’ll lead the discussion and present some slides, but there’s quite a bit of wisdom elsewhere in the room, so we’re sure to learn something.
Field Day isn’t a contest, but they do keep score and publish/rank the results at the end, so it sure feels like one sometimes. There are some folks in this club that almost never contest, and others, who can’t stop contesting (hi.) No problem, but one of the most important goals of Field Day is to a) get as many of us on the air as possible, and who knows, maybe we’ll even get you hooked and talk you into taking a road trip for a real contest in the not-so-distant future.
A few of us usually meet for dinner somewhere near the Red Cross (I’ve been rotating between a few locations) around 6 pm prior to the meeting. This month, it’s back to Dish’n’Dash just a block down the street: https://www.yelp.com/
See you there!
Bill/W9KKN
California QSO Party 2017: New Club Competition Rules
From: John Miller
Date: Fri, Aug 18, 2017 at 1:27 PM
Subject: California QSO Party 2017: New Club Competition Rules
To: support@cqp.org
Dear Contest Club Official:
Club Competition in the California QSO Party has been supported for many years, but traditionally only a handful of larger clubs in California tend to compete each year. To encourage more small-medium club participation for 2017, we’ve created three new competition categories:
- “Small” = the 10 highest scores from a club whose members who submitted their log in the Small category will count for this competition category.
- “Medium” = the 35 highest scores from a club whose members who submitted their log in the Medium category will count for this competition category.
- “Large” = clubs may combine the scores of any number of their members
All CA clubs are eligible to compete in CQP, except for NCCC, which sponsors the contest.
Plaques will be awarded for each of the 3 categories for both California and Non-California clubs: a total of 6 awards.
Further details can be found on the CQP website:
http://www.cqp.org/Clubcomp.html
Date-Time Reminder: 1600 UTC October 7, 2017 to 2200 UTC October 8, 2017
We hope to see many members of your club on the air this October in the 52nd running of the California QSO Party!
73, John, K6MM CQP Chair
January 2017 VHF Contest Results
From the July 2017 QST – -Your West Valley ARA Participants:
| # | Call | Score | QSOs | Mult | Class | Section | Grids | Club | Ops |
| 1 | N9DK/R | 2,552 | 83 | 22 | RL | SCV | 4 | West Valley ARA | N9DK KA4VBF |
| 2 | W6ESL/R | 1,088 | 48 | 17 | RL | SCV | 2 | West Valley ARA | |
| 3 | W6IA | 264 | 21 | 8 | FM | SCV | 1 | West Valley ARA | |
| 4 | AE6JV/R | 65 | 9 | 5 | RL | SCV | 2 | West Valley ARA | |
| Totals | 3,969 | 161 | 52 |
Note that N9DK/R was first in the Pacific Division for Limited Rover,
and That N9DK/R and W6ESL/R were numbers 2 and 3 in the West Coast Region for Limited Rover
Tom W6ESL