Contester's Rate Sheet for July 13, 2005

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Contester's Rate Sheet
13 July 2005
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Edited by Ward Silver N0AX

SUMMARY
o Great Lakes Sweepstakes, RTTY QSO Party, and CQ WW VHF Contests
o NCJ News and IARU Soapbox
o Wilderness Protocol
o Submitting All-Asia Logs
o MARAC CW and Oregon QSO Party Results
o Set Up Your Software Properly!
o Safe Mast Handling
o Dual-Boot Windows Computer
o A Decline In the Art of Lying

BULLETINS
o The last issue of the Rate Sheet cracked the 13k barrier - there
are now 13,002 subscribers.  Will the rest of you please give a hand
to the three new readers?

BUSTED QSOS
o Pete N4ZR points out that his article in the July/August NCJ is
titled "Modifying the Top Ten DXDoubler for *Enhanced* Operation with
N1MM Logger".  The DXD does not have to be modified before it will
work with N1MM Logger. Pete's modifications add some features to an
already functional combination.

ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICES FOR 13 JULY TO 26 JULY 2005

A tip of the Rate Sheet cap is due to a "contesting hero", Bruce Horn
WA7BNM, from whose Web site these due dates are regularly harvested. 
Bruce is also responsible for a number of other contest services on
which we've grown to depend.  Thanks, Bruce!

Logs are due for the following contests:

July 13 - ARRL June VHF QSO Party
(http://www.arrl.org/contests/rules/2005/june-vhf.html), email logs
to: JuneVHF@arrl.org, paper logs and diskettes to: June VHF, ARRL,
225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111, USA 

July 15 - GACW WWSA CW DX Contest
(http://gacw.no-ip.org/conteSthtml), email logs to:
auranito@speedy.com.ar, paper logs and diskettes to: GACW DX Contest,
PO Box 9, B1875ZAA Wilde, Buenos Aires, Argentina 

July 18 - Kid's Day Contest (June -
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/ead/kd-rules.html), email logs to: (none),
paper logs and diskettes to: see rules. 

July 20 - West Virginia QSO Party
(http://www.qsl.net/wvarrl/wvqp.html), email logs to: WA8WV@aol.com,
paper logs and diskettes to: Dave Ellis, WA8WV, 610 Hillsdale Drive,
Charleston, WV 25302, USA 

July 25 - His Maj. King of Spain Contest, SSB
(http://www.ure.es/hf/concursos/smelrey/basessmreyingles.pdf), email
logs to: concursoshf@ure.es, paper logs and diskettes to: URE HF
Contests, PO Box 220, 28080 Madrid, Spain 

July 26 - ARCI Milliwatt Field Day
(http://www.qrparci.org/conteSthtm), email logs to:
contest@qrparci.org, paper logs and diskettes to: Milliwatt Field
Day, c/o Jeff Hetherington, VA3JFF, 139 Elizabeth St W., Welland,
Ontario L3C 4M3, Canada 

July 26 - ARRL Field Day
(http://www.arrl.org/contests/rules/2005/rules-fd-2005.html), email
logs to: fieldday@arrl.org ,   Post log summary at:
http://www.b4h.net/cabforms/fielddayentry.php, paper logs and
diskettes to: Field Day Entries, 225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111,
USA

July 26 - Marconi Memorial HF Contest
(http://www.qsl.net/ik6ptj/therules.htm), email logs to:
ik6ptj@qsl.net, paper logs and diskettes to: ARI sez.di Fano, PO Box
35, 61032 FANO (PS), Italy 

July 26 - Ukrainian DX DIGI Contest
(http://www.qsl.net/ur5fav/udrpc/), email logs to:
orionua@izmail.uptel.net, paper logs and diskettes to: (none) 

The following contests are scheduled:

Note that the following abbreviations are used to condense the
contest rules summaries:
SO - Single-Op; M2 - Multi-Op - 2 Transmitters; MO - Multi-Op; MS -
Multi-Op, Single Transmitter; MM - Multi-Op, Multiple Transmitters;
AB - All Band; SB - Single Band; S/P/C - State/Province/DXCC Entity;
HP - High Power; LP - Low Power; Entity - DXCC Entity

