A QSO being the ham code for a single contact between two amateur radio operators, the ‘Virginia QSO Party’ pits individual operators and radio clubs against each other in an attempt to make as many contacts as possible during the weekend event each March. The points are further multiplied by the number of Virginia Counties and Independent Cities contacted providing a bonus for those who make an effort to reach as many locations within Virginia as possible using the radio waves.

K1RA operates from Skyline Drive

Amateur Radio Operators have much radio spectrum available to use from Shortwave HF to frequencies adjacent to the FM broadcast band and beyond. While certainly a competition, the Virginia QSO Party is also an exercise on how to make the most of this radio spectrum to establish reliable communications within Virginia be they between the counties of Fauquier and Prince William or Fauquier and Lee using the sky as a radio wave mirror.

This radio wave mirror in the sky is called the ionosphere and is constantly changing by the hour, the season and the eleven year solar cycle.  We are in or near the eleven year solar maximum.  In fact a coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth’s magnetic field at approximately 1 am this morning. This may challenge shortwave communications as the ionosphere reacts to the Sun’s fury. Participating in a contest like this is a bit like playing a field sport where the field’s dimensions change minute by minute.

The organizers of the Virginia QSO Party give awards to acknowledge excellence. Two of these are club awards given to the best scores tallied by members of amateur radio organizations. The Fauquier Amateur Radio Association (FARA) has won one of the club awards since 2006. FARA won the second award in 2011 and 2012.  We hope to repeat the twofer win again this year.

FARA Members during VAQP

The members of the Fauquier Amateur Radio Association work very hard to field the members in a winning combination of base station, portable and mobile radio operations in Fauquier County. Additionally, the mobile and portable operators make radio contacts from dozens of the 134 counties and cities within Virginia on routes that take some all the way to southwest Virginia.

The win of both club awards the last two years supports the notion FARA members have honed the skills to establish communications between any two points in Virginia without need of terrestrial infrastructure.

If you see amateur radio operators this weekend putting up additional antennas in their backyards or see vehicles bristling with antennas of every size roaming the state, know the Virginia QSO Party is again testing the ability of hams to make contact with each other state wide. Root for your home team hams… root for FARA.

VAQP Rare County Watch
Many members will activate rare counties this weekend including N4YXW/M, N3KTU/M, K4G/M, AB4YK/M, W8KRZ/M and N4RP/M.

AB4YK in particular will have a route through very rare counties in southwest Virginia including on Saturday WAS, BRX, SCO, LEE, WIS, NRX, WIS, DIC, BCH. RUS, TAZ, BLA and WYT. Sunday he will visit WYT, SMY, WYT, GRA, CRL, GAX, FLO, PAT, PUL and MON. He has HF on 80 and up with high power so look to get a rare one from him.

VAQP Spotting Network
A VAQP spotting network is available for any VAQP participants. It has a traditional telnet portal along with a handy web interface.

Steve K3KQ presents info on Amateur Station Grounding

Steve K3KQ provided an informative presentation on station grounding. Information covered included Electrical Safety, Lightning Protection and Signal Return and EMI concerns. Steve discussed an important reference document, namely the National Electric Code Handbook NFPA 70. He covered various grounding and bonding concerns for both electric power systems, towers, antennas and stations. Steve provided many example installations of both what to do and what not to do, including numerous pictures. Finally he wrapped up with a plethora of reference material one can find online. If you would like to review or download his presentation, please click here.

John KX4O & Andy K1RA present VaQP Info

John KX4O and Andy K1RA presented information on the upcoming Virginia QSO Party. The event is held in two sessions, from Saturday, 16 March 1400 UTC – Sunday and 17 March 0200 UTC and Sunday, 17 March 1200 UTC – 2400 UTC. (For Virginians this is Saturday 10 AM – 10 PM and Sunday 8 AM – 8 PM Virginia local time.) The object of the event is to activate and contact as many Virginia Counties and Independent Cities as possible on all amateur bands and modes. For more rules and information click through to the following URLs: Sterling Park ARC VaQP Sponsor and VaQP Statistic, Info and Operating Aids

Frank W4NHJ presented information on and demonstrated his BitX20 transceiver kit

At the January meeting Frank W4NHJ presented information and demonstrated his BitX20 kit. This is a VFO controlled, 20m transceiver that operates USB/SSB. The radio is capable of ~20 watts output. Frank discussed several variations of the radio kit and where they are available online. If you would like to review his presentation, please click here.

