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OUTLAW ANDY SEZ

April 2019

Howdy Outlaws!

It’s been an eventful few months since our last update, with the busy spring contest season generating lots of Outlaw activity (and points)! A summary of AOCC activity from the last couple of months can be found below.

On a personal note, I had the opportunity to go on my very first DXpedition for ARRL DX Phone. Well, technically a DXpedition, at any rate, since KH6 counts as DX for this one. I was originally invited by Fred NA2U in late 2017 to join him for ARRL DX at KH6ZM’s fine station on the Big Island for the 2018 edition, but being a bit last minute had to put off plans till 2019.

Outlaw Andy KH6/NY7N ready for his first effort

as the DX in the 2019 ARRL DX SSB Contest.

He was mentored by seasoned contester

Outlaw Fred NA2U at KH6ZM's station on Hawaii's big island.

Well, the end of February rolled around this year, and I found myself on the Big Island with a couple of days to relax, do a bit of sightseeing, and yes - play a bit of radio before the contest starts.

So I sit down at the radio, fire up on 20m, and toss out a CQ as KH6/NY7N. And there it is - I've never had a pileup outside of a contest before. So I hand out a few QSOs across 20, 40, and yes - even 10m, and get a feel for propagation to the mainland. It was nice to work a couple friends too, and I even got to hear “thanks for my first Hawaii” a couple of times, which definitely put a smile on my face.

Operating M/S for the contest as KH7M, my first stint started at 6pm local, so I kicked off with a run on 40m. Nothing too exciting, conditions weren't super, so I had a 148/hr to start, slowing down as I worked 40/80/160 and then handed the reigns back to NA2U at local midnight.

I come back on at 6am local on Saturday, and after a slow start on 20m, it's like someone turned on a fire hose, and my next four hours I run 60 minute rates of 259, 209, 172, and 211 across 20m and 15m. Wow! My best 60 minute rate previously was 202/hr in an NAQP. It's like a never-ending funnel of US/VE. Amazing.

To be fair, from KH6 it's not all fun and fast and furious - on the midnight to 6am shift that night, I had a four hour stint where I went 9, 40, 14, and 7. The last two hours before sunrise are painful - 20m isn't open in HI yet, and everyone on the mainland has abandoned 40 to work EU on the high bands as the sun comes up.

Anyway, we set a goal after the first 24 hours of making 4000 QSOs, and as we passed that we set a stretch goal of 3M points. It was nice to make both goals!

We ended up with 4311 QSOs 3,043,080 claimed points, which should put us solidly 6th World, 1st Oceania, and 1st HI in M/S when the results come out. Not bad, especially considering half the team was a DX rookie!

Outlaw Andy NY7N (left) and

Outlaw Fred NA2U

celebrate a great showing as KH7M in March 2019.

My favorite stat from the contest though was the QSO total by operator - Fred and I both worked 24 hours each, alternating shifts so we both got a chance to work the same hours. Here’s the breakdown:

NY7N: 2,136

NA2U: 2,175

That’s about as even as it gets! It was a ton of fun, and I can’t wait to do it again.

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Anyway, enough about me, let’s look at some Outlaw accomplishments since December:

2018 ARRL SWEEPSTAKES

AOCC finished #4 out of 46 clubs in the Medium Club category with over 2.4M points (35 entries). Final club writeup here: (includes Top Five Clubs and SS SSB AOCC highlights).

http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/aocc/2019-March/027980.html

CW highlights: http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/aocc/2019-March/027980.html

2018 ARRL Sept VHF

AOCC finished #10 out of 25 clubs in the Medium Club category with 48,498 points from 17 entries. Our largest score ever in September VHF. Full AOCC writeup here:

http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/aocc/2019-January/027569.html

2018 CQWW RTTY Contest

AOCC finished #6 in club competition with 7,782,736 points from 30 entries. Highlights here: http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/aocc/2019-February/027744.html

Individual Honors, AOCC Writeup here:

2018 ARRL 10 Meter Contest

26 entries, 648,060 claimed points.

http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/aocc/2018-December/027399.html

2019 ARRL RTTY Roundup

28 entries (25 for club competition), 968,921 claimed points.

http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/aocc/2019-January/027516.html

2019 Winter NAQP - CW, SSB & RTTY

CW: 28 entries, including preliminary results showing the AOCC Bad Boys again taking the #1 spot in the Team Competition and an all-time scoring mark set by N2IC! The Arizona Outlaws Bad Boys consisted of N2IC, K8IA, KY7M, K6LL, KB7Q. N2IC's preliminary score shows 1905 QSO's in 258 mults for 491,490 points. Nearly 400 QSO's more than second place!

http://ncjweb.com/naqp-scores/preliminary/naqpcw2019janprelim.txt

SSB: 12 entries, with the AOCC Assassins taking a claimed 5th place in the team competition. The Arizona Outlaws Assassins consisted of NY7N, K6LL, W7WW, W7MRF, W6RW.

http://ncjweb.com/naqp-scores/preliminary/naqpssb2019janprelim.txt

RTTY: 10 entries, with the AOCC Wranglers taking 24th place in the team standings. The

2019 ARRL January VHF Contest

16 entries (15 for club competition), 106,998 claimed points.

2019 CQ 160 CW & SSB

CW: 29 entries, 2,322,612 claimed points.

http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/aocc/2019-February/027709.html

SSB: 12 entries, 356,237 claimed points.

2019 CQ WPX RTTY & SSB

RTTY: 22 entries, 13,483,271 claimed points.

http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/aocc/2019-February/027769.html

SSB: 21 entries, 13,682,550 claimed points.

2019 ARRL DX CW & SSB

CW: 33 entries, 21,014,052 claimed points.

http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/aocc/2019-February/027844.html

SSB: 36 entries, 4,699,638 claimed points.

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