The Georgia QSO Party

1. The Georgia QSO Party

2. Georgia QSO Party April 11th and 12th 2009 The second full weekend in April. Two sessions Saturday 1800z to 0400z (Sun) Sunday 1400z to 2400z (10 Hrs each session) 160/80/40/20/15/10/6 * Phone: 1.865, 3.810, 7.225, 14.250, 21.300, 28.450, 50.135 CW:     1.815, 3.545, 7.045, 14.045, 21.045, 28.045, 50.095 Classes: Mixed/PH/CW (RTTY, PSK etc in CW) Plaques, Prizes, and Certificates are awarded to winners in Club, State, County, PH, CW, Mixed, other categories… *Most active bands GA Stations work everyone, Everyone else works GA Breakfast ??

3. GQP • GA looks for States (51), • Provinces (13), • And DX. • DX are not mults, but count as QSO Points • Everyone else looks for GA Counties (159) • Rovers are “new” as they change counties • Mults are per mode, but not per band. • Points – PH=1 CW=2 • See gqp.contesting .com for full rules and a list of counties and provinces

4. GQP Top: Greg, NM2L in snow flurries in April 2008 Stats 411 logs, 56,117 QSOs 158 Counties activated (Terrell- darn it) 44 State/Provinces participated 17 Rovers were on the road 93 GA Stations 284 State/Prov 17 DX Stations 152 Mixed Entries 159 CW Entries 100 PH Entries

5. GQP Operating Hints You send and Log: W1AW 599 BIBB  (or the actual county you are in) GA Stations- Do not send GA as your location, always send a county. You do not have to add any /M,  /COBB, or other suffix to the call. You Receive and Log: W1AW 599 CT  -when working an out of state station The location should be one of the 51 State or 13 Province abbreviations commonly used. ARRL sections should not be used. We do sort out "VE3" as "ON" and some other variations for Canada. MD is separate from DC. When working a DX station, log "DX" as the location, not the country prefix. PA3ARM 599 DX -as an example of what you would log. We do also check for slips here and try to fix them if we can. When working another GA station, Log the County abbreviation, not "GA" NE4S 599 COBB - for example If the station does not send the County, you can log "GA" as a last resort. You will get credit for GA as a state multiplier worked when you log a GA county. GA counties are not multipliers for GA stations, but do count for QSO points. This last item gives rise to the oddity that "GA" should not be in any of the logs for GQP. Out of state stations and DX should sent their locations as in the examples above. The list of Abbreviations and Multipliers is at http://gqp.contesting.com/Rules.htm along with the full rules. Log all the dupes, it is faster and is sorted out in score processing. Do your best, the score process is very forgiving. Use the standard 2 letter postal abbreviations for the states. Alberta [AB] for (VE6, VA6) British Columbia [BC] for  (VE7, VA7) Manitoba [MB] for  (VE4, VA4) New Brunswick [NB] for (VE9)  Newfoundland/Labrador [NL] for (VO1, VO2) Northwest Territories [NT] for  (VE8) Nova Scotia [NS]  for (VE1, VA1, CY9, CY) Nunavut [NU] for  (VY0) Ontario [ON] for  (VE3, VA3) Prince Edward Island [PE] for  (VY2) Quebec [QC] for  (VE2, VA2) Saskatchewan [SK] for  (VE5, VA5) Yukon [YT] for  (VY1) Top Pic: John, K4BAI Eavesdrop on John for “On-the-Air” operating methods.

6. GQP Rovers may use a driver and be Single OP Rover must do all operating and logging Safety first, some laws may apply here Rovers are not broken out by power Run as much as you can All are grouped together for awards A rover may also submit a separate home log As long as the home county is not in the Rover Run Log. Saturday day on the road, Sunday at home- not a bad plan Fixed stations are grouped QRP/LP/HP 5W/150W/1500W Fixed Stations may split into CW and PH But not Mixed also, Qs are entered only once Now That’s a Rover!! 3 el A3 with 40M kit 30 foot Pneumatic mast Ft1000mp, 500w TenTec (I wish I had it back!! NE4S)

7. GQP Rare Counties It seems that the one we miss is the "rare" one.  It is hard to say what misfortune befalls the rovers that causes them to miss one, or why no fixed station got on the air from some counties. At http://gqp.contesting.com/RareCounties.htm is a historical record of counties we have missed in recent years. A good route would be one that visits a few of those counties that had 0Q's or have a low ham population as part of a trip you would find convenient and enjoy. We try to coordinate activity of Rovers and Fixed operation through KU8E. Please let him know of your plans at gqprovers@iham.us as soon as you can. Middle and Southern counties “tend” to be missed. Terrell was the only missed county in 2008! Echols, Atkinson, Wilcox, Seminole, Berrien, McDuffie, Glascock, Hancock, Lincoln, Charlton, Jasper, Jenkins, Screven, Burke, Brantley, Elbert, Hart, Franklin, Jones, Putnam, Dade, Baldwin, Pickens, Liberty, Stephens, Richmond, and Columbia have been missed in 2007 or 2006. Put some rovers on the road Get your club and county members active Top Pic: Tad, WF4W, and his portable station in rare Seminole Co.