Andy K1RA presents information on meteor showers, VHF meteor scatter and WSJT digital mode.

At the December meeting, Andy K1RA discussed the upcoming meteor shower and presented information on VHF meteor scatter and the WSJT program. The information covered the various meteor showers during the year and how they affect radio propagation. He also talked about the history of various radio modes one could use for scatter to included the latest mode WSJT by K1JT. Finally Andy presented information on how to interface your radio for this latest mode and demonstrated the WSJT software, its user interface and how one interacts with it. Also, several earlier recorded QSOs were played back and decoded through the software. If you would like to see or review the presentation, please click here.

Andy K1RA demonstrates various USB SDR hardware and SDR software

During the November meeting the club successfully voted in a new board of directors. Outgoing board members Andy K1RA (Pres.), Tom KG3V (V.P.), Greg KI4ZKJ (Treasurer), Harv K2PI (Sec.) will be replaced by Mark KD6AKC (Pres.), Rich W8KRZ (V.P.), Tom KG3V (Treasurer), Randy W4IFI (Sec.) and Frank W4NHJ (Activities Manager). We congratulate the new board and look forward to them taking their positions at the Jan. 2013 meeting. The club also discussed the future budget and additional allocation of funds for the repeater and Field Day 2013, as well as the possibility of conducting a Technician’s training class to be headed up by Harv K2PI. More to follow.

Andy K1RA demonstrated several Software Defined Radios (SDRs). He brought and showed several USB dongle receivers and an outboard USB transceiver, ranging from $20 to several hundred. Software included HDSDR and PowerSDR, which are both available at no cost. Andy gave several live demo’s showing off the capabilities of both the hardware and software to include receiving VHF FM signal as well as HF CW and SSB signals. He also demonstrated how to use digital communications software to include such packages as JT-65, WSPR and FLdigi with the SDR software via virtual sound cards. If you would like to review a set of online resources for this hardware and software please download this document.

John KX4O presents information on Yagi-Uda antennas

John KX4O presented information on the Yagi-Uda antenna to include a brief timeline covering it’s early beginning, patent and various designs over the years. John provided an overview of the antennas electrical characteristics covering element currents and mutual coupling and how to build various classic and NBS antennas. He showed several designs including optimizing yagi’s produced using NEC and compared their gain and F/B and F/R ratios. John wrapped up his presentation with a some recent developments with the Yagi-Uda and showed several members yagi antenna installations and discussed various aspects of their operations.

If you would like to review or download John’s presentation please click the following link here.

K1RA Roving Adventure with W1RT / Rover ARRL Sept VHF 2012

Andy K1RA presented his Roving Adventures with W1RT / Rover in the ARRL Sept 2012 VHF QSO Party. Andy and John began in New England and roved south toward MD/VA. They changed routes several times before the contest began given the impending storm front that was to cross the east coast that weekend. If you would like to view or download the slide show capturing pictures and info about their weekend expedition, please click here.

Harv K2PI provides a collection of things that enhanced any Amateurs toolkit

At the August meeting Harv K2PI presented information on what he considers his most useful tools and accessories in his toolkit. He provided a show and tell of these items including a presentation that documented where one could acquire these and similar items online. This was a great presentation that led into a discussion by other meeting attendees who either used these items themselves and/or had other interesting tools they’d employed often. If you missed the meeting or would like to review Harv’s presentation, please click here.

Andy K1RA also presented information regarding a rare 144 MHz ESKip opening he had the opportunity to encounter on his evening commute July 24. He was able to capture the audio from this DX opening on his mobile phone and provided the experience of working and hearing station on 2 meter SSB and CW out to over 1200 miles! If you would like to visit his site you can read more about it and hear some streaming audio of the event by clicking here.

We made roughly 1500 contacts over the 24 hour event, 1100 CW/morse code and 400 voice. Although we had a smaller turnout than normal this year, we still had a great time, great weather and proved that our emergency preparedness capabilities were still intact. Below is a video collage of the weekend with some video embedded of us contacting stations via CW/morse code and SSB/voice.

Here is a link to our online picture album. Click the picture to view.