WQ6X offers further ThoTs on the IARU HF Championship

It is difficult for me to fathom that the once far-off IARU contest is now several days behind
us. 10 days ago, the Solar Flux Index (SFI) soared briefly to 208.  Then, for the IARU weekend,
the SFI was 1/2 that (109), altho allegedly the A&K indices were quite low - tell that to the geomagnetic noise that was a constant weekend backdrop.

The IARU GiG revolves around the UTC time clock.  The 12:00z (NooN) starting time was perfect
for the WRTC competition, unlike the 2o14 WRTC Boston-event which began at 5am local time.  During multi-OP contest weekends, I am often running the 2am to 5am shift, going to bed @12:00z, instead of just starting out.

At 5am on the left coast, 40-meters is open to Asia for another hour or so. Twenty meters is "wandering around" looking for an opening, while the MUF has not climbed high enough to enable
15-meters.  By 14:30z, 40-meters was back to "local" communications while 20-meters was showing inklings of propagation possibilities to EU.

Unusual for a radiosport weekend, my OP-time was shared with a 4-hour Zoom conference. 
Due to the way the various segments of the conference were organized, I found plenty of opportunities to work 20-meters and exploit the 15-meter EU opening.  

A success secret for IARU GiGs is
to start on the highest band providing
QSO-runs and work our way down as the MUF drops throughout the day
or the A/K indexes increase.  

For this IARU GiG, 10-meters
was a no-show. 

Perusing the 3830Scores submissions,
it would seem that most operators
(in the USA at least) shared my experience.

While there is already a contest online scoreboard ([CLICK HERE] to go there), because the WRTC station callsigns are assigned just minutes before the contest starts, the unique one-time callsigns did not figure into that system, altho those callsigns eventually made their way onto our spotting band maps.

Instead, the World Radio League (WRL) maintained a separate leaderboard dedicated to the
50 WRTC stations updated every few minutes as each station added new contacts and multipliers
to their ever-increasing scores.  I was so hyper-focused on operating and the separate online conference that by the time I first checked the leaderboard (some 8-hours into the event), the top
10 contenders had already settled into the top-10 - the only real question was what final place these teams will finally land.

After the IARU event was long over, was determined a picture was published detailing the WRTC callsigns which had been assigned. As you can see, the callsigns all shared an "MB" prefix

In all honesty, while the idea of being one of the 100 competitors sounds intriguing, what is required and involved to make it all happen is way out of my league.  While I certainly possess advanced contesting skills, what is required to operate at the WRTC level, requires commitment, time, money,
and nearly obsessive hyper-focus.  To begin with, just getting radio equipment through customs is only one of many things to resolve even before the operating period commences.

Each team is randomly assigned a callsign and an operating location, which as I understand it
they were like Field Day tent setups. Additionally, a referee is randomly assigned who validates
their  setup before the event begins and monitors their operation with audio from both stations split between the Left/Right ears.  After the 12:00z ending, teams have only a short amount of time to reconcile the log before turning it over to the contest committee.

The WRTC event is several days behind us.  Overall, the top 5 teams are I guess no real surprise.
The 2030 event location has yet to be determined.  It will be interesting to find out where that will actually be.

DiD YOU work the 2o26 IARU contest?
How many WRTC "MB" stations are in YOUR Log?

WQ6X runs another Mixed-mode Mixed-BAG IARU Contest

My only beef with the annual IARU HF Championship event is that it is only 24-hours;
Then again, this is what makes it into a championship event.  As there are no 2nd-day
DO-overs, every band/mode choice needs to be considered carefully.

Prior to this event, I wrote up some of my thots on IARU.  ([CLICK HERE] to read that.)

This year's IARU contest event was parallel run with the 2o26 WRTC Team Championship
competition with 50 teams (and hundreds of support personnel) converging in England for
this every-4-year event.  Just before the event began, the 50 teams were randomly handed
a randomly assigned British callsign, along the lines of "MB" and "MD" prefixes. 
The rest of the world anxiously anticipated hearing the first WRTC callsigns on the air. 

 

For those who were interested, the World Radio League maintained a scoreboard enabling
us to watch the progress.  Bye the time I brought up the scoreboard, contenders for the 1st
7-places had been established - it was simply a question of which order they would end up.

