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we go, welcome to Good evening, everyone. It's
time for HamTalk Live episode number 232. Contest
calendar with Bruce Horn, WA7BNM, recorded live
on Thursday, October 15th, 2020. I'm your host,
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this
episode of HamTalk Live. And as I said tonight,
we're joined by Bruce Horn. W -A -7 -B -N -M
and we will take your calls live a little later
in the show. We'll give you the phone number
for that here in just a minute. So you can have
that ready to go. Last week here on the show,
Michael Colley, W -4 -M -C -A and John Knott,
N4JTK were here to talk about the cancellation
of... The Orlando Hamcation for 2021. If you
missed that show, you can listen anytime over
at HamTalkLive .com or on your favorite podcast
app or on YouTube. And you can catch the rebroadcast
of HamTalk Live on Saturday afternoons on WTWW.
5 0 8 5 a .m. again that Saturday afternoons.
It's about 3 30 p .m. Eastern time over on WTWW.
So thanks to Ted and the gang for having us on
their afternoon ham radio lineup over on 5 0
8 5. Well, there's a lot of stuff going on right
now and, um, we're going to talk about some contests
that are coming up. Uh, but Jamboree on the air
is this weekend. So, um, I'm sure COVID is, is
playing into that somewhat, but, uh, there will
be some scouts on the air this weekend. So, uh,
get on the air and give them a call. And also
school club roundup is coming up next week. We'll
talk about that a little bit later. And then
we want to congratulate Lance Leffler, KD9QNP.
He just got his license this week. My friend
Eric Irwin, WB9PTN, let me know about that. So
congratulations to Lance. So get your questions
ready to go here for Bruce. If you're listening
to us live on Thursday night, you can give us
a call. In the next segment, I'll tell you when
it's time to call, but here is the phone number
so you can have it handy and ready to dial. It's
859 -982 -7373. Again, 859 -982 -7373. You can
also tweet us, assuming that Twitter was working
again and it was a few minutes ago anyway, the
little sluggish, but we'll give it a shot. It's
at HamTalk Live over on Twitter and we'll be
watching that throughout the night as well as
the comments here on Spreaker as well. And I'll
be back with Bruce right after this word from
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Welcome back to HamTalk Live. Thanks to Scott
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the show tonight to help bring you HamTalk Live.
They do have a couple of hamfests on their calendar.
Bedford, Indiana just down the road from May,
November 7th and Fort Walton Beach, Florida,
November 13th and 14th. Or you can visit them
anytime online at PL -259. Joining me tonight
is Bruce Horn, W -A -7 -B -N -M. He is the creator
and maintainer of contestcalendar .com as well
as 3830scores .com where contesters post their
claimed scores. He's also created contest -related
web apps for log submission and the online certificate
creation of a variety of contest sponsors, including
the ARRL, National Contest Journal, and many
state QSO parties. And we're happy to have Bruce
with us tonight. And he's the programmer of contest
stuff is what I will call him. So Bruce, welcome
to HamTalk Live. Thanks, Neil. Nice to be here.
Well, you put together a lot of this stuff and
make it a whole lot easier to keep track of scores,
keep track of when all these things are. And
we really appreciate all the work that you do
to do all of this. And it seems like people say,
you know what? It seems like there's a contest
every weekend. Well, Actually, there is a contest
every weekend and and you collect all that information
and post it so people know what's going on and
and we're getting into what is kind of known
as contest season Where some of the big ones
are coming up? So for those that aren't familiar
with your website and your service tell us about
contest calendar comm and What people can find
when they go there? Yeah, thank you. So, as the
name describes, it's a calendar of contests.
And I'll say right up front, because I get asked
this periodically, it's not a calendar of events.
It's not, you know, the World War II Memorial
Station, you get a certificate for having a QSO
with them. There's lots of things like that.
The ARL publishes lists of that. I think EM .net
does, but I don't. It's strictly contests, which
means you need to keep score, you need to submit
your score in some way. That's the simple definition.
So the contest calendar essentially lets you
know when contests are. And then in order to
be a little more helpful, the idea was to provide
a summary of information about each contest.
