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Good evening, everyone. It's time for HamTalk
Live. It's episode number 177, Building a Modest
Contest Station with BeLoud .us, recorded live
on Thursday, August 15th, 2019. I'm your host,
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this
episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight we're joined
by Steve W9SN. And I forgot to ask if Fred was
going to make it to WW4LL. He is traveling. They're
going to be down at Huntsville this weekend.
So we'll take Steve and if Fred can join in,
we will add him in and we'll take your calls
in a few minutes. Last week here on the show
Craig Thompson K9CT was here to talk about SMC
Fest and if you missed the show you can listen
anytime at HamTalkLive .com or on your favorite
podcast app or YouTube or you can catch the rebroadcast
on WTWW 5085 AM Saturday evenings at about 630
PM Eastern Time. So get your station building
questions ready to go if you're listening to
us live On Thursday night you can give us a call.
We'll do the interview first and then we'll open
up the phone lines and the number to call is
812 -NET -HAM -1. It's 812 -638 -4261. You can
also send a question via Twitter. The Twitter
handle is at HamTalk Live and I'll be back with
Steve right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. Is this getting serious?
I think so. Well, how do you feel about it? Just
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They will be there. And then they're off to Shelby,
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Steve Narducci, W9SN, is an active contestor
participating mostly in CW and RIDI contests.
He's helped install several contest stations
with antenna station design, engineering, and
software modeling. He's a former CEO of a small
wireless company prior to its acquisition and
now focuses on contest station building and design.
In 30 years, he reached the top of the honor
roll of DXCC at 349 and he owns and operates
a winning contest station on a high hilltop in
Northeast Tennessee, holding two USA records
and many top three finishes and continues to
push the limits with his four tower installation
and several antennas. So Steve, welcome back
to the show. Yeah, thanks, Neil. It's good to
be back. Can you hear me alright? Yeah, I hear
you just fine. We're going to talk about building
some contest stations. You operate BeLoud .us.
That's a large remote contest station out in
Maine. You can remote into that and operate that.
I'm sure we'll talk about it as well. We talked
about that. Station quite a bit last time you
were on and we said, you know, we didn't get
around to talking about okay Now what what are
the rest of us do? Okay, I'd love to have you
know, one of these great big contest stations
like that I would absolutely love that but the
reality is I'm not gonna be able to pull that
off. So for somebody like me that that likes
contesting but knows, you know, I'm not going
to be in the top five and I'm not going to have
the time to to get in the in the top five. But
you know, I want to improve and do better and
build a modest contesting station. Let's take
tonight to talk about some of the main things
that you need to do without breaking the bank.
Yeah. I'll share some things that I've learned
over the years for more modest station and building
for Contesting and DXing You know I started out
as a DXer and ended up as a contest or so, but
I still like both I still do both. It's a lot
of fun, but I'll also say I'm one of the newcomers.
I've really only been doing this seriously for
about ten years I've had really good success,
and it's been a blast But many guys, a lot of
my peers have been doing this a whole lot longer
than I have. It's decades. So I don't consider
myself an expert, but I've learned a lot from
my experience and I've had the privilege to contest
some of the best talent on the planet and I've
learned from them. So yeah, I'm going to focus
on building some contestation and just some techniques
and some fundamental building blocks. Today probably...
The first thing that I do when I look at it is
software in design. I've been traveling the globe
quite a bit lately and I've been in a lot of
countries and I've been all over our country
helping stations, giving some pointers and doing
it hands on. Really building the modest to the
big, the fundamentals are really the same. The
first thing I always look at is HFTA software.
K6 to use website now makes it easy to do this
and it can be done in minutes You know just a
few years ago before this came along It was a
monumental task to do this. It was like an hour
and a half video on YouTube. You had to download
stuff from different websites and had to install
it. It was actually quite cumbersome to do it.