The IARU GiG commenced at 13:00.  After a couple of logistical screwups, I made the 1st
contact at 13:30z and ran rather seamlessly until the start of a Zoom conference I was involved
in @9am local time.  Because much of the material was mundane, I was able to position the Zoom screen next to the VNC viewer (VPN) screen and slip a few QSOs into the log during presentations. 
Openings on 20 & 15 meters into Europe made the time spent doubly productive.

After an hour break, the focus was on 15-meters, with marginal but adequate openings to Asia
and even down under.  Unfortunately, 1-second internet jitter made calling CQ not very productive.  Most of the afternoon and evening was spent searching and pouncing on 20-meters.  

At 01:00z, running out of stations to work on Cw, the switch was made to 20-Ssb where eventually
35 Ssb QSOs made it into the log.  Thanks to loading up the K3/0 voice memories before the contest,
all Ssb contacts were made by using function keys - no microphone was needed.  Later, while tuning around 40-meters and then on 75-meters no IARU Ssb activity was heard.  Even later, returning to 20-meters produced no more Ssb entries for the log.

Just before 07:00z, the internet connection failed requiring a restart, after which the internet dropouts
all but disappeared.  Band openings
to Asia made running frequencies very productive once again.

 
At 09:30 with 20-meters all but
gone on the west coast, it was time
to move down to 40-meters, just in
time for the first of several JA pile-ups throughout the early morning until the IARU contest ended at 12:00z once again.  

With the east coast waking up, many USA QSOs made it to the log even tho the Yagi was pointed
at 300-degrees azimuth.  A handful of VK stations also called in, yet surprisingly, no ZL stations
were ever heard - seeing internet spots (only 2) is not the same as actually working them. 
Amazingly, an LU5 station called in via long path - wOw!

When it was all over, capturing the 3830 stats and contest scoreboard, it would seem that WQ6X managed a 4th place for the USA and North America overall.  The details on how the WRTC competition turned out have yet to be announced.  I may well post a follow-up blog on this very topic.

Meanwhile, DiD YOU work the IARU HF Championship?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Offers ThoTs on the IARU HF Championship WeeKend

Being that the IARU is "subsidiary" to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the IARU HF Championship is a reminder that we should leverage the upcoming IARU HF Championship into an opportunity for global interconnectedness between all countries.  As I recall, there are teams competing from Ukraine and Russia and about 30+ other countries.

In brief, we could say that the IARU HF Radiosport contest is a perfectly unique 24-hour compromise between the 48-hour CQ WW and ARRL DX contests events.  Some of the differences include:

• IARU uses the IARU zones instead of the 40 CQ-Zones, states, or power levels.
• Being a 24-hour contest (instead of 48), there are no 2nd-day "Do Overs" - if we miss something, we miss it.
• The IARU championship leverages BOTH Cw and Ssb in one 24-hour period.
  Of course, one of the IARU contest challenges is which operating mode to use and when.
• Every 4-years the IARU contest coincides with the WRTC championship (the Olympics
  or World Cup of radiosport).

Because this is a worldwide
event, solar disturbances will distribute unevenly around the globe, favoring
(or disfavoring) different areas at different times. 

The REAL challenge for radio operators worldwide is navigating the geomagnetic effects by changing antenna direction(s) or making a sudden band change to leverage current ionospheric conditions.  

We often rely on reasonably consistently predictable propagation shifts to specific areas of the world at specific times - solar disturbances can either shift the shift or distort it altogether.

Running a multi-mode event offers the opportunity to leverage both Stereo-SSB as well as Stereo-CW methodologies.  Having decided to reprise the Ramona QTH again this year, the question becomes what power level (5-watts or 99-watts) to run. The influencing factors behind the decision include Propagation, Space-WX and Antenna settings.  

Even when they are available to me I don't turn on KW amplifiers when running Single-OP. 
For me, amplifiers are just one more thing that can go wrong.  At Anza, occasionally an amp has failed during an NX6T multi-OP run, requiring we switch to the backup station or revert to Low Power (LP); however, once you begin with HP, that is the classification the log will be submitted in after the contest.

Whenever possible in ARRL contests, I am always looking to be a part of setting Section and/or Division records.  In the IARU contest, in recent years, I have been a part of 5-records, with some
of them from running Single-OP of some sort.

