“Storm Watch”

Newsletter of NZ1U – The Barnstormers Contest Group

     “The BarnStormers News”                                                                                                                                                                     Volume 8 No.1, January 27,2003

 

7th Annual Barnstormers Christmas Party was a blast…

 

Saturday night might have been chilly outside but we had things heating up in the barn. I hope I get the list complete: AA1CE, KB1DFB, N1XS, NB1U, K1JCL, K1GX, W1TJL, KE1LI, K1EBY, W1MKM, KB1H, and a few harmonics ate and drank until the next day (actually shortly after midnight).  Plenty of food and of course we had the party brew provided by our own brewmaster, KE1LI. Poor Paul, for all these great efforts it turns out that his one slip up with an earlier batch of “nyquil” he earned himself the coveted “K1GX Award” for 2002.  See the picture attached. As always, the recipient seems to be always thrilled to have been chosen for this prestigious award. Paul was no different.

 

This past year has lead me to think about future award winners. I have decided that from now on his peers will choose the winner. Throughout the year I will be looking for nominations and sometime in November/December I will send out a ballot with the top few nominees. You will be asked to vote for your choice and return the ballot to me by email for announcing the winner at next year’s Christmas Party. Sound fair?

 

We made a little over 100 QSOs in the 160 contest but in my weakened physical state about all I did was fall asleep in the chair. Some wiseguys try waking me by pushing the F1 key to see if my own CQ would wake me up.

 

Anyway, thank you all for coming and bringing all that contributed to another great party.

 

 

 

 

KE1LI accepts the “K1GX Award” smiling as always…

 

 

 

...now back to contesting. We are only half done our year!

 

 

Quite a few plans were discussed during the party, couldn’t have been the beer!

 

With a good number of people at the party, it was a good opportunity to discuss the immediate and not so immediate plans for the upcoming contests and antenna work.

 

It was decided to setup four stations for the upcoming ARRL DX CW. We will again use Station #4 as the 4th position but we need to decide what radio to use. It will be either Mark’s TS-850 or another which needs to be offered by someone.  The FT-847 though with CW filter now is not as good as we would like.

 

Regarding the future plans, we decided we will make Station 2 and Station 3 slide down towards Station 1 more and build a permanent Station 4 on the same wall. The now Station 4 will become a permanent UHF/VHF station.

Regarding antenna work, of course we will be finishing the “Dallas” with the new prop pitch system. The following was decided regarding the UHF/VHF systems. We will remove the 6M antenna from the 15M tower. A new 6M antenna (M2) has been purchased by Kim and will go above the “Dallas” On the 15M tower will now go the 144, 220, and 432 systems. All this together is probably not equal to the windload presently on this tower with the big 6M beam. This will allow for the shortest coax runs on the upper bands.

 

Probably in the next two weeks we will be replacing the auxiliary switching box used for the south antenna on the 10M tower and removing the UHF/VHF antennas for this tower.

 

A number of the Barnstormers have really become fond of the UHF/VHF contest so we are looking at making a better and more permanent installation. Of course Kim is always spearheading this. KE1LI has promised to contact KB1FMM to help finish the SB-220 6M modification.

 

As early in Spring as possible we will be working on the prop pitch for the 40M tower. This all needs to be done no later than the June UHF/VHF contest. I hope it is finished sooner.

 

 

Honey Shack

 

If you drank enough beer Saturday night you probably used the “outhouse” I have rented this from Jan. 25th until after the ARRL SSB contest March 3rd. The cost was $152.00 A very generous donation from one Stormer has the funds for this almost halfway there already. Please consider helping defray the bill.

 

 

ARRL DX CW – February 15-16, 2003

 

This is the next big one for us. Jeff, K1AM has agreed to join us again for this contest.  Bob, KM1X is busy with tax time so he will be unable to help out. Vic, N4XR will be joining us though and hopes to contribute a number of hours. Jim, N1NK is still undetermined due to a probable trip to Texas at that time.  I think we have another good chance to turn in a great score. With the little internal competition we have begun to develop we might be able to crank it up a notch. With only the “Dallas” as the antenna that we are lacking we are just about at our maximum in hardware. We have to now begin to increase our scores with operating improvements. I am toying with the idea of exchanging scores with K1TTT and K1RX during the contest with hope that this also might drive us a little harder. I will try to get at least one more “Storm Watch” out before the contest.

IARU 2002 Results

 

The IARU results came out in the latest QST. Though we had reported a score which originally was 4th, a great UBN result vaulted us up to 2nd in the US. With a total of approximately 1.4M points for both us and the #1 station we lost only by less than 0.1%.  Less than 2000 points out of 1.4M! And the poor guys in 3rd only lost to us by 160 points. This is about the closest I have seen us come to being the “Top” station. Operators for this contest were K1EBY, N1XS, NB1U, and KB1H

 

Wood!

 

I think for the second time in three years Chris, N1XS, has won a plaque for the ARRL SS CW Unlimited class. There is now a second piece of wood on the KB1H wall! Great job Chris!

 

Finally…

 

As always I have my hopes for improving things. As you can see we have plans and we will be marching forward on all fronts, 1.8MHz through 1.2GHz. Again I thank everyone for all the help and support whether it’s by climbing towers, building accessories, computer hardware, or showing up with supporting equipment like preamps, antennas, antenna hardware, computers, or whatever.  This is a really “Team” effort all around.

 

73 Dick , KB1H