I did it and I modeled my station. Now, if you
go to K6TU's website, you can really just download
something in just a few minutes and you can model
it. It's very easy. It's it's really it might
even surprise you on what you have available
good or bad For example my station that I have
in Tennessee likes my antennas about a hundred
feet or less from 20 meters and up Anything much
over that is either very little return or even
negative gain because of my topography But you
know each station location is very different
if even only 200 foot away So it's always best
to find out your geography's ability to produce
from the exact spot where you plan on putting
your antennas. The results of what you get can
also determine what contest will be best for
you to get the most out of those results. For
example, if your location has a higher takeoff
angle either because of your topography or because
you can't get your antennas high enough, you
might actually do better in the domestic contest.
You might do really well in the international
contest if it's just the opposite and have really
good low angle takeoff. So my station that I
have actually has really good low takeoff angle,
especially towards Europe. So each station has
its strengths and weaknesses depending on what
you have to work with. Now I've modeled my station
location and compared it to other top contest
stations just to see how I stack up. You know,
in changing the heights and putting different
stacks in, Uh, moving the, the, the location
around the property, uh, it shows me where my
greatest potential is and how high and to get
the best bang out of it. Uh, it saved me a lot
of time and a lot of energy and a lot of money,
uh, because I know exactly what I'm going to
have when, when it's produced. So how, how do
you, how do you really. Is it all computer modeling
or is there anything that you can do to just
kind of Look at the maps and and the elevations
and and try to figure that out Or do you really
need that computer modeling? Well, the computer
modeling is going to give you an exact And I
you know, I got to be careful about saying that
because you know, it's it's the is the most exact
that we have today I'm sure maybe something in
the future may be different, but for right now
it is the best thing that we have. There's no
substitute for altitude. I mean, you really can't
substitute that. But I found that if I find a
piece of ground that has rolling, sloping, Towards
the direction that you're wanting. That's really
good my location example I live on a hundred
and forty five foot ridge And I've got hundred
foot towers on there and the ground underneath
there almost goes down at a 45 degree angle underneath
of them So, you know when you model it, it's
like holy smokes it's it's it's an incredible
takeoff as compared to what it would be if it
was flat ground so that's kind of what the The
software shows you is it it can it can compare
what your property would be like if it was completely
flat or if you have, you know, what you've got
right now. So that's kind of the advantage that
I've got and it gives me an idea on whether,
you know, I'm going to be really strong in high
angle or in low angle takeoff. So, and that tells
me what kind of a contest that I may want to
enter in. If I'm looking at really doing well
in a particular contest and, you know, there
are some stations with just single tower setups
that are done right, that really perform very
well. In fact, it's surprisingly well. One thing
that you probably want to look at also is antenna
modeling. Especially if you're going to build
like your own antennas. I found that by stacking
two smaller antennas will give me an advantage
over one really long big antenna, like a long
boom antenna. The modeling is going to show me
what's best for my particular location. But when
building, like in Tennessee, I like the most
forward gain and all sacrifice on the front to
back. To me the front to back is not very important
and actually might end up being an advantage
for me to have less of the front to back. The
reason why is because the stations in my rear
like Southwest, like in Texas, they're going
to hear me better if I have less front to back
and they're probably going to be less apt to
call CQ on my frequency. So now others might
disagree and they like having a high front to
back and it keeps the noise down on the radio,
because I will hear some of the more noise on
the back, but I like having that advantage. But
everybody's a little different, but that's me.
I'm going to agree with you on that, because
we've got at school, you know, what I would call
a very modest, but it's more of a contest grade
station. We've got a two element stepper and
you know, we try turning it and seeing, you know,
how directional it is. And it does give us a
lot of directionality. But the thing is we also
get a lot of stuff off of the back. And if we
didn't, I think we'd miss out on an awful lot.
