[SFDXA] Pile Up Contest - Kansas City DX Club

[Bill]

    The Pile Up Contest at the Kansas City DX Club Hospitality Suite is
    a must see mini event at all Dayton HamVentions.

The best of the best and many newcomers try their CW Pileup skills at 
the Hospitality suite. Our own Don, W4WJ, competed and won a number of 
years ago. I watched the screen at the packed Hotel Room where the 
results are kept. It is an exciting time.

If you don't show up at the Crowne Plaza you will not see things like 
this. I copied this from their website and I will send the site where 
you can download practice software to try your own skills in a second 
email. This contest is legendary in Dayton History.

http://www.kcdxclub.com/

Bill W2CQ


    Lightning Strikes Three Times at the 2013 Kansas City DX Club
    Hospitality Suite and Dayton CW Pileup Competition!

A packed house of contesters and DXers from across the USA and around 
the world witnessed one of the most exciting finishes in the 34 year 
history of the club's CW Pileup Competition....and they saw it 
first-hand on the big screen monitor in Suite 525 at the Dayton Crowne 
Plaza Hotel.

Software developed by Chuck, NO5W, managed the competition on the six 
laptops in the adjacent testing room, while simultaneously presenting it 
graphically on the big TV in the main area of the hospitality suite. 
Each contestant's bar graph (each a different color) grew horizontally 
across the screen with each correct character copied, while, at at the 
same time, a section at the top of the screen re-created the running of 
the current top five players. Dubbed the "Morse Race", each running 
elicited cheers and moans from the spectators

By the next to last heat, Doug, W9WI, with a score of 57, had a narrow 
2-callsign lead over the 55 copied by Yuri, VE3DZ. Enter Dave McCarty, 
K5GN...Dave was last year's winner, and had recently authored a great 
article in the most recent edition of the National Contest Journal about 
that competition. As he described in the article, he had won the contest 
in 1982 and was presented with the first prize by Bill, K0VBU, the 
contest's coordinator. Dave's next visit to the Hamvention and the 
Pileup Contest came 30 years later, in 2012, when he once again took the 
gold! The NCJ article, sporting photos of Dave and Bill in 1982 and 
2012, was entitled "Lightning Strikes Twice at at the KCDXC Pileup 
Competition", and Dave told the readers that he planned to attend in 
2013 to see if lightning would strike again. He didn't consider it 
likely, and he encouraged everyone to join in the fun and compete.

Back to the race....That heat was really neck and neck, as the screen 
showed the colored bars of the current leaders, W9WI and VE3DZ, move 
swiftly across the screen. K5GN kept pace with each of them, and at the 
finish line, Dave won by a nose! He and Doug each copied 57 calls 
correctly, but when the dust settled the computer showed that Dave had 
copied 5 more characters correctly overall, and that landed him in first 
place!

Dave's prize was a new IC-7200, supplied byIcom America, Inc. 
<http://www.icomamerica.com/en/> Doug took home a beautiful Begali 
<http://www.i2rtf.com/> Key as the runner-up, and Yuri, another 
perennial top finisher, earned a Princeton 80-Meter Inverted L, 
compliments of our hometown Associated Radio Communications of Overland 
Park, KS. <http://www.associatedradio.com/home.php> Gift certificates 
for theARRL <http://www.kcdxclub.com/arrl.com> Shop were provided by the 
League, and were awarded throughout the evening to suite attendees. We 
thank those generous contributors, who make the prize presentations 
memorable each year!

2013 also marked the beginning of another CW Pileup Competition 
tradition. Steve Romondo, W0MW, a long-time member of the KC DX Club, 
and now owner of SARCO, manufacturer of all sorts of beautiful 
laser-engraved items, provided attractive engraved plaques for the 
winners, as well as a permanent plaque displaying the callsigns of the 
first winner (Dave, NN1N, in 1980) and all the winners from 1995 to the 
present. It will be prominently displayed in our suite each year.

The evening's success was also due in no small measure to the very hard 
work of a dedicated group of club members...KB0U and AB0X manning the 
beverage department; KY0F keeping the participants calm and queued all 
evening; AC0C, WA0WOF, K0THN, K0LW and W0MW helping throughout the 
suite; K0VXU administering each heat of the pileup contest; NO5W helping 
make sure the networked system performed properly; and K0VBU handling 
overall coordination. Thanks to each and every one of you... it wouldn't 
be possible without all that great effort.

Get ready for next year - it will be bigger and better than ever!

73 - Bill, K0VBU

*Note: 2013 Pileup Competition results are now available for viewing on 
the results page. Be sure and check the results, and compare them with 
the other competitions back to 1995....73, K0VBU
*

*http://www.kcdxclub.com/
*