CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: W4HOD
Operator(s): KA4PKB, AA4YL
Station: W4HOD

Class: M/S LP
QTH: Loachapoka, AL
Operating Time (hrs): 36

Summary:
Band  QSOs  Pts  State/Prov  DX   Zones
————————————————
80:       11    11       9            1     3
40:      197   317      40          40   18
20:      151   347      24          45    17
15:       65    178       4           29    14
10:
—————————————–
Total:  424  853      77      115    52  Total Score = 208,132

Club: Alabama Contest Group

Comments:

Great contest. The IC-746 Pro and MFJ 998 tuner worked flawlessly. Best score
for W4HOD yet. Lots of fun.

KA4PKB and AA4YL will be operating the CQ WW RTTY contest this weekend. We are using the club call W4HOD and operating from the QTH of KA4PKB. The R8 is up and we have a long wire for 75 meters. We are using the IC-746Pro, RigExpert Plus and logging with Writelog. Hope to see you on the bands!

W4HOD will have a special guest at the October meeting. Dick Jaeger, K4IQJ will present our program, the subject being 160 meter DX operation. The meeting will be held on October 13 at Golden Corral located on Pepperell Parkway in Opelika. We will gather at 6:00 PM for supper and the program will commence immediately afterward.We will not have a regular business meeting so that Dick will have ample time for his presentation.

I borrowed the following from Dick’s bio on QRZ:

“Dick was first licensed as KN4IQJ in the summer of 1959 and upgraded a few months later. He is primarily a CW operator who enjoys chasing DX and operating in contests, particularly on the low bands. He is on top of the SSB/Mixed Honor Rolls, needs only P5 on CW, and has competed CQ 5BWAZ. He has worked 34 zones on 160M.”

The W4HOD VE team held a special testing session for the Auburn University High Altitude Balloon club on the AU campus. The session was a great success with 11 of 13 applicants passing their test. There were 10 Technicians and 1 General who passed. Congrats to all of them. Considering the study load they have at Auburn, all of them deserve it.

http://space.auburn.edu/ahab/

W4HOD received our Certificate of Affiliation from the ARRL last week. This is a very important document to us, as it shows how far this club has come in 2 years. We have pulled together as a team and achieved all we set out to do. The future does look bright!

Several members stand out for their contributions. I won’t name them here, but you know who you are. Thanks for everything you do.

KA4PKB, KA4NDY and I had breakfast as Hardees on Wire Road in Auburn this morning. We had a good breakfast and then discussed the world’s problems and solved a good many of them.

Afterwards we went to the clubhouse and started working on the 80 meter dipole that KI4KUT loaned us for the Alabma QSO Party next Saturday. W4HOD is pleased to have our newest member Darrell, K9MUG helping operate our CW station for the QSO Party.

Darrell donated an Icom-746 PRO to our club last month. We presented him with a lifetime membership in W4HOD and purchased a brick on the ARRL Terrace in Newington in his name.

The April meeting is on the 14th. The meal begins around 6:15 PM and the meeting begins at 7:00 PM. The menu this month begins the grilling season for 2009. We will have burgers, dogs, and the fixins. Tea, soft drinks, and dessert too.

Join us if you can. Meal is $5.00 per person. Please give us a heads up if you plan on attending.

Trees are down and light to moderate damage to some buildings from the storms that passed through Lee County on Friday evening. The clubhouse survived nicely, which is good.  The covered bandstand/shelter was destroyed though.

Some of the club members will be helping clean up today.

W4HOD had a special guest at our March meeting. After dining on spaghetti, manicotti, lasagna, salad and dessert, we were treated to an antenna program by Darrell Penrod, K9MUG. Darrell presented several different wire antennas that will perform well and are easy to build.

Darrell Penrod, K9MUG

Thanks to Gene Harlin, KI4EEY for the photo

Jim Reisert-AD1C

I discovered a very good web site created by AD1C. of Colorado. The main page URL is http://ad1c.us/ . It is a combination personal page, ham radio page, and a great page on RTTY. He has written some very good, useful software programs and there is a link to them as well. One program I plan on trying for our club is the ADIF to CSV program. It converts ADIF files to comma separated values for exporting to Excel.

Thanks to a benevolent club member, W4HOD is the proud recipient of two WAS certificates. Both certificates were done 100% LOTW.

Mixed number 53,519 Date 09 March 2009

Digital (RTTY) number 734 Date 09 March 2009

I operated the BARTG RTTY Contest this past weekend. I used the club callsign W4HOD. Usually I have the pleasure of  the company of  members KF4OPX and KA4PKB, but they were not able to make this one. I had fun and made a few points.

Call: W4HOD
Operator(s): AA4YL
Station: W4HOD

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Loachapoka, AL
Operating Time (hrs): 14

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Countries  Call Areas
-----------------------------------
   80:    0             0           0
   40:   58           7          14
   20:   84         12          14
   15:   10           3            4
   10:    0            0            0
-----------------------------------
Total:  152      22         32  Continents = 5  Total Score = 41,040

Club: Alabama Contest Group

Comments:

Great contest. My first one flying solo, but great fun. Thanks for all the
contacts. Thanks especially for those stations who followed the message layouts
from rttycontesting.com, it makes things much more organized.

W4HOD will operate the club station in the CQ RTTY contest this weekend. KA4PKB, KF4OPX and AA4YL will be operating. Our goal is to be on the air most of the weekend and work as many stations as possible. As usual, our operation will be part of the Alabama Contest Group.
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