Well, and I've, you know, being in contests,
I've, you know, there'll be guys that don't hear
me very well. That'll get right on top of my
frequency and call and then there'll be a DX
station or somebody coming back to us and I can
kind of tell he's there and I've seen it where
we're both trying to contact that station exactly
at the same time and he'll give a report so it's
like okay if you clobbered each other on who
he's responding to you may not realize you know
you may not have actually worked the guy so it's
for me I like having the lesser front to back
but the most gain in the front but that's the
way I like to do it Talking about the contest,
you'll want to focus on antenna directivity as
well, because I like to, well for me I like to
install an inexpensive tri -bander that faces
the Caribbean on the international contest. One
of my best antennas, believe it or not, is a
homebrew wire tri -band yaggy that hangs between
two trees. just got it fixed on the caribbean
but a picture a two inch aluminum boom that has
suspended between two tall trees i've got two
75 foot oak trees and i've got this thing up
about 65 70 feet and it's got pulleys on the
bottom of the boom and i just pull up uh dipoles
well it's basically the the driven element is
a like a fan dipole for 10 15 and 20 and then
i just pull up reflector wires for each band
two on those pulleys and i don't have a hundred
bucks in it and it really works quite well it's
fast because I can just click right over to that
antenna work them and then I can go right back
to my run antenna if I'm doing a single op or
even if like in multi contest when I have multiple
operators there they can just click over to the
Caribbean antenna and then click right back to
to another one so It's a big advantage for us.
So I like having fixed antennas in different
directions. We actually did the same technique
on our main station. We actually have antennas
that are fixed so that we can quickly switch
between directions without having to take the
time for the rotor. And it's a big advantage.
I've also had low -mounted multi -band tri -banders.
different areas as well and that kind of fills
in the gap on the high angle but one of the one
cool thing that I've done is is I've put like
two element quads they're just wires is all they
are just a loop antenna or just a single loop
and I've done some two element quad loops that
I put inside basically just hung them from a
tree When you stand back and look, you can't
even really tell that it's up there. But it's
a two -element quad that hangs from the tree.
SWR is flat. It's facing the direction that I
want. Low cost, and it's actually quite effective.
They're quiet. The quads, you can actually mount
them closer to the ground than what you could
a Yagi. And you get pretty good performance out
of these things. So I've got one that's mounted
at 25 feet. Three bands, 10, 15, and 20. It's
fed with a single coax because I've just got
a true one ballon on it. And guys coming to the
house, you just cannot believe how well that
thing's working. I've got one of them facing
towards Europe. And we've got a big five over
five long boom stacks up there. But this small
quad, two element, really holds its own at 25
feet. So it's kind of impressive. But each station's
going to be a little different. So you'll want
a model to find out what you can get away with.
The other thing is pick your category. There's
all these categories, whether it's high power,
low power, maybe QRP or assisted. So I'd suggest
looking at the results of the last few years'
winners and see how many queues and how many
malts those stations are turning in to win. This
will give you a goal to work towards and help
you to choose the best category for your particular
contest. The other thing you can do for more
of a modest station is single band contesting.
And I've actually done that. When I first put
my 40 meter antennas up, I had brand new 40 meter
antennas I had put up. And I basically had one
array that I faced towards the Northwest, towards
Japan. I had another ray that I faced towards
Europe, and then I had a four square on 40 meters
that I faced, that I basically parked on the
Caribbean and towards the south. And running
SO2R, but basically just 40 meter band only,
I actually took first place. And not only just
USA, but I was actually first place in the world.
It was kind of cool. Won me a plaque, and it
was a lot of fun. So, you know, if... I see some
of these really high scores being turned in on
single band operation. So if you don't have a
lot of real estate or a lot of money, you can
actually pour a lot of your energy just into
a single band. Whether it's 15, obviously 15
is not really good right now, but maybe 20 or
40 or even 80 meters. So there's some guys that
really do well on a certain band. And I found
this to be true at a lot of the contest station.
