NCC News
NCC Member W8WTS Operated the 160m Contest from PJ2T
Great job in the 160m CW Contest Jim, W8WTS!
NA Sprint CW Contest 2024
Congratulations NCC Sprint Contest Team Ops!
CQ 160m CW Contest 2024
Congratulations to all of the NCC Members and their awesome 160m scores!
NCC Sponsors ARRL DX CW Plaque
Bryan Bydal, W5MX was the winner of the NCC sponsored ARRL DX CW 2022 Contest Plaque.
(N4SS was the contest club call.)
He wrote a nice message thanking NCC for the plaque and said he hopes to see us all in Dayton at the 2023
Hamvention!
2023 Hamvention Mobile App
Download the new 2023 Hamvention Mobile App to maximize your fun in Dayton!
The app will allow you to find and schedule forums, find ARRL affiliated events, and preview exhibitors.
You can create MyProfile to connect with your friends and other hams, as well as share a QR code of your event badge.
Click the picture below to access the Hamvention App website.
2023 ARRL Contest Logs
This year, NCC members have been hitting the contests hard and submitting logs showing their best efforts!
Great job participating and submitting logs on behalf of NCC:
2023 ARRL International DX Phone Contest
- K3LR Multi Op, Multi Transmitter, HP
- K8AZ Multi Op, Single Transmitter, HP
- N2WK Single Op Unlimited, HP
- WW3S Single Op Unlimited, HP
- W8CZN Single Op Unlimited, HP, 10m
- K8LY Single Op Unlimited, LP
- K8ZT Single Op Unlimited, QRP
2023 ARRL International DX CW Contest
- K3LR Multi Op, Multitransmitter
- K8AZ Multi Op, Single Transmitter, HP
- W2FU Multi Op, Two Transmitter
- K8CX Single Op Unlimited, HP
- N2WK Single Op Unlimited, HP
- N8NB Single Op Unlimited, HP
- N8TR Single Op Unlimited, HP
- NJ3K Single Op Unlimited, LP
- K8LY Single Op Unlimited, LP
- K8RR Single Op Unlimited, LP
- K8ZT Single Op Unlimited, QRP
- W1NN Single Op, LP
- W8WTS Single Op Unlimited, LP 80m
- WW3S Single Op Unlimited, HP 15m
NCC Captures Medium Gavel in 2020 ARRL International DX Contest
17 members submitted scores for the CW and SSB weekends in the 2020 ARRL International DX Contest, amassing a score of 21.5 million points, more than enough to secure another gavel for the club in the Medium club competition. The club placing second was the Central Texas DX & Contest Club, which had 40 entries. Congratulations NCC!
Unfortunately, the rules of the club competition do not allow K3LR’s scores to be counted, because more than half of Tim’s operators live outside the club territory. If not for this rule, our club score would have been considerably larger.
Leading off the high scorers in the CW weekend for the club was W2FU’s first place USA/VE Multi2 score of 6.5 million points. Nice job Jeff and crew. The next-largest score was that of K8AZ. Tom’s ops produced 5.5 million points and placed fourth in the M@ category, not far behind the second and third place stations. Single ops K8CX (#1 in Ohio in the SO Unlimited HP category), WW3S and N8TR also contributed large scores for the club on the CW weekend. N2WK, K8LY, NJ3K, K8ZT, W8WTS and K8RR also made smaller contributions.
In the SSB weekend, K8AZ’s ops managed a second-place US finish in the M2 category to account for the largest contribution for the club. K8ZT, who came in first in the country in the SO unlimited QRP category, WW3S, K8LY, K8CX and WZ8P also contributed scores.
Aside from the club competition, the K3LR superstation racked up another USA/VE win and another runner-up score in the Multi-multi category in the 2020 ARRL International DX Contest. Tim’s ops dominated the action in the SSB weekend, coming in well ahead of their perennial Maryland rival W3LPL. K3LR’s final score was 7.3 million points, with 4,989 QSOs and 495 mults versus a score of 6.3 million (4,476 and 477) for W3LPL. In the CW weekend, it was a real squeaker but ‘LPL edged out the K3LR ops by a mere 43,397 points (9,706,275 versus 9,662,778). What a heartbreaker! Both W3LPL and K3LR amassed exactly the same number of mults (537), but ‘LPL managed a mere 50 more contacts!
W1NN, operating 7J1AAI at JH1GTV in Tokyo, managed a first place finish in the single band 40 meter category in Japan on the CW weekend with 678 contacts and 53 sections. This was also the top score in Asia but just 16th in the world. The Europeans have a significant advantage over Asian stations in this contest.
K8CX Inducted into The CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame
NCC member and creator of the Ham Gallery Tom Roscoe, K8CX, was recently inducted into the CQ Amateur Radio Hall of Fame for his many contributions to the hobby of amateur radio over the years. Tom’s principle work has been his Ham Gallery, where he has posted thousands of pictures of contesters at the Dayton Hamvention, as well as a huge number of DX audio clips and QSL cards. Tom became the 333rd inductee to this prestigious list of accomplished amateurs. NCC vice-president Tim Duffy, K3LR interviewed Tom on the DX Engineering weekly YouTube broadcast on June 12, 2020. You can see this interesting interview with Tim at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTaaNjv2QBg
Congratulations and thanks for your hard work over the years, Tom!
