The 1998 DG Dayton Report

by Doug Grant, K1DG
[email protected]

YCCC Scuttlebutt #137, August 1998

Getting to Dayton was a different story this year, and got the weekend off to a rough start. After I had my frequent-flier award ticket in hand, I was informed by my employer that my presence was required at a meeting in Greensboro, NC on Thursday. I found out that the air fare from Boston-to-Greensboro- to-Dayton-to-Boston was cheaper than the simple Boston-Greensboro trip, so I got the company to pay for the ticket, and will use the frequent-flier award next year. That was the good news. The bad news was that I had to get up at 4:30 AM to get the early flight to Greensboro in time for the meeting, and I was tired before I got to Dayton.

When I arrived in Dayton, I wandered around the rental-car area looking for a familiar face who could give me a ride downtown. It's kind of like hunting for a multiplier. The first familiar face I spotted was K5ZD, who was also multiplier-hunting. Further hunting found a business acquaintance who I never knew was a ham before Thursday. He was happy to give Randy and me a ride downtown (please listen for my friend who will ask you for a ride now...).

The Crowne Plaza lobby was quiet when we arrived, but we found K4OJ and his parents (W1CW and W1YL), and headed off to dinner at the Chinese place across the street from the CP. Turns out W1CW was in town to be inducted into the CQ DX Hall of Fame. As it turned out, the K3LR team was also there, along with Dr. Bafoofnik (W9XR).

Dinner conversation was more about computers and the Internet than contesting. Bafoofnik started a comment with "I wrote something stupid on the contest reflector today", at which point K4OJ interrupted somewhat incredulously "Not you, Spike!". W1YL suggested that Internet Email reflectors serve a useful purpose...they've saved untold kids, dogs, and spouses from being kicked out of frustration. It's much easier to pound out a few lines of flamage and hit the send key.

The whole discussion led Randy and me to wonder if the computer vendors would outnumber the radio vendors at the Hamvention (the answer is no, by the way...more on that later). It was then time for the Final Episode of Seinfeld, and we left to see what all the hoopla was about.

K1AR returned to the room during Seinfeld. The only funny line in the show was when George admitting cheating in "the contest". I didn't even know he was a ham! (Note - in reality, the contest he was referring to had nothing to do with ham radio contesting - ask your local Seinfeld junkie to explain it).

Friday morning I went up to the restaurant in the CP for breakfast, and the first guy I saw thought I was WJ2O. Then I had breakfast with N1DG (that's the OTHER DG, thank you very much). I noticed that Don, a Compaq employee, was also dining with Digital employees KQ1F and K1XM; obviously negotiating details of the acquisition. K1AR joined us, and various people stoppedg by the table and called me "Don", and called John "Doug". Maybe I should get one of those new "vanity names".

In the flea market, I recalled an article by the Boston Globe automotive editor, who noted recently that a lot of car manufacturers have lost the art of naming their products, using numbers and letters instead of names. For example: 733i, 900S, 300D, versus Bearcat, Esprit, or even Beetle. I saw similarities in the flea market; Warriors, Sky Riders and Sky Champions vs. FT-1000 and TS950.

Saw some strange stuff out there this year, including a "Resusci-Annie" CPR training dummy and a cellular propagation analyzer (did not see an HF version, though). Bought a few coax relays (you can never have too many of them...). Bumped into old college buddy K8GN, who lives in the Dayton area. He was looking for K1AR, and I told him that AR would be in the Contest Forum at the High School Saturday afternoon. Turns out Steve's been using the parking lot at the school for years, and it's not far at all from the Hara Arena. Maybe the new Forum QTH will be OK after all.

Out of curiosity, I went to the old Room 1 area, where the contest and DX Forums have been for 20 years (until this year, when we were moved offsite). If we were moved to make space for more exhibitors, the exercise was a failure. Only about half the space was occupied, and the vendors included some PC books, one or two PC sellers, a furniture place, CD storage racks, and a weather station.

While I was in the flea market, I missed the Antenna Forum. From what I heard, there were fewer speakers than usual, but the quality made up for the quantity. Or own K1ZM and K1VR gave talks on low-band antennas, K9AY described low-noise receiving antennas for the low bands and limited space, and K7LXC gave some results of the tribander comparisons he and N0AX have been conducting recently.

