4 QSO Parties this Weekend Covering 16 States.

By Tom Schaefer NY4I

This weekend (May 1 and 2) is the “4 QSO parties in one” weekend.

This includes the New England QSO Party (6 NE states), 7th Call Area (8 states), Indiana and Delaware.

QSO parties are a great way to pick up states you need to WAS on different bands. With better propagation lately, you may even be able to get some 10 meter states.

To make it easier to log, the organizers of these four events will all accept logs with contacts of the others. They will filter out the … Click for more

Winter Field Day This Weekend!

By Tom Schaefer NY4I

Winter Field Day is this weekend. Full rules can be found at the Winter Field Day website at https://www.winterfieldday.com. The event starts at 2:00 PM EST Saturday and goes until 2:00 PM EST on Sunday. Available modes are SSB, CW, RTTY, PSK31 and other conversational digital modes–not FT8 or FT4 according to their rules.

For the last several years we have joined with our friends at the Clearwater Amateur Radio Society and the Upper Pinellas Amateur Radio Club at the Clearwater Fire Training Center to setup for Winter Field … Click for more

Aardvarks Rank High in Makrothen RTTY Contest

By Bob Wanek N2ESP

Seeing the need for a small Radiosport (contest) group, two SPARC members, Tom W4CU and Rich AA2MF asked members of CARS, SPARC and UPARC if they would be interested in learning more about contesting by joining a small local group. As a result, the Aardvark Wireless Group was formed. When asked how the name was chosen, Tom stated “we’ll always be at the top of the list.” Members of the group consist of both experienced contesters and folks that have never participated in a contest. The group provides a focal … Click for more

SPARC Scores in the 2020 RTTY Roundup

By Bob Wanek N2ESP

The SPARC contest Group, W4TA, placed in the top ten in the 2020 running of the ARRL RTTY Roundup. Participating in the Multioperator, Single Transmitter, High Power category were SPARC members: AA0O Pat, KA1IJA Norm, KA4IOX Paul, KB8ESY Rex, KC1YL Lisa, KI4UIP John, KP2N Ron, KR4U Dave, N2ESP Bob, NY4I Tom, VE3XD Don and W4CU Tom. The final score was 113,730 points, good for tenth place.

Rich, AA2MF, entered the contest in the Single Operator, Low Power category, placing second with a final score of 144,228 points.

Congratulations to all … Click for more

Saturday Presentation Series – Setting up N1MM and TR4W for Field Day

By Tom Schaefer NY4I

With more people opting to operate from home this year, this is a Zoom online session presented by Tom NY4I on setting up N1MM and TR4W for Field Day. Many people are not used to setting this up for at the shared Field Day event, this is usually done ahead of time by others. But with operating from home, you might find a local instance handy for logging your Field Day contacts. This session will cover downloading, and installing each program and we will look at operating them both if … Click for more

Winter Field Day 2020

By Tom Schaefer NY4I

Another Winter Field Day has come and gone (more than a few weeks ago due to my belated report). The weather was mild if not just a tad cold at night (for us Floridians anyway). The now annual combined Winter Field Day effort between the Clearwater ARS, St. Petersburg ARC and Upper Pinellas ARC took place the weekend of January 25 at the Clearwater Fire Training Center.

Antenna crew lifting the beam into place on the tall fire tower [Photo by Julie NF1T].

… Click for more

Posts published in “Contesting”