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Hey, good evening, everyone. It's time for HamTalk
Live. It's episode number 176. SMC Fest with
Craig K9CT recorded live on Thursday, August
8th, 2019. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight we're joined by Craig Thompson,
K9CT, and we'll take your calls live in just
a few minutes. Last week, Mark Brown in for BCD
was here on the show to talk about. the Huntsville
HamFest 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 that's 5085 AM Saturday evenings at about
6 30 p .m. Eastern Time. So get your contesting
questions ready to go and we're going to talk
about the Society of Midwest Contesters and SMC
tonight if you're listening to us live on Thursday
night you can give us a call in the interview
segment or after the interview segment rather
in the last segment of the show you'll be able
to call it's 812 -NET -HAM -1 and I'll give you
that number again in a second so you can write
that down and have it ready it's not time to
call just yet but it will be after we talk to
Craig for a while so again the number is 812
-NET -HAM -1 812 -638 -4261 and you can also
tweet us HamTalk Live on Twitter and we'll be
checking those throughout the night as well.
So I'll be back with Craig right after this word
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Coming to you live from the glass -enclosed Faraday
box, here's Neil Rapp with more HamTalk Live.
Thanks to ICOM America for bringing HamTalk live
your way each and every week and be sure to check
them out at the Huntsville Ham Fest here in a
week or so coming up. So don't miss that and
we'll tell you more about ICOM a little later
on. Ham talk lives on the air every Thursday
night at 9 p .m. Eastern time right here at ham
talk live comm and my guest this evening is Craig
Thompson canine CT from Trevoli, Illinois Which
is not too far from Peoria and Craig is an extra
-class license holder and has been a ham for
49 years He has a degree in electronics engineering
technology from Bradley University as well as
work toward an MBA and serving as operations
manager and vice president of a small company,
Craig started his own business in 1980. Thompson
Electronics Company is a solutions provider for
security, communications, audio, video, and fire
alarm systems for industrial, government, education,
hospital, and religious markets in central Illinois.
And his combination of ham radio and electronics
career has allowed him to build an impressive
contesting station and participate in several
de -expeditions. And Craig is a member of the
society of Midwest contesters, which sponsors
SMC Fest that we're going to be talking about
tonight. So Craig, welcome back to the show.
Well, thank you very much, Neil, for hosting
this session and hosting me again. I appreciate
it. And I should mention to our listeners that
Craig's cutting out a little bit and it's my
fault. Uh, I've been working on this system and
we finally got Skype working to where you can
call in now and got all this stuff going. And
then the windows update comes out and I've had
nothing but audio issues tonight and just finished
up newsline production. So we're running a little
behind. And so I apologize if it cuts out, hopefully,
uh, it'll get a little better as we go, but,
uh, it's understandable. It's just kind of annoying
right now. Hopefully that will do a little bit
better as we go here. But Craig, tell us a little
bit about the history of the SMC Fest. Well,
you know, it started out very informally and
what I did, I actually manually turned down my
microphone level here. And if this doesn't work,
we can switch to DW, I suppose. Anyhow, SMC has
been around since about 1985. We celebrated that.
obviously 30 years, just a few years ago. And
we're, you know, very excited about that. The
club is very active. We have over 300 members.
