[Elecraft] [KX3] KX3 Setup For Contesting?

[Bill Frantz]

Don is absolutely right. I enjoyed one field day as a 1C with a 
total of 4 SSB QSOs. Most of my field days have been with the 
West Valley Amateur Radio Association's operation. WVARA has a 
bunch of avid contesters, so we have spent the last few years 
looking for a sub-category where we might be able to break the 
record score. This year we tried for the 9AB category. When the 
results come out we'll see how K6EI and our GOTA call W6ZZZ came 
out. We have set new records in previous years.

General advice for a high-scoring field day.

   * Arrange antennas for minimum mutual interference.

   * Use the best antennas/masts etc. you can get your hands on.

   * Use Elecraft radios. :-)

   * Check your radios with a spectrum analyser for spurious 
emissions beforehand.

   * Run QRP for the multiplier and reduced interference.

   * Get good CW operators. CW is where the points are.

   * Try slow speed CW. There are some OPs who can't go fast but 
want QSOs.

   * Try running when QRP. We had a CW op hold a frequency for 3 hours.

   * Try for all those 100 point bonuses.

I did my first field day with this group several years ago and 
came away with 4 major insights: QRP is a whole lot of fun, 
digital is a whole lot of fun, contesting is a whole lot of fun, 
and setting up a big field operation is a whole lot of fun.

I didn't find 20 hours of PSK operation during field day too 
much different from the NAQP RTTY contest: same logging program, 
same radio, about the same number of stations that didn't hear 
me, just a different digital mode. Field day was just a much 
longer operation.

Cheers - Bill, AE6JV

On 7/3/13 at 5:11 PM, w3fpr at embarqmail.com (Don Wilhelm) wrote:

>Scotty (and all),
>
>Field Day is different things to different people.  To some it 
>is as it was originally intended - an exercise in setting up a 
>station in a short time for simulated emergency conditions.  To 
>others it is a time to go into the 'back country' and test out 
>your latest homebrew transceiver and portable antenna and see 
>if you can make some contacts under adverse conditions, and to 
>others it is a time to get together with fellow club members 
>and have some socialization while making some contacts under 
>those simulated emergency conditions. For others it is a time 
>just to see if you can set up a station in the field 
>(independent of power mains) and make some contacts just to 
>prove to yourself that you can do it.  Then there are the 
>others who treat it as a contest - competitive groups trying to 
>see if they can muster the best score.
>
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Bill Frantz        | QRP: So you can talk about   | Periwinkle
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