HF CONTESTS

North American RTTY QSO Party - sponsored by the National Contest
Journal from 1800Z Jul 16 - 0600Z Jul 17. Frequencies: 80--10 meters,
100 watt max. power. Categories SOAB and M2, SO stations operate 10
hours max. with off times of at least 30 min.. Exchange: Name and
S/P/C. QSO Points: 1 pt/QSO. Score is QSO Points x S/P/C (NA entities
only) counted once per band. DX QSOs count for QSO points, but not as
multipliers. For more information: http://www.ncjweb.com/. Logs due 14
days after the contest to www.ncjweb.com/naqplogsubmit.php or Shelby
Summerville K4WW, 6506 Lantana Ct, Louisville, KY 40229-1544.

CQC Great Colorado Gold Rush - CW - sponsored by the Colorado QRP
Club, from 2000Z - 2200Z Jul 17. Frequencies: 20-meters only.
Categories: Wire, Vertical, Beam, or Portable. Exchange: RST + S/P/C
+ Category + CQC member number or power output. Work stations up to
three times during the contest, with at least 30 min. between QSOs.
QSO Points: 1st QSO - 3 pts, 2nd QSO - 2 pts, 3rd QSO - 1pt. Score:
QSO Points x S/P/C + CQC members. For more information:
http://www.cqc.org/contests. Logs due 30 days after the contest to
contest@cqc.org or Colorado QRP Club, PO Box 17174, Golden, CO
80402-6019. 

SEANET Contest - CW/SSB/DIGITAL, sponsored by the SEANET Convention,
1200Z Jul 16 - 1200Z Jul 17. Frequencies (MHz): CW -- 3.525, 7.025,
14.025, 21.025, 28.025, SSB -- 7.090, 14.220, 21.320, 28.320.
Categories: SO, MS, AB, SB, Mixed and Single Mode combinations. 
Exchange: RS(T) and serial number. QSO Points: SEANET-SEANET - 10 pts
(5 pts if same country), SEANET--World -- 10pts. Score: QSO points x
DXCC entities for SEANET entrants, QSO points x SEANET entities for
non-SEANET entrants, counted once per band and mode.  For more
information and list of SEANET countries:
http://www.seanet2005.com/html/News.htm  Logs due Aug 30 to
vu2ur@rediffmail.com or B. L. Manohar VU2UR, MIG-6 80 Feet Road,
Kengeri Upanagara, Bangalore-560060, India.

Great Lakes Sweepstakes - Phone/CW/Digital, sponsored by the Michigan
DX Association, from 0000Z Jul 23 - 2359Z Jul 24. Frequencies: 80 - 2
meters, including VHF FM (no repeater or satellite). Categories: SOAB
(QRP <5W, LP, HP >100W), MO (including lighthouse entries). Exchange
- see Web site. QSO Points: Phone - 1 pt, CW & Digital - 2 pt. Total
Score: QSO Points x Great Lakes States (MI, IL, IN, WI, MN, OH, PA,
NY, VE3) counted once per band and mode. For complete scoring and
bonus point information: http://mdxa1.org/glsweepsrules.html. Logs
due 10 Aug to k8khz@yahoo.com or Sean Fleming K8KHZ, 27120 Barrington
St, Madison Heights, MI 48071.

VHF+ CONTESTS

CQ WW VHF Contest - all modes - sponsored by CQ Magazine from 1800Z
Jul 16 - 2100Z Jul 17. Frequencies: 50 and 144 MHz bands, except
146.52 MHz (and other national simplex calling frequencies) and
repeater frequencies. Please avoid the DX windows and international
calling frequencies. Categories: SOAB, SOSB, MM, Rover, QRP (<10W).
Exchange: Call sign and four-digit Maidenhead grid. Work Rover
stations in each grid. QSO Points: 50 MHz - 1 pt, 144 MHz - 2 pts.
Score: QSO Points x grids counted once per band (Rovers count grids
from each activated grid). For more information:
http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/. Logs in Cabrillo format due 1 Sep to
cqvhf@cqww.com, via Web submission form at
http://www.b4h.net/cabforms/cqwwvhf_cab.php or CQ VHF Contest, 25
Newbridge Rd, Hicksville, NY 11801.

