THE FIRST CLASS CW OPERATORS CLUB

NEWS SHEET 645

(http://www.firstclasscw.org.uk)

Editor: G4BUE

(g4bue@adur-press.co.uk)

July 2003

A man should keep his friendship in constant repair - Samuel Johnson (1755)
(3525, 7025, 10120-10125, 14025, 18080-18085, 21025, 24905-24910 and 28025kHz)

ACTIVITY DAYS FOR JULY: 9th (WED), 19th (SAT), 25th (FRI)

THE 2003 LONDON FOC DINNER

Saturday 4 October 2003 See April News Sheet and page 2 of FOCUS 50
Tickets 29.50 each from Maud Slater, Wychwood, Park Lane, Maplehurst, West Sussex. Telephone 01403 891342.
Maud reports ticket sales have already started and are good for this time of year. If you are considering staying in Greenwich, then the Ibis Hotel in Stockwell Street is the venue which is just a short walk away from the Trafalgar Tavern and they offer accommodation at a reasonable price. To contact the Ibis either telephone 0208 305 1177 or e-mail at <H0975@accorhotelss.com> to make your reservation,. I am sure many of you will be entertaining members at home over the London Dinner weekend. We are looking forward to seeing Marguerite and Pete, GW3KDB, here again. It is the social contact both on air and at Club functions that makes FOC so special. If you are able to bring a raffle prize along, particularly from your own geographical locality, this will be appreciated. Rumour has it of yet more whiskey from the north this year and hopefully some wines coming in from warmer southern climes! If you are coming from abroad then you can pay for your ticket on the day as is now traditional and no doubt settle your Club dues at the same time. Dont forget the projected boat trip on Friday 3 October and as usual Ron, G3KTZ, will be running his Meridian Tour when members will be taken to the Greenwich Observatory on zero. G4FOC will be operational thanks to G3KTZ and G3NOH with a dipole 50 feet above the salt water. This will be the last London Dinner for at least two years so why not come along and see just how good the Trafalgar Tavern at Greenwich really is, or better still ask a member on air who went last year. 73 de Colin, G3VTT.

You will recall that when I came on Committee I took over the adjudication and responsibility for the Windle Award. Following a suggestion from G4BUE, I will now take over the compilation of the monthly Windle Award table in the News Sheet. Chris has been doing it as Editor but I will now maintain the table and send it to Chris via e-mail each month. This will enable me to monitor progress of the Award during the year and to take note of your comments and suggestions about the Award. Therefore, with immediate effect, please send your Windle scores to me and not to Chris. The Committee decided at its last meeting to retain the present format of the Windle Award for 2004.

THE WINDLE AWARD by G3RVM

Further to the note in the June News Sheet, I will be QRV with ZS1FJ and ZS1ZL as FO/ G4MFW on SSB and RTTY (QSL via ZS1FJ) and FO/G3SWH on CW (QSL via G3SWH) all bands (WARC during IARU Contest) from the following FO islands: 11/14 July Tubuai Island OC-152 in the Austral Islands 15/22 July Mangareva Island OC-063 in the Gambier Islands 23/24 July Tahiti Island OC-046 in the Society Islands 25/26 July Great Barrier Island OC-201 in the New Zealand Island Group A short operation may also take place on Rurutu Island OC-050 in the Austral Islands.

POLYNESIA 2003 by G3SWH

The preliminary CW frequencies are 28025, 24895, 21025, 18075, 14025, 10105, 7005, 3505 and 1830kHz listening 1-2kHz up. Pilot stations are G3XTT, WDM, KH6FKG and ZS1AU. The expedition Website is at <www. qsl.net/ g4mfw>. By now you will be aware that we are holding a dinner at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester on 16 August. Early requests for tickets were encouraged and the response has far exceeded our expectations. To date we have sold 54 tickets and have almost reached the limit of 60. Requests for accommodation have been high and we can accept no more bookings. The College will be handling other functions at the same time as ours, including a large wedding reception, and they have very reluctantly set the limits. Next time we will bear in mind the popularity of Cirencester and make suitable arrangements with the College. Those members fortunate enough to have tickets will be pleased to learn that our dinner will now be held in one room, not two, and thanks to some reshuffling of events at the College, we will be using the Kenneth Russell room. This is excellent news and should help to make the event a big success. At the time of writing this we can only sell six more tickets. If you still plan to join us would you please telephone me or Jim, G3HJF, to check on the availability of tickets because we do not want to have to return cheques. As you know, the main 2004 FOC Annual Dinner will be held in Cirencester on 2 October 2004 and the Cotswold Group have therefore decided that a South and West Dinner will not be held in August 2004. We want to encourage a big gathering in October. The Royal Agricultural College has an excellent Web site at <http://www.rac.ac.uk>. It contains a map showing how to get to Cirencester and a map of the College site plus other useful information. The College is signposted from the outskirts of Cirencester and if you want more information, then please let me know. Unfortunately an error crept into the 2004 Call Book on page 14. The Internet address to register as a member with yahoo! should be <http://groups.yahoo.com> (the first sentence of the second paragraph under 3. The FOC Members Area). Many thanks to Red, K5ALU/M, who continues to be QRV from rare FOC states. In June he activated Oklahoma again for a few hours and has plans to make a trip west in July (see Memberss News). Tom, K3TW, is planning a field day style trip to Delaware in the near future. Currently, no one has credit for Delaware for the new WAS award.

MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION by G3NOH

Starred List
2. W1JR (Joe): W2MUM, N6RA, W9KNI, K2VUI, 5B4AGC, G3SWH, G4YNU. 1. K2UR (George): K5NA, G3LCS, N3BB, F2MA, K4LTA, YV1NX, GW3HCL.

2003 SOUTH & WEST DINNER by G8VG

An invitation will be sent to KL7J.

Additional Nominations

6. AF1Q (Jim): N6FB. 6. GTBD (Terry): G3LPN, G4YNU, GJWB, GADE, G8VG. 6. G3JRE (Ray): G3LPN, GADE, G8VG. 5. WA7SPY (Glenn): W6CYX. 5. KCDJ (Bill): W1OT, W8LX, W6OV. 5. MUFAL (Colin): N4AF, G4UZN. 4. OK1TN (Slav): OK1KT, N6NT, N4XP . 4. DK1WU (Hans): DL7AKC, DL8LBK, SV1AOW, DF5JT, DL4CF, VE1BN, GW3KGV. 4. WJLC (John): ZS6QU, ZS1EL. 3. W3AWU (Al): G3XNG. 3. N3AM (John): F5NZY, K4LTA, VE1BN, K4AO. 3. YO3FLR (Cristi): G4HZV, LY2PX, ON4RU, SV1AOW. 2. MTIX (Bob): G3LCS, F5VEX. 1. SP3CW (Art): F5VEX, G3RXP . 1. W5JAW (Jim): K4AO.

New Member:

1805 G3XTT (Don): 105 Shiplake Bottom, Peppard Common, Henley on Thames, Oxon, RG9 5HJ; tel - 0118 972 4192; e-mail: g3xtt@ lineone.net

Amendments:

G3RPB (867): transfer to Associate membership. SMAQW (1581): resigned. TI2PZ (552): restore to full membership. W1FJ (1532): new address- 40 Gail Street, Topsfield, MA 01904; new tel 978 887 5017. Add XYL Ruth, N1DJU. W3LPL (1150): new telephone - 410 489 9826. W4DGJ (1477): new address - 212 W Queen Street, Hillsborough, NC 27278; tel - 919 732 8771. KC9T (1596): new address - 33W012 Stearns Road, Elgin, IL 60120; new tel - 847 931 1849. To those who already have a new FOC Worked All States certificate, I am happy to accept updates via e-mail (w4ck@arrl.net). I have accepted several e-mail updates and find this is easy for everyone involved.

FOC MEMBERSS GROUP by G3WGV

THE FOC WAS AWARD by W4CK

DF5JT: Peter planned to be QRV from A61AJ again in June and writes, The club station will move to a new location in September and funding for a new set-up has been granted. The administrator of the college will be glad to receive any help he can get in planning and setting up the station, so if one of you is looking for an amateur radio vacation in a wonderful place with some antenna work to be done, please send me an e-mail and Ill be happy to discuss the details with you.