There was some interesting stuff in the exhibit areas. No new contest-grade radios. But lots of accessories. International Radio is now owned by W2VJN, who apparently got tired of going trout fishing every day in his retirement. George, who is an excellent engineer, and his wife, who is committed to customer service, are doing a great job getting IR back together. He has expanded the line of filter products to include some for TenTec radios, and improved installation methods for some of the older products. He is also offering some new things - for example, he is selling 6-pole receiver front-end filters for 40M (7007.5 +/- 7.5 kHz at 1 dB points) and 20M (14010 +/- 10 kHz). If these work out, he may offer other frequencies and bands. Contact him at [email protected] or (541) 459-5623.

Several people have noted the absence of TIC (the ring-rotor guys) from the advertising pages of the ham magazines and wondered if they were still in business. Well, a few weeks before Dayton, Bill, N3RR, started his own company to be the sales rep for TIC. He reported a lot of interest at Dayton, and says he'll be happy to hear from prospective customers. Contact him at [email protected], or (301) 424-2707.

Been wondering how to handle the switching for a 2-radio station? Wonder no more! WX0B has developed the "SixPak" 6-band 2-radio relay switch box. $365 will get you the whole thing, ready to go, with the relay box and one control box, or $415 for the relay box and two controllers. It can also be controlled by 12V band decoder boxes (like the Top Ten models). Isolation is measured at 80 dB radio-to-radio and 55-60 db radio-to-unused-antenna. The relay box is designed with stripline techniques, includes interlock, and looks very rugged. Contact [email protected] or (972)-203-8810.

After I visited the WX0B booth, I noticed W2VJN, who designed the Top Ten relay boxes come over, so I eavesdropped on the two of them comparing design notes and construction techniques.

C.A.T.S. is now the "Rotor Doctor", selling and repairing most brands and models of rotators. [email protected], or 1-800-3-ROTORS (376-8677).

Some of the boys said that there was a nice new wattmeter from Daiwa, but I didn't see it. Guess I'll need to stop by HRO one of these days.

Ten-Tec has a new desktop amplifier - the Titan II, for $2,990. It offers full QSK, solid construction, and a Svetlana 4CX1600B tube. Svetlana's warrantee is good for free replacement during the first 500 hours, then prorated up to 5000 hours or 2 years, whichever comes first.

G3SZA/AA0RS and K0HM have left Alpha/Power and formed Frontier Engineering. They're available for customer projects for accessory boxes, tuners, amplifiers, etc., and equipment repair. One current product is an automatic 9-band antenna switch for $359, compatible with Icom and Yaesu radios (manual operation with Kenwoods). They also had a big military-surplus remote antenna tuner for about $1000. Contact them at [email protected] or (970) 785-2897.

Speaking of Alpha/Power, new owner W0UN was there and seems very happy with the business. I am not quite sure how he managed to work the booth and still make it to the suites. Maybe he's getting ready to do some single-op action when he gets all his mega-antennas back together.

Friday night I had dinner with a big crowd organized by W3LPL at a very nice Italian place. Then it was time for the action in the suites. I met with Ivor, GI0AIJ, who related the tale of how he almost missed Dayton. It seems he has a false front tooth (as the result of a saxophone accident when he was a kid), and it fell out a few days before Dayton. He superglued it back in, only to find it wasn't in quite right. His dentist then drilled it out, and apparently a replacement was going to take a while to arrive, so Ivor took the tooth to work and milled it out for a better fit and superglued it back in place. And he made it to Dayton. Next time you work him in a contest, ask him about his tooth.

DL2CC had a copy of the RUFZ CW practice program running, and had a competition going. This is a really cool program. It works from a data file of callsigns, and sends one. If you type it in correctly, the next callsign is sent a little faster. If you make an error, it sends the next one slower. Faster callsigns are worth higher point values, and faster responses score higher. Contestants' scores are saved and ranked.

K1AR sat down at it, and immediately topped the list. A few minutes later, K5ZD sat down and beat him. Then I did it and beat them both. DL2CC (who demonstrated last year that he is from another planet) promised not to take the test, and my score held up all night Friday. AR's score slowly sank to about 8th place. Saturday night, AR couldn't stand it, and kept taking the test over and over until he finally ended up 4th, behind N6TV, K5ZD, and K8GL. I ended up 8th. Check out http://www.grossmann.com/ham/Dayton98/index.html, and somewhere on his page you can probably find a link to download your own copy of RUFZ.

