T H E 6 T H F L O O R

Life in 6 Land

Change PRB-1

This seems to be a very well composed ECFS Filing from Leonard J. Umina, W7CCE as it relates to modify how PRB-1 reads and who it could effect. Currently individuals, such as myself who signed a private contract (CC&R) is not covered under PRB-1. To be honest, I did cite PRB-1 in my exemption proposal I submitted to my HOA Board of Directors calling for “reasonable accommodation” knowing full well this document did NOT provide me any protect, but I felt it was a legal document on my side.

Today I read this filing from W7CCE and he makes an excellent argument against the “discriminatory” factors of PRB-1, “10. PRB-1 protects the wealthiest 10% of the population from unreasonable restrictions on their antenna structures – those lucky or productive enough to own their own homes outside the reach of restrictive private contracts.”

Unfortunately amateurs, like myself who successfully petitioned their HOA are probably few and far between. Since winning my exemption in 2007 I have not had any complaints from my neighbors, nor have any complaints been brought forth to me by the HOA. To date, I have not seen any articles in magazines like QST or CQ on how to petition an HOA to strengthen their case. There have been dozens of articles on the “art of stealth” when it comes to building antennas that are not obvious or go against the CC&Rs. One of the most common, a simple flagpole antenna.

In the interest of the Amateur Radio Service, public policy, Constitutional Law, environmental policy, and to remove discrimination against the poor, minorities, women, the young, and approximately 90% of the population which lives under restrictive agreements of one sort or another, Petitioner requests that PRB-1 be immediately extended to preempt all private contracts thereby requiring reasonable accommodation of Amateur Radio and SWL interests.

I fully support this filing from W7CCE and would throw my support behind it, and allow me more opportunity when it comes to amateur radio. It will be interesting to see and hear what becomes of this filing. Hopefully the FCC looks upon it favorably and a strong paper like this is above to cut through the red tape and allow more individuals the opportunity to experience amateur radio.

HamQTH

With my transceiver still being repaired and the loaner rig I had back to it’s original owner (Thanks K6GT), I have been without a radio for about 3 weeks now. It’s not all bad, as it gives me time to do some housekeeping around the shack, which includes cleaning up my electronic logbook developed by Scott, N3FJP.

Unfortunately, I was not happy to see I had subscribe to QRZ if I wanted to automatically update my logbook with information about each individual I contact. While I haven’t found an good answer, unless Scott decides to add another callbook to the list. Thankfully belonging to NCCC and CWOps, I ran across HamQTH, which was mentioned on the reflector.

Unlike some of the callbooks, like QRZ and Hamcall, HamQTH is free! Not only is it free, it’s fast and not not cluttered like some other callbooks I have used. You can easily register and edit your profile (view W6ONV), much like I did to include as much or as little information as you want.

Adding a profile is optional, but looking up a call sign will provide you with the basic information needed to fill in any electronic logbook. The other neat features of HamQTH, being able to view solar condition predictions, recent activity as well as search a logbook for call. Again, these are all configurable depending on the amount of information you want to share.

Petr, OK2CQR is the owner of HamQTH and has enlisted the assistance of Dan, OK1HRA who “created the design of the front page and all logos. He has very a good sense of graphics, colors and user interfaces” and Martin, OK1RR who “provided me with an advice how to download callbook databases from the internet. He helps me with application testing and my poor English.” We can’t forget the moral support of Petr’s XYL, Misa (OK2-36141). If you want a fast and simple callbook that “provides all information, including XML queries for free” check out HamQTH. Great work by those involved, you have a full time user in me!

WPX on the Horizon

While May 26 is still a way out, it’s not too early to start planning for the CQ WPX CW contest. It’s one of those contests that I have really come to enjoy, next to the ARRL Sweepstakes. I find it interesting, now 3 years into contesting these two contests would top my list of “most enjoyable.” CW or Morse code wasn’t a mode I really thought of using when I upgraded without submitting to Element 1 testing, since it was dropped by the FCC. Sweepstakes, before participating, I could not understand the draw to the contest, but now 3 years later, these “messages” we exchange during the contest show the importance of traffic handling and being precise.