NEWS AND PRESS RELEASES

NCJ News - by Carl Luetzelschwab K9LA - The July/August issue of NCJ
began arriving in the mail early last week. Here are just a few of
the features and columns: The cover article features the VY2ZM
station on Prince Edward Island. K3NA looks at the interaction
between antennas that are pointed in opposite directions in Part 7 of
his Antenna Interactions series (it also includes a summary of Parts
1 through 6). W6WRT talks about the care and feeding of power
amplifiers in high-duty-cycle RTTY contests. W9XT discusses a topic
that is near and dear to many contesters - stealth contesting for
those who live in antenna restricted housing developments.

Field Day logs-received can be viewed at
http://www.arrl.org/contests/claimed/.  Logs are downloaded and
posted twice daily. (Thanks, Dan N1ND)

Carl K9LA also writes, "The 2005 running of the IARU HF World
Championship is history. For those who participated, I hope you had
an enjoyable time and I hope it's a good lead-in to the fall contest
season. I will be doing the IARU results write-up for QST again this
year. If you have a story about your operation, I'd love to have it
(send it to k9la@gte.net). Short ones could end up in QST as a
sidebar, while the longer ones will probably end up in the web
version of the write-up or in NCJ. And of course pictures of your
contest operation are encouraged."

With the good summer weather north of the equator, many of us are
"heading for the hills."  What better time than to review the
Wilderness Protocol? (Ref. June 1996 QST, page 85).
- Primary frequency: 146.52 MHz (FM simplex).
- Secondary frequencies: 446.0, 223.5, 52.525 and 1294.5 MHz.
- All stations (both fixed, portable or mobile) monitor the primary
(and secondary if possible) frequency(s) every three hours starting
at 7:00 am local time, for five minutes (7:00-7:05 AM, 10:00-10:05
AM, etc.)
Additionally, stations that have sufficient power resources monitor
for five minutes starting at the top of every hour, or continuously.
(Reprinted courtesy of EMCOMM MONTHLY - http://www.emcomm.org/)

Ken K0PP sent some nice photos of SeaSonde sea surface wave radar
equipment.  These are NOT the over-the-horizon nuisance invading the
40-meter band, but a smaller and better-behaved version.  There's a
very comprehensive HF Radar discussion at the home Web site,
http://www.seasonde.com/.

Rockall, a tiny granite outcrop in the North Atlantic, several
hundred miles west of Ireland, was finally activated recently.  You
may find the observations of the team amusing at
http://www.therockalltimes.co.uk/2005/06/20/rockall-triumph.html
(Thanks, Doug K1DG)

Randy K5ZD announces that there is a new release of the Super Check
Partial database files available individually or as a zipped file at
http://www.k5zd.com/scp/.  These were available just before the IARU
HF contest and additional releases will be made prior to the fall's
major events. This set of files was based on 2,691,738 QSOs from
1,881 logs and the data set contains 111,266 unique calls.  The
master.dta file now contains a record high 39,159 calls. To add your
logs to the database send your Cabrillo files to k5zd@contesting.com.

CT users that entered the All Asia contest may find submitting a lot
a lot easier in the future. JARL has a log acceptance robot that is
easy to use and located at:    
http://www.jarl.or.jp/English/4_Library/A-4-3_Contests/elogmakeraa.htm
You will need to extract info from your summary sheet and actually
paste the entire .ALL file into the converter. There is no direct
link on the JARL home page. (Thanks, Mal N7MAL)

Barry W2UP recently visited the 6th IARU High-Speed Telegraphy World
Championship in Macedonia.  Many of the competitors are from eastern
Europe, where Morse code is taken very seriously.  The complete
details are available at http://www.darc.de/referate/dx/fedth.htm. 
Maybe we need some Region II participation at these events!