NCC Mourns Loss of Charter Member WT8C
NCC members and countless others mourned the sudden loss of Reno Tonsi, WT8C, who passed away at his home on February 27, 2020. Reno was 83. Reno had had health issues and had been hospitalized last year but was released and seemed to be doing better, so his loss came as a shock to everyone. He was active on the air until the day before his unexpected death. NCC member Bob Liddy spoke with Reno on the phone just hours before his passing and reported that Reno sounded “chipper and up-beat.”
Reno at K8MR’s annual Xmas party in 2006 (TNX K8MR):
The following is from Reno’s page on QRZ.com:
I was first licensed in 1957 as a Novice with the call of KN9LJI (IL). Since then, I have held the calls of K1UVP (MA), W8LIK (MI), W9KUL (WI), W4OUE (GA) and WT8C (OH).
Member of our local radio club, Lake County Amateur Radio Association (LCARA) located in Lake County, OH. As a LCARA member, I am a Volunteer Examiner and have held that position for about 25 years.
Also, I am a long term member of the North Coast Contesters (NCC) radio club and operate both from my home station and from the K8AZ multi-single/multi-two contest station in Chesterland, OH. NCC operates mainly in international contests. For domestic contests, we belong to the Mad River Radio Club.
As an active DXer, I have confirmed all active entities in both SSB and Mixed modes and on CW only need (P5) North Korea.
Station consists of a Yeasu FT-2000 transceiver and an Alpha 9500 amplifier. I live in town on a triangular 0.23 acre lot and have a 54 foot crank up tower. Antennas consist of a Bencher Skyhawk tri-bander for 10-15-20 meters at 55 foot, a Cushcraft rotary dipole for 12-17-30 meters at 57 foot and a Cushcraft 2 element trapped 40 meter yagi at 60 foot all on a single mast. I also have an 75/80 meter inverted Vee at 50 foot and a coaxial inverted L for 160 meters also at 50 foot. Both of these antennas are supported by a single cross support going through the tower.
In all of this, I have to thank my wife, Connie, KB8ZZW, for her understanding and support. Without it, I would not be in the position that I am.
73 de Reno
As Reno mentioned, he was an active operator from K8AZ’s station in Chesterland, Ohio. Here are some comments from NCC president and station-owner Tom Lee:
Reno joined the K8AZ Crew in 1989, and participated in more than 110 K8AZ multi-operator contest efforts since then. Further, over the years, he answered the call for the many K8AZ antenna work parties many hundreds of times, showing up to help out countless weekends over the years. (One summer, he even got the nickname “Reno the Riviter” from when we built multiple HF yagis).
Plus, since about 1990, every contest Sunday, he cooked individual omelets for each K8AZ operator, making Sunday morning of every contest the biggest turnout day of each contest weekend. I estimate Reno cooked over 700 contest omelets over the years. A great tradition we’re now doing our best to honor in his memory.
73, Reno. RIP, OM. Know that you are missed, and all of us are grateful were granted the great privilege of a contest weekend immediately following your passing to remember and honor you. The Glenlivet toast to you after the contest was something special.
With a big mix of sadness (and joy) and respect.
K8AZ
Reno will be greatly missed by all who knew him, and especially by the regular ops at K8AZ who got to know Reno doing one of his favorite pastimes: spending time with his fellow contester friends.
RIP, friend Reno. We miss you already.
Congratulations to W2FU & Team (NAQP Claimed Scores)
Congratulations are in order for the fantastic performance of the W2FU team in the recent NAQP CW. Based on claimed scores, Jeff’s ops took back the number one spot in the M2 competition after losing it to the guys at K5RM in January 2019. Last year K5RM ended up with 2,398 contacts, nearly 200 more than the W2FU guys. Jeff’s ops found a couple more multipliers (267 vs. 263) but that was not enough to overcome the Arkansas-based K5RM lead. This year, W2FU is still slightly behind on the Q count (2,131 vs 2,168) but 16 extra mults puts them ahead by 554,060 to 533,328 (claimed). Here are their numbers and a list of operators from 3830:
Call: W2FU
Operator(s): KØSM K2UA N2ZN NW2K W2FU
Station: W2FU
Class: M/2 LP
QTH: WNY
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Location: USA
Summary: Compare Scores
Band QSOs Mults
160: 312 49
80: 703 61
40: 650 62
20: 372 59
15: 93 28
10: 1 1
Total: 2131 260 Total Score 554,060
On another subject, here are the claimed scores from the four NCC/MRRC teams we put together for this year:
NCC/MRRC Team 1
NA8V 197,607
W1NN 164,934
K3UA 140,976
N8AA 82,446
KN8CWO(AF8A) 58,824
Team Total: 644,787
NCC/MRRC Team 2
K8BKM 108,702
K9NW 42,224
N8FYL 33,761
K8GT 18,531
Team Total: 203,218
NCC/MRRC Team 3
N8EA 65,540
AB8OU 20,064
NF8M 15,470
N8SBE 14,544
Team Total: 115,618
NCC/MRRC Team 4
KC8J 17,630
W8RU 11,560
W8WTS 8,556
W8KNO 8,192
Team Total: 45,938
Our best team looks to be in 14th place this year. Last January, our top team was in 13th place. We have some formidable competition from the west, southwest and deep south, but we have made the top ten before and I’m sure we can do it again.