There is more to entering a contest than winning, especially for an operator like myself with a very modest shack and equipment compared to other stations. Unfortunately due to our remodel in 2011, I was unable to participate in the CQ WPX CW. Go back just 2 years and I posted one of my best overall performances in ANY contest to date. Again, I didn’t win the contest in my category (Single Operator, High Power, All Bands), while placing 19th out of 71 operators in that category.

The best part of this contest is that you get to work EVERYBODY! It’s also a contest where the other station’s prefix (like W6 or WD6, etc) are multipliers. If you work stations on the low bands (40/80M) they are worth double the points. If you work stations on other continents, they are worth more than if I work many domestic stations. So this is my best opportunity to score 1 million points in a contest.

John, K6MM and Dean, N6BV made a presentation back in 2010 at our May meeting of the Northern California Contest Club. After seeing the numbers as presented by K6MM and the outlook for propagation, even an operator like my could put up 1 million points. I had grand visions of that goal back in 2010, but sleep got the better of me when the sun went down. From that point on I was behind the goals I had set, unable to recover.

This year hopes to be a different story, especially if the solar weather picks up in the next month with an increase in sunspots. Regardless I will attempt to put a full weekend into contesting in order to achieve my 1 million point goal. Getting back to the band information, as long as I can stay awake, the low bands (40/80M) should be worth their points in gold. Even 6-8 hours when the sun goes does should provide me with the push I need to make 1 million points. The great think about this contest is I only need to make 27 contacts per hour and I will achieve my goal.

Currently I have working up the details on a spreadsheet I use for where my antenna will be pointing, possible contacts per band, broken down into different categories based on points. I also have to figure out a sleep schedule, which could be during the day, as opposed to night time when points are at a premium. Still some work to do before the contest arrives, but planning is always a key when it comes to contesting.

2012 CQ World Wide WPX – SSB

Contest: CQ World Wide WPX
Date: March 24-25, 2010
Mode: SSB
Period: Starts 0000 UTC Saturday; ends 2359 UTC Sunday

BAND/ QSO / PFX
20 / 50 / 43
TOTAL: 50 QSO / 43 PFX
SCORE: 2,924 (TIME ON: 3 H 37 Mn)

SOAPBOX: I knew better than go into this contest running low power, still I took the chance and did it anyway. Part of the reason was because the rig is a loaner from George, K6GT and I have been “babying it” so nothing happens while it is in my possession. The last thing I need is to damage his rig, so the past few months I have used it, its been all low power. Now low power could have been sufficient IF my backyard were full of towers with big antennas, but that isn’t the case. A single 5-band hex beam at about 40′ was what I had to work with and conditions were okay when the contest started.

On top of the low power I decided to work a single band. Ignoring the suggestion from Stu, K6TU to work 15M I decided on 20M, as I hoped it would stay open later to Asia/Oceania. Not sure if it did or not, as I got tired and went to bed before I had a real chance to check the band conditions to that part of the world.

My score and effort were terrible to say the least. I could hear many stations, but at 100w, which was probably more like 60-70w they couldn’t hear me. I did with SJ2W in Sweden, but that was my sole EU contact. There were a few Caribbean contacts, but 92% of my contacts were from NA. One of those was NR6O, or N6RO, Radio Oakley, which is but a few miles down the road.

Instead of working frustrated through Saturday, I had coordinated with Ken, the station owner and Dean, N6BV to sit and listen with Dean. Thankfully Dean wanted to take a break, so I took over the controls on 15M, attempting to work EU. It was interesting to see how Dean made it look so easy, pulling weak signals and their exchange out of the noise. Maybe it’s something I am not great at, as well as knowing many call signs, due to a lack of experience. Still with the tools on Win-Test, even having a partial call sign will allow you to guess that the suffix of the call you are trying to work.

