Week 1 of Ladder 42 -- Selected 3830 Comments (will also post to nsladder.blogspot.com )

K7SS 2980  “something about the ladder brings the action!!”

NA8V  2950   Boy, that was a helluva night. One Q short of the Magic 3K.

W8WTS  2495  Great start to Ladder XLII.

WD6T 2385  Too many lost jumps on 15, but 20 was good. 40 was abandoned too soon by the right coast. 80 first Q was N3QE with the golden ears. Then nobody heard me.?    I see that 3830 has 10m and 6m

n  Dave, I think 19  and 6 were always in the list ??? 10 and 6 are also on the FT4 NS list, which Vic is not involved with ???

W2RQ 2385 Great to have new computer available for this. But....did not realize it was set up for leading zeroes, a bit of an annoyance. Wasn't sure I'd even make it, as very close thunder and lightning leading up to the contest. Glad to hand out NJ

K8MR 2352  I certainly didn't waste time working non-new multipliers! The only non-unique: NH on 15 meters!

WJ9B  2142 Clock got away from me, time was up while still on 40m! But, made the 50/2000 club.

VE3YT 2021 Wow that !!went by fast! Saved by a decent mult ratio. Thanks for a great week 1 of the ladder. Now to practice those QTCs.

AJ6V 1920 Thanks to N6ZFO for shepherding this contest for so many years to become the great contest that it is today. 

               Compliments are always appreciated!! Zfo

W4NZ  1833  Great start for the ladder

N8EA 1794 Things seized up after 2 contacts on 80M. I have been working on this problem and just can't figure it out. I am now thinking it is RFI - so I may possibly try QRP to see what happens. 73 joe

n  Good luck on that, Joe.

K1GU 1672 May the Ghost of the Locust Haunt You

N3QE 1443 15M was lots of nice clear signals, all of which I lost jump balls to

WQ5L 1085 Conditions seemed to be quite good. Instead of "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop”

K8CN 924 Have not been on the bands much with my time devoted to testing and aligning a 60 year old Heathkit SB-110A 6 meter transceiver, and finding it balky, especially with the transmitter alignment. It has been a good refresher in 'hollow state' technology on which I grew up.

AJ1DM 806 Have not been on the bands much with my time devoted to testing and aligning a 60 year old Heathkit SB-110A 6 meter transceiver, and finding it balky, especially with the transmitter alignment. It has been a good refresher in 'hollow state' technology on which I grew up.

N6ZFO 480 After 25 years, finally a ladder I didn't set up!

AH7RF 399 One of my highest sprint scores, yay! I looked, the other ones had the easy to work Stan AH6KO in there and/or were in winter where I get some 40m contacts, so I'm pretty pleased with this :-)

NM2A  357  In MT for the summer. Beautiful. But, got a fire called the "Moose" throwing off all kinds of smoke. Hope this clears before the Perseid meteor shower! Got a better score than last time. All this op can ask for!! LOL

W4CMG 64  Red Cross issue kept me busy most of the event, but I managed to grab a few minutes at the end.

     We’ll take that as A good excuse, Cathy! Pleased to catch you tonite.  Bill ZFO

AA9RK 63 It felt good to be back, even for a few minutes. I have been mostly QRT this summer due to neighborhood S9+ broadband RFI,

K4DXV 25 Whew! Y'all about wore me out. I tried pushing up to 30 wpm and could get most of the exchange, but Lord bless all of you that slowed down for me on those serial numbers!

           Keep plugging. . you’re a value new NS’r  Bill ZFO

KK0U 4  Made two contacts, got called away. Beat *that* for a low score!

K6UFO 483 QRP Love the Ladder! Everything about the remote setup worked okay tonight, except I need more light or better glasses to see my screen and keyboard.

NS Comments from July 31, 2026

N7ZZ WOW... bands open and quiet, no electrical storms and my best Thursday sprint!

K0VBU, Bill:  Close to 2k...I love an open 15! Other bands fine as well. Tnx for the fun! 73 Bill, K0VBU

W2RQ Bill Sorry for the crappy CW: computer destroyed by lightning Tuesday morning

K0TG John  “I think that was my best session ever.”

K1GU, Ned   Ned  . .tks for your successful recruiting effort.  Bill zfo

Na8V, Greg  couldn't get the winkeyer working so had to do all hand sending which isn't my forte.

W9RE Mike  Two computer problems and the last one completely froze the computer up.

KM9R Mike Early on logger was losing comms with radio sorry for dropping the q on 15 Joe N8EA. There is no reason I have found yet for this intermittent issue. Going into keyboard mode appears to force the logger back into comms with the radio. There has to be a better solution.

N6ZFO Bill I'm back from W6 after completing the sale of our CA ranch and winery! I somehow managed to close N1MM in the middle of the NS. losing probably 2 or 3 qso's. Again, we brought 15 meters to life. How long can this last?? Missed the rare VA mult tonight in the absence of Lar, K7SV Announced that we will have a new NS Contest director after a mere 25 years of N6ZFO [likely to be  Vic VE3YT   

AJ1DM, John That was fun!

