Volume 6, Number 10



Volume 9, Number 7 July 2004

The Nugget

The Newsletter of the Mother Lode DX/Contest Club

Late Roster Addition

W6ISO Kit Kohlmoos

2334 Vera Ave.

Redwood City, CA 94061

H:650-366-7813 W:

w6iso@

New Member

W6FI Mike Gould

P.O. Box 1151

Placerville, CA 95667

H:(530)344-0237

W6fi@

NOTE: Latest MLDXCC roster is included in this issue.

MEETING LOCATION

This is a joint meeting with the Mother Lode DX/Contest Club (MLDX/CC) and the Northern California Contest Club (NCCC), our 5th annual. It will take place on Saturday, July 24, 2004. The meeting starts at noon with a potluck lunch at the Senior Center in Jackson.

Meeting Program

Our Program will be presented by Dr.

Alan Eshleman, K6SRZ, team physician and CW operator for T33C shares his experience as a first time DXpeditioner, running pileups while also being the only doctor within 250 miles. The program includes the expedition video, which shows the voyage to Banaba (how do you react to a crewman with an Osama Bin Laden T-shirt?), life on the island, and some great music by the native singers. Another “Don’t you Dare Miss it” program.

HOW TO GET TO THE MEETING

The meeting will be at the Senior Services Center, 229 New York Ranch Road, Jackson, Ca. Take State Highways 49/88 to Jackson. From the West (Highway 88) or the North (Highway 49), go through the traffic light at 49/88 intersection and proceed to the bottom of the hill, turn left at the 2nd stop sign (Safeway and Chevron gas station will be on your right), onto Highway 88 East toward Lake Tahoe. Follow signs to Senior Center and turn left onto Court Street (approximately 1 mile). New York Rand Road will be the first stop sign (1/4 mile). Turn right and the Senior Center will be on the left approximately 100 yards from the intersection and behind an apartment complex (signs will direct you to “Oak Manor”). Parking is available in both the front and the back. Additional parking is available next door at the Quail Hollow Professional Center with stairs at the rear that lead to the Senior Center. Please do not park in the spots marked for the Oak Manor Convalescent Home.

In addition to the Safeway mentioned above, if you continue South through the stop at 49/88, there will be a Ralph’s on the right (1/4 mile) and a Raley’s on the right (1 mile).

To Jackson from the Bay Area – take Interstate 580 East to Interstate 205 (bypass Tracy) and proceed to I 5 north. Proceed north to Stockton and take Highway 4 east to Highway 99 north. Proceed north approximately 1 mile and take Highway 88 east to Jackson.

To Jackson from Nevada – Take Interstate 80 or State Highway 50 West to Highway 49 and proceed south to Jackson. Or take CA/NV Highway 395 south to Highway 88 west to Jackson and turn right on Court Street.

To Jackson from the North or Sacramento – Take Highway 16 (Jackson Rd) east to Highway 49 and go south.

From the South – Take Highway 99 North to Highway 88 east to Jackson.

WHAT TO BRING

The meeting will include a barbecue and potluck. Grilled chicken breasts and beef tri-tip, condiments, buns and plates/eating utensils will be provided by the MLDX/CC. NCCC will provide soft drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages. Please bring the following to share based on the first letter of the suffix of your call sign:

A-G- Chips/dips/salsas

H-N- Salad (potato, macaroni, fruit, green, etc.)

O-U- Relishes (assorted pickles, olives, carrot sticks, veggies w/sip, etc.)

V-Z- Deserts (simple desserts, cookies, fresh fruit, etc.)

Does anyone need directions?? Talk in on Amador County ARC repeater, K6ARC, 146.835 –600 kHz. (100 Hz. PL, if in use). Alternates; W6SF, 146.165 +600 or 146.52. Jackson is located at the intersection of State Highway 88 and 49 in Amador County, southeast of Sacramento.

