K5ZD Presentations

‘Twas the Night Before World-Wide

Twas the night before World Wide, when all through the shack

Not a rotor was turning, not even the stack;

The finals were warmed in their chimneys so clear,

In hopes that DXpeditions soon would appear;

The guest ops were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of morning runs danced in their heads;

And mamma in her ‘headphones, and I in my cap,

Had just settled down for a last minute nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the piles of unraked leaves below,

Gave rise to the guilt of yard tools still stowed.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a full-on mobile, all bris’ling with gear.

With a little old guest op, so lively and free,

I knew in a moment it must be ‘DG.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old Op,

And I laughed when I saw him, I just couldn’t stop;

More rapid than eagles his QSOs they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

“Now, G3! now, DL! go P4 and VE!

On, VK! next ZL! now, ZK and TT!

To the top of the Section! to the top of the Zone!

Now dash away,  records, top them, alone!”

As QRM that before the high speed run splatter,

He lost not a moment to deal with the matter,

And using his mouse to zero beat the zoo,

‘Get off my freq AR, I know that it’s you’!

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled up the log; then moved for a jerk.

And laying his finger aside of his Bose, And giving a nod, up the standings he rose.

He copied the QSOs, some strong and some light,

And worked them all quickly, late into the night.

With uncanny speed the log he did fill,

I knew after checking his UBN would be nil!

He sprang to his mobile, to his mic gave a whistle,

And away QSY’d with the speed of a missile.

But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove like a nut,

Happy WorldWide to all, and to all, a  ‘KICK BUTT’ !!

 

by Tony Brock-Fisher K1KP (with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)

K5ZD Announcements

CQ Reconsiders Policy on Crimea in CQ Contests

From http://www.cqnewsroom.blogspot.com/2014/10/cq-reconsiders-policy-on-crimea-in-cq.html

In response to requests from a large number of contesters around the world, CQ has reconsidered its decision regarding the acceptance of logs from stations in Crimea in CQ-sponsored contests.

As CQ Publisher Dick Ross, K2MGA, explained, “a large portion of the contesting community felt that we were unfairly denying our fellow amateurs in Crimea of the opportunity to fully participate in our contests. Since the country list for CQ contests is based on a combination of the Worked All Europe (WAE) and ARRL DXCC lists, and the ARRL has already adopted a policy regarding Crimean stations in its award and contest programs, we will amend our policy to be consistent with the ARRL’s DXCC policy.”

“Therefore, the listings of Crimean stations submitting logs for CQ contests will be based on the call sign under which they have operated. If they used Russian-issued calls in the contest, they will be listed under Russia; if they used Ukrainian-issued calls in the contest, they will be listed under Ukraine. This change reflects not only the desire of many contesters around the world, but also of a large majority of members of the CQ World Wide DX Contest Committee.”

K5ZD Commentary

Band Plans and Sharing During Contests

CQ WW RTTY Contest Director Ed Muns, W0YK, recently wrote a response to someone who was commenting on the activity during the CQ WW RTTY Contest. Ed’s reply is equally true for the CQWW SSB and CW contest weekends so we wanted to share it here with everyone.

Note: The CQ WW rule II states “Observance of established band plans is strongly encouraged.”  Even during times of high activity, we need to share the bands in accordance with the band plans as best we can.

 

What does “the recognized RTTY portions of the bands” mean?  Each country’s telecommunications authority determines what modes can be used in specified portions of the amateur bands.  Contest entries must follow this rule and all other amateur service rules of their country.  Not doing so is grounds for disqualification in this contest.  However, the contest sponsor cannot police thousands of participants in hundreds of entities around the world with their separate diverse amateur service rules.

If you are referring to voluntary band plans, they are even more problematic.  There are hundreds of them, all unenforceable and with many conflicts between them, especially across world regions and countries.  More important, though, is that band plans assume normality.  A major contest is not at all “normal” use of amateur bands.  Outside of RTTY contests and DXpeditions, one is hard-pressed to find a RTTY transmission anywhere on the amateur bands.  Yet, during a major RTTY contest, the number of running stations, spaced out so as not to overlap each other, cannot fit within the “normal” RTTY band plan segments.  (But, still within the country’s amateur service band digital segments specified by its telecommunications regulations.)   I expect all amateurs, contesters and non-contesters, to value the high activity that contesting brings to our amateur bands at discrete times during the year.  This reduces the risk that the amateur service spectrum is reduced in favor of other services.

Here is my personal analogy.  I receive my postal mail at a post office box in my town’s Post Office.  The building is located adjacent to our town plaza which is turned into a farmer’s market every Sunday morning.  During this time, traffic congestion in this area is high, the public road directly at the Post Office is off limits and parking is impossible to find within blocks of the Post Office.  Accordingly, I am essentially denied reasonable access to my mail box every Sunday morning.  I could protest this outrage, or I could be thankful that the farmers market is one of many uses of our public plaza that helps justify its existence.  I appreciate having that area in our town.  It is shared space and since I know the farmers market is always, and only, on Sunday mornings, it is  small matter for me to adjust my life to not expect access to my mail box during that time.  This is a minor manageable personal inconvenience for the value of a town plaza.  I personally enjoy walking my dog there, meeting friends for a chat and attending the Jazz music series held on 10 Wednesday evenings during the summer.

Other similar examples are bicycle road races, distance foot races, parades, funeral processions, music events, political rallies, athletic events, etc.  All these specific one-time temporary events disrupt the “normal” use of our public roadways and subsequent access to certain areas of the community.  The important thing is that the public roadways are being put to lots of passionate use to justify their existence and maintenance.

All amateur interests need to share our common asset of the amateur service band segments.  It is much more efficient to accumulate our various interests and share our limited spectrum space across time slices rather than dedicating sub-segments to the various special interests.  Take the contesting special interest as an example.  If a fixed amount of space were to be allocated to contesting, it would be much too small to meet the activity level during contests.  Worse, most days of the year, the space wouldn’t be used at all, lying completely vacant when other special interests could use it.

73,

Ed W0YK
CQ RTTY Contests Director