This year, for me, plopped in the middle of Saturday morning is the first Toastmasters Leadership Institute (TLI) Zoom training session during 16:00z to 20:30z of the IIARU contest - some screen juggling may be in order.  Thanks to a 32" monitor, the goal will be to position the VNC viewer and Zoom windows next to each other during those 4+ hours.  I guess we can call this SO2E (Single-OP 2-Events).

Prior to the contest, the 4-voice memories ion the remote K3 have been loaded, such that theoretically, we can Search & Pounce (S&P) w/o needing a microphone during the entire 24-hour contest period.

To use more than four voice memories,
I can turn on the VOX and use a locally
run copy of N1MM+ to play out local .WAV files, offering 8-to-12 additional verbal expressions.

When running Ssb, the N1MM function
keys F1 to F4 map to the M1 to M4 buttons
on the K3 radio series.  Voice memories
are recorded during a time when there is no internet jitter during the recording process.  Later, when jitter sets in, the memories will play correctly anyway.

Having a microphone connected to the radio along with a foot switch enables saying things that were not pre-recorded.  However, in general, using the voice memories most of the time reduces voice fatigue - especially near the end of the contest.

For Cw, the function key macros become a set of 12 messages that like the voice memories
will play out correctly even if there is internet jitter on my side of the connection.  Notice some
of the more unique function messages like "ROGER" and "WEIRD".  When operators do dumb
things, I salute them with the "W E I R D" key.  On Ssb, function key F-12 can play out the WEIRD.Wav file.  When asked if they got my exchange correctly, function key F9 sends: "R-R-R"

as in "Roger, Roger, Roger".  Otherwise, the necessary correction is sent and we go-round again.

With barely 13-hours remaining before contest start, it would seem that WQ6X is ready for yet another annual installment in the on-going saga of the IARU HF championship, with this year's attendant WRTC 50-team competition.

Are YOU geared up to run the IARU HF championship?

LooK for WQ6X on HF bands EVERYWHERE.

 

WQ6X Walks the Alameda Parade & Runs Marconi Memorial ConTesT

The Marconi Memorial Contest (MMC) is always run the 1st weekend in July which this year
happened to coincide with USA's 4th of July 250th Anniversary celebration.  My weekend goals
included participating in the Alameda 4th of July parade and participate in the Marconi Memorial Contest to eclipse last year's meager MMC score.  ([CLICK HERE] to read about last year's attempt.)

In case you are not aware of the fact, Alameda's 3.2-mile-long 4th of July parade is the longest distance parade of its kind in the USA.  Being a club officer in the Alameda Tongue Twisters (A-T-T) Toastmasters club, I joined other members and other Alameda Toastmasters clubs making that hefty
3.2-mile jaunt as we passed out cards and flyers and even interviewed parade spectators using wireless microphones and a mini boom box.

Before the parade line-up I turned the remote Ramona radio on to 20-meters hoping to hear a flood
of stations calling "CQ MMC" (or some such thing).  Over nearly 90-minutes, 2 Southeastern stations and a single VA3 station made it to the WQ6X log.  As it turned out over the weekend, Space-WX anomalies created havoc with band propagation.  This resulted in 10- & 15-meters being DuDs, while 40-meters never really got started.  In the end, a 20-meter (only) log was submitted.

After the parade a commute to W7AYT's Concord QTH gave me access to the robust array of audio filters that makeup the cool Stereo-CW method I have implemented for running DX pileups and Cw contests.  At 03;19z propagation on 20-meters hadn't really improved and 40-meters had not yet warmed up, affording me the needed time to double-check the recently revamped stereo audio
setup wiring - it all checked out.

As the evening progressed, calling CQ resulted in some informative RBN (Reverse Beacon) stats, confirming that the radio and antennas on my end were bouncing RF off the ionosphere.  Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, EU stations began calling in, many sounding like they were "next door".  The decision was to remain fixed on the same run frequency (14019.69) and keep the CQ's going,
which at the least provided more RBN spots.

Even tho the QSO rate was poor, eventually QSO #50 made it to the log before 20-meters finally faded for the final time.  With a 14:00z ending time, the Marconi Memorial Contest was effectively over in Ramona.  Because all QSOs were made on 20-meters, it made sense to submit a SOSB20 log entry after the contest.  Thanks to Stereo-CW, frequency running during t hose final hours was made more effective (and therefore more fun), making it easier to stay awake as the evening progressed.