The big ones where they have multiple bands There's
usually several bands that they really shine
on those bands on and that just comes down to
modeling and how they've built the station So,
you know, it's it's it's you know a fairly simple
thing to focus on a single band effort If you're
looking at doing like single op contest To be
the most successful if you're really trying to
do well in it, you'll want to learn how to do
SO2R It's an art. It does take some time to get
better. So don't expect to master it in a night.
I sure didn't. But just by doing it in a contest
really helps you to learn it. Now, I'm not the
best at it, but I do it. And I've watched other
guys like on YouTube. These guys can just literally
kick my butt at it. But you can't let that discourage
you. I use SO2R when the rate gets slow, like
say under 60 contacts an hour. It's still a huge
advantage. Just if you can just make an extra
five to ten contacts an hour with a second radio
or a second VFO if you only have one radio. I
have won and lost contests by only five contacts
an hour. I mean if you do the math, it's amazing.
So just having that second VFO or that second
radio, even if you're not very good at SO2R,
you'll be amazed about how many extra contacts
that you can put in the log by the end of the
contest. Now, how about separate receive antennas?
Do you just go ahead and use the single antenna
or do you have a separate receive antenna like
maybe a beverage? Oh, hang on. We're going to
enjoy a beverage here. That's right. Got a little
water there. So there's the beverage joke. So
what do you think on that? Well, yes Here's the
thing if you're going to do a a single radio
with two VFOs in it You know the if you're if
you're on the higher frequencies or or even on
like say 40 meters The beverage may not come
in to play there, but if you're going to do like
80 meters and 160 Absolutely, it's going to take
the noise down and what I have found is Is that
even when I'm doing SO2R? And I like using two
actual radios. One radio I put in one ear, one
radio I put in the other ear. And one of them,
like say the left radio, I'll call it my run
radio. That's where I'm calling CQ. And I'm basically
parked on a single frequency and I'm operating.
The radio to my right is what I'm gonna call
either my in band, if I'm running in band with
that other radio. So what a lot of times what
I'll do is I'll take my run radio and put it
down at the bottom end of the band. or at the
top end of the band, and then my in -band radio
or my Malt radio, my SU -2R radio, I'm going
to roll around the band and try and stay away
from it as much as possible. Now, just like you
were talking about a receive antenna, by putting
that on a different receive antenna, I keep the
hash and the noise down, so while I'm transmitting
with my Ren radio, I'm listening to the extra
radio in the other ear. If I'm listening to an
antenna that's very close or really resonant,
then it's really going to be loud and it's hard
to take that noise out. And that's where having
a different antenna actually comes into play.
I'll never forget one contest, AA4CF and I was
running 15 meters one time and we were doing
them all time and all the rest of the guys went
home. The last two hours of the contest and 15
meters decided to open up to Japan. Well, he's
on the run radio. He's running a stack on 15
meters over on one radio, where I'm basically
in banding for him, because the band's open.
We only have a short period of time. We want
to make as many contacts as on that band as possible.
So he's at the bottom end of the band on the
stacks. I'm at the top end of the band. Well,
every time he transmits, he just clobbered my
receive. And every time I transmit, I do the
same to him. So what I did was we've got an 80
meter delta loop that's in a tree that's about
400 feet away from the transmit antennas. I just
basically used that antenna on my radio and tuned
it and the band was open enough where I could
still make contacts and still hear those guys
in Japan on that big wire but the noise, I cut
the noise in half. Now we still heard each other
obviously but it was enough that we could actually
do that. So there's times that you may want just
oddball antennas out there that are either non
-resident or on another band to use with your
second radio just for that purpose if you're
going to in band for yourself or if you're going
to multi contest. Well we're going to need to
take a break here we're just about to break time
so we're going to do that when we come back we
want to talk about you know what what are some
of the things that you can trim off if you have
to trim off something on your install and then
we'll talk about some some contesting software
and some other things when we come back after
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Give us a call at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812
-638 -4261. Now, here's more HamTalk Live. HamTalk
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Thanks to Icom America for sponsoring HamTalk
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It's time for your calls now. So if you have
a question for Steve, give us a call right now
at 812 -638 -4261. That spells 812 -NET. Ham
one or you can tweet us. It's at ham talk live
on Twitter. And if you're listening to us on
WTWW or the podcast edition, um, you won't find
anybody home at the phone line cause cause we're
all going to be in Huntsville. So you won't be
able to. You won't be able to find us here. We
do have one tweet here, uh, that, that we'll
throw in before we get back to Steve. Uh, it's
from Brett W Y seven B G says, good evening.
