March 7, 2019 Club Meeting
Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 7:00 PM Medford Police Department Community Room, 219 S. Ivy St., Medford, OR
Program: Radio Contesting—Moving to the next Level, John Laybourne, W8WOM
John Laybourne, W8WOM will present on how to improve your contesting score. There are a lot of thing one can do to increase both quantity of contacts and the number of multipliers.
Biography: John is the RVARC club president.
Announced in the March 2019 issue of The Repeater.
Meeting Notes
From the April 2019 issue of The Repeater.
RVARC Minutes for March 7, 2019 Meeting.
7:00pm Meeting called to order by President John Laybourne. About 25 attendees were present.
Allan Taylor mentioned that the Wild Rogue Relay Race, June 14-15, needs radio operators. The course runs from Applegate Lake to Brookings. See Allan for more info if you can volunteer (also see thewildroguerelay.com )
John Laybourne announced that he received a new callsign: AC7C.
Mike Bach said he has the Field Day binder to pass on to the new Field Day Chairman, as soon as we can find one. Scott, NA7OM, proposed that since Bill Martin, N7EU, is the Field Day contact for the CARE club, perhaps he would be interested in doing the job for both clubs. Mike, WB6FFC, said he would talk to him about that.
Where to have Field Day this year? ScienceWorks again? Lily Glen County Campground near Howard Prairie Lake, and Forest Rd 20 & Meridian Rd at 7000ft elevation were also mentioned.
Scott, NA7OM, had some findings for the May 4 7QP contest. The 3-county site on King Mtn. is out due to snow, the Boy Scout site is also out. The West side of Agate Lake is still in the running, and the site at Old Dry Creek Rd is also possible. Allan, K7GT, asked what category we would use for this contest. That was still to be determined.
Treasurer Mike Bach, WB6FFC, reported that the current bank balance is $4887.05 plus $50 petty cash.
Tom, N5EG, said that the club’s Ed Fong group order has arrived.
The first presentation on Portable Station Setups by Amy Haptonstall, AG7GP, commenced at 7:23pm.
Slides were presented of her recent station setups:
- Ohms Rd. in the Dalles, OR during the last eclipse of the sun.
- A Baker Island contest using an Icom 706Mk2G.
- Watts Rd., grid DN01, at the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, where she was getting about 100 contacts/hr on 40M at sundown. The Android App named GpsStatus was useful for grid square listings.
- Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, grid CN91, which along with Sheldon NWR are part of the Parks On The Air program (POTA).( see parksontheair.com for details on that program. )
- Rogue River National Forest, where the weather ranged from sunny to windy to snowy.
The station was powered by a Bioenno LiFePo 12V, 20AH battery, that gave about 8-10 hours use at 100w intermittent transmitting. Battery charging was provided by two solar panels.
The meeting took a break for snacks and visiting at 7:42pm.
Weldon Bauman, KJ6IOD, newly relocated to Rogue River, a member of the Paradise Amateur Radio Society(w6par.org) was looking for a tower. Anyone with a tower for sale could contact Scott, NA7OM, for further action.
The second presentation commenced at 8:10pm, titled: Radio Contesting, Ideas For Improving Your Score by John Laybourne, AC7C.
Key points:
- Pick contests you like the most: Domestic (high Take-Off-Angle) or DX (low Take-Off-Angle) . Phone, CW, or Digital. Short, Medium, or Long Time Frame.
- Match your antenna to your contest.
- Consider becoming a single band expert.
- Which bands play best for you? ( given your antennas available, antenna gain & Take-Off-Angle, terrain, who you want to contact, etc. )
- Optimize antenna to the contest, for the DIY antenna makers.
- Have multiple antennas per band.
- Optimize shack for efficiency: good chair; good headphones or mic headset with foot-switch mounted on foot-rest; SWR/Watt meter in direct view; PC, monitor, keyboard and table at correct height; keep log program and radio in sync; automate antenna switching; have good lighting and ventilation.
- Keep up CQ rate. (better than search & pounce)
- Know the value of multipliers, and work the multipliers on that band.
- Don’t leave a good CQ run.
- Turn in your logs.
- Practice, practice, practice.
Some resources are at:
- NCJ Magazine (ncjweb.com)
- Contesting.com
- W9XT.com
The meeting was adjourned at 9:02pm
— John Armstrong , KF7UMK, Secretary.