When it was all over, those 50-QSOs in 21 countries was worth a whopping 1,050 points. 
While this was hardly much of a score, amazingly, it DiD surpass the previous 2 years. 
If it weren't for the openings to Europe (and a brief shot to SA), the MMC contest woulda
been a complete DuD, as very few USA stations seemed to be actually playing in this event. 
The USA stations who were playing all ran high power (HP), leaving WQ6X to be the lone
submission for SOSB20LP.

DiD YOU work the Marconi Memorial (MMC) contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Wangles a 160-Meter TRI-Square Vertical Array RBN Evaluation

After a recent QSO party weekend, I switched remote access to WA6TQT's STN-1 in Anza. 
to run a series of 160-meter directional-determination tests. At the last minute, it made sense
to write-up the experiment as a separate Blog.

With the recently refurbished 160-meter "TRI-Square" array, theoretically, there should be some
noticeable differences in signal levels between Northeast (N-E), Southeast (S-E) and West (W)
directions.

To measure this, test messages were sent on 1.816 (NE), 1.818 (SE) and 1.820 (W), then again
on 1.822 (NE), 1.824 (SE) and 1.826 (W).  Because I could not discern any real directional patterns,
I fed Ashley @A-I a the above picture of the antenna layout and the RBN stats from the above tests for a more detailed evaluation of the actually directional characteristics
of the TRI-Square.  Here are the essentials from her system evaluation:

"What you actually have is a 3-element vertical phased array for 160 meters, consisting of three 100-foot towers arranged in a triangular pattern, with three phasing lines running to a central relay/phasing mast. The towers themselves are the radiating elements."

"The antenna was configured in three directional modes:

• North-East
• South-East
• West

The reported Signal-to-Noise (dB) values provide a good indication of pattern performance."

WQ6X Runs another Random RAC Canada Day ConTesT

3-days before the USA celebrates Anniversary #250, Canadians celebrate Canada Day - their equivalent celebration.  The Canadian RAC (equivalent to our ARRL) hosts a 24-hour radiosport competition which for simplicity, I elected to run CW-only.

To keep things even worldwide, the operating period starts at 00:00z July 1st (5pm PDT on Tuesday), ending at 00:00z a day later.  Behind the scenes was solar flare activity that SHOT the Solar Flux Index (SFI) to over 200 (from 111 less than a week before).  As I write this, the SFI seems to have leveled off @203.  Unfortunately, the solar storms littered the bands with geomagnetic noise - no
band was safe from the noise.

While the RAC exchange still retains the 5-N-N opening, sending a Serial-# afterwards is where
the challenge lies.  While any station can work any station, unless the station ius a VE/VA/VO/VY,
the QSO is only worth 2-points.  Canadian stations are worth 10-points and Canadian RAC stations
are worth a whopping 20-points.  Multipliers (Canadian call areas) can be counted once on each band.  This is an incentive to spend time on 80 & 10 meters, (there is no 160-meter access in Ramona)., even
if the bands seem dead.

It turns out, a secret to higher scoring in the RAC contest is to call "CQ RAC" on a frequent basis.  There are dozens of Canadians who are CALLERS not RUNNERS.  It's always a delight when a new Mult or an RAC station calls in.

While I often run QRP from Ramona, when a chaotic solar backdrop occurs, running Low Power
(LP) is a bare-minimum requirement.  Using a 3-el Stepp-IR and a 2-el Shorty-40 yagis is perfect
for 1st-bounce signals into most of Canada.

Predictably, geomagnetic noise
added to the already Randomness 
of Ramona, behind the scenes @KN6NBT is frequent 3/4-sec internet "jitter" creating signal dropouts in the middle of morse code letters.  

A station would call in with an S-9 signal and require 3-repeats when the Serial-#
got "jittered".  When it was all over,
I was completely jitter-noised out - 00:00z was a "welcome relief". 

A reported 29,664-point ending score surpassed my projection of 25-K points. 
I consider this an overall excellent result when you consider what there was to work with.

Looking back, the biggest disappointment was the lack of VE4 (MB) and VE5 (SK) stations.
Bottom-line: only one of each was found, and on different bands.

DiD YOU participate in the RAC Canada Day Contest?

How many VE-Mults and RAC stations were in YOUR Log?

