[PVRCNC] PVRC/NC-East Chapter-Meeting Minutes of 2/1/2007

[Keith Zeringue]

Apologies if this double posts to the NC reflector......better twice 
than not at all.....K.A.Z.

Just in time for the first ever North Carolina Road Kill Round Up. 
Coming in only two weeks time!

   see:http://ncroadkillroundup.homestead.com/KontestDetails.html


PVRCNC-EAST February Meeting Notes
February 1st, 2007, Manchester's, North Raleigh.

The PVRC/NC-East chapter had a bit lower turnout for the February 
meeting, with cold, wet, and icy conditions keeping many from attending.

Those who were able to make it were mostly folks closer in to the 
meeting place, including K4QPL, Jim; K4CIA, Bill; NT4D,Jay; W0UCE, Jack; 
and W4KAZ, Keith. Braving the elements from farther out of the area 
included K4WES, Wes; NT4Q, Jerry; and KI4GMW, Joleen.

Having a smaller more intimate group for a change, we had a long bit of 
informal round table discussion going, with enough cross talk to make 
folks wistful for their paddles. K4QPL, Jim, cut through the QRM with 
his cattle prod, and eventually herded the cats into a more normal 
'around the table' member reports session.

Member Reports

K4CIA-Bill:  Bill reported that he had 'played' some in the month's 
contests, and had managed to bag the VU7 on 160, but not until W0UCE had 
beat him to the prize. Dang that "Rod" fellow!

NT4D-Jay:  Jay worked the NAQP CW as his first ever full time 
intentional QRP operation, and said he had enough fun with the challenge 
to keep his 'butt in chair' for the duration. He's found that the QRP 
operation was a good refresher course on pile-up busting(i.e., you need 
to operate smarter rather than use the brute force of the amp). He also 
put in an effort for the NAQP SSB--but NOT QRP. During the CQ 160 
operation, Jay discovered yet another RFI issue with his dhack 
equipment, so he was not able to operate the contest at full power.

NT4Q-Jerry:  Jerry spent some time researching and tweaking radio menu 
options before jumping into NAQP SSB, and was rewarded with a lot of 
good signal reports. He also experimented with the pile-up busting 
nature of the last two digits of his call, much to the amusement of a VE 
operator..."I say mate, nice callsign.." Jerry has his beam assembled on 
the ground, and after finally laying hands on an assembly manual and 
double checking the assembly(thats cheating!), made a few corrections.

KI4GMW-Joleen:  Helping keep Jerry stirred up. Shared a few ebay/banking 
pointers with the group.

W4KAZ-Keith:- Worked both NAQP's with poor results in CW half, but best 
NAQP SSB showing to date. Ran stations on 80 meters for 2.5 hours. Took 
brreak at wrong time to run some errands. Came very close to a personal 
goal of at least one 100 Q/hr. Averaged 55 Q's/hr. Made more Q's on 160 
than on 20 meters. Also "played" for only 3 hours in CQ 160, very 
interesting band conditions.

K4WES-Wes:  Wes reported operating the NAQP SSB, and reported 
consternation with W4KAZ's use of the name 'Andy'.

W0UCE-Jack:  "Rod" reports that he nabbed the VU7. Also, he hosted N1LN, 
Bruce and N4CW, Bert for a multi op on CQ 160, netting 1200+ Q's, and 
just over 400K score. The current plan is for N3ND and N4CW to multi 
with Jack for the ARRL CW coming up. Jack also reminded us that the 
first ever NC Road Kill Round Up was near at hand, and it was time for 
the 'road kill' to steel themselves for the action. Note: The RKRU is a 
QRP event, Kritters will call "CQ RK" at 5 watts. Kritter exchange 
is:RST, Kritter name, Kritter Call--The 'Lead Foot' exchange is RST, 
State, Name, Power, and call. For full details see 
http://ncroadkillroundup.homestead.com/KontestDetails.html

K4QPL-Jim:  Jim put in about 9 hours for the NAQP CW, and turned up 560 
Q's. He also "played" in the NAQP SSB, but missed the CQ 160 entirely 
with his 160 transmit antenna broken, and not enough time to repair it. 
He's planning to operate ARRL DX CW at N4AF, along with N1LN and K2AV. 
He's got his hands on an ICE 419 bandpass filter (ed note: hoping to 
keep "Rod" out of his receiver's front end???).

BUSTED QSO, de W4KAZ   The following is a correction to N4TL's report 
from January:
N4TL-Tom:  Had K4CIA check some QSL cards. They will put him at 1750 
band countries confirmed for the DXCC Challenge award.

Reported via e-mail

NX9T-Jeff - Jumped in both the NAQP SSB and CQWW 160CW tests...great 
fun. Looking forward to upcoming SSB Sprint, ARRL DX CW, adn CQWW 
160SSB, NC QSO Party, and of course...NC Road Kill Round Up! High winds 
on Monday night broke the driven element wire of my Quad so I have no 
"real" 20m antenna right now. Hope to get it repaired soon.

AL4T - Brad- Missing tonight. Will also miss March meeting for TDY in 
Louisiana. Hoping to make April or May meetings before his next 1 year 
deployment in June.

N4YDU - Nate - Missing tonight. Having tower deconstruction at N4PY's 
old QTH.

K4TMC-Henry - No chance to make it, on the road.

Paper Contest & Program

W0UCE passed around part one of the paper contest, and the group set off 
on the quest. Part two was begun immediately upon a participants 
completeion of part one, and "Rod" kept track of the order of entries. A 
three way tie ensued at the end of scoring of part one(K4CIA, NT4D, and 
W4KAZ), so it was adjudicated by the contest sponsor, and tacitly agreed 
to by the participants, that the winner of part two would get first pick 
of the available paper contest 'awards'. So it was that Bill, K4CIA 
emerged victorious, closely followed by Jay, NT4D. W4KAZ was unable to 
manage even a single token correct answer on part two, and so was 
gratuitously and unjustly ridiculed and assigned negative penalty points.

The program was a test run of the video set up, and a short segment from 
the "Contest College" DVD set was viewed. Kent, K9EZ, was unable to 
attend, so you didn't miss his program.

Flippantly Submitted
73, Keith W4KAZ