New Zealand's flagship contest station, ZL6QH - Quartz Hill, is heard
worldwide for a good reason - their terrific antenna farm of vee-beam
antennas.  The layout reminds me very much of Don Wallace W6AM's
"World of Rhombics", except with sheep.  To check it out, gambol on
over to http://www.zl6qh.com/, click on "About Quartz Hill" and then
"Our Antenna Farm."

For those of you gazing wistfully in the direction of that shiny
backhoe or bulldozer digging a tower footing in your backyard,
there's hope! Read all about Big Toys for Big Boys at 
http://iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=qw1120113722399B241.
(Thanks, Dave N2NL)

Google's opening of the programming interface to their maps is
already bearing fruit for the ham community.  Check out
http://maps.dxers.info/gmap/ (Thanks, John W1RT)

WRTC2006 visitors to will meet many interesting Brasilians; as team
mates, hosts, referees, organizers, and spectators. We will leave
them as friends!  While there, wouldn't it be nice to be able to
discuss their professions? The Lonely Planet Western Europe phrase
book lists quite a few and here is a sampling.
What work do you do? - Em que e que trabalha? - Ey ky EH
k'tra-BAH-lya?
I am (a or an)... - Sou - So
Business person - executivo, empresario/a - ee-z'ku-TEE-vu,
e-pr'ZAH-ree-u/a
Scientist - cientista - see-e-TEESH-ta
Journalist - jornalista - zhur-an-LEESH-ta
Teacher - professor/a - pru-f'SOR/-a
Student - estudante - shtu-DA-t'

RESULTS AND RECORDS

All RTTY Roundup certificates have been mailed. Line scores for the
2005 DX CW write-up and January VHF Sweepstakes were added to the
PDFs and posted to the Web at http://www.arrl.org/contests/results/.
The 2005 January VHF SS web results were opened for the Members Only
section. (Thanks, Dan N1ND)

The results of the MARAC (Mobile Amateur Radio Awards Club) 2005 CW 
contest are now available on the web at
http://countyhunter.com/CW/CW%20Results%202005.htm. Congratulations
to W9MSE (top mobile operator), N6MU (top fixed operator) and DL5AWI
(top DX station). (Thanks, Jim AD1C)

Results from the Oregon QSO Party are now available on the Central
Oregon DX Club Web site at http://www.codxc.org/. (Thanks, Dick K4XU)

TECHNICAL

One of the regional editors for the upcoming ARRL DX Phone contest
results discovered a couple of SO-All Band scores in their Division
whose owners originally reported SO-Assisted as their category. 
Rather than nefarious contest evil-doing, this turned out to be a
simple matter of misconfigured software.  Be sure that you properly
set all the necessary options for your software so that your category
is correct in the Cabrillo file's header.  The defaults built in to
the software may not be correct!  The log-handling robot doesn't know
any better, either.  Double check to make sure you and others
submitting logs get the proper credit for your efforts.

Last week, the Rohn catalog was mentioned as an excellent technical
resource.  Jay WX0B has placed a Rohn - Nello cross reference list on
the Array Solutions Web site at
http://www.arraysolutions.com/nellocross_reference.htm#top%20of%20page.
It is also available from the AN Wireless web-site at
http://www.anwireless.com/nello.html. The catalog for Nello, the
owners of the Rohn brand, is on-line at http://www.nelloinc.com/.
Download the N-Series catalogs for the 25,45,55, and 65 series of
amateur and commercial towers. AN Wireless and Array Solutions were
named the exclusive Nello stocking dealers.