At one point, K4ZA (who is videotaping a series of interviews with top contesters) told me to tell N2AA that he's a part of history. So I told N2AA he was history. Close enough.

WA4DAI and VK5AI bumped into each other and someone asked for the "last two". One of the KP4 guys (I don't recall if it was KP4Z or WP4G) shook hands with W2SC and someone told Tom he'd been "touched by an Angel".

I stopped by the Sultans of Schwing Suite to say hello to some of the boyz, then back down to the Super Suite for a while. At that point I was getting tired (about 1:30 AM) and I went to bed. Remember, I was up at 4:30 AM. And this was just Thursday night.

Saturday, AR and I drove out to the High School to park the car, and caught the shuttle bus to the Arena, a quick trip. I stopped in to see a few of the inside booths then went back by bus to the High School to get the Contest Forum started.

The High School venue worked out pretty well. I heard that the DX Forum (in the morning) had problems, mostly due to last-minute re-scheduling of speakers. I found another banquet going on down the hall, and managed to grab a hot dog and a coke before opening the Forum.

It was a good program, if I do say so myself! First up was the K2GL video - we had hoped to have the re-mastered version, but it wasn't ready in time, so we showed the "Classic". It was a real kick seeing N2AA with red hair (N6KT said it must have been colorized), and all those paper logs and analog-readout rigs. Next up was the travelog of the VP5FXB ARRL DX CW operation, in memory of G3FXB. This was followed by the African Italy (IG9 - Zone 33) presentation - one of the newest multipliers in the CQWW. Lampedusa Island has 4500 residents, and is reached by a 6 hour ferry trip from Sicily, which in turn is a 22 hour ferry trip from Italy. The 160 M operator worked 102 countries in the CQWW last year, with 101 of them calling in! The excellent videotape used the Toto song "Down in Africa" for a score.

The next talk, and best of the Forum, was the 6Y4A ("All you need is verticals on the beach, mon") show by K2KW and N6BT. They posted the highest ever 40M QSO total using a pair of 15-foot tall verticals. All the antennas were carried in a couple of golf bag carriers. The biggest problem they encountered was when the salt-spray-coated guy ropes caught fire and melted from the high RF voltage (insulators and more judicious guy placement cured it). This multi-multi had 224 6-band QSOs and 231 5-banders. A great talk about a great operation.

NJ2L described the design and installation of his station. His excellent presentation discussed the issues he encountered in building a 16-band (!) contest station on a budget. His single 100-foot rotating tower sports 189 elements total, and he spent $1600 to put it all together. Rus also gave a talk in the microwave Forum earlier in the day.

K3EST and some members of the CQWW Contest Committee talked about the new log-checking process, and some of the interesting bugs in electronic submission. The log-checking process consumes approximately 2000 man-hours, with a fair-market value in the range of of $300,000. This works out to $42 per log. In 1997, 1100 logs were received by Email, and 700 more came in on disk. There were 50 "dupes", where people sent both (which screws up the database, so don't do it!). Of the 1100 received by Email, about 800 were received perfectly. 150 or so came from various home-brew logging programs and required additional processing to untangle. 50 more needed a lot of processing (for example, QSOs in 2 columns per page). One guy sent 16 copies of his log. Another had to break his log up into 13 pieces to send due to limitations of his mailer. About 30 were so mangled that replacements were needed. A huge number of guys named their log files "CW97.BIN". It's easier if you name it K1DG.BIN (assuming your call is K1DG!), and send separate files or disks for each mode. Some guys used special calls, but forgot to change their .CFG files, so their logs did not match their callsign! About 30 guys sent logs from the wrong contest. But it's definitely better than the mountain of paper logs we used to get!

The finale of the Forum was the Single-op Panel, organized by K1AR and K5ZD, and including N6KT, W2SC, and W9RE. The interplay between the panel members was interesting as the answers to audience questions. For example, someone asked if a top gun competes against himself or other ops. K5ZD said "I only have to beat K1AR once. On the other hand, he needs to beat me every time!" W9RE said he'd gotten stagnant, but since WB9Z is getting active from the same area, he's starting to push himself again.

Sleep strategies, 2-radio operation and the value of getting experience in multi-multis all came up. And the secret of winning was also disclosed, but we were all sworn to secrecy, so if you didn't attend the Forum, you missed it. Sorry.