In fact, it always surprises me every week we
get new members. And I think that's speaks to
the vitality of contesting and I guess our club
too. But SMC Fest has grown out of an informal
get together that was hosted once a year at K9
ZO and we used to call it the ZO Fest and he
would have a barbecue and hosted in his at his
home and later his business and then we decided
well we have so many people coming maybe we ought
to formalize this a little bit so we about six
or seven years ago maybe a little longer created
what we call SMC Fest and started hosting it
at hotels and making it an all -day thing, and
it's been very successful. Actually, it's grown
way beyond our expectations. In fact, this year,
we were fortunate. We were named a ARRL sanctioned
event, specialty convention, which is really
very nice. And we had some speakers coming in
actually from ARRL, W9JJ, who is in charge of
the contest area, among other things. And then
we also have N9ADG coming, who actually does
the contest update newsletter that comes out
every other week from ARRL. So besides the ARRL
officials that will be there, it's really kind
of a nice thing to, you know, be christened that,
I guess, by the ARRL or, you know, asking for
that and receiving that was very nice. So this
year, we will definitely have in excess of 100
people there. Most of these people are very fairly
serious contesters. And one of the things that
we try to do at this event is talk about things
that you may not hear or read about in normal
contest literature. And so we have asked people
to speak on a variety of subjects, which is quite
interesting to people. Just so you also know
SMC also sponsors a contest university and it's
in conjunction with K3LR and the contest university
at Dayton at the Pamvention and ours has been
held every year the day before W9DXCC which is
just a month from now. So we do some training
that's repeated every year and any new member
or anyone that wants to improve their skills,
we actually have an event that I recommend people
attend if they get the opportunity. So this event
is you're going to learn a lot. I guarantee you
somebody coming here will leave with several
new things and besides the networking that ham
radio operators love to do anyhow, you'll find
that it's just a really fun event to go to and
I tell you in the past years, some of the most
interesting conversations have been some of our
members standing, going to the front in a forum
setting and discussing topics and how they do
it. And not debating, but each person talking
about how they do a certain thing, like operate
SO2R and that sort of thing. So the room is absolutely
silent when those conversations are going on
and the questions are really very, very good.
That's the sort of an atmosphere we have. I think
that the program that we have this year, I briefly
touched upon that, was Brian N980G, who actually
lives in Washington, the state of Washington,
and he's the editor of the AWRL Contest Update.
He put together a really interesting presentation.
It's entitled, How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love Sweepstakes. And he says he's presented
this before and people really like it. So he's
looking forward to making that presentation to
us. And besides that, he's from the area. And
so we're glad to have him back. And then he will
also briefly cover what it's like to do the ARRL
contest update. So that's just an example of
one of the programs, one of the subjects. I mean,
we can go through the whole thing, if you'd like,
Neil, as to who's going to speak about what.
Yeah. Well, it sounds like a great event that,
you know, has grown over the years and like a
lot of fun ham radio events and successful ones,
it just grew from a few people getting together
and throwing some ideas out and all of a sudden
it comes alive and that's always great when things
work. And in fact, I found the audio conflict.
We got it fixed. It was a driver conflict, so
I was able to get it right after you started
talking, so we got that taken care of. But yeah,
let's take a look at this year's SMC Fest. Let's
run down who's going to be talking and about
what and what you can learn by taking a day and
going to SMC Fest. Well, sure. I guarantee there's
going to be more talked about than what I'm going
to cover, but we have formal presentation on
lightning protection in the shack. We have a
Wyatt, by the way, that's by Randy NA9RB, then
a Wyatt AC0RA. Many of your listeners probably
know who he is because he's been doing some very
successful roving in contests and actually winning
the contests. And he's just a young guy. I, you
know, well, definitely younger than I am. I would
say he's not that guy. He has built an impressive
roving station. He's going to actually talk about
that. And I also asked him if he would speak
about grid -peditioning. He did a, him and Dave
KG5 CCI Did a just a super job this this year
in six meter East season and went out into the
western states and went to some very rare grids
and They did just a super job of doing this and
so they're going to talk about He's going to
talk about you know all of the roving issues
how to set up a station how to be successful
And how to make that happen. I think everybody's
going to be find that fascinating then we actually
have a time set aside for some ARRL leadership
people, our director, vice director, and the
section director will also speak, but only about
really contest -related things. And they usually
come and they bring awards, like if SMC has won
a gavel, they'll hand it out at the time. And
I am also a member of the Contest Advisory Committee
for the And I'll be speaking about the things
that CAC is doing. And the CAC in the last year
and a half has become quite active. They've become
activists. And actually we've had some results
from just actually the last ARRL board meeting
that we'll be able to discuss it at that meeting.
