7:45am Friday —
Want to get an outline-type post made. It will look like a mess to some, but take your time and scan carefully for the details.
I may clean it up later, but I say that all the time, and the next thing I know, it’s Monday morning and I have no idea where the weekend went. So here goes…
Topics are:
1) Central States VHF Society has their 46th annual conference in Cedar Rapids, IA this year. It’s on July 26-29th. I’ve been to the 2006 one in Minneapolis and the 2009 one in Elk Grove Village, IL (NW side of Chicago) and both of those were first-rate. If you enjoy getting together with other V/UHF’ers, plus being able to watch a lot of technical presentations, accessing an antenna range, viewing many rover setups and browsing a V/UHF-oriented flea market, then you will enjoy this conference/convention.
An extra bonus for 2012 is that with Cedar Rapids being home to Rockwell Collins, that museum will be open on Sunday, July 29th, from 10am until roughly 2pm. Think about that opportunity for a minute! …
Go here: http://www.csvhfs.org/ for the general Central States VHF Society website. I became a life member back about 7 years ago. You should consider joining as well.
To get specifically to the Conference info, go here: http://www.csvhfs.org/2012conference/index.html Once you’re on that page, use the links on the left to find what you need. Reserve your room soon as there is a big-deal bicycle race coming thru Cedar Rapids and a lot of hotel rooms will be used up for Thursday night, July 26th.
2) There are some new 432 and 1296 beacons worth knowing about.
EDIT, EDIT, EDIT… On the morning of June 16th, I have email where N4PZ says both his 432.280 and 1296.274 beacons are OFF the air until at least Saturday, June 23rd. I’ll update if/when new info becomes available.
a) N4PZ has installed a long-range 432 beacon at his EN52gb QTH, roughly 100 miles WNW of Chicago. The beacon is on 432.280. Why do I say “long-range”? Because this sucker’s putting out 100w into a pair of Big Wheel omni loops (donated by N0IRS) up at 70′, fed with 1/2″ Heliax. If you have signal reports, I guess you could leave them here, or maybe emailing N4PZ or N0IRS would be better. N4PZ thinks this beacon should have 350 mile range. Imagine what it will do during tropo openings! Spread the word that it’s out there.
REMEMBER THAT N4PZ RUNS MONDAY NIGHT 432.100 ACTIVITY. Starts at 8pm central, and Steve uses 4 long yagis and a KW on 432. Get on 432 and support this. There are also opportunities to connect with other 432’ers across the net, so say hello. I believe N4PZ’s pattern is to start out looking SW, and then he goes counter-clockwise from there. Help spread the word. If you’re within a 300-600 mile circle, it pays to know about this net, plus remember that there are stations checking in that help expand the circle even farther.
2b) N4PZ also has a 1296.274 beacon at the 10w level, that is split between two loop yagis. One is pointed at Minneapolis and the other at Kansas City. Again, N4PZ’s QTH is EN52gb.
2c) K8TQK reports there is now a 1296.080 beacon in EM79ur. This is the W8KSE/B, and it runs 2 watts at 800′ agl.
2d) I’m not trying to become a nationwide beacon list, but I’ll add this one, too.
N0YK has a new 1296.248 beacon from DM98ml, near Scott City, KS. This is in the west-central part of KS. It has 5 w ERP and an omni-directional pattern.
Always remember N0YK’s 144.288 beacon, which can be a great tropo indicator for those of us in the Great Lakes, looking for a path to the SW.
2e) Right here in WI, we have an excellent beacon on 144.298. WD9BGA/B runs 10w to a good omni antenna from a very high spot in EN53ba, which is about a half hour WSW of Madison, WI, in the SW part of WI. This is considered to be one of the better beacons in the Midwest. I know this because when it was off the air for some time, I had a lot of email asking me if it was ever going to be back on.
It’s been a while since I’ve put up a link to beacon listings… you want to save these…
http://www.newsvhf.com/beacons2.html That’s for 144 and higher.
For 6 meters, use: http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/por/50.htm
In fact, that www.newsvhf.com is a good link for V/UHF in general. Lots of info in there.
3) My contest wrap up (with score and band-by-band counts) has been posted to the 3830 reflector. My claimed score is in the 129K range. My post is at this direct link: http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/3830/2012-June/253404.html
What’s a 3830 reflector, you say? I imagine that before the internet and email, contesters must have gotten on 3830 KHz and gabbed about how they had done. Nowadays, they type a writeup to the 3830 list. You can find the 3830 list by going to www.contesting.com and looking down the links on the left. Or you can go directly here: http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/3830/ to view the public archives.
4) Stan KA1ZE continues to outdo himself. He is somehow publishing an issue of QST (but with the VHF slant we want!) every single day! This past week, he’s been compiling dozens and dozens of VHF contesters’ stories at his daily newsletter. It’s way more convenient and colorful than having to read all the individual entries at the 3830 reflector.
To view KA1ZE’s daily VHF newsletters (EASILY the best thing going in the entire USA) and to get involved with the 144.205 Morning Group (7 days a week, nationwide, from roughly 1100-1300Z or later) go to: http://ka1ze.com/