Admittedly, that summary is not complete, but
it basically tells you. Who the contest is designed
for? Is it a US -based contest? Is it a worldwide
contest? You know, is it a California contest?
What are the modes? What bands are involved?
You know, what power levels you can run? What's
the exchange of information? You know, I need
to provide you with a signal report MIQTH, something
like that. A basic summary of how it's scored.
information on how to submit the log and where
can you actually find the official rules. So
that's always important. I try to do an accurate
summary, but sometimes things change and sometimes
I have a senior moment and don't get it right.
I try to avoid those, but it's not impossible.
So the idea is all of this is stored in a database
and you just get different views of it. So There
is something called an eight day calendar. Eight
day calendar tells you the contest for yesterday
and the next seven days and gives the detail
I just talked about. The next version that's
sort of highly uses the 12 month calendar. So
it's telling you what are the contests over the
next 12 months? What are their dates? and times,
and you can click on them to get the detail I
just talked about. And then the other one version
that's fairly popular, I call the perpetual calendar,
because people, some contesters like to really
plan ahead, you know, as far off as a couple
of years. So this calendar allows you to look
out at least five years for Contests that have
known schedules. The California QSO party was
the first full weekend in October, for example,
it's always the first full weekend in October.
So if you look in 2023 in the perpetual calendar,
you'll see when that is not every count not every
contest that is known for so not every contest
is on the perpetual calendar. Then in addition
to the website, you can subscribe to the calendar,
the eight -day calendar basically as an email
calendar. I send it out on Monday evenings, my
time, I'm on the West Coast. You can look at
a Google version of it if you like, if you have
your own Google calendar, you use Google calendar,
incorporate other events. There's a Google calendar
version, although it doesn't go out a long ways
because I have to do it manually. And there's
also Twitter that you could subscribe to WA7BNM
calendar and you'll get notifications again on
Mondays of the contest for the coming week as
tweets that just say, here's the name of the
contest. Here's the dates and times of the contest
with a clickable link to get you the details.
So that's basically the calendar. Okay. And you
know, and there's a lot to keep track of. And
it seems like to me that there's been a real
jump in this last, you know, several months of
the number of contests, the number of QSO parties
and definitely special events, uh, since the
pandemic started. And there's been a lot of you
know, noteworthy events that are that are kind
of competing for weekends on the calendar. And
are you noticing a big rise in the number of
events that are sponsored? You're exactly right.
You know, I should have mentioned that currently
the calendar has about 430 active contests that
are maintained in it. You know, I don't know
how that's changed, but indeed in 2020, I would
say I've added a A dozen or so contests to the
calendar. I think that's driven indeed by the
pandemic situation. More people are home, maybe
have more time to operate in some cases. So they're
more engaged. The state QSO party challenge.
has been a huge influence on activities in state
QSO parties. So every state QSO party has seen
huge increases in activity on those. And then
the other thing that's happened, it seems like,
you know, I don't want to denigrate them, but
it's almost like every little group has decided
to have a little one hour contest sometime during
the week. Contests are no longer just on the
weekends. They're throughout the weekdays, an
hour contest here, an hour contest there. Some
of them really have minimal participation. Some
are very popular. CFU Ops has a series of contests
that are on, what are the Tuesday, Wednesdays,
three different times that are very popular worldwide
contests, for example. But you're exactly right
that there's been an increase in contests on
the schedule. And you know the Trying to get
you know, a weekend that's clear, you know, you're
probably not gonna find one because there's always
Something going on and like you said, there's
the you know the CW ops Contest through the week
and I know The worldwide sign band activity Contest
that some of the young people put together is
also in the middle of the week So there's more
in the middle of the week and not just the weekends
anymore Well, I pulled it up and took a look
at what was happening This weekend so just as
an example here. We've got the oh boy and I didn't
I should have done my, uh, my pronunciation here.