So we're very happy with that. And then we've
got a person that's been very successful. He's
going to talk about SO2R from a city lot. and
how he has successfully set up a station, and
that'll be by CJ, WT2P, and a lot of people know
him, especially on CW, but he's also been a team
operator at my station. He's a great guy and
really has done a super job setting that up from
his home. And then Jim, N9JF, who a lot of people
would know maybe from county hunting, but he's
also been very successful contesting in QSO parties
and traveling around from state to state and
going during the QSO parties and activating different
counties. And he's going to speak about how he
does that because he's very, very good and quite
successful. One of the writers for the NCJ and
also he has his own ham radio business, Unified
Microsystems, is Gary W9XT. And he's going to
be speaking about a subject a lot of guys that
don't have time to do full -time contests will
probably really appreciate, and that's called
maximizing your part -time scores. And I think
a lot of people will appreciate that. And then
Bart, W9JJ, who's actually from Wisconsin but
is now in the leadership team at ARRL, is going
to be out speaking about ARRL and contest updates
because they've made a lot of changes and improvements.
And he's going to be discussing that and going
through how it all works. And of course, I will
be the moderator and we'll have some comments
and remarks as the time goes on. But that is
a full program. And I guarantee you, if you look
on our website, w9smc .com and go to the SMC
Fest link, you'll see actually what some of the
attendees have even said that we've tried to
make this something that's just as good or better
than a contest forum except that it's all day
and I think I think everybody leaves going This
was really a full day. In fact, we we have to
do We really work at trying to keep it on schedule
But boy we fill the day with a lot of very good
discussions and everybody is very quiet and they
pay attention There's a lot of very interesting
Information being passed along Neil Yeah Always
great when you can get people together and share
ideas and you know, you mentioned Contest University
with K3LR and I've been fortunate enough to go
to that for several years and you know these
events like this that are just great and and
you always Run out of time. There's never enough
time to do everything you want. So this is a
packed day of great information so for people
who aren't familiar with it and want to find
more information you just gave out the website
but but tell them how they can go and and how
they can register and and Or are you full? You
know what? How would people go to this and is
there any way that they can participate without
physically going there or is streaming not available
right now? Yeah, we've preferred not to do streaming
because we really want people to attend. Whenever
you do something like this, and I'm sure everybody
that's listening totally gets this, when you
make an arrangement with a hotel to host something
you are you have to guarantee them room sold
and you have in the restaurants and everything
that you have to guarantee so many meals and
so we have to make sure we have as many people
attend as possible and what we've done this year
last year we were very near capacity for the
room set up we had 108 seats and we had 107 attend
And so we had them change the configuration this
year so that we can actually hold more attendees.
But people are welcome to register. We're nearing
capacity. So the sooner the better, obviously.
The 24th is not really that far away. But if
you go to our web page, w9smc .com, and you just
click on SMC Festival, be able to actually see
who's attending. where it's at, where to make
a reservation, and also how to register. You
just click, click, click all the way through
and it's very easy. There's a PayPal link and
you just fill it out and you're done. So it's
quite simple. We actually offer and we actually
have some students attending. SMC will underwrite
anybody under the age of 25. And so we actually
have some attendees that are younger than the
age of 25. And as a side note, SMC started the
North American Collegiate Championship and association
with the NAQP. And we will be making presentations
to the winners of the NAQP Ready to Bradley University,
W9JWC, and also for NAQP Sideband to Purdue University,
K9IU. And we'll have representatives from both
universities. Now living in Bloomington, Indiana,
I'm going to care about that. Because you said
K9IU and Purdue. Right. So Purdue is W9YB. Yeah,
you're right. I'm wrong. I said that wrong. It's
K9IU. What am I saying? I'm sorry. I should know
better than that. But anyhow, K7. JOE is their
leader there, I guess, advisor, and he will be
there, and he's been advising them, and he's
a member of SMC. And so he's going to be receiving,
along with his contingent, the Indiana University.
