Trans Tasman Low Bands Challenge 15th July 2017

[VK4ADC]

http://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/transtasman/

DATE/TIME: Start Time is 08:00 UTC and finish time is 14:00 UTC, 15th July 2017

1. Contest Introduction

This contest is to encourage Low Band Activity in Australia and New Zealand – The applicable bands are 160, 80 and 40M. The modes are SSB CW and Digital (RTTY and PSK only)

2. Objective

Amateurs in VK and ZL will endeavour to contact other amateurs in VK and ZL.

* VK and ZL, means any station operating within Australia or New Zealand and their external territories.

* Points are only awarded for valid contacts between VK and ZL stations.

The contest is made up of 3 individual two hour blocks – you are able to work another station once per band and mode in every block. Every different Prefix used by VK or ZL stations is a valid multiplier and credit can be claimed once per band per block.

3. Contest Date & Time

The contest is held on the Saturday night of the third full weekend of July Start Time is 08:00 UTC and finish time is 14:00 UTC

4. Categories

A. Single Operator – High Power All Modes All Bands
B. Single Operator – Low Power (100 watts)
C. Single Operator – QRP
E. Multi-Operator – Single Transmitter
F. Multi-Operator – Multi Transmitter (One per band)

* QRP stations are limited to 5 Watts average (CW/RTTY/PSK) or PEP (SSB) at the transmitter output.

Each category will have High Scores for SSB, CW and Digital awards.

Any station in Single or Multi Op may win the Single Mode awards – BUT Multi ops will not be eligible for single op categories.

NOTE: The Mode scores are purely on the highest score and may be from a partial log. You do not enter SSB only – rather the log is determined as having the highest SSB score.

5. Permitted Bands

Contacts may be made on 160M 80M 40M in SSB, CW and Digital (PSK or RTTY Modes)

NB. PSK and RTTY are the only allowed digital modes and are combined, not counted separately.

6. Multi-operator Stations

A. Multi-operator single transmitter stations are only allowed one transmitted signal on air at any time.
If you are using three transceivers to scan the bands, simultaneous transmission will reclassify you as
Multi Transmitter(Category F.) – your responsibility to stop multiple transmitters operating.

B. Multi-operator Multi Transmitter stations
a. Are only allowed maximum one transmitted signal per band,
b. Simultaneous transmissions on different bands are permitted.
* Multi-operator stations are mixed mode only.

7. Contacts

A. Suggested Call: “CQ TT”, “CQ Contest”, or “CQ Test”

B. Exchange: A valid exchange consists of RS(T) followed by a three figure serial number starting at 001 for each band.

C. No cross band contacts are allowed.

D. Exchange of contact information via satellites, telephones, repeaters, Echolink, IRLP, or the internet is not in the spirit of the contest and is banned.

8. Scoring

All contacts are worth one point – Add the number of contacts made in the two hours and multiply by the different prefixes worked on each band in that two hours.

NB external territories count as one prefix – eg VK0 counts as VK0 and not the separate DXCC same as for VK9

e.g. 160 80 40 total contacts 50 X 35 prefixes (total of each band added) = 1750 points.

Final Score is the addition of the scores from the three two hour blocks starting at 08:00; 10:00 & 12:00 UTC

The VKCL software has a contest setting to suit this event. To download the current version, visit http://www.mnds.com.au/vkcl/. Alternatively, the N1MM software also supports this contest. https://n1mm.hamdocs.com/tiki-index.php

[VK4ADC]

I might be portable that weekend so I thought it was time to make sure I had antennas available to suit the three bands involved: 160, 80 and 40 metres.

I ended up making up a new trapped dipole to cover just those bands so that only a single antenna needed to be erected. Details are at 160 - 80 - 40 metre trapped v dipole and there is plenty of time to get building and be ready to use it on the 15th of July.

Readily available bits were used in the build so it should be easy to duplicate. The hardest part is tuning the traps to frequency but the article at tuning of HF coax traps might help with that.

Doug VK4ADC

[VK4ADC]

BUMP to the top of the list...

This event is now only just over a week away so it is about time to get preparations underway:  

DATE/TIME: Start Time is 08:00 UTC and finish time is 14:00 UTC, 15th July 2017 

Bands: 160 / 80 /40 metres

Rules: http://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/transtasman/

The 160 - 80 - 40 metre trapped v dipole  mentioned in my previous post has been duplicated by Brendan VK4BLP with somewhat similar results and I am hopeful that he will get it up in the air in time to participate.  I am in the process of re-tuning my East-West fan dipole (160 /80 / 40/ 30) after changing (increasing) wire-wire spacing and that has altered the resonance dip frequencies (bar on 160, they all went up the bands) - and that is the reason the trap version described is more appealing. Nevertheless the fan dipole will be back in action for this event.  I may even put up the trapped version on a temporary pole so I can switch across to it and compare signal levels on TX and RX versus the full size dipoles.

See you on during the contest !!