MEMBERS NEWS by G4BUE

DJ3KR: Juergen made 6000 QSOs during his BX3/DJ3KR operation in March and April, CW on all bands except 160m. He will probably be QRV again in November/December and will try 160m this time. Juergen made only 150 QSOs as OA1/DJ3KR during his short notice operation from the University of Piura with QRP and 350 QSOs in Lima as the guest of OA4PQ. He is also planning to be QRV from JW again in the autumn. DJ6SI: Baldur was QRV in June as T5X. GKDZ: Mike writes, Thanks to those who called me during my 2000 QSOs in three weeks on North Uist Island (EU-010) and apologies to those whose callsigns I did not instantly recognise. As this was chiefly a walking holiday, I only had a basic set-up and a paper log, (no PC log to jog my memory). G2HKU: Ted writes, During the evening of 22 June I was idly tuning 6m using the IC746 and G5RV and heard CN2R calling CQ on SSB. I gave him a quick call and got a 55 report. Since then I have heard a Moroccan beacon and various others with nobody on the band. This also applies to 10m, some beacons at really good strength and again nobody around. Perhaps a few CQ calls on a dead band would help, the European CB gang are there so why not us?. G3KKQ: Dennis will be QRV (subject to obtaining the Captains permission) 2/16 August from the MS Arcadia as G3KKQ/MM in the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean with a K2 and magnetic loop. G3LHJ: Sylvia and Derrick visited ex-member (994) G3LZE in June and reports that Mary and Paddy, who was a member of FOC between 1968 and 1990, are fine. He is 82 now and asked to be remembered to members who remember him. G3VTT: Colin will be QRV 16/21 July as GW3VTT. He will move to a new shack in the summer having built a hobby room in the loft, and writes, A man finds his courage when cutting through the rafters of his home but relies on the pencil marks of a good wife to cut it right first time!. G3ZRJ: Tony mentions QSOs with SM6CLU and OZ1CAR who had great fists during the Straight Key Day on 21 June and also with ex-member Seppo, SM4BZH. Details of future events are on the DARC Web site. G4XRV: Rupert writes, I had a good trip to OY via Shetland and was pleased to meet several of the gang on the way there and back (G4AFU, OY3QN, GM3KLA and G3VMW). GW3HCL: Dan writes, Back in 1994 I had got down to needing five members to complete my Augie Award, but today I need 17! Most are fairly new recruits but a minority

are older hands who, although with a high profile in the DX or contest world, never seem to be around for ordinary QSOs. HS/OZ1HET: Finn writes, Several members have asked me why I dont change my call sign like Ray, HSZDZ. The problem is that Denmark and Thailand dont have a reciprocal agreement so far. I have tried to get such an agreement set up for more than two years, but the Danish PTD and the Minister in charge still refuse to do so. My last attempt will be to get RAST involved and hopefully this will a better result. If anyone has any ideas on what else can be done, I would appreciate hearing about it. J3/G4BKI: Paul writes, We are buying half an acre of land to build a custom home, shack and antennas! I already have FOCers who want to visit and the new house will have facilities for them with separate living quarters, etc. QSL cards are being worked on for those who are waiting for confirmations. JP1BJR: Ex-member Masa became a Silent Key 1 June. He was a member of FOC (1566) between 1990 and 1998, was a life member of JARL and a professor at Senshuu University - thanks Daily DX. K2VUI: Jenny and Joe were on holiday in Liechtenstein for a few days after attending Friedrichshafen and Joe planned to be QRV as HB/K2VUI - thanks DJ5ZN. K3TW: Tom is often QRV from the W3DOS club station at the Department of State in downtown Washington, DC. Many members desire a QSO with the District of Columbia, even though it counts as Maryland for the FOC WAS Award. K4LT: Belated congratulations to Anita and Doug on the birth of their first child after 17 years. Christopher is now aged 19 months. Doug will be QRV as part of the MM PJ2HQ team from the PJ2T station (probably 20m CW) during the IARU Contest as a HQ station (VERONA). He will also be QRV from 10 July as PJ2/K4LT. K4LTA: Bill writes, I have been enjoying chasing the gang for Windle points this year, although conditions to Europe and the UK have been very poor lately. Up to 25 June I have worked 346 member and have set a goal to try to beat Dales, W4QM, record of last year but know it will be difficult as they are getting harder each month. Where are the 154 other members?. K4OJ: Referring to N3BBs story about SO2R and working K4LTA in the June News Sheet, Jim writes, When it works right, SO2R is great - it is very hard to do and takes training but the pay back is there for those who stick with it. Timing is everything and

the most important element is not to break the rules in doing it - that takes the concentration or a lockout box! It reminds me of a story I once heard about one of our New England members busting another amateur in a contest who was illegally CQing on two different bands at the same time - he keyed both transceivers simultaneously. With his hand on the A/B VFO switch our New England friend responded to the caller, who was calling CQ on both bands, by sending alternate letters of his callsign on alternate bands! So, the other guy heard the first letter, and third letter of his call in one ear and the second and fourth letter in the other - bouncing back and forth, or as my grandson says busted! K5ALU: Red will be QRV 4/5 July from OK, NM and CO and possibly from the four corners (UT, CO, NM and AZ). KF3B: Alan writes to, apologise in advance for my next six months of QLF while I get used to the new Schurr paddle. N5TP: Pete was QRV as VQ9TP in June thanks DK7VW. N7BG: Tony has applied for a permanent HK call following his recent activity from HK3CW and HK6HFYs QTHs in June. He plans to be QRV in the CQ CW Contest with W6NV from HK, probably as single band entries. OK1RP: Petr is still working on his TVI and RFI problems and has installed new antennas (a TA33 beam, 30m dipole, and half slopers for 40, 80 and 160m). SMAQW: Jan admits to not being very active lately and has decided to resign from FOC. He says, I know that many younger people are queuing up for membership. VA3LK: Larry writes, We have just returned from a five day trip with our small trailer. I worked nine members with my mobile whips, which where intimidated by the 100 feet plus