8. Your Club - Your County How can your club participate?

9. GQP Sponsor a plaque or prize Put a GQP link on your web site Get members active in GQP Get rovers out on the road. Even for a trip of a 2-6 counties

10. GQP Consider an activity to put your club station on the air for GQP Remember to use your “Official” club name when entering your club. Everyone spell it the same way, avoid abbreviations. Use ARRL registered Club name if you have registered Help is available for log problems (Late, Missing, Didn’t do a log, ???) Contact NE4S ne4s@iham.us ASAP after the Party Dates.

11. GQP • If your club was not entered in last GQP--- • Perhaps scores went to other area clubs • SECC – SEDXC – Local – County • Sponsors SECC and SEDXC are not eligible for club awards • Recommend listing Your Club • In March or early April have a GQP presentation at your club meeting. • Use this PowerPoint, or invite one of the GQP Team to your meeting.

12. Thank you Donations for plaques are $20 You will be listed as a sponsor on the plaque, and on our web pages Contact Chaz, W4GKF at gqpplaques@iham.us Donations for the bonus prizes can be made by a note to gqpprizes@iham.us The GQP team members Mike NE4S Chaz W4GKF Lee WI4R John K4BAI Jeff KU8E Gordon K4OD

13. DXing and Contesting from Your Car by Jeff Clarke KU8E

14. Why should I setup a mobile station in my car ? Have the ability to get on the air if you don’t have a home station. It’s fun to have a mobile station in the car to pass time on long car trips. Operate as a rover in contests such as State QSO Parties or VHF Contests.

15. How do I get started ? Step #1 Pick a radio.

16. Installing your radio in the car. Use a fused DC power cord Don’t use the cigarette lighter adapter.

17. How do I get started ? Step #2 Choose an Antenna.

18. Hustler/New-Tronics Mobile Antennas and Accessories

19. High Sierra Tarheel Screw Driver Mobile Antennas

20. Other Mobile Antennas Lakeview Ham Sticks Texas Bug Catcher

21. Mobile Antennas Accessories

22. Mobile Antenna Mounting Tips Choose the right type of mount for your antenna. Take the time to properly ground your antenna.

23. Mobile Antenna Fundamentals Some Basics When an antenna is shortened from it's naturally resonant length at the frequency of interest, the feed point becomes capacitive and it becomes necessary to add offsetting inductance in the form of a loading coil. This restores the resonance of the antenna. Unfortunately, the additional inductor also has resistance that adds loss to the antenna. The resistance in the coil eats up your power and you are not going to be as loud as you would be if the coil loss were not present. The more that you shorten the antenna, the larger the coil that you need to use. The larger coil has more resistance and eats up more of the power. Mobile antennas are usually pretty short, require large coils and hence have large losses. This loss resistance is also seen at the feed point and is partly responsible for making it easy to match this shortened antenna to the 50-ohm feed line and radio. The impedance seen at the feed point is made up of the radiation resistance, coil loss and ground loss. The radiation resistance of a full size vertical antenna is about 35 ohms. As the antenna is shortened the radiation resistance goes down quickly but the other losses are still there or even increase. Source : DX Engineering

24. Mobile Antenna Fundamentals If you have a 72-inch, 20m-whip antenna and you are measuring an SWR of 1:1 that means that you have a feed point impedance of 50-ohms. The true radiation resistance of your antenna is somewhere near 3-ohms. That means that you have a loss in your system of 47-ohms (50-ohms minus 3-ohms) and a radiation efficiency of about 6 percent (3-ohms / 50-ohms). So, if you have a 100-watt transmitter in the car, 94-watts are being used to heat the air and only 6-watts are being used to communicate! The other 94-watts are used up in the loading coil and ground system Radiation Resistance of shortened Mobile Whips Height (in.) Freq. (MHz) Radiation Resistance (Ohms) 72 1.8 0.05 72 3.5 0.17 72 7 0.69 72 10 1.42 72 14 2.77 72 18 4.59 72 21 6.24 72 24 8.15 72 28 11.10 Source : DX Engineering

25. Mobile Antenna Fundamentals How do we reduce the loss in the Loading Coil? Basically, we try to use the one with least inductance and resistance that we can still get to resonate the antenna. One way to reduce the size of the required coil is to install what is known as a capacity hat. A capacity hat can be thought of as an extension of the Marconi antenna design that adds horizontal elements to the design of an otherwise vertical antenna to add length. If the capacity hat is designed correctly the currents in the horizontal sections of the hat offset one another and preserve the vertical polarization of the wave radiated by the antenna. The base impedance of the antenna will drop to about 16-22-ohms when you increase the efficiency of the antenna. Any matching problems will probably be taken care of by your rig's antenna matcher or a more efficient way would be to use a small matching transformer. How much did the efficiency increase? If the base impedance was reduced from 50-ohms total to 20-ohms total when the actual radiation resistance of the antenna is really 3 ohms you will have gone from 6% efficiency to 15% efficiency. More than doubling the RF power coming out of your antenna. Source : DX Engineering