Um, the Arakwara? Arakwara? Arakwara. Worldwide
VHF contest, the Jartz Worldwide Ready Contest,
the Tin Tin International Fall Contest, CW, the
New York QSO party, the Illinois QSO party, the
Stu Perry Top Band Challenge, Worked All Germany
Contest, the Feldhell Sprint, Uh, which I believe
is a recurring one, uh, Argentina, the seven
megahertz contest, the Asia Pacific fall sprint
and CW, the UBA, I'm assuming that's O N is that
Ontario or is that, uh, no, you're right. That's
Belgium. Okay. Belgium. Okay. Uh, on two meters,
um, And the classic exchange, the RSGB CW Rolo,
the run for the bacon QRP contest and the K1
US in slow speed net or slow seed test. I'm sorry.
That's all this weekend. So it, you know, there's
always something and some of these have, you
know, different modes, different bands, different,
different. agendas, different clientele, depending
on what you're looking for. So there's, you know,
a variety here to pick from. Well, exactly. And
it's an international calendar. So it's full
of contests, regardless of where they occur in
the world. I haven't, it isn't a US calendar
or a North American calendar. It's literally
a worldwide calendar. what I didn't mention when
I was talking about various views of the calendars,
because of that, you may not be interested in
seeing all 430 contests all the time. So there's
a custom version available that actually stores
the contest you're interested in in a cookie
associated with your browser so that you'll just
see you can check off a whole bunch of checkboxes
the contest you're interested in. And so when
you go to something like the 8 -day calendar,
You will only see those any new calendar gets
added automatically gets added to your list.
So that's one thing to do. But you know, you
ran down the list there for this weekend is a
great example. Some of those are annual contests,
JARTS ready contests, and you know, QSO parties,
state QSO parties are Stu Perry top batting challenge
is four times a year. Feltail sprint is monthly.
Asia Pacific falls sprint. The CW is once a year,
but there are three versions of that. Run for
the bacon is a monthly contest. So, and like
the K1 USN slow speed test is a relatively new
contest. I think it's maybe. or instances old,
something like that. It's designed for people
who are trying to get more comfortable with their
CW, and it keeps the speeds below 20 words per
minute. And for the guys who are fast, 20 words
per minute seems like it's really, really slow.
But I remember when I was first trying to get
to 13 words per minute to get my general license
at the time, 13 seemed like, wow, I don't know
how I can copy this. You know, I sort of maxed
out at 10 and finally made it to 13. So, uh,
you know, there's a lot of different things for
a lot of different audiences here. Well, and,
and, you know, we're coming in, like I said,
some of the big ones are, are coming in at the,
the proverbial contest season coming up. Uh,
so we're going to take a look at a few of those
bigger ones. Uh, but first I want to talk about.
School club roundup next week, just because I'm
always involved with that and have the school
on. And unfortunately, because of COVID, we're
not going to be on next week. And it's the first
time we haven't been on school club roundup since
like 2003 or 2005, something like that. Um, but
it's still going on. There's a lot of schools
that aren't going to be able to be on that much.
So you may not hear as much, um, on school club
roundup next week, just because. the schools
can't actually get into the shacks and can't
actually, um, you know, run, you know, the whole
24 hours through the week, but, but school club
roundup is one that, um, that's running next
week. So any, any comments about the school club
roundup Bruce? Well, I think it's really a great
contest to support. Uh, I always enjoy reading
the comments, uh, from the various schools and
their participants. You know, it, it, divide
schools clear down to the elementary school level
up through universities into the different categories.
And it sounds like kids have a great time with
this and it's sort of like helping the future
of ham radio to encourage kids to participate
in these kinds of things. So I think you're right
that that activity will be down, but I would
certainly encourage people to help schools participate
in this by getting on the air and contacting
them. Yeah, I think you're gonna see, you know
some schools on it's just probably not quite
as long of a period of time and and You know,
maybe not as persistent as some but hopefully
there'll be some that will be able to do that,
but I know Here we're not going to be able to
I know several in our vicinity are not going
to be able to to be on so hopefully in the February
one will be a little bit better. And already
Troy, who is W9KVR, he is the sponsor at a school
over in Illinois that we kind of talked to a
lot, has already given me the, yes, it's not
a contest. We always say it's kind of like field
day we have this thing, you know, it's field
day a contest it's field day not a contest and
and so Technically, it's not a contest but there's
still a score. So the kids see it Oftentimes
as a as a contest. So we'll leave that one but
let's talk about some of the ones that are definitely
contests here and you know Probably the biggest
out of the bunch is a CQ worldwide sideband that's
coming up here in a week. A week from this weekend.