I gave up 15M after about 2 hours and Dean took control. While I was listening in, Michael, WA6O asked if I wanted to listen to 40M. Now during the day 40M isn’t much, except for local area contacts. I spent about 90 minutes listening to noise, with a contact here and there, even moved a few to 10M. Still it was the experience of working as a team, with many more experienced than myself.One of my other disadvantages, not knowing the Elecraft K3. Still I feel it was good experience and thank N6BV for allowing me to watch, work, listen and learn.

WPX @ RO

For those not involved in amateur radio, many of the terms I use many seen foreign. I have received a few comments from puzzled readers of The 6th Floor. Sometimes I forget this “language” we speak in the world of ham radio is not widely known. Starting Friday afternoon at 5pm PDT the World Wide WPX Contest sponsored by CQ Magazine kicked off. Each contest is a different mode, this week it was the SSB (single side band or voice) contest. If you read my news on Thursday, WPX SSB Goals I was hoping to put in a 10 hour effort and possibly see 200-300 QSOs.

In every contest you must decide if you operate low (100 watts or less) or high power (greater than 100 watts) and if you want to work all the available bands or one band. The three previous years I had operated high power, all bands. This year I decided to change that up (which I shouldn’t have done in hindsight) and working low power on 20 Meter band (14 MHz). I spent the better part of 2.5 hours and only worked 50 stations and pulled the plug on my operation. I knew better than and consulted my father, N6SV before making the decision.

Instead of spending the better part of Saturday, sitting frustrated in front of my radio I decided to head to N6RO about 2 miles down the road. I had e-mailed Dean Straw, N6BV and asked if I could sit, listen and learn. When I arrived I met Juan, W6NOW, Masa, K1GI, Dean, N6BV, Steve, K6AW and I believe Bob, K3EST. Our host, Ken, N6RO came out to the shack a few hours later. I plugged in with Juan on 40M, but the band was very slow, as it was daylight. I decided to plug in with Dean a about 60 minutes later, who was working 15 Meters (21 MHz) and working Europe at a good rate.

Dean asked if I wanted to operate 15 Meters and I hopped in the chair and started calling CQ NR6O, which was the unique club call sign we were using. The WPX contest is a great contest to work, since each new prefix you work is a multiplier, which adds to your score. So in this contest you can work everyone on all 6 bands potentially. When I took over, I was nervous, since this was only the second time I had worked at N6RO. I settled into a modest rhythm, but after listening in with Dean and some of the call signs he was pulling out of the noise I was somewhat frustrated I was not able to accomplish the same.

It was still a great experience knowing I had some big antennas putting out a very clean and strong signal across the world. Some of the new countries I worked were Dodecanse (J45), Namibia (V5A) and Kenya (5YA). Unfortunately none of these were using my personal call sign of W6ONV, so I cannot claim any of them in my log book. I had a few short runs where I made multiple contacts in a short period of time. I probably put in 2 hours on 15 Meters and Dean took control of the station before the JA’s (Japan) came on the air at which time Masa sat down.

I then took a short break and spent another 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours working 40 Meters. Again, it was very quiet and maybe had 10 contacts in that 2 hour time period, but it’s something that needs to be done in order to maximize points for the station. There were times Bob, who was working 10 Meters would move or send a station to 40 Meters if that operator had not contacted us on that band.

All in all it was a great contest weekend. I was thankfully to be part of the NR6O operation. I might have to start spending more time with that group and learning the ins and outs of operating from their shack. Unfortunately time isn’t something I usually have much of, so being able to commit 48 hours (as is the duration of this contest) or even 12 hours is not always possible. Still being able to relieve an operator even for a few hours is a blessing, especially if you plan on operating all 48 hours. Not sure what the rest of the year will bring. I do have N6RO to visit, as well as W6ZJH in Pittsburg for some of the shorter duration contests.