News About UARC and Ham Radio in Utah
General Class Starts Mar. 25
[03-04-13]Morris Farmer, AD7SR, will be teaching a class for those interested in obtaining the General Class amateur license. It will be held on Monday evenings starting March 25 and running for about seven weeks. Each session will start at 7 P.M. and last about two hours. Location is Morris' home, about 5000 South and 1500 East in the Salt Lake Valley.
There is no charge for the course. The text will cost $30 and will be available the first night of the course through UARC. If you are interested or have questions please contact Morris Farmer, AD7SR, at ad7sr@comcast.net.
EComm Hamfest in Ogden April 20
[01-21-13]The Ogden Amateur Radio Club (OARC) and Weber County ARES are holding a day-long hamfest on Saturday, April 20. The location will be the Ogden-Weber Applied Technical College, 200 North Washington Boulevard in Ogden. The event will run from 8 A.M. to 3 P.M.
We assume that “EComm” implies an emphasis on emergency communications. Activities will include seminars, swap tables, antenna building, license testing, and raffles.
For more information and to pre-register see tinyurl.com/ecomm2013.
Utah 2012 Field Day Scores
[11-14-12]The results are in! The scores from the 2012 Field Day contest, held on June 23 and 24, are now available on the ARRL web site and in QST magazine. There were 23 entries from Utah, 15 from portable and mobile stations, and 8 from fixed stations, including emergency operating centers (class “F”). The Utah DX Association maintained its place at the top of the list. We are happy to see that UARC made a significant improvement in score and percentile within its class since the 2011 event.
A station using five transmitters running a kilowatt each can be expected to make more points than one running a single QRP CW station, so the fairest way to compare stations in different entry classes seems to be to show the percentile of each within its entry class. (Percentile is the percentage of entrants who made lower scores than the one being rated.)
Our tabulation appears below:
| Mobile and
Portable Stations (in order of percentile) |
||||||||
| Call |
Place |
out of |
Class |
Score |
QSOs |
Pctl |
Pctl 2011 |
Group or Club Name |
| AD7KG | 7 | 316 | 3A | 9646 | 3207 | 97.8 | 99.2 | Utah DX Assn |
| W7SP | 15 | 316 | 3A | 8624 | 2501 | 95.6 | 79.1 | Utah ARC |
| NN7ZZ | 10 | 112 | 1B1B | 4130 | 392 | 91.1 | — | |
| W7DRC | 3 | 18 | 2AB | 5480 | 661 | 83.3 | — | Dixie ARC |
| K7DAV | 121 | 408 | 2A | 3184 | 664 | 70.3 | 83.4 | Davis Cty ARC |
| NR7E | 9 | 26 | 1B2 | 880 | 315 | 65.4 | — | |
| W7IVM | 36 | 86 | 5A | 3490 | 613 | 58.1 | 32.5 | Bridgerland ARC |
| WC6R | 28 | 59 | 1B1 | 522 | 93 | 52.5 | — | |
| W7SU | 212 | 408 | 2A | 1870 | 395 | 48.0 | 35.4 | Ogden ARC |
| K7GL | 181 | 316 | 3A | 2012 | 547 | 42.7 | 56.2 | Wasatch Back Tri-County AR Group
|
| WB6HVH/7 | 79 | 112 | 1B1B | 520 | 37 | 29.5 | — | |
| N7BO | 228 | 316 | 3A | 1588 | 415 | 27.8 | — | Rainbow Canyon ARC |
| W7BAR | 127 | 158 | 4A | 1652 | 318 | 19.6 | 12.5 | Borderline ARC |
| K6VHF | 38 | 44 | 1C | 136 | 18 | 13.6 | — | |
| N7TOX | 53 | 59 | 1B1 | 192 | 21 | 10.2 | — | |
| Fixed Stations
(in order of percentile) |
|||||||
| Call |
Place |
out of |
Class |
Score |
QSOs |
Pctl |
Pctl 2011 |
| WA7LNW | 13 | 420 | 1D | 1309 | 716 | 96.9 | 93.1 |
| N0KGM | 6 | 37 | 1F | 2054 | 532 | 83.8 | 81.6 |
| K7EA | 48 | 255 | 1E | 2140 | 533 | 81.2 | 83.0 |
| WI7J | 78 | 255 | 1E | 1292 | 571 | 69.4 | 12.8 |
| K7JL | 173 | 420 | 1D | 252 | 101 | 58.8 | — |
| K7DAC | 211 | 420 | 1D | 210 | 160 | 49.8 | — |
| KD7BYU | 214 | 255 | 1E | 252 | 51 | 16.1 | — |
| KE7EGG | 32 | 37 | 1F | 300 | 115 | 13.5 | — |
Key to Entry Classes
|
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Field Day 2012 Report
 |
| The A-3 Tri-bander and the Spider Beam (Photo by KD7TDZ) |
Also see Field Day Photo Page.
