It’s time to get ready for two of our favorite club operating activities – the NAQP CW and the North American Sprint CW.  The former takes place on Saturday, January 13 beginning at 1300 local and running for 12 hours, with a maximum of 10 hours of operating.  The Sprint takes place three weeks later on Saturday, February 3 (local) and runs for four hours from 7 PM to 11 PM.  NCC and the Mad River Radio Club have been forming joint teams for both of these competitions for the last several years with very good results.  Hal W1NN will start to whip up activity for the NAQP around the first of the new year and Tim will be doing the same for the Sprint shortly after the middle of January. 

Yes, it’s time to get ready to turn the calendar to another year, and for NCC the first gathering of the year is the annual meeting at the K8AZ superstation.  Mark those calendars for Saturday, January 20, 2018.  The meeting usually starts in the early evening, but Tom will announce details on the club email reflector.  This will be the 30th such annual meeting at Tom’s place!

Mark your calendars for the September 2017 running of the North American Sprint (NAS), which is scheduled for Saturday, the 9th (10th UTC).  Tim K3LR will be whipping up participation for our joint teams with the Mad River Radio Club a week or two before the event.

In the September 2016 NAS, the NCC & Mad River team scored third among 14 teams, just edging out the Southern California Contest Club and the DFW teams.  Heading up our team was Eric, NO3M with the fourth highest high power score in the country.  Congratulations Eric!  K3UA’s score was the fourth highest on our team and was good enough to place him in 10th place overall.  Members of the September 2016 team were, in order: NO3M, KW8N, K3LR, K3UA, N8EA, NW2K, W8WTS, ND8L, W9PA and N9NW.   

Save the date – Friday, July 21, 2017.  This is the date that NCC President Tim Duffy has announced for the next NCC Summer picnic.  The event will commence around 4 PM at Tim’s station in West Middlesex, PA and continue until ???  Tim’s picnics are always really fun – lots of good food, good company, and a tour of the latest new equipment and improvements at the K3LR superstation.  Keep and eye on the NCC email reflector for updates and instructions on when to RSVP.  See you there!

Eric, NO3M, posted the following to the NCC email reflector.  Sounds like a lot of fun!:

Just want to let everyone know that I’ll be hosting a Field Day setup
again this year focused on 1930s type homebrew gear.  Everyone is
welcome to come out to the farm (NO3M QTH) for as long as they’d like,
either day (Sat / Sun), and overnight if you don’t mind crashing in the
barn (fresh hay bale beds!).  The station should be on the air at least
until 3AM Sunday morning and back up by 8-9AM.

The plan is to have a generator so we can claim “A” category.  At the
moment, only one CW station is planned, but there has been some
discussion of a possible SSB station.  We’ll put that station up in the
barn

The receiver will be a homebrew 1934 superhet as long as it behaves.  It
was doing all sorts of weird things at Breezeshooters, which at the
moment are fixed.  Backup receiver will be the HRO-5 we used last year.

The transmitter is a newly built three-stage rig.  At the moment, it is
only doing 30W instead of 150W.  Hopefully that will be fixed in the
next week or so.  If not, I’ll resort to a good old 203A or (gasp) 811
triode amplifier so we can at least hit 100W.

Planned bands are 20-160M, focused mostly on 40M and 80M.

I also have a vintage Speed-X straight key on the way, bug will be wired
in parallel.  Welcome to bring your own favorite key.

Not sure what’s going on as far as food, but hopefully we’ll fire up the
grill with some lamb and chicken (farm raised), fresh walleye or other
local catches, and burgers / hot dogs.  Maybe a casserole to compliment
the meats.  Water, coffee, cola, and beer (Yuengling), maybe some
homemade iced tea.

Pass the word to anyone that might find an interest in operating antique
style gear.

73 Eric NO3M

NCC president Tim Duffy, K3LR, has announced three important events for Dayton 2017:

The first is the event that no contester wants to miss – the Contest Dinner, sponsored by North Coast Contesters.  This year’s dinner, to be held on Saturday, May 20, 2017 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, will be the twenty-fifth such event!  It is sure to be a sell-out, so get your tickets early.  Tickets are only available at the new contest dinner website:  http://contestdinner.com

The second event is the Contest Supersuite, which will be held on four consecutive nights (May 17-20) in the Harding, McKinley, Garfield and Harrison Rooms at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.  This year will be the 29^th anniversary of this event.  The Contest Supersuite is co-sponsored by the North Coast Contesters, Mad River Radio Club, and Frankford Radio Club.  For more information, visit the website: http://contestsupersuite.com

The third event is the Contest University, to be held on Thursday, May 18, 2017, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.  This will be the 11^th year for the CTU! See the new website and course listing at:  http://contestuniversity.com   

Please mark your calendars for Saturday, February 4, 2017 for the next NA Sprint CW.  NCC has been putting together ten-operator teams with our friends in the Mad River Radio Club and a few others for several years and we will be doing the same during 2017.  The January contest begins at 7 PM local on Saturday evening (0000Z on Sunday February 5 and runs for four hours.    In the February 2016 CW Sprint, NCC/MRRC Friends teams came in third and ninth, so this is a contest that we do very well in.  Save the date! 

Those unable to attend the K8AZ Annual Meeting (see next Events item) may want to join a team in the January running of the North American QSO Party CW scheduled to take place on Saturday, January 14, 2017.  As we have done for the past several years, we will be putting together joint teams with our friends in the Mad River Radio Club.  It is unfortunate that there is a conflict with the annual meeting but these days nearly every weekend has an event that some are interested in operating.  Stay tuned to the NCC reflector for reminders and requests for team participation.  

The Annual NCC meeting will be held at the QTH of K8AZ on January 14, 2017.  The meeting will be held in conjunction with Tom’s 29th annual K8AZ Open House.   The NCC meeting will commence around 8 PM after multiple boxes of pizza have been devoured by the attendees.  See the NCC reflector for further details.

Mark your calendars for Saturday, August 27, 2016, the date of the next Ohio QSO Party.  The contest ruins from noon to midnight local time (1600Z Saturday until 0400Z Sunday).  A large percentage of North Coast Contesters live in Ohio and many of these have been OQP regulars for years, including KW8N, W8CAR, K8MR, W1NN, and K8NZ.  In 2015, 334 logs were submitted containing over 45,000 contacts.  3,811 calls, including 562 from Ohio made contacts in the contest. See the Mad River Radio Club website for the rules.