So we're really just getting started in the contest
season for the major contests. I know I participated
in my first CQ worldwide sideband back in 1990.
I was mainly interested in DXing at the time.
had never entered a contest. And I was quite
a ways into ham radio by that time. And I was
just looking for new countries. And hey, it's
an easy way to find new countries when you've
got the whole world talking to each other. Easy
exchange signal report in your zone. Not too
tough. So you have to do is managed to work your
way through the QRM and hear a copy of call signs
and sideband. So that's certainly one of the
biggest contests of the year. And then you get
into November, you have ARL sweepstakes, a very
popular contest in the US and Canada, has a complicated
exchange is the downside of sweepstakes. You
need to read the rules and understand what's
expected of you, and you have to give a sequential
serial number, so it's a little tough for casual
operators who just sort of show up and go, hey,
what's going on the band here? You know, I want
to jump in. Then at the end of November, which
is actually the largest contest, I believe, of
the year, is CQ Worldwide CW. And just like CQ
Worldwide Sideband, but in CW mode, another great
opportunity to work countries all over the world.
Then you're into December ARL 160 and ARL 10.
160 will probably be more exciting if you have
an antenna for it than 10 is. Not a whole lot
happened on 10. I know I've been on 10 meter
contests where I was lucky to work a couple other
people here in Los Angeles and didn't really
hear much outside. So I don't know that that's
going to be really exciting. And then there's
another Stu Perry there by for the end of the
year. And also the rack Canadian winner contest
is in late December. Another opportunity to work
lots of people. Okay, so all all great contests
and like you said, it's It's a great time to
pick up some countries and I know that's that's
what I do I am NOT going to be able to run, you
know 24 48 hours You know on a lot of these longer
contests and there are sprints out there that
are our short -term period Contest but I'm not
gonna run, you know 48 hours. I'm gonna run a
few hours and my goal isn't necessarily to win
but to pick up some some countries, pick up some
new ones or some that I don't have confirmed.
And that's a great time to get in there and do
it. And then so I always look forward to doing
that, especially CQ Worldwide Sideband. So some
good ones coming up here as the year comes. closer
to the end so we are coming up close to a break
so Bruce we're going to take a break right now
and then we'll come back and we'll talk some
more about the contest and we'll take your calls
at 859 -982 -7373 and your tweets and Comments
and all that stuff when we come back after this
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Give us a call at 859 -982 -7373. Again, the
number to call is 859 -982 -7373. Or, if you'd
rather type than talk, tweet us at HamTalk Live.
Now, here's Neil Rapp with more HamTalk Live.
Copy 594 from HamTalk Live. And welcome back
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And be sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. And it's time for your phone calls
right now. So if you have a question for Bruce,
give us a call. It's 859 -982 -7373. Again, 859.
Or you can tweet us, it's at HamTalk Live on
Twitter. And if you're listening to us on WTWW
or on the podcast edition, I'm sorry, but we're
not here anymore. This was on Thursday evening.
So you won't be able to. to reach us here. So
we have several comments and a few questions
here. So we'll just kind of start running through
those. Troy W9KVR over in Whatseek, Illinois
says look for them during the Illinois QSO party
this weekend. And Chris AA4CB is here and says
VHF and UHF contests are his thing. And Troy
also mentions they're going to try some remote
operations for School Club Roundup. So hopefully
they'll be on some from Glen Raymond Middle School
over there. And let's see, we have another question.
We have a question here from John. W4USF down
in Florida says, what is the longest running
ham radio contest and when did it start? So Bruce,
any ideas on that one? Yeah, so Luckily Neil
gave me a heads up and that mean meant that I
could Google this So what I found was is that
ARL sweepstakes is the longest running domestic
ham radio contest And it started in 1930 obviously
with some timeouts during World War two But as
far as the oldest from when it started Um, that
would be the oldest contest domestically. All
right. So there's, uh, the answer for you, John.