It must be tower-climbing season, judging from the traffic on the
various reflectors.  One of the more involved jobs to do on towers is
to lower a mast with antennas attached that are unreachable from the
tower.  This can be tricky and there is plenty of opportunity for
things to go rong.  Dave K1TTT contributes a good process for getting
the job done while minimizing safety hazards:
1. Keep hands and feet clear of the mast (or where it might fall) at
all times.
2. Make sure thrust bearings are tight, add a muffler clamp or two
above one of the thrust bearings just in case they don't hold.
3. Remove the rotator.
4. Attach a come-along to bottom end of mast and the top of the
tower.
5. Make sure wires taped to mast are out of the way and be prepared
to move any beam up on the mast so that it won't jam the mast.
6. Tighten come-along until it removes weight from thrust bearings.
7. Move muffler clamps up a foot or so and retighten.
8. Loosen thrust bearings.
9. SLOWLY lower the mast with the come along until the muffler clamps
rest on the thrust bearing again.  If at any time the mast doesn't
move down as you release the come-along immediately pull it back up
with the come-along and figure out why it wasn't moving. Do not let
the come-along have any slack in its cable!
10. Tighten thrust bearings.
11. Readjust come-along position if needed to allow next lowering
step.
12. Repeat 5 through 11 as many times as needed to lower the mast
Take it slow and easy - it's not a race!

The excellent antenna forum presentation by ON4UN, W1MK and ON6WU
given at Dallas HamCom and at Dayton 2005 has been made available on
the Web thanks to John ON4UN and George K5TR. Go to
http://www.k3lr.com/. Click on Dayton Antenna Summary 2005. Click on
Dayton Antenna Forum 2005. Click on Dayton Antenna Form and download
the PDF file, A New Feed System for Arrays. (Thanks, Tim K3LR)

There is an excellent summary Web site full of links and references
for contesters at http://www.ng3k.com/Contest/index.html. This is a
good page to give out to new contesters as a reference Web site.

Kevin KF7CN was doing some Web surfing and stumbled across these cool
antenna mounts for trucks: http://www.geotool.com/antmount.htm.
Pick-'em-up truck owners will find these particularly useful!
(Thanks, Kevin KF7CN)

MasterBooter is a boot manager that can be used to install and
maintain more operating systems on a PC without the hassle of boot
disks. This may be a solution for those who want to use a DOS-based
contesting program with their Windows OS PC. System names and
passwords are customizable and there are a number of powerful
configuration options. It supports Win9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003, DOS,
Linux, OS/2, BeOS, Solaris, FreeBSD and more. Check it out at
http://www.masterbooter.com/. An alternate freeware program is GAG
(not a joke) at http://gag.sourceforge.net/. The procedure at
http://www.k1ea.com/hints "Dual-boot 'Real' DOS on Windows XP"
explains (somewhat indirectly) what GAG and MasterBooter do. (Thanks,
Jim K1PX and Mark KD4D)

If a yo-yo style retractable antenna sounds like just the thing
during the summer camping season or for a portable operation in your
state's QSO party, Wal-Mart stocks Camping Clothes Lines reels for
less than $2 each. A full-sized 40-meter dipole will fit on two of
them with thin wire. (Thanks, Mike K7DD)

CONVERSATION

A Decline in the Art of Lying

A well-known logic problem postulates an anthropologist who arrives
on an island populated by two types of natives: one that always tells
the truth and one that always lies.  The anthropologist is looking
for a particular village and comes to a fork in the trail where he
finds one of the natives.  The traditional challenge is for the
anthropologist to ask just one question, without knowing which type
of native he is addressing, and arrive at the village.  The
traditional answer is that he should point to one of the trails and
ask, "Is it true that if this is the road to the village, then you
are a liar?" 

After having lost track of this delightful response to the problem
(originally submitted as a letter by Willison Crichton and Donald E.
Lamphlear, both of Ann Arbor, Michigan in Scientific American some
years ago) my mathematician friend, Matt, unearthed it in his
archives for me. For those readers that enjoy out-of-the-box
thinking, enjoy.

It is a sad commentary on the rise of logic that it leads to the
decay of the art of lying.  Even among liars, the life of reason
seems to be gaining ground over the better life.  We refer to puzzle
number 4 in the February issue, and its solution.  If we accept the
proposed solution, we must believe that liars can always be made the
dupes of their own principles, a situation, indeed, which is bound to
arise whenever lying takes the form of slavish adherence to arbitrary
rules.