And it occurred to me today that hams might want
to activate parking lots. I know where this is
going because of my fascination with Walmart
parking lots on the air. Uh, but activate the
parking lots of hundreds of IMAX theaters around
the country. Because after all it would be cool
to say that one is participating in an event
called imploda Well, good evening Brett, thank
you for thank you for writing in so Yeah, hopefully
it doesn't implode so Steve let's get back to
the the contest Station here, and we'll see if
we get some calls here at eight one two six three
eight four two six one We were getting ready
to talk about some ways that You know, maybe
you've got this grand plan and you've got all
this stuff figured out that you're going to do
to build your station and you get in and invariably
you find something unexpected and it ends up
costing more money. And, and so, you know, with
the big stations, you don't cut corners, but
if you had to cut a corner, what would it be?
Well, um, first of all, I would, um, Your money
is well spent in your antennas outside. That
is going to be your best bang for the buck. A
transmitter is a transmitter. So I would make
sure that your main focus of your contest station
will be what you connect at the other end of
the coax. That's going to be your best bang for
your buck. And there's other things you can do
as well. For example, you know if you don't have
a lot of room for beverage antennas and receive
antennas, one thing that I have done and it's
been very successful is put out some what they
call loops on the ground. Now if you can picture
a 60 foot piece of wire that is shaped into a
diamond, it's 15 foot on a side, a 9 to 1, I
think it's a 9 to 1 ballon, I have to look at
my notes again, but it's a small tiny ballon
that you can build for... for pennies, fed into
75 ohm coax. Now these are not going to compare
with a beverage at all, but they are directional.
You can mow right over them once you put them
on the ground with some ground staples. I've
actually took several of these and phased them
together. Now again, they're not going to work
as well as a beverage, but if you don't have
the room for a beverage, this is a very cheap
and inexpensive way that you can knock the noise
down and still get good gain. Put a preamp on
them if your rig doesn't have one. And and use
these they're pretty effective Another tool that
you can use is having your own skimmer now. They've
got some inexpensive solutions out now. You can
take these small FDR plays There's guys building
these little things at us at kits But it's basically
having your own DX skimmer and I'm talking for
like CW contest or for RIDD contest You can actually
build a CW or RIDD skimmer now the beauty of
having something like this is is that your skimmer
Will spot to your station things that it's actually
hearing so you know that you're going to be able
to work that particular station You know unlike
having it connected up to some of the clusters
where a guy in Japan is spotting somebody in
Europe Which you're you know most likely not
to be able to hear that So these are these are
going to be direct spots that you're not going
to waste your time on trying to search out So
that's you know, they're inexpensive and they're
pretty effective and Having, you know, Jeff,
W2F, you told me one time that your receive antenna
are more important than your transmit antennas,
and he is correct on that because you're not
going to hear them, or you're not going to work
them if you can't hear them. So one thing you
want to do is make sure that your location you
can hear. Now I've actually tested some of these
small loop antennas, and we've actually used
them. We used them, there are several manufacturers
of these, but they're about a three foot diameter
loop. There again, that's if you don't have a
lot of room and a space. We were actually using
them on our property where we had a lot of room
and we were just testing these things and putting
a couple of them in phase and we found that we
used them to knock down our own noise. because
our transmit station is transmitting so loud
and he's running 1500 watts we're only two or
three hundred feet away from the antenna we're