Amador County is in the heart of the Mother Lode Gold Country. Our meeting location will be minutes from antique shops galore, 18 wineries, gold mine tours, camping and fishing sites, and the historic Chaw’se Indian Grinding Rock State Park. In addition, the Jackson Rancheria Casino/Hotel is a jaunt up New York Ranch Rd.

For additional information contact: Kay or Ken, K6KO-k6ko@ K6TA-k6ta@ (phone 209-2965577)

Dick, K6LRN k6lrn@ (phone 530-620-2147)

Jim, WX6V wx6v@ (phone 530-823-6268)

This is always a fun event - plan to be there!

FROM THE PREZ

I won’t bore you with “my Field Day report”. I will just say that it took a lot of effort to pull this event off. It all looks easy on paper. Setting everything up, working extra shifts on the air, etc. This year we had fewer people and put up a better score. Go figure! Thank you to all, especially those of you who just came to visit. We even had at least one helper who left our group to work with the Amador ARC, (talk about dedication!) They posted over 1000 Q’s for their effort. Yeah! Let’s see what Jim has in the way of a de-brief and what the plan for next year is.

Thanks to Rick (W6SR) and Gary (KI6T) for offering to chair the joint meeting with NCCC. Jim and I are sorry that we can’t attend for various reasons and hope you all enjoy yourselves. This is a good time to put in a plug for next year. We need new blood to come forward and accept terms as club officers. The club needs people that participate (and occasionally attend meetings, hi). Please, if you haven’t served as an officer (lately), plan on helping the club out next year. None of the positions require more than a few minutes work each month and what you can’t do; you can appoint someone else to do…

Rumor has it that we have a challenge from REDXA for the CQP Club trophy. They can’t be serious, can they? Ok, time for another plug. This time for the California QSO

Party. Please make sure that you have October 2nd on your calendar. As usual, we will need your best efforts (and your log) for this event. CQP is the biggest QSO Party of them all and the rest of the country will be chomping at the bit to work us. Just like last year, if you have the time and need a station let us know and we’ll find you something.

MLDXCC has won the club trophy for CQP for the last bunch of years. Be part of the winning effort and plan to work this contest.

Good Feedback from Jettie (W6RFF) about the lack of maps to direct people to Field Day sites. That won’t happen again next year, I promise! That’s all for now. Have fun in Jackson.

73

Ron – KG6CMS

THE vice-prez says!

Well - another Field Day event is behind us now. This year, we had another great time operating up on Peddler Hill. Participants this year included, in no particular order, WB6GEF, W6SR, K6QG, KG6CMS, KF6T, WX6V, KI6T, NU6T, N6RK, K6LRN, K6TKD, and ND6S, including equipment supplied by WK6I and N6JV. The weather was superb and a good time was had by all.

So - how did we do? First, let's recap last year's results. Our main stations had 1,459 QSOs and the GOTA station made 260 QSO’s. After adding up the QSO points and bonus points, we had a score of 6,900 points. This year, our main stations made 1,969 QSO’s and the GOTA station made 315 QSO’s. After adding up this year's bonus points, we achieved an improved score of 7,848 points.

Now, for those of you that are used to big scoring contests like CQWW, SS, and WPX, an increase of 948 points probably doesn't seem like much. But - in the world of Field Day scores, well, this is a very healthy increase. I attribute the improvement to better antennas and the availability of more operators. The most noticeable increase was on 80 meters. We positioned our 80-meter ½ sloper at least 75 feet in a tree on one end, sloping down towards the east over a sharp downhill grade. With this antenna, we only missed working North Dakota for WAS in a matter of about 7 hours (290 contacts, 237 CW and 53 phone). Here's the breakdown of QSO’s by station and band:

K6AO - HF:

CW Phone

80 237 53

40 418 327

20 445 328

15 19 3

Totals 1,119 711 1,830

K6TKD (GOTA):

80 11 50

20. 5

15 115 130

Totals 131 185 316

K6AO - VHF: (All phone)

6. 108

2. 28

10. 2

10 GHz 1

Total 139

Looks like I'll be missing my first meeting of this year in July. I'm helping my son move his household goods across the country. He is in the Navy and is moving from Washington (state) to South Carolina - 2,400 miles in a U-Haul! Wish us well.

