Coyote Amateur Radio Club

Not this year. And, hell no: never again!

With the JARTS WW RTTY Contest approaching this weekend I got a friendly reminder of it in my email from Mr. Hisami 7L4IOU. He was also kind to mention the link to last year’s scores.

It turns out that last year, with our three-man (sorry ladies…) team and the two wire antennas, we scored second place in the multi operator category (in North America). Second place is always bad; but it gets worse: there were only two participants in that category!

Looking at it is almost painful:

KN5S JARTS WW RTTY 2013

Surely we can’t let that happen this year, with the much better setup??? Let’s give KA4PKB and company a good run for their money. They’re located in the state of Alabimbo; shouldn’t be that hard!

KN5S participated in the Makrothen RTTY Contest this past weekend. Big fun, even though part of the team felt like going on a fishing trip. 😉

This is a true DX contest, in that points are based on the number of miles (or kilometers in this case) between stations. Because of it the scores get phenomenal:

KN5S Makrothen RTTY Contest 2014 score

Yup, that’s almost a million points!

Thanks to this contest we added a few more DXCC entities to the logbook. And we’re getting really close to that most popular amateur radio award:

KN5S DXCC totals 13 October 2014

And a few more US states got logged and confirmed too:

KN5S WAS totals 13 October 2014

We’re getting there! We still need a bit of help on 10 meters; but I’m sure December’s ARRL 10 Meter Contest will take care of that. And yes; some more activity on 80 meters would be great too.

Who’s ready for the JARTS WW RTTY Contest?? 🙂

You don’t have to look at all the numbers. Numbers can be horribly boring. They’re only “fun” for number crunchers like myself. But in this case they do prove that the new beam antenna works.

Jason KF5EJX (*) and I (K5WW) participated in not one, but two contests the last weekend of September. All in all we logged more than 650 QSOs, and we weren’t even trying!

It’s a bit irritating; but for us Texans who happen to love RTTY contesting that last weekend is always a bit of making a difficult choice: exactly how many hours do we spend on the CQ WW RTTY Contest, and how many in the Texas QSO Party? With sparsely populated counties like Uvalde we are always in high demand! But… the CQ WW RTTY is lots of fun too! Dilemma, dilemma…

Luckily, we didn’t have to make that choice this year. With only one (and a half) radio available at the shack we just made the most out of it. Period.

While the RTTY contest starts at 0000Z on Saturday we didn’t really get started until around lunch time (local) on Saturday. Jason had “the Saturday from hell”, then installed some more/new antennas in the back of the shack. I had to go to San Antonio on Friday afternoon so I couldn’t go that Friday night. But I did stop by the shack and make the first few QSOs. Sorry, I couldn’t resist! 😉

Anyway. Once we were up and running we had our hands more than full!

So how did we do in the TX QSO Party? Not too shabby! 200 QSOs were logged, with 34 states and 2 Canadian provinces:

And, not shown in the image above (but it did happen!) we made a few QSOs with other operators in other countries too, who were chasing TX counties.

The CQ WW RTTY Contest was even more fun! 452 QSOs in the log:

And a whole bunch of countries we never would have contacted with one of those G5RVs:

Lots and lots of US states and Canadian provinces too:

And CQ Zones, a must-have in this contest:

So other than big fun, was anything else gained, you ask? Sure was!

We worked about a dozen new DXCC entities. I made a screen shot of our ARRL LoTW DXCC standings page before uploading the new logs; and it looked like this:

KN5S DXCC standing before CQ WW RTTY / TX QSO Party

A few days later it looked like this:

KN5S DXCC standing after CQ WW RTTY / TX QSO Party

So that’s 8 new confirmed DXCC entities. Getting close to our first DXCC award!

And our Worked All States count went up too. Here’s the situation before the log upload:

KN5S WAS standing before CQ WW RTTY / TX QSO Party

And the situation a couple of days after the upload:

KN5S WAS standing after CQ WW RTTY / TX QSO Party

Doesn’t look like much; but we’re getting real close to that 5 band WAS award!

And you guys (and galls)… missed all of the fun!

Yeah, I’m a sucker for numbers…

(*) only 11 more months to go, bud 🙂

Also known as Catherine Tull. She took and passed the Technician license exam after the September meeting; and was assigned KG5EDD. Congrats, again!

The meeting was called to order at 19:05. Present: Richard N5YPJ, Jim AB5JK, Catherine Tull from Sabinal, Jason KF5EJX, David W5DUH and Erik K5WW.

