Coyote Amateur Radio Club

After 2 and a half years of Field Days, a few (small) contests and a little over 1,300 QSOs in the log we finally received our first big award: the ARRL’s Worked All States award!

The Coyote Amateur Radio Club’s Worked All States award!

More awards to come! Like the ARRL’s DXCC award. Only 80 entities left 🙂

Thanks to everyone who made this award a reality and thanks to president Jason (the real Jason!) KF5EJX for sponsoring this one. I’m sure it’ll find a good spot on the radio shack’s wall!

Jason KF5EJX, Jason N5YPJ and Jason K5WW were active in the North American QSO Party (SSB) this weekend. They all used the club call, KS5TX; and made 210 QSOs:

KS5TX 2013 NAQPSSB score

That is almost twice as much as last year, when there were four Jims in the shack!

We almost got every state and a few Canadian provinces:

2013 NAQPSSB multitpliers

All Jasons agreed, after the event: big fun!

Next up: the Texas QSO Party, at the end of September.

If you happen to be in the neighborhood then please stop by the club shack, accross from the hospital, and join the crew in the SSB NAQP this weekend!

Santa Claus is early this year! He delivered a HUGE power generator a few days ago:

And ON 10 meters too 🙂

15 KW of clean, diesel-generated backup power!

Notice that we painted it ourselves:

…. count on LEAD!

And it purs like a newborn kitten! 🙂

It got parked in front of the shack. At a dry weight of 2,450 lbs I doubt anyone is going to put it in his/her pocket and run off with it…

I got a feeling Field Day 2014 is going to be generator-powered! Anyone have a forklift we can use in June 2014, so we can put this giant into the field?

No, we didn’t win a million bucks. Not even a hundred. We’re not going to Hollywood to accept it either…

But we did get our first award for participation in the 2012 Alessandro Volta RTTY contest!

Our very first award! Click for the full-size version.

Now don’t say “only 443rd place”. Out of thousands of experienced operations world wide 443rd is NOT bad. We WILL do better next year!!

So here they are, in all their glory: those 50 confirmed states. If any of these callsigns look familiar to you then go ahead and pat yourself on the back!

KS5TX all 50 confirmed

Well done, everyone!

The meeting was called to order at 7:30 PM; because a few of the VIPs were a bit late.

Attending: Mary KU5Z, Cici AA5EK, Jim AB5JK, David W5DUH, Richard N5YPJ,  Cathrine Tull, Jason KF5EJX and Erik K5WW.

Minutes of the June 2013 meeting were not read out loud but were approved by everyone; because they had been available on the club’s website for a month already. And everybody had read them, of course!

Treasurer AA5EK reports that the club’s bullet proof chest currently contains $698. That’s more than enough to buy a brand-new HF tribander. Oh, if only we could get a tower…

David W5DUH reports that the club repeater’s frequency has been assigned to the CARC, for this region; ensuring some protection from interference from other repeaters.

Non-licensed visitor Cathrine seems very eager to get her license! She had many questions, including about how repeaters work; and she got a great presentation by Jim AB5JK regarding that topic.

David W5DUH has found some more radio gear that is not being used; and suggests Erik K5WW sell it on eBay to make some money for the club. (which I will do; after you find the DC cable for it, David!)

Our club station KS5TX now has all 50 states confirmed, thanks to an unexpected RTTY QSO with W3LL in Maryland, and a scheduled JT65 QSO with K0JV in South Dakota the same day. All 50 QSOs have been confirmed in the Logbook of The World system. Jason KF5EJX is going to pay for the award, he said. We didn’t even have to twist his arms or nothing. Now who’s going to pay for the frame and a nail to put it on the shack’s wall?

Mary KU5Z and Cici AA5EK were each presented with a certificate to thank them for their hard work making QSOs during the 2013 Field Day.

Oh, speaking of beam antennas: the club is getting a 55 foot crank-up tower, thanks to Uvalde Memorial Hospital! And lots of people had lots of ideas for lots of antennas – right away! Thank you, UMH!!! The tower should be delivered in about 6 weeks – stay tuned for more news.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:17 PM. And I still don’t know who paid for my coke…

We participated in the North American QSO Party – RTTY edition on July 20 and 21.  The NAQPs are short (10 or 12 hours) contests, organized by the National Contest Journal, that come in 3 flavors: SSB, phone, and RTTY. All 3 versions are held twice a year; and because they’re not 24 or 48 hours long and nobody can run more than 100 W most operators can find the time to put in those hours and compete with the big guns. And they do; because participation is always high! We picked the RTTY edition this time (and the phone edition in August) because that seems to be what most CARC members are interested in. More diddles!

Below is the number of QSOs we logged and our claimed score. Not bad for 4 part-time participants, and a second radio that wasn’t installed until several hours after the start of the contest.

KS5TX 2013 NAQP RTTY claimed score

We logged 41 US states and 3 Canadian provinces:

Worked US states and Canadian provinces

Not bad either! (click the image for the full-size version).

And we even got logged a few stations that are very far from the North American continent:

Worked DXCC entities

Portugal, the Azores Islands and Norway. Thanks for the juicy points 😉

Big fun! I suggest we do this again next year. With more participants and bigger antennas!

Feel free to leave comments.

The CARC’s July 2013 meeting will be on Tuesday the 23rd. You’re invited!

Glad you asked! Simply – and politely – put: we old men got our butts kicked by the young ladies!! That must have been a well-planned move; by trying to put us all to sleep with Cici’s tasty cake, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies. 😉

Cici AA5EK and Mary KU5Z worked together putting many RTTY contacts in the log. Much more than anyone else! And they’re responsible for logging two states we needed for our Worked All States award: at 2213Z Mary logged WA2HIP in Maine, and at 2322Z Cici logged KQ0J in Nebraska. Both QSOs have been confirmed via the LoTW; so now we only need 2 states for that award. Thank you, ladies! Next year we’ll let you galls make all QSOs 🙂

Copyright ARRL

Those two remaining states are Maryland and South Dakota. We did make 2 QSOs with MD during Field Day – with W3AO – but they don’t seem to be very interested in QSL’ing via the LoTW. I’ll send them a paper card or two, one of these days. South Dakota isn’t very easy, although I personally heard someone up there. I didn’t manage to contact them, though. Bummer!

But in all fairness I guess the guys should get some credit too: Jason KF5EJX moved what looked like the whole club shack. And his favorite swamp cooler! He also kept all of our tummies full and our vocal cords lubricated. And after all of that he managed to make several QSOs, including his very first on 6 meters. He’s still smiling from ear to ear!

Speaking of 6 meters: new member Martin KF5IKN showed up, all the way from Eagle Pass, and kept the 6 meter position going, and going, and… He managed to log the first 6 meter QSO; which got everyone’s attention and that was enough to keep that radio on all night long. Thank you, Martin, and do come back!

Jim AB5JK didn’t have a whole lot of time to make QSOs; because he had his hands full making photographs of the event. See below for the results of his handiwork.  

Last but not least: thanks to Mr. Klaevemann (sr) again; for letting us use his lovely property for our crazy hobby. Personally I wouldn’t mind going there again. With more deet!!!