I have nothing to report in the way of amateur radio events from my QTH. I just recently put my station back together after taking most everything in the shack up to Field Day. I noticed the e-mail on the reflector the other day about the challenge that we received from the Redwood DX club for CQP this year. Well - we will just have to see about that! This news is enough to motivate me to get out in the yard this summer and make some improvements to the station in order to ready for this year's CQP contest.

Have a great month. I admit that I do not have a program in place yet for the August club meeting. I'm open to any suggestions that you may have. Drop me an e-mail message if anything comes to mind. See ya.

73's, Jim -WX6V-

MLDXCC PROFILE OF THE MONTH

None this month

EDITOR’S MESSAGE

Thanks to Bill and Ginny Snider for their FB presentation at our June meeting. Their recent trip to Japan made for an interesting program. We appreciate their long trip (from Yankee Hill) to attend our meetings. Thanks again!

Well the big radio news for this month was the club’s FB field Day effort from Peddler Hill. We used the club call, K6OA and had a real blast! If you missed it, you really missed a lot of fun and great camaraderie. This year’s 2A effort resulted in a big improvement over last year’s score. But I leave the scoring and chest thumping to our fearless organizer Jim, WX6V.

I road-along with Ron, KG6CMS to our Field Day site. On Sunday, Dick Wilson invited us to stop by his place on our trip home. I hadn’t been to Dick and Carolyn’s home in about 1-½ years. Wow! They have since built a (very large) separate radio-room/hobby-room complete with a bathroom. They have also cleared a lot of brush where an 80M 4-square will soon reside. Keep up the good work, I’m sure you will be loud on the long-path this year.

Speaking of antennas, one of my favorite HAM radio subjects, I have three projects that I would like to accomplish before this fall’s contest season.

1. I managed to locate another 10-foot chunk of Rohn-25G that I want to use to top-out the downhill tower (at 60 feet) so I can raise the height of the C-3E to 65 feet.

2. After talking with N6RK during Field Day, I was inspired to model a 5-element vertical yagi for 40 meters. Wow, it looks good. So now I want to add two more verticals to my 3 element 40-meter vertical yagi-array. I modeled five antennas in a 40-foot circle (each antenna placed 520 apart) it looks like more than 16dB F/B ratio and 6.5dBi gain (at a 200 elevation angle) can be achieved (over good ground). I will feed any one antenna and let the unused ones look like reflectors. By using five antennas, the entire 3600 can be covered with only a 1dB loss from maximum gain (at any compass point). Not bad! How can this be done? Easy, just use an inexpensive 5-position coax switch (I plan on using an Ameritron RCS-8V). Then, just feed each antenna with a length of coax that will look like +j65 when it’s open-circuited and (of course) NOT being fed. And lastly, you will need to parallel two, ¼ wave pieces of 50 ohm feed-line to match the 20-25 ohm impedance of the fed antenna. For those of us that can’t swing a big 40M horizontal beam at 90+’ this may be a practical alternative. Anyway, it should be a fun project and it shouldn’t (according to EZNEC) change the properties of my existing 80 or 160M antennas.

3. I also want to replace the rotor and rebuild the C-3 (to a C3-E) on the up-hill 50’ tower as well as move the 6-meter antenna to the 80-foot level on my 70’ tower.

I hope to accomplish all this before the rainy season. We’ll see how much I really get done, HI HI

Well with DX conditions being lousy and the temperature too hot for doin’ much outdoors, I entertain myself by writing. Yes, this month I really had way too much time on my hands, HI HI

SO WHAT’S A LID?

Lid...a term used in amateur radio to denote a poor operator; one who is inept at the practice of the art.

The above description is very general in nature and I really wanted to hang some specifics on it. So here goes.