WQ6X WPX (Weird Prefix) ConTesT after-ThoTs After the Fact

June 1st of each contest year marks the end of the CQ WPX contest Trio (RTTY, Ssb, Cw).

As it turns out, I didn't watch the Q5 Video about the [then] upcoming WPX contest until AFTER

the contest event was well behind us.  In a way, it is preferable to have done it that way.  It was interesting to note (after the fact), the accuracy of many projections made during that 45-minute discussion.

A write-up about the contest and how it turned out has already been posted ([CLICK HERE] to read that).  I also posted some brief thoughts about WPX before the contest.  ([CLICK HERE] to read that.)

However, WPX being a truly WEIRD contest event often finds me musing over it, usually after Field Day is safely behind us.  The original goal was to put in hours for NX6T running high power at WA6TQT while leveraging the full array of stacked yagis plus TRI-Square (160) and 4-Square (80) arrays on the low bands.

Because we there was a sufficient number of operators, there was time throughout the week to put
the "rare" weird prefix "WQ6" on the air, running another QRP event from KN6NBT's Ramona QTH. 
All the above certainly happened, altho with a number of last-minute changes as the weekend progressed.

For openers, our thoughts of running as a Multi-2 operation quickly vanished when Anza STN-2 developed operational problems and needed to be put on the sideline.  This reduced us to running
as a Multi-single operation with no Multiplier station to back up the immensely frequency runs that NX6T is so well known for.

One way to streamline operations and reduce the tendency for things to go wrong is by way of a dozen robustly-defined N1MM keyboard macros.

Virtually most anything needed during a QSO exchange can be accomplished with these macro definitions.

Have you ever heard "W E I R D"
out of the noise?

NX6T began the WPX GiG with an operator switch, relegating me to run the first two hours from my Alameda office, with horror-of-horrors no Stereo-CW yet configured at that location.  Once you get hooked on the wonder of running fully functional Stereo-CW, operations without it are almost excruciatingly B-O-R-ing. I couldn't fire-up at the Concord QTH fast enough.

I usually start a contest w/high (over-inflated?) hopes, usually supported by a nice QSO run to
open that contest event.  The same thing happens when I open a contest for NX6T, as I did for 2o26.  Thanks to an amazing array or CW operators behind NX6T, we usually ride the QSO-wave thru most
of the contest unless a solar storm hits or something "breaks".

Running Single-OP as WQ6X (and QRP on top of that), it is not nearly as effortless to ride the QSO wave.  If even one extra operator steps in to bail me out, the game instantly becomes multi-OP.  Running multi-OP at QRP power in the WPX contest is prolly not a good idea - besides, there
is no such contest category in WPX.  For multi-OP stations, the definition of Low Power (LP)
is ~ 0.3 - 100 watts.

For future WQ6X Blog write-ups I researched was to look at RBN STaTs from a former time
period - in this case the may WPX contest.  I found the RBN Spot Analyzer and an RBN Mapper facility which can produce an overall map from a given contest day.

The above pictures confirm what I had already observed, which that conditions were better
(and signals more far reaching) on Saturday than on Sunday.  While this information doesn't
change the outcome, it helps me to understand how the outcome ended up the way that it did.

Overall, the 2o26 WPX CW contest run as a another dual-OP was an incredible lot of fun.

DiD YOU work the WPX CW contest?

Is WQ6X or NX6T in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Wanders-thru and Wings [yet] another All Asia Cw ConTesT

Every summer, the weekend preceding Field Day (FD), I use the All Asia Cw contest as an orientation exercise to validate recent equipment/wiring changes.  15 years ago, when Field Day was run from Mt. Abel (8385' N/W from Los Angeles), I drove to the mountain a week before the rest of the W6SW team to run the All Asia GiG from the mountain top.

For 2o26, I joined up with NX6T running remote from WA6TQT's STN-2 in Anza (San Bernardino mountains in So. California) - STN1 was used for mult-hunting and propagation monitoring. 
During the in between shift periods, WQ6X ran single-OP low power (LP) from KN6NBT's in
Ramona, as there is no QRP category in the A-A contest.

The Anza location was relatively quiet with an almost near-latency-free internet connection, while the
Ramona location was much noisier (it's usually the other way around), coupled with a "jittery" internet connection, make Q% Cw copy a challenge at best.  With only 6 operators, we not only has several assigned time slots, we often also filled in for another operator who may have had connection problems.