Treasurer’s report: Jim reports that last month’s ending balance was $84.40. And that he couldn’t stand that, and that he donated $15.60 to bring the total up again to a 3 digit figure: $100. Thanks Jim!

The August minutes were read and approved.

Bad news: the Kettle Restaurant is closing on Sunday night. Forever! So we will have to look for a new place to meet. Jason suggested the old hospital building where we used to meet, years ago. Officially that building is called the “Education Conference Room”. That was voted on and approved. So y’all better bring your own plate from now on…

Jason announced that the CARC will be participating in both the CQWW RTTY contest (48 hours) and the Texas QSO party this weekend. That should be a load of fun, with the new antenna!

After receiving the first batch of QSL cards from the W5 QSL bureau K5WW requested $20 to send to the W5 QSL bureau manager, to keep him happy for the next year or so. Jason said he had already found a sponsor for that. Thank you, sponsor!

Questions: how do we raise some more money for the club, now that we are as good as broke? W5DUH mentioned a raffle for a gun, now that deer season is approaching. Nobody else had any good suggestions.

Now that the new beam is up our noise problem on the HF bands is worse. It was suggested we contact AEP to come and have a look at the light. And fix or replace the damn thing.

Antenna work: much more to come. With the beam in place and the VHF repeater antenna on top we have the chance to move the big G5RV wire to the back, and the HF vertical on the side (where it always has been); but put both much higher. K5WW suggested the 80 meter dipole be attached to the top of the tower, permanently. Working on it! Oh and wait: that 6 meter vertical is still begging to be installed as well…

The meeting was adjourned at 7:38 PM, after which Catherine g0t her chance to take the Technician test. And she passed!

Not the best picture after all. Cell phones…. My apologies, Catherine.

I see the Depertment of Full Automation has dropped the ball, after a recent website update…

Yes, today is the September meeting! Good food, good company, and good door prizes for those who know the magic word. Be there! 🙂

No kidding! He was totally exhausted!!!!!

Not putting a name or callsign underneath this one to protect the innocent. 🙂

(Ummmm…. Small warning: the images and videos are quite large; and might not be something you want to be watching on your smartphone with the low bandwidth data plan…)

We started working on this “monster” Spiderbeam antenna on Saturday August 23. First snag: no propane in the fork lift. So… while Jason KF5EJX drove to San Antonio to buy some (why doesn’t anyone sell propane in Uvalde on Saturdays???) Erik K5WW did a little bit of inventory on all the parts that were shipped.

Let’s just say these are just the small parts; and this isn’t even half of it!

K5WW also managed to assemble to center hub for the antenna:

Looks easy enough, right? Until you start doing it yourself!

Just trying to get a bit of an idea about how big this thing is actually going to be:

Holy cow…. What have we started…..?

So Jason got back, and we were able to lower the mast, thinking we would be able to install the antenna that night. Yeah, right…

Second snag came after installing the rotator, and then the trust bearing. Mounting the rotator was easy enough; but there were no holes in the tower for the trust bearing. Jim AB5JK took it upon himself to drill those holes:

Ride that steel horse, cowboy! 😉

And that wasn’t an easy task… Jim worked on it until he had it just right – which was way after 10 PM!

After that we elevated the tower again (yes, with the fork lift!) and secured it for the night:

Jason just loves motoring!

Jason and Erik securing the bolts so the thing won’t blow over:

The first Sunday we spent most of our time measuring and cutting monofilament wire and burning Kevlar rope. And putting knots in it. And measuring again. And again. And, yup: again! Spent hours and hours converting metric units into American units. Ah, I love metric. But: nobody took any picture of anything. Thanks, guys… 🙁

Forced to call it a weekend K5WW took home the Spiderbeam balun kit. The coax used is very rigid, hard to bend and not easy to work with. It took several tries to get everything in that little box:

But after several hours it got done:

Second weekend of work. Surely we will be able to install that antenna soon!

Thanks to Jason’s very creative mind we now have a very easy (and safe) way to lower and raise the tower, with these things attached to the fork lift:

And down it will come again: K5WW removing the bolts once more.

And Jason lowering the tower. Ready to install that antenna!

And Jason found another handy little lift to hold the tower, while the fork lift could be used for other purposes:

How cool is that?

Yeah, OK, so it’s down, once again. Now what?

Hmmm…..