And, uh, let's see, let me run over here to Twitter
and see if we've got anything over here. And
then I've got one that came in earlier. Okay,
don't see anything there. So let's go actually
to Ed Durant DD5 LP from Germany and Ed wants
to first of all, thank you for all of your volunteer
time that you put into all of this and he also
wants to know How does information get from one
contest calendar to another? Is there a main
one that feeds the others and is that all done
manually? He says I believe in one mm -plus Which
is a popular contest logging software Uses one
specific one, but there are so many around and
some contests are in some and not in others So
are all these contest calendars islands or are
they networked kind of like the DX clusters?
So, um, you're, you're the programmer guy. So,
so hopefully you've got an answer for that one.
Yeah. So that's an interesting question. Um,
generally they're islands. Um, you know, if you
Google contest calendar, I have to say mine will
come up first. It's been around since 1996. SM3
CER had a contest calendar for a long time and
was very popular in Europe, which I can understand.
and did a great job. I actually had more information,
not just contest information, but the exit information
than I do. Unfortunately, Ion had medical problems
and he hasn't updated his calendar in I think
about two years now. So it's pretty much defunct,
I believe. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.
But if you're talking about other calendars,
I collect all my information from primary sources.
I'm well enough known that contest sponsors tell
me when they have a contest or tell me they're
thinking about a contest. So I think I've got
it pretty much covered. There's a few little
very small contests that probably aren't on there.
I'm going to guess that others collect information
from other calendars. I'm quite certain that
there are calendars that get put out. by picking
contests off of mine that they think are interesting
to their audience, you know, such as life. It'd
be nice if they credited the source, but they
don't always do. The one thing I would say that
is organized is that ARL has contest corral that
they publish in QST every month. And that is
a direct feed for my calendar. I do a version.
data dump for them that they can then easily
translate into what you see as the formatted
corral. It has a deadline of about two months
prior to the issue. So that's when all that information
gets updated. I'll call it the second part of
the question is how do logging programs get this
information? And there are certain features that
I didn't talk about in my calendar that makes
basic information about the contest available
to logging software authors if they're interested
to avail themselves of that. But how you get
a new contest that's not a big contest and something
like N1MM, for example, you know, has the ability
to have a module that you write for sort of custom
contests to include in it that's not, you can...
Tell people, download this module, it'll work
with the N1MM, and you can use it to operate
the contest. Okay, very good. Well, thank you,
Ed, for your question all the way from Germany.
We appreciate you listening and submitting that.
If you have a question, you can send that to
us by Twitter at HamTalk Live or give us a call
right now at 859 -982 -7373. Again, 859 -982
-7373. And we're getting through most of this,
so we'll leave it open here for a few more minutes
and see what we get here. Let's see, I want to
make sure we've acknowledged everybody in the
comments here, and I think we have. So again,
859 -982 -7373 if you have a question. Now you
set up the calendar and everything, but you're
also setting up a lot of these web submission
forms for contests and getting these beautiful
certificates to generate from that data. So talk
a little bit about those. So, you know, I've
been doing this for some time. I don't know which
ones I started with and I did it on one of my
servers. But earlier this year, I made a decision.
to, I guess, partner is the right word with the
Worldwide Radio Operators Foundation, WWROF.
And Trey in 5KO and I have done the work for
contest .arl .org, the new contesting portal
for the ARL has up. And out of that, I sort of
got this idea of rather than running on my servers,
that maybe it would be better if it was in a
common server supported by an organization like
WWROF. So existing ones like, I'm trying to think
what's an existing one, Oceana DX contest, which
were just concluded, were existing ones that
we moved over. Louisiana QSO party we put on
this year. Washington State salmon run we put
on this year. Florida QSO party we moved over.
