Thurs Jul 30 Simplex Exercise

The Oregon Tualatin Valley Amateur Radio Club has invited us to participate in their 5th Thursday Simplex Contest (previously the Fifth Wednesday Simplex Contest) starting July 30th @ 7PM (don't be late!) on 147.54 MHz FM.

This opportunity to participate with OTVARC will replace this quarter's regional ERC simplex exercise, and I encourage everyone who's free that evening to join us! Each station should keep a log of who they hear (there's a log sheet on the page linked to above), and submit it afterwards so we can see who can talk to whom. Paul Gerke, KF7SKD from Vanc. West Stake, has volunteered to sift through the reports; please email your results to both otvarc@gmail.com and kf7skd@qsl.net. When Paul's finished with his analysis, we'll see that all participants get a copy.

ERC Goals

• • Exercise your skills (esp. listening)

  • Test your equipment (emergency power, anyone?)

  • Map all the propagation paths -- who can hear whom

Operating Hints

• • Open your squelch so that you can hear weaker stations

  • Make sure you're in simplex mode (no TX shift)

  • Listen so you can get a feel for the protocol, but don't be afraid to transmit!

  • Get on early, if possible, so you don't miss anything

Logging

• • In the notes, please include a 2-digit "RS" signal report for each station heard

    • 1st digit = Readability

      • 1 = Detected but 100% unreadable

      • 2 = Occasional words understood

      • 3 = Readable w/ considerable difficulty

      • 4 = Easy copy

      • 5 = Perfect (full quieting)

    • 2nd digit - Strength

      • 1-9 (use your S-meter if possible)

      • 1 = Barely detectable

      • 9 - Extremely strong

      • If you submit a reading outside 1-9 (e.g. "0" or "S9+60") we'll probably clamp it to the 1-9 range when we aggregate the statistics.

Update:

I added an alternate log sheet, in OpenDocument Spreadsheet and PDF formats. You may find the spreadsheet a lot more convenient to use.

When done, you could export it to PDF and attach both formats so Paul and OTVARC can choose which they want to work with depending on what they're doing (printing/viewing vs. extracting data)