You know you are a lid if:

1. You must call three of your HAM friends to solder-on a PL-259.

2. You don’t own a soldering iron and don’t know what a PL-259 is.

3. You don’t have three HAM friends to call.

4. You have a power amplifier but don’t know how to tune it. And, no one will show you.

6. The local HAMS and your neighbors have cut your antennas (more than once) into small pieces.

5. You know for a fact that the “Tennessee Valley Indians” operate their own casino.

6. You worked “Slim”, 3B28 from the Isle of Corona Discharge and don’t know why it’s taking so long to get your QSL card.

7. When on CW (using your code-reader of course) stations are sending “UP3” and you always respond by QRZing the UP3 on frequency.

8. You are constantly seeing “AH” displayed on your code-reader. Humm.

9. You don’t know what CW is.

10. You feel W2NQ/7, Romeo, and Richard Burton are guys to emulate.

11. You are not aware that there was a famous actor named Richard Burton, and that Romeo was a character in a Shakespeare play.

12. The FCC has sent you a notice of violation; you now have a 2-drawer file of them.

13. It’s your personal policy NEVER to answer any correspondence from the FCC.

14. Instead of applying for a Vanity Call, like everyone else, you just made one up.

15. You like the weirdo’s on the “free thinkers’ net” cause’ there ur kinda’ folks. 40 meter phone during the daytime is “where it’s at” for you.

16. You just purchased a new “HI-FI” microphone and are planning on using it to make disgusting toilet noises and animal sounds on net frequencies.

17. Your dog smells better that you. You don’t understand this since you always bathe regularly: winter, spring, summer, and fall.

18. You always get drunk before you get on the air, it helps you to relax and fit in with your peer group.

19. The local DX Clubs have started a collection to contract a hit on you: your wife was the biggest contributor.

20. You would never attend a ham club meeting or any HAM conventions as it might result in serious injury or death. Like you being burned at the stake, maybe?

Enough for now, CU all at the meeting Saturday the 24th. de Rick W6SR

THE SECRETARY/TREASURER’S REPORT

El Presidente Ron St. Jean called the meeting to order at 12:23 PM. All officers were present.

Minutes (such as they were) were approved, as was the Treasurer’s report. It showed MLDX/CC had a balance of $294.02 after paying the insurance premium of $337.87.

Introductions & Announcements: Proud grand-pa, Ray, ND6S introduced his grandson, Brandon. They had participated in Kid’s Day earlier. Rick, W6SR introduced prospective member, Mike Gould, W6FI. Mike was then voted in as latest member. Welcome aboard, Mike!!

Old business: The joint meeting with Northern California Contest Club was discussed. Ken & Kay emailed Gary with some reminders. They will pick up tri-tips & turkey. Gary will notify & follow up. Rick, Ray & Ron will co-ordinate on drinks. Jim will have projector & has arranged for program.

Jim flashed certificate showing the multi-single operation in the 2003 WPX CW under his call, WX6V from W6SR won top in class from the sixth call area. Congrats, Jim!!

Gary reported on Logbook of the World.

Richard, NU6T operated with K6EU as rover station in ARRL VHF contest.

Ray put in a plug for eQSL.

Norm reported on 10 ghz stability issues.

Ron worked 3W and HS0 in recent WPX CW contest.

Rick reported that he & K6LRN operating K6KM’s station finished in Top Ten in ARRL 10 meter contest in the m/s class.

Bill & Ginny gave a report with slides about their recent trip to Japan. Thanks!!

Jim led a discussion about Field Day logistics and who was going to bring what, etc.

Meeting was adjourned at 1:46 PM.

El Presidente Ron St. Jean called the meeting to order at 12:23 PM. All officers were present.

Minutes (such as they were) were approved, as was the Treasurer’s report. It showed MLDX/CC had a balance of $294.02 after paying the insurance premium of $337.87.