And I've got to tell you, there's an article
coming out in NCJ about how they battled to first
place against Georgia Tech. And all of these
university competitions are online. I mean, they're
obviously on the air, but you can watch the battle,
the contest, as it goes along between the universities.
And it's just a lot of fun. And so I think what
we're trying to do is attract young people, and
I know you do too, Neil, to contesting in particular.
And so we're doing everything we can to encourage
these sort of activities and to invite young
people to these activities so that they can do
it. So that's another positive little thing that's
going to happen at SMC Fest this year. We're
very proud of our university clubs and our school
clubs in the Illinois and Indiana regions here.
We're glad that Bradley, your alma mater, was
able to pull off the win and then just cross
the road and down the street a little bit at
K9IU and Joe, K7JOE, does a lot of work with
my high school club here and we kind of help
each other. So congratulations to Joe for that.
And we've got our the president of their club
is a former president of the high school club
that I sponsor. So we're proud of them and we're
glad that SMC has put together these competitions
within the other. contest to get the colleges
a chance to battle back and forth. And it's been
a lot of fun to even just sit back and watch
the scoreboard. So it was a pretty exciting time.
Thank you for that. Well, we're going to take
a break right now and when we come back we're
going to take your calls and your questions and
we'll talk some more contesting with Craig Thompson
K9CT right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. Is this getting serious?
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812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. Now,
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Thanks to Tower Electronics for sponsoring the
show tonight. On the HamFest Tour again this
weekend. They'll be in Huntington, West Virginia
on August 10th. Then next weekend at Huntsville,
Alabama August 17th and 18th. Then it's off to
Shelby, North Carolina August 30th, 31st and
September 1st. Findlay, Ohio September 8th and
then over in Craig's territory. It'll be the
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Time, right here at hamtalklive .com. Be sure
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and it is time now for your calls. So if you
have a question for Craig, give us a call at
812 -638 -4261. Now is the time to call 812 -NET
-HAM -1. 812 -638 -4261. I'll jinx it and say
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-638 -4261. You can also tweet us. It's at HamTalk
Live. We'll be watching that. And if you're listening
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not going to reach anybody because the show's
already over if you're listening to us that way.
So Craig, we'll talk a little bit about contesting
here while we're waiting on some of those questions
to roll. And, and one of the things that I, that
I really enjoy about, uh, SMC is kind of the
motto or slogan of, of contesting from the black
hole. So what are the challenges of contesting
from the black hole that is the Midwest? Well,
I guess it always depends on which contest there's
really. two major types of contest. There's the
DX contest and there's domestic contest. And
let's take NAQP or sweepstakes, which are domestic
contests. You're right in the middle of the country.
So which way do you aim your antenna? And so
you can imagine the difficulty of competing with
the coast stations or the border stations as
they cut across the country. So It's more of
a challenge. You have to have antennas pointed
in different directions, and you have to be so
cognizant of which way the bands open and when.
Not that somebody on the coast doesn't, but generally
if they're aimed at the population areas, they
don't have to move their antennas. So, but on
a DX contest in particular, and of course we
won't get any sympathy from the West Coast guys,
but our propagation to Europe is an hour and
a half after it hits Maine, you know, or Massachusetts.
So they got always an hour and a half head start
on us by the time it opens. And unfortunately,
the auroral oval will sometimes slide down and,
you know, provide some absorption between us
and Europe. So when we do get the chance to finally
get it opening, the signals may not be very strong.
So I guess... That's the challenges of the black
hole. The physics don't lie. But we have a lot
of fun and we're competitive and we just do the
best we can. So that's what we mean by that.
And anybody that's from this area knows exactly
what I'm talking about and I'm sure you do too.
So we're real proud if we can make a top 10 or
we can be competitive in the category that we
happen to choose for a contest. So it's just
like anything you're really competing against
yourself and you just work on your own skills
to become a better operator and improve your
own station and maybe your strategy and decision
making during a contest. Those are all very good
skills that people learn when they're in contests.