using these antennas to knock that hash down
but to hear the other stations as well so there
are some effective little small receive antennas
that you can do to do that especially if you're
going to in band for yourself as a single op
or you know even as a multi -op but you want
to in band for it for example I take one radio
and I'll put it on 20 meters and I'll put Another
radio using non -resonant antenna I kind of talked
about this before also on 20 meters But I'll
use a completely a different antenna that's that's
not resonant on that band that really knocks
the noise down, too It's inexpensive You know
it's just a if nothing else just a dipole that
you've got hanging in a tree or some other location
on your property Get it as far away from the
transmit antenna as possible, but it does become
quite effective You know there's a lot of new
hardware out there, too And there's some advantages
with the hardware choices. A lot of these newer
rigs now have two VFOs and split audio where
you can put one VFO in one ear and another VFO
in the other ear. And then you can adjust the
audio levels of each one. When I'm busy in a
run, like say I've got 100 an hour coming in
on CW, I want to focus both. ears on that one
VFO. But when the pileup starts slowing down,
I may want to split that off and start searching
and pouncing with the other radio or the other
VFO, and then I can split the audio and I can
adjust the audio each year. So most of your modern
rigs will do that. And now what a lot of guys
will do, and I've learned this from different
contest stations I've operated once, the contest
station that has the most automation seems to
do the best. And I'm talking about when you don't
have to manually click and change the bands on
the antenna switch, when you don't have to change
the amplifier, when you don't have to change
those things. It's much quicker because like
at my place, they're in Tennessee. In fact, most
of my contestation I've done, they're all automated
totally. So when you click 20 meters on your
logging software, and I particularly like N1MM,
but if you click on 20 meters, the radio goes.
Those obviously the software goes the antenna
switch goes the amplifier goes everything switches
with one click So it's you're just much more
efficient that way So the more you can automate
I think the better you'll be I like again. I
like having two radios now there's some guys
who operate really well with one radio and there's
some radios now that coming out with two VFOs
and complete you know split and everything i
mean you you've got full duplex with these things
so some of the some of the hardware choices coming
out now is really cool and uh with uh within
one mm and i i can only speak for that because
i don't use a lot of other logging software uh
what i can do is with with keys on my with just
f keys i can put one one vfo or radio in one
ear and one in the other ear and i hit one key
it's like the backslash key i can switch back
and forth between which VFO I'm transmitting
on, which radio I'm transmitting on, and one
other click I can switch the audio. in and out
of both ears with one push of a button. So like
say for example that I'm calling CQ and I'm doing
search and balance and all of a sudden I've got
four guys coming back to me on my run frequency.
Well the first thing I'm gonna do is put both
ears on that pile up that's coming in so I can
copy better. That's me, some of the younger ears
out there might do better, be okay not doing
that, but me I'm getting older, I wanna have
both ears focused. I hit one key on there. uh...
so learn to do these techniques these are cheap
they're free and there's all kinds of uh... youtube
videos to show you how to set up your your particular
logging software with your radio that you can
do that and it just makes them so much faster
and better because i don't have to turn knobs
if i don't touch the radio and all i'm doing
is keystrokes i'm so much more efficient i'm
so much faster and you know The radio actually
kind of slowed me down because I'm playing with
all the time So I've got a lot of my macros and
a lot of my F keys all laid out to where I do
this so The other thing you'll have oh, okay.