For the anthropologist to say to the native, "If I were to ask you if
this road leads to the village, would you say 'yes'?" expecting him
to interpret the question as counterfactual conditional in meaning as
well as form, presupposes a certain preciosity on the part of the
native.  If the anthropologist asks the question casually, the native
is almost certain to mistake the odd phraseology for some civility of
manner taught in Western democracies, and answer as if the question
were simply, "Does this road lead to the village?"  On the other
hand, if he fixes him with a glittering eye in order to emphasize the
logical intent of the question, he also reveals its purpose, arousing
the native's suspicion that he is being tricked.  The native, if he
is worthy the name of liar, will pursue a method of counter-trickery,
leaving the anthropologist misinformed.  On this latter view, the
proposed solution is inadequate, but even in terms of strictly formal
lying, it is faulty because of its ambiguity.

The investigation of unambiguous solutions leads us to a more
detailed analysis of the nature of lying.  The traditional definition
employed by logicians is that a liar is one who always says what is
false.  The ambiguity of this definition appears when we try to
predict what a liar will answer to a compound truth functional
question, such as, "Is it true that if this is the way to town, you
are a liar?"  Will he evaluate the two components correctly in order
to evaluate the function and reverse his evaluation in the telling,
or will he follow the impartial policy of lying to himself as well as
to others, reversing the evaluation of each component before
computing the value of the function, and then reversing the computed
value of the function?  Here we distinguish the simple liar who
always utters what is simply false from the honest liar who always
utters the logical dual of the truth.

The question, "Is it true that if this is the way to town, you are a
liar?" is a solution if our liars are honest liars.  The honest liar
and the truth-teller both answer "yes" if the indicated road is not
the way to town, and "no" if it is.  The simple liar, however, will
answer "no" regardless of where the village is.  By substituting
equivalence for implication we obtain a solution which works for both
simple and honest liars.  The question becomes, "Is it true that this
is the way to town if and only if you are a liar?"  The answer is
uniformly "no" if it is the way, and "yes" if it is not.
But no lying primitive savage could be expected to display the
scrupulous consistency required by the conceptions, nor would any
liar capable of such acumen be so easily outwitted.  We must
therefore consider the case of the artistic liar whose principle is
always to deceive.  Against such an opponent the anthropologist can
only hope to maximize the probability of a favorable outcome.  No
logical question can be an infallible solution, for if the liar's
principle is to deceive, he will counter with a strategy of deception
which circumvents logic.  Clearly the essential feature of the
anthropologist's strategy must be its psychological soundness.  Such
a strategy is admissible since it is even more effective against the
honest and the simple liar than against the more refractory artistic
liar.

We therefore propose as the most general solution the following
question or its moral equivalent, "Did you know that they are serving
free beer in the village?"  The truth-teller answers "no" and
immediately sets off for the village, the anthropologist following. 
The simple or honest liar answers "yes" and sets off for the village.
 The artistic liar, making the polite assumption that the
anthropologist is also devoted to trickery, chooses his strategy
accordingly.  Confronted with two contrary motives, he may pursue the
chance of satisfying both of them by answering, "Ugh!  I hate beer!"
and starting for the village.  This will not confuse a good
anthropologist.  But if the liar sees through the ruse, he will
recognize the inadequacy of this response.  He may then make the
supreme sacrifice for the sake of art and start down the wrong road. 
He achieves a technical victory, but even so, the anthropologist may
claim a moral victory, for the liar is punished by the gnawing
suspicion that he has missed some free beer.

73, Ward N0AX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Contester's Rate Sheet wishes to acknowledge information from the
following sources:
WA7BNM's Contest Calendar Web page -
http://www.hornucopia.com/contestcal
ARRL Contest page - http://www.arrl.org/contests
SM3CER's Web site - http://www.sk3bg.se/contest