After the Forum, I overheard this gem:

W2GD (to NJ2L): "Nice presentation in the Microwave Forum"
NJ2L: "Er...thanks...I didn't know you were interested in microwaves, John!"
W2GD: "Oh, I'm not...but the room was air-conditioned!"

Then it was back to the CP to get ready for the Contest Banquet. On the way to the room, I noticed another group meeting on one of the nearby rooms. The sign said it was the "International Training in Communication" group. I couldn't resist, and stuck my head inside and asked what it was all about. It seems that this group is affiliated with the Toastmasters organization, and helps its members with leadership training and speech improvement. Their pledge includes the following:

"...hoping through better communication to achieve greater understanding throughout the world". I told them that our banquet just down the hall had similar goals. Maybe some of them will become contesters some day.

At the banquet, I was fortunate to find myself seated at a table with N6AA, N6TJ/ZD8Z, N6TR, and K2MM - good company. I think my CQWW score went up 10% just by sitting with them. The dinner program included the annual CQ Contest Hall of Fame induction of new members. First was WA2AAU, the first hard-core VHF/UHF contester to be inducted. Dick has been the force behind the Mount Greylock operation for about a million years, and has spawned generations of VHF contesters. Next was Glenn, K6NA, who has been a consistent high scorer and the foundation of the San Diego area contest community. You've worked him from his home-away-from-home at 9Y4H.

Next was Roger, G3SXW, one of the finest operators in England. He's operated contests from such exotic spots as EP,YA, KP2, CN, 5V, XX, ZD9, 9G, and ZC4. Last, but certainly not least, was Gene, N2AA. From his early operations as 5A1TW through the K2GL multi-multi years, a few years in the QRP category, and trips to PJ1B and KP2A, he has done it all. Gene is a veritable legend in contesting, for his encyclopedic knowledge of propagation and callsigns, and complete mastery of 20 meters. Not to mention his technical skill and outrageous sense of humor.

The keynote speaker was G3SXW, who described his early years in contesting, with his mentor G3LHJ. Roger emphasized that the key to success in contesting lies in Fun and Focus. Trying to have fun will force you to focus on your operating. And that focus will result in higher scores and more fun. Sounded good to me.

Then it was off to the Suite-hopping. The KCDXC had their annual CW pileup competition. At midnight, the winners were announced: W9WI at 59 calls, then a tie between K3ZO and K5ZD at 56, then a three-way tie at 55 among WRTC96 gold-medal teammates N5TJ and K1TO and aging WRTC90 gold-medalist K1DG, followed by Contest Hall-of-Famers G3SXW and N2AA at 54 and 53, respectively. W1MA commented that he'd like to submit his age instead of his score. Tapes from previous years can be found at http://www.qsl.net/kcdxc. They're great fun.

The rest of Saturday night went by pretty quickly, and I faded well before the pizza arrived. Sunday morning I had an early flight out, and bumped into KC1XX and W3LPL at the airport. And Dayton 1998 was over.

So what was Dayton 1998 all about? I expected this year to be the end of ham radio, with the Internet declaring victory. Didn't happen. It seems to me that the Internet has found its natural penetration into ham radio, and will co-exist. Most active hams have Net/Web access, and most of them seem to use it primarily for ham-radio-related stuff. Personally, I have not made more than a handful of HF QSOs since Dayton, but I check my Email every day. And most of it is from hams. Did you notice that nearly every manufacturer I mentioned in this article has a Web page? I read recently that when the Internet first got started (the original goal was file-sharing among researchers in universities), the first people who figured how to talk to each other on it were the hams. Give us a medium, and we'll figure out how to communicate on it.

I think the hobby is in pretty good shape overall. The manufacturers need to start thinking about new high-end contest-grade radios. I'm not sure I want to switch to a radio-in-the-computer just yet. The Kachina radio seems to have been successful enough that they were there again this year. Previous radio-in-the-PC guys (Softwave, Comer...) have not made it past the first year. Maybe Kachina will be the one who gets it right. I dunno. Tuning with a mouse button instead of that great big knob in the middle of the radio will take some getting used to. The accessory people (amplifiers, filters, switch boxes, etc.) are in good hands. I don't think the ham market is making anyone rich at this point, but the worst days are probably over. And settling back down from the "imminent demise of ham radio caused by the Internet" is what Dayton 98 was all about.