Go ahead. I've got some tweets here. So we're
Okay, go ahead and I'll let me gather my thoughts
on this next subject. Okay. All right Well speaking
of younger ears, we have we have a couple of
tweets from a couple of younger ops And, uh,
and another one. Oh, well, I'll just put it that
way. So, uh, first of all, Bryant KG five HVO
has a question, uh, for Steve. Do you have any
BPF recommendations for a low power? S O two
R station. Hi, Brett. Good. Good to talk to you
here. Um, well, you know, a lot, there's some
choices on the big ones, obviously on the smaller
ones. Um, You can, okay, there's a couple of
manufacturers that make these now. One of them
is an all -in -one box. I think Ray Solution
is one of them. And it basically is, in fact,
I've got one at my house. It's a six -band bandpass
filter that's only good for 200 watts. Now, you
can use an amplifier with it, but you would have
to use it between your radio and your amp. And
it does full band tracking, where if you hook
a control cable up to your radio, It takes all
different type of radios. It'll work with about
anything that's modern. It'll band track automatically
with it, so you can have your band pass filter
on there. They also have W3 NQN filters that
are available now too. They're single band filters,
but they also make a matrix that you can put
them into and make them... So in other words,
if you bought one for each band that you want
to use. So they're all low power ones. Those
are the ones that... you know that we've I've
used them and they actually are effective obviously
I've used the big ones too so you know you're
going to be in a high power you know you want
to look at the big ones but the the smaller ones
are actually effective the other thing you can
do and don't count this out is coaxial stubs
I actually use both I have coaxial stubs outside
right behind my shack And I also use the bandpass
filters, the small ones, the low power ones in
between my radio and my amplifiers. Those work
quite well. I have very little band interaction
with using both of those. All right, we've got
another question for you. We're going to kind
of switch gears here because we've been talking
to HF all night. But Carl KD9HQT says, would
a 2 meter, 70 centimeter, 23 centimeter Uh, antennas
horizontally polarized and above be ideal for
sideband and CW. Um, since you can do that on
those bands and, and those modes aren't used
much, uh, since FM is more popular and I couldn't
really comment very well on, on how well, uh,
or what the, the things you need to look at mostly
for VHF contest. Okay. And then Don, KB2YSI,
wants to know if you've ever worked at multi
-op station where they passed the multi. And
if so, how do you communicate the pass -off?
We have it's done differently a devastation Whatever
works We've got some operators that have done
different type of things So this is why it's
really good to operate with with different kindness
I listened to your show last week where Craig
canine CT was on there and Craig is such a joy
to listen to he's a he's a wealth of information
and And also I'll say sign of the same things
that he's done and I noticed him say this he
said that if you can ever get around other contesters,
it's really good to do that. Participate, even
if you're just a bystander and just want to watch.
It's amazing how much you're going to watch by
doing this. And just like this question here
about learning to do this, because different
operators will actually do this in different
ways. They'll tell the DX station to actually
physically go to this station, or hey, we're
sitting on the 14 185 running right now call
us there. You know so you know and it works We've
actually done this in ready contests in ready
contests what we've done is is we'll have a macro
on our keyboard and We'll push that macro and
it actually will spot ourselves to that station
not not spot like a DX spot But it will actually
report automatically where that other station
is in the key command so that that prints it
out on his screen so that he knows our station
is transmitting on that other frequency at that
time. And that's very effective. It's very fast.
Obviously if you're in sideband or CW, it's a
lot more difficult, but that's how we've been
doing it. All right, very good. Well, if you
have a question, we're about to finish up here.
So if you have one, give us a call right now.
It's 812 -638 -4261. Or we'll check Twitter once
again. It's at HamTalk Live. And we'll get things
finished up here tonight. I know one other thing
that you had on your list here that we didn't
get too far into was preparation. Yep. And that's
actually a very big subject. You know, and I've
done this before where I've been in a hurry.
I, uh, in fact, one contest, I got off the plane,
um, I'm rushing home and I got home 20 minutes
after the contest start and nothing has turned
on. I got to boot up all my computers, got to
turn on the radios. I got, you know, you know,
I'm way late for the contest. I didn't test anything.
I really bombed that contest. So it's like anything
else in life or sports, the guy who comes in
and prepares the best, the most, has the best
chance of winning. So I can't stress on how important
it is. Me personally, I host a lot of multi -contests.
I've got a core group of guys that comes to my
place. And so the entire week before these guys
arrive, I am preparing for the contest. I know
that sounds maybe a little obsessive. And ask
my wife, it probably is. But we plan everything.
