Actually, there is one category in VHF contesting that is designed to be competitive for smaller stations. That is the QRP portable category. One thing to note is that west coast stations seem to hav
I originally got my DEM 902 transverter with the 903 MHz crystal. Unfortunately here in the West, the frequency of choice is 902.1. The IF rig I was using was a TR-9000. The crystal sets up so that 9
I'm using the MFJ switcher. I decided to get it after looking at the noise specs in a QST review. After a couple of months the switching transistors died. I sent it back to MFJ where they replaced th
Hello David, The return loss spec is the essentially the SWR of the bias tee. This is a measure of the mismatch of the bias tee with the transmission line you are using. 10 dB means that the reflecti
Hello Zack, There is already an ARRL contest that has all of this. Its the 10GHz contest. You exchange 6 digit grid coordinates, scoring is by distance, you have to be at least 1 km from other statio
As I see it, the charter of this list is VHF Contesting; the whole captive rover / grid circling debate is legitmately a VHF Contesting issue. (Actually it only seems to be an issue in the VHF contes
Yikes! Are you going to provide an interactive web site to calculate the scores? While the goals are laudable, I disagree with some of the weights on the microwave bands. Why do 24GHz and up have a l
One of the cardinal rules of the computer world is that new implementations should be backwards compatible with older versions. Part of the Cabrillo spec is the "START-OF-LOG: version number" line. T
My 2 cents on this is that there needs to be a little more differentiation for the higher frequencies. While six often has poor local propagation, it still has a much better possibility to open up fo
I get about 10W as measured on an HP power meter. You have to be careful about construction and tuning to get 10W with this design. Erich KA6AMD _______________________________________________ VHFcon
John, I have both radios and they are really designed to do different things. I use the TS-690 in the house and the Icom 706 in the car. I use both when I go out mountaintopping in contests. The 690'
I definitely think that if LoTW supported VUCC, then a lot more VHFers would use it. I am currently converting all of my old paper logs to LoTW and got a QSL tonight from way back in 1979! 73, Erich
David, I have operated this class a lot. The rules prohibit the use of the home station and limit you to 10W. This puts the emphasis on antennas and location, location, location. Since I live in a ho
While the ARRL might like to discontinue contesting, I think that their advertisers wouldn't let them. Who is it that buys the $20k tranceivers, the 120 ft towers, and the 2kW amps? Usually it is con
An interesting article in the NY Times on the FCC ending the requirement for CW in getting a ham license. http://news.com.com/Morse+Code+A+fading+signal/2100-1033_3-6146261.html?tag=nefd.top http://n
You can see how portable my 6-band QRP portable station is here: http://home.earthlink.net/~ka6amd/Sep02 vhf1.jpg <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Eka6amd/Sep02%20vhf1.jpg> Erich KA6AMD _________________
As I live in a remote and semi-rare grid square, I need good sized antennas just to be heard in the Los Angeles area. The home QTH is in a valley surrounded by +5000ft mountains, so portable is the o
For sideband, the calling frequencies are 50.125, 144.200, and 432.100. Erich KA6AMD _______________________________________________ VHFcontesting mailing list VHFcontesting@contesting.com http://lis
Does anyone know where you can get the updated spec that the ARRL is using? I wrote my own contest logger and need to update to the new format. Erich KA6AMD DM15 _____________________________________