812 -638 -4261 is the telephone number to call,
so give us a call. 812 -NETTAM1, if you have
a question about SMC Fest or contesting in general,
give us a call. 812 -638 -4261 or tweet us at
HamTalkLive. We're talking with Craig Thompson,
K9CT from Trevoli, Illinois. Nice big contest
station over there, and he's moderating the SMC
fest coming up later this month uh... so give
us a call or give us a tweet and we'll we'll
talk about that and we'll preview next week we're
going to be talking about building a modest contest
station uh... fred denon w w four l l and uh...
steven arduci w nine s n will be here and we're
going to talk about building a station next week
so we've got a little contesting thing going
on here uh... for a couple weeks as we do from
time to time so uh... hope you can Tune in for
that one. So Craig, what's your advice to contesters
and maybe there are some of those that you know
we were talking earlier about one of your forums
is going to be about the part -time contest or
you know the casual contest or and maximizing
those scores. What's your advice to people who
are out there You know, trying to deal with the
band conditions the way they are right now and
trying to contest. Well, you know, there's a
contest every weekend. So, so I'd recommend that
you stick your toe in the water and try it. And,
uh, the, the point of all of this, of course,
is not only is it fun, but it makes you a better
operator and a better understanding of, of ham
radio, the, the physics of it, and also the,
the station building aspect. So. There's many
ways to be satisfied doing this with the band
conditions the way they are for just normal rig
chewing and things like that. You'll find that
the bands are always open for a contest and you
laugh, but there's a lot of truth to that. Oh,
there is a lot of truth to that. Yeah. Two weeks
ago we had NAQP ready and 10 and 15 meters were
open because of eSkip. And the big delight at
the end of the contest and all the comments was,
wow, 10 and 15 meters were open. And no one would
have known that if it wasn't for activity in
a contest. So I'd recommend that you always stick
your toe in the water and give this a try. But
probably the most important thing, I think, is
try to find a club of similar interested people
that you can network with. and learn from them
and find out what contests that they like to
do and participate with them because that's there's
nothing better than being part of a team which
is what a contest group is and sharing ideas
among yourselves which is what we do at SMC Fest
but I got to tell you joining a club like SMC
and most other clubs have similar things we have
a group reflector and it's probably where our
most of our value is if somebody's having trouble
with software or radio or anything, they put
it on the group and you got so many people that
will help you out just within minutes of your
question. And I've seen all kinds of discussions
from, you know, 160 antennas to, you know, how
do I do a QSO party? or how do I do FT8 or FT4
or whatever and get help right away, that's where
the value is. It's just getting quick answers
that you just can't find very quickly by yourself.
So the networking aspect is fantastic. So I'd
recommend that to anybody that wants to try it.
Number one, it should be fun. And the other thing
is we've got online scoreboards now too. When
you check it out, check out the contest online
scoring. VA 2WA hosts one up in Quebec that is
really good and you can compete against your
peers and see how you're doing real time. It's
really a lot of fun. I guarantee you that if
you thought you were going to sit down for 30
minutes, you might be there for an hour or an
hour and a half once you start seeing the real
time scoring. Almost everybody says that. makes
them want to operate more once they see the real
-time scoring that goes on. I wanted to mention
one other thing that the SMC is involved in,
and that is club competition with PVRC and the
NCCC, Northern California Contest Club, and the
Potamac Valley Radio Club. They're really great
contest clubs, and they're, I would say, three
of the biggest in the country, and there's other
contest clubs, but We decided to compete against
each other each year, and we have a cup, a trophy,
that is won each year by one of the clubs. And
so we use the NAQP Ready, Phone, and CW contests
that are held in the winter and in right now,
in fact, to compete against each other. And boy,
I tell you, every club member gets busy, and
it's just a lot of fun. And we have real -time
scores. You can see the scoring. And right now,
the last two years, SMC has won it. That's the
first time that's ever happened, that it was
back to back. But PDRC right now is just really
tough. They really get the guys out. And so SMC
is battling with PDRC right now to see if we
can retain the trophy. And that has added a lot
of fun to, I can guarantee you, both clubs. So
I'd recommend getting involved in a club because
I think you'll just have a lot of fun and if
you're interested in the live scoring that Craig's
talking about I'll refer you back to ham talk
live episode 149 when we had those guys on and
tells you all about the Online scoring and it
really does add a new element to things. So if
you didn't catch that episode, go back and catch
that one. It's pretty interesting how that all
works and how it changes the game. It really
does. 812 -638 -4261 is the phone number. If
you have a question for Craig Thompson K9CT,
we're wrapping things up here shortly. But if
you have a question, give us a call or send us
a tweet at HamTalk Live. I'll check that again
momentarily. As long as I'm, I'm slipping plugs
in for things, you know, there's another good
resource out there, uh, that, um, Scott, uh,
KZeroMD and Fred K4IU will be happy that I, that
I say this and that's the national contest journal.