Just a bit after 8 PM on Saturday the 30th. We got a lot more done; but still not finished. About to secure the “almost finished” Spiderbeam to the “almost horizontal” tower overnight:

Attached some CAUTION tape to the spreaders; and praying that nobody would mess with our hard work overnight! And – in a way – that the project would finish itself overnight too 😉

Second Sunday. Nobody messed with it, phew! And sleep it did. Unfortunately – and contrary to what I (K5WW) was hoping for – it didn’t complete itself overnight:

http://youtu.be/yuEZtiXPwQw

So: back to work! Jason and Erik worked all Sunday; got most of the antenna completed. But there was nobody around to take pictures…

Third weekend. Saturday September 6, 2014. Already!

Jason and Dave WA6YJW tightening up Kevlar ropes (fun, fun, fun!) to straighten the fiberglass arms:

And yes: they also put the VHF repeater antenna on top. It now sits at about 60 feet AGL. Go try it!

Before all of that was done we tested the SWR on all bands, with the mast sitting in a water-filled barrel:

And took some close-ups:

And hey: we had to personalize it too 🙂

And then we had to go back home. Lack of daylight. Two weekends spent.

But: the 3rd Sunday we were ready to go! Jim took this panoramic image of the whole antenna setup, to be installed on the tower:

That Sunday was a bit rough, though. Nearby thunder, lightning strikes and quite a few rain showers kept us from working on this project. But we got it done, in between two claps and with the use of a couple of umbrellas!

Richard N5YPJ, Erik and Jason making final preparations to install and raise this beast. Now!

Our almighty president Jason found yet another way to provide support for the tower: the trailer!

Pull up your pants, please, K5WW??

The idea was to lower the tower and lift the mast (with Spiderbeam and VHF antenna) and slide it into the trust bearing and rotator. Good idea, not as easy as it sounds! That’s Jim on top of a pallet on the fork lift.

Not easy; but not impossible either:

Slightly different angles:

The final inspection was done by these guys, K5WW and his Doppelgänger:

After we took a break Jim did the final cable management:

With Richard (always the ground crew!) doing quality control:

And then, the magic moment: Jason pushing everything into the sky with the fork lift:

http://youtu.be/CDPTF7uDrac

And it’s up!!!

Looks soooooooooooooooo sweet at 55 feet!

Jason once more with that final push; and Richard looking to see if everything is going good:

From a distance:

Now all we need is for the cleaning crew to come by and clean up the boys’ mess. Oh…. did we make a mess!!!

That’s not the worst of it… I didn’t have the guts to take pictures of the trashcans!!! 😉

And does it turn? Hell yeah it turns!!

http://youtu.be/7jdeyVEnaMU

“Somebody” (who couldn’t wait…) already made a few QSOs with it. But the first big workout will be the Worked All Europe SSB contest on this coming weekend; and this is your invitation to join us!

One last thing: if you consider building one of these beams yourself, then please never forget what our team was reminded of so many times, for three weekends in a row:

Thanks DF4SA; you have a fantastic sense of humor! 😉

And on a personal (K5WW) note: my thanks to Jason KF5EJX, Jim AB5JK, Richard N5YPJ and Dave WA6YJW for making KN5S bigger, bolder, stronger, and louder than it ever has been! You guys ROCK!!!!

(images and videos courtesy of Jim AB5JK and Erik K5WW)

And it’s working!

But…. since I managed to misplace my cell phone, you will have to wait for all the images and video until I get it back…

Sorry! 🙁

The meeting was called to order at 19:17.

Attending: Dave WA6YJW, Jim AB5JK, Richard N5YPJ, Jason KF5EJX, James WB5AIG and Erik K5WW.

The treasurer’s report: we’re broke. Well, almost. After the purchase of the Spiderbeam, the Yaesu rotator and the control cable we have $84.45 available. Yikes…

Speaking of which: work installing the beam is ongoing. Lots of measuring and cutting has happened (while YOU were not there), and the rotator and trust bearing have been installed. More work to be done; so far we have worked close to 16 hours on it.

The balun is almost done, the shack’s a mess because of all of the work; but we’re all looking forward to the final result. We’re trying our best to get the new beam (and the VHF repeater antenna) installed and working on the tower before the CQ WW RTTY contest and Texas QSO Party at the end of September. So … if you have nothing better to do on Saturdays/Sundays then please join us!

Other news: Jason brought up the possibility of getting insurance for the equipment, now that we have accumulated a good $10,000 of it. It would be about $140 annually. This will be discussed again later; cuz we’re almost broke, remember?

The meeting was adjourned at 8:05 CDT.