Introductions & Announcements: Proud grand-pa, Ray, ND6S introduced his grandson, Brandon. They had participated in Kid’s Day earlier. Rick, W6SR introduced prospective member, Mike Gould, W6FI. Mike was then voted in as latest member. Welcome aboard, Mike!!

Old business: The joint meeting with Northern California Contest Club was discussed. Ken & Kay emailed Gary with some reminders. They will pick up tri-tips & turkey. Gary will notify & follow up. Rick, Ray & Ron will co-ordinate on drinks. Jim will have projector & has arranged for program.

Jim flashed certificate showing the multi-single operation in the 2003 WPX CW under his call, WX6V from W6SR won top in class from the sixth call area. Congrats, Jim!!

Gary reported on Logbook of the World.

Richard, NU6T operated with K6EU as rover station in ARRL VHF contest.

Ray put in a plug for eQSL.

Norm reported on 10 Ghz stability issues.

Ron worked 3W and HS0 in recent WPX CW contest.

Rick reported that he & K6LRN operating K6KM’s station finished in the Top Ten in ARRL 10 meter contest in the m/s class.

Bill & Ginny gave a report with slides about their recent trip to Japan. Thanks!!

Jim led a discussion about Field Day logistics and who was going to bring what, etc.

Meeting was adjourned at 1:46 PM.

Dick Wilson K6LRN (pretend Secretary)

MLDXCC TREASURER’S REPORT

Balance June 1, 2004: $294.02

Income: Dues 2004 45.00

Dues 2005 15.00

Newsletter 10.00

$70.00

Expenses: None

Balance June 30, 2004:

Checking: $205.66

Cash: 158.36

$364.02

de Carolyn Wilson, K6TKD, Treasurer

WHY ARE KP1 AND KP5 NOT ON THE AIR?

DXer Carl Henson, WB4ZNH, provides the following information to help get KP1/KP5 back on the air:

"Many DX groups in the USA have been trying unsuccessfully for about 12 years to receive permission to activate KP1, Desecheo Island and KP5, Navassa Island. My group has been working hard on this problem for several years now. We keep reaching a dead end. It has now become more important that someone go, regardless of who. Please non-USA Hams write to: The President, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500. president@ vice.president@ and US Hams please write, E-mail, and phone your Congressman and Senator and urge them to bring pressure to bear on the Department of Interior to allow an operation from both of these DX locations. One third of the US Senators and all of the US Representatives are up for reelection this year, not to mention the President and Vice President. If you would like to go to one of these islands, E-mail me and I will give you the information for application and how to cause the most work for the Department of the Interior...... 73, Carl

P.S. Oh, I forgot, Fish and Wildlife has to comply with 50cfr2545, so please include the following download information." (This is a Word document.) Courtesy of Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin

A Tip From Ray Parker

Problems with Icoms, USB and Writelog?

Here's the solution received from microham@. Jozef has been very prompt with tech help. I haven't tried this solution with Writelog, but I'm sure there are others who may be interested in the Nugget?

Hello Ray

I'm not very familiar with WinEQF I will test it in Monday, but Writelog works fine.

I don't know if some loggers have native support for USB, but I don't think so.

There is no reason to support USB, because all USB -> COM port adapters install virtual COM port from their driver.

Please follow instructions and Writelog will work for you:

1. Look at the Control Panel/Ports for installed "USB CI-V COM (xx) number. Remember this COM port number !

2. Run Writelog and under Setup/Ports choose radio for remembered USB COM port number from control panel.

3. Check also CW button for same port.

4. Check "All mode RTS ...." checkbox under Radios settings.

5. CW keyer select "PC generates"

6. Click "CW PTT..."button and click "On LPT pin ...COMM RTS"

7. OK next OK.

8. Choose some CW contest and switch to CW mode on your radio.

9. Now Radio frequency and mode should appear at button beside entry window and CW messages must play.

Please let me know if it helps.

73 Jozef

UPCOMING EVENTS

Foothill Flea Market

2nd Saturday of each month from March through October at Lockheed, Sunnyvale.