[08-06-12]By most measures UARC's entry in the 2012 Field Day contest was one of the most successful in recent years. We entered this year in the 3A (three simultaneous transmitters) class instead of 2A that we had chosen in several recent years. We even managed to keep two of the stations active for the entire 24 hours. Our contact count was in the neighborhood of double last year's.
Field Day Chairman Brett Sutherland, N7KG, was all smiles as the event drew to a close on Sunday afternoon, June 24. Not only had we made a large number of contacts, we had a lot of people who stayed long enough to help with the tear-down.
A good part of our success can be attributed to Max George, NG7M. Max (aka Matt) gave the program at our June meeting and asked if he could come to our Field Day and operate CW. As a well-seasoned CW contest operator, he would have been welcomed with open arms just to come up and operate. But he also volunteered a complete CW station with trailer, antenna, mast, and a K-3 transceiver! We condescended to allow him to bring his gear and also do most of the CW operating.
Unlike other years, most of the setup was done by Friday night, we started operating on time at noon on Saturday, the generator ran happily the whole time, and Dave Felgar, NJ7A, brought along a 6-meter station that brought us an extra 40 QSOs via sporadic E.
We had many more single sideband contacts than in recent years, making more than three times the number from last year. Part of this increase undoubtedly owes to having two SSB stations instead of just one. But another factor was undoubtedly the person who was likely the most prolific SSB QSO-getter, Nathan Sutherland, KD7YYN. Unfortunately for us, Nathan is heading off to college this fall and may not be available next year.
For the first time, activities included a tour of the site to help the newcomers and XYLs get a feel for what was going on.
A total of 18 operators took a turn at the GOTA (“Get on the Air”) station making anywhere from 1 to 31 contacts each.
Our score wasn't remarkable compared to the serious contest clubs, but it seemed to be a big improvement over several recent years. Here is the breakdown of contacts with a comparison to 2011:
| Band | CW | SSB | Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 2011 | 2012 | 2011 | 2012 | 2011 | |
| 80 | 43 | — | 180 | 53 | 223 | 53 |
| 40 | 261 | 113 | 122 | 46 | 383 | 159 |
| 20 | 567 | 479 | 559 | 141 | 1126 | 620 |
| 15 | 335 | 41 | 216 | 37 | 551 | 78 |
| 6 | — | — | 40 | — | 40 | — |
| GOTA | — | — | 178 | 149 | 178 | 149 |
| Total | 1206 | 633 | 1295 | 426 | 2501 | 1059 |
| QSO Pts | 2412 | 1266 | 1295 | 426 | 3707 | 1692 |
| Power Multiplier | X2 | X2 | ||||
| Subtotal | 7414 | 3384 | ||||
| Bonus Points | ||||||
| 100% Emergency Power | 300 | 200 | ||||
| Media Publicity | 100 | 100 | ||||
| Setup in Public Place | 100 | 100 | ||||
| Information Table | — | 100 | ||||
| NTS Message to SM | 100 | 100 | ||||
| W1AW Field Day Bulletin | 100 | 100 | ||||
| Natural Power QSOs | 100 | 100 | ||||
| Visit by Served Agency Official | 100 | — | ||||
| Two operators under 18 | 40 | 20 | ||||
| Three GOTA ops making >20 QSOs | 120 | 80 | ||||
| Submitted via web | 50 | 50 | ||||
| Educational Activity | 100 | 100 | ||||
| Grand Total | 8624 | 4434 | ||||
This is the score as submitted on July 24, the last possible day. To get it all together we had to look for alternate ways to extract data from computers whose floppy drives didn't match the rest of the world, decipher some creative handwriting, and interpret interesting entries in the GOTA log. (What does an on-time of “57.22” mean?)
The Field Day Chairman and the UARC President would both like to thank everyone who helped by operating, setting up, tearing down, supplying equipment, mentoring newcomers, giving classes, cooking, or helping obtain bonus points. It was a wonderful cooperative group effort.
We now have a Photo Page put together with contributions from several photographers.
Web Site Gets New Look
[11-21-09]
You've probably noticed a new look to the UARC web site.
The new design was created by Gary Wong, AB1IP, who won
our web design contest last spring. UARC President John
Hardy, K7ALA, recently applied the new design to all
the most commonly accessed pages. Thanks to Gary and
John!