26. DX Engineering Hot Rodz

27. DX Engineering Hot Rodz

28. DX Engineering Hot Rodz

29. State QSO Parties The Georgia QSO Party

30. Just about every State QSO Party has a Rover category. When you operate this category you are allowed to work everyone you had worked in a previous county again. Rovering

31. Rovering - Logging Programs Supports CQP,GQP, MN,FQP, PA QSO Party Supports 7QP,AQP,AK,CQP,CO , FQP, GQP,ILL, IND, LA, MQP,MN,MS,NEQP,NC, OQP, OK,PA,TN,TX,WA,WI QSO Parties. GPS Enabled software Free Download Supports all the State QSO Parties Free Download. NA by K8CC CT by K1EA Supports major QSO Parties. Can add a QSO Party with TE utility. Free Download Supports CQP,FQP,NEQP Free Download

32. Because you can work everyone again from a new county you can generate some big QSO totals. K1TO has broken 3000 QSO’s in the Florida QSO Party. K5KG and W4AN (KU8E/K4BAI) usually at least 2000 + QSO’s in the Florida QSO Party. K4BAI/KU8E usually have nearly 2000 QSO’s in the GQP. Rovering

33. Some rover participants will have a simple setup in the car and just log on paper. The more serious operations will use computer logging and might have a GPS in the car to indicate when they are in a new county. Rovering

34. Remember earlier when I mentioned how inefficient the typical mobile antenna is ? Here is K5KG and VE7ZO’s solution to that problem for 20 meters and up. They tow a trailer with a Force 12 vertical dipole mounted on it. Rovering

35. County Hunters Many of the participants in state QSO parties are CW county hunters. They are regulars in just about every QSO party. You can usually find them on 14056.5, 10122.5, 7056.5 and 3556.5.

36. KU8E Rover Setup

37. KU8E Rover Setup

38. KH6DX/m

39. I have worked 288 countries mobile. I have worked over 100 countries on all bands including 160M. On 160 Meters I have worked and confirmed 104 countries so far. I have my 5BWAS/m +160M and WAC/m on all bands 160 to 10M. Needless to say that I enjoy mobile very much. I have entered many contests with the mobile and have picked up lots of new DX that way. I have even won a few of them for my area. I know I will never be able to compete with the big guns but I can make a close second at times. It’s FUN. My new antenna is a N9JMX (n9jmx@arrl.net) 4" Screwdriver called The Predator. It uses a 4” dia by 5’ Stainless Steel pipe for the base. The coil is wound on a piece of Special High Temp Fiberglass and is about 2’ long. There is a screwdriver motor at the bottom of the pipe which drives a threaded rod. On top is a CB whip with a couple of tophat wires about half way up the whip. The top hats are actually wire loops and the top of the whip is bent to form a loop as well. This is done to help eliminate corona discharge on the lower bands. I can control the antenna resonance from the drivers seat by energizing the motor which drives the coil in and out of the copper tube. There is finger stock on the top of the copper pipe that makes contact with the coil wire which is #10 tinned copper wire. As the coil goes into the copper pipe those turns are shorted to the pipe in effect eliminating them from the circuit. For 160 Meters I have an aux coil I mount between the existing coil and the top whip, It is wound on a piece of 6” by 6” PVC and is rather high Q. I fine tune to resonance using the lower coil. I have a box mounted at the base which has all the relay control and matching vacuum variable which is also motor controlled. It is about 10 to 1000PF and run s from the antenna base to ground. It is used on the lower bands to get a good 1:1 match. I switch it out on 30M and above. Another part of the antenna which most people don’t consider is the ground system. I have run a copper pipe from the front to the rear of the truck under the chassis. The antenna ground and almost all truck chassis parts are run to this ground bus using large copper braid. Thing like the chassis frame, the exhaust system, the engine,enders ,bumpers etc. are all bonded together by this buss. It really helps to reduce noise and lowers the loss resistance of the antenna. This helps a lot because on top band this antenna has a radiation resistance of less than 2 ohms. I figure the antenna is about 10% efficient at best. I make up for that with a really good location and high power . For the pacific area I drive up to near Santa Barbara, about 45 miles away and park right near the water. I have a really great path over salt water to everyplace west. For the other areas I go to the top of a hill near my QTH where the noise level is very low and I can see in all directions. I have worked into Europe and Africa from that location several times. Its also good into South America as well as stateside. My goal has been to work DXCC on 160 Meters Mobile. It has taken several years but now I'm finally working on the second 100 countries. 73 Don Stribling KH6DX/mobile KH6DX/m

40. On the Air Recordings W4AN – 2008 AQP 20 Meters W4AN 2008 AQP 40 Meters N4PN – 2008 GQP