So it gives, these, I would call them medium
size contests or QSO parties, more sophisticated
tools for handling logs, handles the log submission,
make sure the log is formatted right before you
can get it through. It's essentially the same
kind of logic you see in the big guys contest,
ARL or CQ, and gives you a list of logs received.
And then if they want, we can provide them with
certificates. So for instance, I just got the
information from the Washington Salmon Run last
night and uploaded their data. So now if you
go to their site and go to the click on certificates
and enter your call sign, you'll get an online
PDF certificate just like you would on ARL site
or NCJ or Uh, seek you worldwide. So lying to
give us service for that. We provide it for free.
Uh, WWROF pays for the server and, um, just the
way to try to make things a little more, I'll
call it professional in quotes for smaller contest
to be able to take advantage of. Very good. Well,
we appreciate all of your efforts on that. And
I know I see that myself with school club roundup
a lot because, uh, You know, we submit those
twice a year and see those certificates come
out and we're always looking for the scores and
we're always counting down the days to see when
the scores are posted. So that's always great.
And you also are doing some of the work on these
live scoreboards to where you don't have to wait.
Yeah. So about 10 years ago, I worked with them.
a group who had come up with this concept. And
we sort of laid out what the data should look
like that should be exchanged for live scoring.
And there were sort of fits and starts about
a live scoreboard then. In some ways, it was
too early, didn't really gain much traction.
But about two, three years ago, it really started
to gain traction again. I was actually sort of
surprised that they were using the XML data that
blob definition that we had come up with 10 years
before. And then I suggested rather than individuals
having to decide, well, which scoreboard should
I send my score to? that I would build a score
distributor. And so that's what we would encourage
people to do. Send it to the score distributor,
which is at scoredistributor .net. Most contest
logging programs now have that as the first choice
if you're going to do live scoring. And what
it does is it forages your posted scores as they
occur, every three minutes, every five minutes,
whatever. to the two existing scoreboards, CQ
contest, which is Russian based and the COSB
contest online scoreboard, which I think you
had on your show at an earlier date, which is
Canadian based. And that way your score goes
both places and you get to pick and your buddy
gets to pick whichever scoreboard they like the
best. Okay. So that's some other great stuff.
And, and, uh, I don't see anything else here
and we've got a few minutes. So let's, let's
talk about a little bit about 38 30. Now the
serious contesters are going to know about 38
30 scores, but, uh, tell us a little bit about
38 30. Yeah. So 38 30 comes from people. I think
it started with the Yankee clipper contest club
many moons ago. many years ago, they'd get together
on 3830 kilohertz after contests and change their
scores. Then the internet came along and people
started exchanging them on the original CQ contest
email reflector, wasn't in a very organized manner.
Some volunteers collected that information and
tried to make sense out of it. And then, I don't
know, I... woke up one day and had this idea
that maybe we could do this in a more organized
manner. So I built a web form that collected
the information and sent it via email in a standard
kind of form and people volunteering. to do the
collection, which was DINK in 7WA for a very
long time, could take that. Then I realized,
jeez, I'm collecting information. I should put
them in a database. So I collected them in a
database for a long time. And then finally, I
started making those available on the web. And
so that evolved into the more refined 3830 scores
website where people post their claim scores.
You know, we expect people to be honest about
what they think their score was, not say, oh,
I'm sure I scored 2 million points, even though
I only had 20 QSOs. You know, not to game the
system. You want other people to post good data,
you need to post good data. And that's evolved
to where it is now. So it's pretty popular. It's
used by hams in about 130 countries. cwops for
instance in their three times weekly contest
uses it exclusively as their means to collect
their scores as do a couple of other uh you know
weekly kind of contests which works well if you
don't want to have to deal with logs and you're
going to accept the claim score as the score
um and then you can do comparisons, you can search,
you know, you can compare yourself different
years, you can compare with other people, a variety
of tools like that. You can look at your contest
club, how you other members of the club are doing,
or you can define a group that you want to sort
of say, hey, we want to see how we're doing against
each other. All right, very good. Well, we've
got a call and we've got a Another message that
came in. So let's go to the phones first. Good
evening. Welcome to HamTalk Live. Good evening,
Neil. This is one of your fans from downtown
picturesque Rochester, Minnesota. Good evening,
Scott. I just wanted to say that Bruce has the
most popular contest website on the web globally
and probably does more for contesting than any
single person around with his website. One thing
that hasn't been brought up that Bruce provides
is certificates. And even for the National Contest
Journal -sponsored contest now for the QSO parties
and sprints, he has contest certificates available
and has done this all just really with no charge
or cost to the contest community. He does it
out of the just the generosity of his usual self.