(callsign in brackets indicate G4FOC operator)

FOC CALENDAR

July (G3RXP) 4/5 OK, NM & CO by K5ALU/M (645) 5 Harrogate Get-Together (640) 6/24 VK6LW visiting UK (642) 9 FOC Activity Day 10 PJ2/K4LT (645) 10/22 FO by G3SWH (644 and 645) 16/21 GW3VTT (645) 19 FOC Activity Day 25 FOC Activity Day29/30 29 Deadline August News Sheet August (G3WGV) 2/16 G3KKQ/MM (645) 4 FOC Activity Day 16 South and West Dinner (638)

K4LTA* W5ZR* W6CYX LZ1AF* LY2PX* PAVDV* G3KTZ* G3LIK W4QM* G4BUE* KZ5D* W6TZD* W8FJ* W1HMD* W3NZ* F5VEX OZ1HET* YV1NX K4AO*

Score updates to be passed to G3RVM only. An asterisk against the call indicates the score has been updated this month. Table shows the scores received by 0730z 30 June 2003. The two scores are the total points and the total number of different members worked.
905/346 575/301 527/290 515/279 493/244 487/267 470/271 426/260 388/252 381/249 365/219 364/231 356/231 328/204 327/209 297/214 266/198 252 250/150 N3BB* W3MC* DJ5ZN* PABW* G2JL K4WJ* G4HZV* K1JD* G4BJM* G3PDH* G4BWP GW3HCL* LY3BA 4Z4KX W9GW* G5LP EA6BF* DJ1YFK* N4OO 244/171 238/148 233/166 233/163 232/182 231/154 230/179 211/151 196/153 196/127 195/181 193/131 190/148 185/122 184/143 181/146 179/145 179 175/140 DK7VW* 174/120 W8LX* 173/121 WCGR* 166/127 G3ZGC* 166 VE1BN* 164/131 W4LZ* 163/122 G3RVM*161/132 W1HT* 160/122 K5ALU 156/125 W4PM* 156/119 GORH 154 G3HZL 150/111 G4XRV* 149/123 DU3NXE* 146/121 G3PJT 141/114 DL8LBK 132/102 SM5COP* 135/102 ZS1EL 130/101 J3/G4BKI* 122/114 G3LHJ* 122/110 K4EF* 122/94 ZL2TX* 120/87 G3NOH* 119/98 PALOU* 119/97 DL1BUG* 118/87 W4ZYT* 114/96 G8VG* 113/90 G3MCK* 108 N1DG 105/88 G2FFO 104/86 W1RM* 103/90 N6NT 101 K6TS 99/78 G3ZRJ* 98/70 G3KKQ* 96/91 K5RC 95/78 KC7V* 94 ZL1AH N3JT W1DV W4CK G3IY W4YE VE3AR* G3LCS LA3FL W2DX W6IJ* OZ4FF* GW3SB* N4JT WK2G G2HKU* DK4LX K2VCO 93/90 92 90/73 90 88 87 85/73 81 80 79 77 76 74/68 74/62 73/68 69 68/59 68 F3AT* G3IZD G3VTT LA5HE W1FJ* K4LQ G3MBN AA5DX OH2KI* VA3LK* KY7M* W9VNE K9QVB W6ZH* K2ZR VE3HX OH2EA* K6WG 67 67 67 65 57/54 55/51 52/44 51 51 46/36 43/40 43 42 36 31 21 17 11

THE 2003 BILL WINDLE AWARD

pine trees we were camped near. Ancient petroglyphs at Bon Echo Park remind me that our ancient societies had practitioners of the fine arts of communications telling others where they had gone and what they had found..... W1FJ: Congratulations to Ruth and Al who consolidating households in June and will be attending the Greenwich and Orlando Dinners. Also to Al on his retirement. W1HT: Ralph writes, I feel the new Windle scoring is helping me learn more about propagation. Several times when a member asked me to QSY to another band for a point, I felt there was virtually no chance of making the QSO. I was proven wrong - conditions were much better than I had expected!. W5ZR: Bert writes, I have written a Cabrillo file reader for the FOC program which will read the contest log files and add FOC member QSOs into the data files. Please let me know if you would like a copy of this for the FOC Award program.