[nrv-hams] More about the VAQP

[Kay Craigie]

If you've had some experience with contests, have the internet in your
shack, and may be ready to move on to another level, there's a neat on-line
operating aid.

It is the QSO Party and Operating Events DX Cluster, maintained by a
volunteer ham (KX4O) here in Virginia. It's for people operating in state
QSO parties and other small-ish operating events. The advantage to using
this cluster rather than the main DX cluster is that information that is not
relevant to the state contest don't clutter up the screen.

This isn't the right venue to explain the ins and outs of using a cluster,
but here's the 25-cent version. A cluster is an electronic network through
which hams can call out ("spot") stations that others may want to know about
and work. The spot shows the spotter's callsign, the time, date, callsign,
and frequency, and sometimes a useful comment, such as a DX station's
listening frequency. In a state QSO party, the comment could be the
station's county abbreviation. Logging software usually has the capability
of connecting to a cluster via Telnet and displaying the information. 
If you log on paper but do have the internet in your shack, you can still
access a DX cluster via your web browser. One such site is DX Summit
(www.dxsummit.fi). There are also cluster apps for smartphones.

But back to the one dedicated to state QSO parties. You can access it using
your web browser at www.qsoparty.com. To access it via Telnet using your
logging software, do whatever your program requires in order to add the
cluster node spots.qsoparty.com port 7300.

As I write this, there are no spots listed. However, information will start
to appear next weekend during the VA QSO Party. 

(Now if you really want some archaeology ... the nodes in the main DX
cluster are operated by hams and the nodes bear their callsigns: K3WW, W4ML,
W3LPL, etc. Obviously operations on the internet don't require callsigns.
This custom goes back to the day when the cluster operated on VHF FM simplex
AX.25 packet radio and was a network of actual amateur radio stations which
had to identify. You will still hear some of us dinosaurs call it the
"packet cluster." Users connected on 2 meters. The forwarding of spots
through the network was done on 220 or 440 MHz backbone frequencies. As the
number of nodes and users grew, it became clear that the RF-based system was
going to choke itself to death and hog all the simplex frequencies -- which
went over rather badly with hams who wanted to use simplex for other
purposes. As soon as broadband came along, the cluster node operators
shifted off of RF and onto the internet. But the custom of identifying
cluster nodes with callsigns has generally survived.)

73, Kay N3KN