73 Doug

 

[VK4TS]

We will be putting on air the club station at VK4WIS - Sunshine Coast Amateur Radio Club - we will be active on SSB and CW and perhaps RTTY

We are - Robert VK4LHD Glenn VK4FSSC and Trent VK4TS

[VK4BLP]

Southside Amateur Radio Society is going to run the club station at Bigriggen, south of Beaudesert in SE Qld, and will be active only on SSB.

[VK4ADC]

BUMP to the top again. 

This weekend 

[VK4ADC]

Well the TT is done.. and I know why they called it a "challenge" !

The storm front that passed over us in SE Qld just before the contest start time "lit" up an insulator (well certainly a high voltage discharge path) on a nearby (??) 11KV power line such that at 5PM the band noise was S3 on 3.6 but jumped to S9 with the QRN at the 6PM start. 7MHz was the least affected - it was only S5-6 there and S7-8 on 1.8MHz.  So the signals to hear/work were competing with that plus the S9+20-30 static crashes from the nearby lightning. I was ready to give it away by 7PM but persevered until just short of the midnight finish to end up with just over 100 contacts.

What did surprise me a bit was the lack of operators returning to 7MHz during the second and third 2-hour blocks. Sure there were a lot of international signals throughout the first 200KHz but I found a mostly-unused spot about 7090 and made a few VK contacts there during each block. Elsewhere on that band, there was a definite lack of VK and ZL callsigns.


Congratulations to those with contest exchanges numbering in the 240s and 250s at the end, those numbers were simply not possible at my QTH, not with the power line QRN present at what is normally a quiet location.

73 Doug VK4ADC

[VK4BLP]

Went to the SARS weekend down at Bigriggen yesterday arvo to set up my newly built 160-80-40 trapped v dipole, but alas it went out of tune with wires resting up against trees and the like, as well as the last leg coming undone..... dunno how that one happened.

Anyway, the 'day trippers' get effectively kicked out of the camping ground at around 6:30pm or get stuck in there till the morning, so I had to make a hasty escape around 6:30pm, as I had to return home to keep an eye on mum... besides I didn't bring anything down to camp with!

So didn't really get to try it out my new aerial, but I did leave it there for the other club members to use over night.

I had hoped to have it returned to me on their way back from Bigriggen, but alas it never came back. I was hoping to string it back up here at my home QTH late today or tomorrow sometime, but I guess it'll have to wait until I know who has it,


Anyway, just wondering if many heard vk4wss on the during the TT ??
Other operators there were vk4lc, vk4fpat, vk4jdf, vk4fvip, vk4wym (although I think Mike was leaving shortly after myself), or vk4frec.

Not a good spot if you wanted RF for your mobile phone/IP hotspot, and FM broadcast stations were not much chop there, and surprising enough, 2m FM couldn't get out much more than 1km away either !

Hope you others weren't in similar places.

[VK4ADC]

"Anyway, just wondering if many heard vk4wss on the during the TT ??"

I heard VK4WSS on 160M at one stage working a VK2? but did not hear the call again on either 80 or 40 during my nearly 6 hours of operation.

 "Went to the SARS weekend down at Bigriggen yesterday arvo to set up my newly built 160-80-40 trapped v dipole, but alas it went out of tune with wires resting up against trees and the like, as well as the last leg coming undone..... dunno how that one happened."

You should have known better than to run it close to trees. You saw how it de-tuned when it was next to the support pipe here when tested, and that was only at the centre. The original article advised that it would vary frequency with height etc but I guess I should have warned about proximity to any other object.

Are you saying it was on its last "legs" that made it fall to the ground   

73 Doug

[VK4BLP]

"Anyway, just wondering if many heard vk4wss on the during the TT ??"

I heard VK4WSS on 160M at one stage working a VK2? but did not hear the call again on either 80 or 40 during my nearly 6 hours of operation.

Around 6pm ? ... that was vk4lc on the air on 160m then, and shortly thereafter I had to leave as I wasn't camping over night.

 "Went to the SARS weekend down at Bigriggen yesterday arvo to set up my newly built 160-80-40 trapped v dipole, but alas it went out of tune with wires resting up against trees and the like, as well as the last leg coming undone..... dunno how that one happened."

Yeah, the end of it on the plastic egg insulator.... could've sworn it was sufficiently twisted like the other end was that didn't come undone.

You should have known better than to run it close to trees. You saw how it de-tuned when it was next to the support pipe here when tested, and that was only at the centre. The original article advised that it would vary frequency with height etc but I guess I should have warned about proximity to any other object.

Are you saying it was on its last "legs" that made it fall to the ground   

I know, you know, but the 'wiser' ones out there said not to worry about it the wires resting up against the wet trees.

Shouldn't need to have put in to your article not to run the wires up against the folliage/trees... commonsense I would have thought.


I hope to be able to pick it up at Pat's place on the clubs tech/social night on Wednesday this week. Shame I didn't get a chance to use it when I was down there, but thought it would be nice to leave it for others in the club to use it. Perhaps I might have been better to have strung it up here at home last week and went in the comp myself.