I mean, the meals, the sleeping arrangements,
the operating schedules. all the way down to
checking SWR on every antenna making sure that
the antenna switch switches making sure the amplifier
is tuned up properly on each band making sure
that nothing's out of place the rotors turn the
radio and everything is in sync and in harmony
we update all of our software you know get the
latest updates like with M1MM you know there's
updates nearly every week, there's usually sometimes
more than one a week. We put the latest country
file in there. If you've got a history file from
previous contests, we want to put those in there
so that when the calls come in, maybe that's
when you've worked before in a prior contest,
so your software would remember his credentials.
It's just these type of things do this. And the
other thing I'll mention is make yourself comfortable.
During the contest, I try and place everything
on the table in the operating position to where
it's comfortable to reach it. If you have to
struggle to reach that knob or get to the mouse
or whatever you're trying to reach for in the
contest, it's very fatiguing. So you want to
make sure that everything is comfortable. You
know, I got my snacks and my drink right there
where I can reach them with one hand and the
mouse and the keyboard with the other. So, you
know, I try and make it to where I can sit in
a seat the longest period of time and be the
most comfortable. Well all great tips all Wealth
of information tonight on on getting your own
contest station going and Steve thanks so much
for coming on and and before we go we want to
mention that you know the big station here You're
going to be down at Huntsville and talking about
it Remind us about be loud Yeah, we've we've
made some improvements and you know since I was
last on we were just Just it finished up phase
one of our build and we've gone back and we've
done some more we put some receive antennas out
we didn't get all the things that we wanted done
at that particular station, but it It's it's
prime time. It's it's a world -class winning
station. We've already proved it We've had three
first place USA finishes from it and some of
the finishes we had were just incredible finishes
So it's working quite well. We're not done with
it yet. We still have got a 164 square to put
up. We've got all the hardware ready to go 80
meter four square. We've got some other things
planned for the station as well So it's pretty
incredible. We've got a lot of guys out there.
That's asking us You know, we're coming out with
software. The software is basically it's a a
web interface that folks around the country or
the world can actually log into and use our station
as if they were sitting there. And it's a web
-based interface. There's no software to download.
There's no hardware. They basically can do it
from an iPhone or a Mac or a PC or an Android.
It'll work on any platform. And they can operate
the station. So it's really cool. We've been
testing with it. And we are about two weeks from
launch. And so we're quite excited about it.
And since then, we've added some other stations
that want to be a part of what we're doing. So
we're still actually looking for other stations
that we can marry in and be a part of the network
to take part in this. It's really cool. So we
feel we're actually changing the hobby by all
of this. Very good. Well, you've got an incredible.
Set up out there. And so we wanted to remind
everybody about it and it's be loud .us to find
out more about that. And if you're down in Huntsville,
stop by and give Steve a yell and talk to him.
And Fred will be down there too, right? He's
on his way. That that's right. We've got we got
a full booth and we got some signs and Fred will
be there handing out some cards and talk to some
folks that We got a lot of folks. We know that
are interested in coming to talk to us. So it's
quite exciting All right. Well, we look forward
to it and we want to thank you and thank everybody
for tuning in tonight and and Thanks so much,
and I'm sure we'll do it again soon Thanks, Neil.
It's a lot of fun coming back All right. Well
that is a wrap for this week's edition of HamTalk
Live. I'd like to thank my guest Steve Narducci
W9SN from BeLoud .us and everybody out there
in cyberspace for typing in tonight and listening
and invite you back next Thursday night at 9
p .m. Eastern Time and for a list of all of our
upcoming guests visit HamTalk Live. And if you
like HamTalk Live, please consider leaving us
a review on iTunes or wherever you listen. It
helps others find us faster. So for now, this
is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7375. See you this
weekend if you're in Huntsville, and may the
good DX be yours. Thanks for watching!