Livermore Swap Meet

1st Sunday of each month at Las Positas College in Livermore, 7:00 AM to noon, all year. Talk in 147.045 from the west 145.35 from the east. Contact Cliff Chiba, KF6EII, (209) 835-6715, email larkswap@.

Placerville Swap Meet

Every third Sunday, 3970 B Missouri Flat Rd #3, Placerville. 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM. Talk-in on 146.865 – PL 142.2, 440.700 + PL 88.5. No fee, free parking. Hwy. 50 East, take Missouri Flat off-ramp. Go over Hwy. to 2nd light, into shopping center in front of Radio Shack.

CONTEST FEEDBACK/UP-COMING CONTESTS

Looks like the Redwood Empire DX Association wants to challenge the Mother Lode DX/Contest Club.

From the July Sunspots-President Fred Leoni's comments, " Don't forget that the club (REDXA) is really going to emphasize the California QSO Party this year due to missing Field Day. We have been second place for the last couple of years and if we all participated even minimally we could show the Mother Lode Club who's boss."

Sounds like a challenge to me...

Let's get all our stations on. If one cannot operate or doesn't want to,

consider letting another member operate your station. Can't do the full

contest, bring in a helper and do a multi-op. Need help w/antenna work,

station fixes?? Let's see what we can do to help. de Dick K6LRN

Mid-Summer Six Club Contest 2300Z, Jul 16 to 0300Z, Jul 18

VK/Trans-Tasman 160m Contest 0800Z-1400Z, Jul 17

North American QSO Party, RTTY 1800Z, Jul 17 to 0600Z, Jul 18

CQ Worldwide VHF Contest 1800Z, Jul 17 to 2100Z, Jul 18

RSGB Low Power Field Day 0900Z-1600Z, Jul 18

RSGB 80m Club Championship, Data 2000Z-2130Z, Jul 22

Russian RTTY WW Contest 0000Z, Jul 24 to 2400Z, Jul 25

RSGB IOTA Contest 1200Z, Jul 24 to 1200Z, Jul 25

RSGB RoPoCo 2 0700Z-0900Z, Aug 1

SARL HF Phone Contest 1230Z-1630Z, Aug 1

ARS Spartan Sprint 0100Z-0300Z, Aug 3

TARA Grid Dip Contest 0000Z-2400Z, Aug 7

10-10 Int. Summer Contest, SSB 0001Z, Aug 7 to 2359Z, Aug 8

National Lighthouse Weekend QSO Contest 0001Z, Aug 7 to 2359Z, Aug 8

European HF Championship 1200Z-2359Z, Aug 7 North American QSO Party, CW 1800Z, Aug 7 to 0600Z, Aug 8

ARRL UHF Contest 1800Z, Aug 7 to 1800Z, Aug 8

WAE DX Contest, CW 0000Z, Aug 14 to 2359Z, Aug 15

Maryland-DC QSO Party 1600Z, Aug 14 to 0400Z, Aug 15 and 1600Z-2359Z, Aug 15

SARTG WW RTTY Contest 0000Z-0800Z, Aug 21 and 1600Z-2400Z, Aug 21 and 0800Z-1600Z, Aug 22

ARRL 10 GHZ and Up Contest 0600 local -2400 local , Aug 21 and 0600 local -2400 local , Aug 22

Keyman's Club of Japan Contest 1200Z, Aug 21 to 1200Z, Aug 22

SEANET Contest 1200Z, Aug 21 to 1200Z, Aug 22

North American QSO Party, SSB 1800Z, Aug 21 to 0600Z, Aug 22

Check the NCJ, CQ, and QST/ARRL for full rules and other details. Send me your scores; at k6lrn@

CU.73, Dick, K6LRN

17 July 2004 No 689

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*** 4 2 5 D X N E W S ***

**** DX INFORMATION ****

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Edited by I1JQJ & IK1ADH

Direttore Responsabile IK8MRA

>>> PETER I 2005 ................
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