ARROW Communication Association

Serving Radio Amateurs in Michigan's Washtenaw & Wayne Counties

Category: Contesting

Poor band conditions not a problem for our Winter Field Day team

By

On January 29, 2020

In Contesting, Events, News

Tucked away in a small cabin (right) at the Brighton Recreation Area, our Winter Field Day team battled poor band conditions, but still managed more QSOs than last year, reports Thom, W8TAM.

Despite an urgent call for operators early Sunday morning, Thom, Dinesh AB3DC, and John WA8TON bested our 2019 by 2 contacts. Thom said, “253 QSOs after dupe checking. 2 more than last year. I think that’s a good result. The solar conditions this year were worse than last year. Good effort by all!”

While the weather outside was frightful (see below), inside it was delightfully warm. As you can see, Thom is in short sleeves. I’m impressed that they even had a boom mike.

Thom W8TAM, Dinesh AB3DC, and John WA8TON setting up the Winter Field Day antenna.

ARROW works the MI QSO Party at the Red Cross

By

On April 24, 2019

In Contesting

We participated in the MI QSO Party this past Saturday from the Red Cross Station and we ran the station for the full 12 hours of the contest period and we made 328 QSOs and scored 47234 points.

A special thanks to Thom W8TAM for the IC-7300 station and for manning the station for the full 12 hour period and for also donating a Windows machine and a monitor for the Red Cross station. Also, thanks to the following operators: Garry W8GMD, Julie K8VOX, Mark W8FSA and Dan KB6NU and to Jay WB8TKL and Jon KD8MKE and his wife for visiting us.

Dan KB6NU (left), Dinesh AB3DC (right), Thom W8TAM (bottom) piling up the points in the 2019 MI QSO Party
Photos: Thom, W8TAM and Dinesh AB3DC

Thanks to Dave N8SBE (35728 points) and Russ KB8U (55880 points) for submitting their logs on behalf of the ARROW. We are currently leading the Combined Club category with a score of 138,842. If you have not submitted your logs please remember to give credit to ARROW or if you forgot to give credit please resubmit you log and select ARROW COMMUNICATIONS ASSN as the Club.

Also, while at the Red Cross Station, Thom and I also did a lot of clean up work. We have more to do and we plan to discuss this at the next Board and General meetings.  

First ARROW Winter Field Day a Success!

By

On January 28, 2019

In Contesting, Events

Our first Winter Field Day was a success!

We made 251 Qs, operating for 16 hrs of the 24 hour contest on 20/40/80 SSB.  The Wegwaas cabin at Brighton Rec Area was a great location with plenty of room for two antennas on the ladderball posts that were off to the side.

The propane heat in the cabin eventually got us up to sweltering temps, and had a nice table for operating from.  Icom 7300 at 100W, LDG Z11Pro 2, Heil HM-12, everything on battery power, and we even brought the foot pedal & boom mic setup!  Big thanks to W8TAM for putting together this portable++ setup!  The 80m inverted V doublet performed very well, as expected.  It is our favorite antenna for portable ops.

W8TAM making Winter Field Day contacts as W8RP.

The Spiderbeams both stayed up throughout the contest and came down easily.  That is not always the case with this piece of kit!  We used the new-to-us technique of taping each joint with 3M Super 88.  Very impressed with this performance of this tape – expensive but worth it for this application.  I am very proud that W8TAM and I were able to install these antennas in the dark in below freezing conditions safely and quickly.   #beastmode

  • Claimed score: 4255
  • Our multipliers:
    • 3x for SSB Qs on 3 bands
    • 2x for 100w or less
  • Bonuses:
    • 1500 pts not at home
    • 1500 pts no commercial power

From the WFD Rules:
QSO Points: 1 point per Phone QSO, 2 points per CW & Digital QSO… Busted exchanges will be penalized by 1 additional point for each missed exchange or call sign. Duplicate contacts (same call, band, and mode) will not be counted, but will not be penalized.

Mode and Band Multipliers: Count 1 multiplier for each mode operated per band. For example, operating CW and Phone on 80, 40, 15 and 10 meters, CW and PSK31 on 20m, FM on 2meters and 440 would be a total multiplier of 12x.

So you can see that we definitely left some points on the table.  Next year we will be soliciting CW ops and we’d also like to nab the 1500 bonus for a satellite Q.

Thanks to Dinesh AB3DC, Gayathri N8GRU and Dave N8SBE for coming by to make some see our setup and contacts.  Mitch, K8UCH we are so sorry we missed you!    Also thanks to John WA8TON for arranging for the space.  It was great!

I had a caller that knew Roy Purchase, and he said how nice it was to make contact with W8RP.  I told him our club was honored to hold the call – always a thrill to call whiskey eight romeo papa.

Take nothing but Qs leave nothing but footprints!

73 Julie K8VOX

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