Oh, yes. They're actually sending 50 magazines
to our SMC Fest for us to hand out. So your timing
is excellent. I should mention that I don't do
this in a vacuum. I've got a great support. I've
got a board of directors that do a lot of the
legwork on this. Just are so helpful in so many
different ways. So I couldn't do that, do this.
We couldn't do this SMC Fest without everybody
helping. Somebody's got to be the local contact
for the hotel. Somebody's got to track down prizes.
We have somebody making the the trophies and
I mean the plaques for the awards and that sort
of thing There's just so much that has to be
done. So Please look on our website and see you
all that you'll you'll recognize every call on
there. I Guarantee you and be 9l WB 9 Zulu k9
zeddo just some of the guys that are on the board
so I don't mean to take any credit for this that
they they do a lot of work and it's a You'll
find if you're in a club like this, there's going
to be some really great people that are in leadership.
And we were fortunate to have some of those people
in our club. Well, here's the last chance to
get your question in 812 -638 -4261 or tweet
us at HamTalk Live and give us a call and ask
your question. And if not, we'll We'll wrap things
up here and, you know, uh, SMC Fest is, is a
great opportunity to get some of this. Uh, if
you're not going to travel to the Midwest, uh,
you know, Huntsville is coming up here in a week
and there's going to be a big contesting forum
there. I'll be down there. Um, and I know, uh,
Fred Reganiter, K4IU, uh, from the deputy at
a dear of the national contest journal will be
there. to talk about some stuff and so there's
some opportunities there and there are other
regional events kind of like SMC Fest that are
around so take a look at those but tonight we're
talking about operating from the black hole so
just wanted to get that in there but we're going
to check one more time for questions here and
then Craig we're going to let you get on your
way here, but I don't see anything here yet tonight.
So any final comments here before we go? No,
but thank you very much for talking about SMC
Fest and allowing, you know, a little plug there
for the Society of Midwest Contesters. And we've
got over 300 and some members and we'd be glad
to have more. But at the same time, if you're
outside of what The geography, I'd welcome you
to please, uh, encourage you to please join a
contest club. If you have that interest, I think
it'll really, you'll find it very helpful. And
thanks Neil for giving us this opportunity. Appreciate
it. No problem at all. And I totally agree. You
know, when you can get some help, you know, with,
like you said, on the message boards or reflectors
or whatever, uh, you have. and can get some support
from people who've been there and done that.
It makes a world of difference. So thank you
for putting this on. Thank you for coming on
the show and talking about it. And I look forward
to having you on again soon. Well, thank you,
Neil. You have a nice evening. 73 to everybody.
All right, seven three Craig and that is a wrap
for this week's edition of ham talk live Thanks
to my guest Craig Thompson canine CT and everyone
out there in cyberspace for listening in and
I invite you back next Thursday night at 9 p
.m. Eastern time when Steve Narducci w9s in and
Fred Denon ww4 ll from be loud dot us We'll be
here to talk about building a modest contest
station, and for a list of our upcoming guests,
visit HamTalkLive .com. And if you like the show,
please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever
you listen. That helps others find us faster.
So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying
7375, and may the good DX be yours. Thank you.