With a declining Solar Flux Index (SFI was around 118, versus 145 10 days ago), 10-meters was
a weekend no-show until the last 90 minutes when the closing operator (K6PO) got a break and turned in some beautiful last minute mults.  On the other end of the frequency spectrum (80 meters),
I managed 62 contacts (out of 87) mostly with Japan.  The 80m and 10m QSOs were worth Two (2) points instead of 1.

As the main night shift operator, I encounter all manner of unexpected QRM issues on 40-meters. 
For this contest weekend, the issue was unlicensed Indonesian Ssb operations below 7.025 and
a pulse radar station @13:00z that started EXACTLY on my 7007.77 run frequency.  While I was running 80-meters for 25-minutes, the radar stopped; 5-minutes after I came back to the 40-meter
run frequency, the radar was back.  Coincidence?

Because summertime openings to JA on 160-meters coincides with sunrise, I was not surprised
to hear faint signals buried in a wall of D-Layer noise.

It would seem that NX6T has once again taken a 1st-place score, slightly higher than last year.

As WQ6X, only 20 and 15 meters were run this year.

DiD YOU work the All Asia DX Cw Contest?

How many Asian countries were in YOUR LoG?

WHaT TO DO With an off-ConTesT WeeKend

Contrary to popular belief, not all of my weekends are spent engaged in radiosport contesting. 
(Several weeks ago, my weekends were spent engaged in another kind of contest activity;
namely, ToasTmasTers Speech Contests. ([CLICK HERE] to read more about this.) 
The only radiosport event of note for the 2nd weekend in June is the South American - SACW
(aka GACW) GiG.  The actual RULES (in English) can be found HERE.

The original idea was to run QRP from the KN6NBT station in Ramona for which I setup N1MM+ w/those parameters in mind.  Propagation was so poor and Space-WX severe enough, the QRP
idea was abandoned in favor of 93-watts, [almost] wishing I had access to a medium amplifier. 
Client commitments kept me out of the operator chair until 21:14z.  10-meters was already gone
(or never opened at all for the day) and 15-meters barely made a showing.

Running a 3-el Stepp-IR on the high bands, most of the operating occurred on 20-meters
(both day and night).  Of the 84 QSOs made 27 (28%) were 0-point USA contacts.  I was happy
to work them as they provided an adjunct (or confirmation) of the RBN stats.

For a South American contest, the actual [hearable] SA participation was rather poor - then again,
I ALWAYS say that.  Hope for 40-meter salvage, for the most part never occurred, requiring multiple returns to 20-meters to find meaning from the OP time.  While it surely was profitable (pointwise) and double-mult wise) to work EU, South American QSOs were worth 5-points (compared to 2 & 3 points otherwise).  I ended the SACW contest an hour early, finding no new stations for the log.

The rest of Sunday was spent cleaning up the audio and power wiring hidden well behind the
morass of filter units which make up the Stereo Audio configuration, undergoing continuous
evolution as I explore various audio filter combinations.

One of the filter combinations blendable via CHANNEL-4 of a Rockville audio mixer unit brings
in audio from a JPS NIR-10 and/or JPS NIR-12 DSP units.  While these devices can certainly make
a difference, this 30-year-old DSP technology introduces a not-insignificant latency into the resultant audio.  After a number of unsuccessful attempts to resolve this situation, I happened on to a little
unit known as an AV "Lip-synch Corrector".  

This device is inserted in the audio line presenting the least (or no) signal latency. 
The idea is to purposely introduce a 125ms to 250ms time delay into the "fast" audio,
delaying it long enough to match the DSP latency in the slower channel.  Because the unit
utilizes RCA jacks, I had to use cable conversion blocks to split the 1/8" stereo plugs to match
the AV configuration.

Eventually, I came came up with the approach shown above.  Unfortunately, the AP-411 would load down the audio line on that side, making it nearly unhearable.

The solution was to feed the output of the circuit in one of the stereo channels of a NADY MM-242 Mini mixer, which contains a modicum of audio amplification to overcome the insertion loss.

An advantage to this approach is that additional audio sources can be mixed in on channels #1 to #3.

As you can see, there are many ways to make an off-contest weekend into a successful time spent.

What do YOU do with an off-contest weekend?