So I wanted to call and thank him. and let your
listeners know what a really strong advocate
he is for contesting and what a really, you know,
high contributing ham radio operator. Totally
agree. Bruce? Well, I appreciate that. Thanks,
Scott. Obviously, I know Scott about to come
off as editor of NCJ and active contest or even
though he's an extremely busy physician. Thank
you, Bruce. Neil, thanks. Congratulations on
another good program tonight. I'll let you get
on to the next caller and also your promotion
of the Wildcat Nation. Okay. Thanks, Scott. Appreciate
your call. All right. Well, let's see. We do
have another question here before we get to wrapping
things up here. John, W4USF wants to know, are
there any AM contests still around? There are.
But very few. So I can think of the AM rally.
I remember the AM rally because we've plugged
that on the show. I need to go back. I think,
I think the classic exchange has AM, AM, SSB
and FM, which is coming up this weekend. Time
to get your boat anchors out. There you go. Transformers,
uh, Troy, do we, and I KBR says that you always
thought 38 30 would be a great place to show
scores for school club roundup, perhaps. Well,
one of the reasons we don't do that is cause
school club roundup has pretty quick scoring
and pretty minimal participation. So we just
never added it. Could be if there was a desire
out there, but to be honest, the difference between
when the scores are available and when the contest
is over is so short that I'm not sure there's
a lot of benefit in claims scores, but no. I
know where Troy's coming from on this one because
when you have a whole bunch of people in your
school. saying, so how did you do this week?
Yeah. They want that instant gratification. And
I think maybe the live scoreboard would be good,
but we'll have to get some people to volunteer
and try it out. I'm not sure. You know, the school
club roundup is you get on as you have time as
a school. And, uh, I'm not sure how much overlap
there is there to watch that live, but you know,
um, I'm not sure it. Like you said earlier, you're
going to get that much participation this year,
but Hey, let's put up on 38 30 and see what happens.
Okay. Well, maybe, maybe we'll, we'll see some
advances in that and people can voluntarily,
uh, Put their scores on and and we can take a
look at those so that that's always something
that yeah the kids always want to know hell did
we win did we win did we win did we win and So
I know where Troy's coming from on that one.
Well, Bruce. I think we've everything so what
It'll be available. It'll be available. All right,
there you go. You've got it All right. Well,
I think we're through everything on the question
So I thank you so much for being on and for all
you do and if you have any closing Remarks you
want to make why go ahead and do that and then
we'll sign off No, I had another hour of stand
-up to do but no, that's I Appreciate the opportunity,
you know, thank you Well, we appreciate all of
your efforts because you do so much and as Scott
said You do so so much for Just you know nothing
for volunteering to help the the contesting community.
So we thank you for that and Appreciate it and
remember it's contest calendar comm and 3830
scores comm and then on Twitter it's at Wa7 bnm
calendar and I get that right. Yes Okay, very
good. We'll check out the WA7 B &M contest calendar
and that's gonna be a wrap for this edition of
HamTalk Live. Thanks to my guest Bruce Horn,
WA7 B &M and everybody out there in cyberspace
for listening and calling in and typing in and
I'll invite you back next Thursday night 9 p
.m. Eastern Time and for a list of our guests
go to HamTalkLive .com. And if you like the show,
please leave us a review. That will help us more
than anything. So for now, this is Neil Rapp,
WB9VPG, saying seven three, seven five, and may
the good DX be yours. Well you came right back
to my CQ call Your readability 5 and strength
9 You never once mentioned your weather at all
And I didn't mention mine We talked and talked
for hours and hours I completely forgot you're
a h -