N0AC Bill (Rocky) Just got back for Norway last night.

N6HI John "Outside" antenna down for QTH painting. SO ... Using an INDOOR end-fed wire.

 NS June July Aug 2026

Comments from May 29 NS

AD4EB  "I think I just got hooked !

K7SS  AD4EB even though in TN! hahahaha  THE NEW OHIO

N3QE  "WOWZA 15 and 20 on fire"

K3MM "Reboot! I knew there was something wrong when NA8V didn't copy!  Ahh well...next week!  I promise.  I'll have ALL my radios working properly!  LOL!  73 Ty"

N6ZFO: "Wow, what a night.   even a poor antennas could not produce a low score.  Wish the NS was 35 minutes -- didn't quite make it to 160. Missed hearing our two YL's tonight. . . perhaps they're in recovery from Dayton.  There's a great picture of AH7RF floating around .. are those braces? Or is it a secret internal antenna?  Maybe I should post it to nccc-blue.   As noted previously it's good experience for me to be near the bottom." 

k9mms Chased Bill ZFO a few times, but NIL.  DanWA SS sure had a big number early on.  Wonder if Dan is still logging with paper and a number 2 pencil?!  :)

N6HI: ONE HALF WATT to a short INDOOR Wire.  Outside antenna down for QTH painting.  SO ... Using INDOOR end-fed wire.  Nothing keeps this QRPer off the air.   Tnx for your patience and the QSOs    Go Arizona Outlaws! -73- John N6HI

The W0BH NS Certificate for N6ZFO - 2016 

The KS QSO Party for 2018 will award certificates to participants meeting certain conditions in the contest.  Bob, W0BH, the Wizard behind KSQP, designed a special certificate showing a Kansas rural mobile ham radio scene together with  nine special stamps depicting the performance and history of ham radio communications over decades.  Participation is encouraged by all on Saturday (7 AM to 7 PM PDSt) and Sunday (9 AM to 3 PM PDST)  80-6 meters.   

Bob was very kind to prepare one of these honoring my leadership in the NS Ladder competition.  Thanks, Bob.

73 Bill N6ZFO

KO7X Visit to N6ZFO Aug 2013 with Vicki, Emily & Sarah

N6ZFO visits KA3DRR/6 -- by Train no Less

With strains of Arlo Guthrie's "City of St. Louis" echoing in his mind, N6ZFO boarded the sleek Amtrak Surfliner and headed north Saturday afternoon for a 5 hour journey from San Juan Capistrano to Pismo Beach, site of the soon-to-be CC&R superstation of Scot, KA3DRR. After a superb dinner of hearty, tasty ribs and good ham radio fellowship at the local hot spot, Alex's, Scot and Bill began to plot the Sunday antenna building strategy.

The end result: a twin-lead fed inverted L antenna which can disappear in a moments notice -- 4o-feet per leg and 33 feet at the apex. Well, it's a stretch to call this an inverted "L" but we'll do so anyway. The good news . . it loads smoothly on all bands 15-80. WWV on 15 mHz gained 4 S units over the random wire, which was quickly and unceremoniously relegated to recycling. Scot, I hope that was the right decision.

Stay tuned till Thursday for the August 9 NS. Will Scot break his record "off the random wire" score of 16 points in the Impromptu July 5 NS Ladder?? We shall see.

Here's a photo of the motley crew assembled at Scot's very first-rate digs . . .Scot's YL, perhaps wisely, cleared out for the weekend, although her presence would certainly have raised the general quality of the photo. Well, radio-dawg looks good, and radio-bird, off camera to the left, even better.

For now, 73 Bill n6zfo

NS Ladder IV, the Wrap Up

After a long blog silence, a few word of wisdom or nonsense are about to be born.

A big thank you to our NS Ladder team!!

At the conclusion of this marathon 18-week NS Ladder IV let's thank our team. The NS Ladder Board, consisting of Paul, K3STX, John K4BAI and Jim, N3BB had smooth sailing through a year with minimal conflict and problems to distract from the main purpose of NS Ladder -- Summer Fun.

Perhaps the biggest contribution of all, however, was Howie N4AF's effort, with encouragement from KZ5D, to expedite the First official NS Ladder logging software, N1MM Logger. See the July post for details. On that note. . . TV-Bob, N6TV snuck in a surprise announcement that the French logging program Win-Test by F5MZN has NCCC Sprint logging support. [see www.win-test.com/ and follow the details for version 3.]

Mike, W9RE, joined the organizational team with his SNS, or Slow NS, a short warm-up practice session held 30 minutes before the NS Ladder on 20 and 4o meters. Importantly and in the true competitive spirit of NS, Mike waited until after the last NS Ladder event to break his arm playing tennis, showing him to be a true sportsman.

Summer fun reminds me to thank our informal group of NS Ladder advisors from the NCCC . . Ken, N6RO, who is now fully involved with the regular NS season of practices and more practices; Ed, W0YK our talented and steady Web advisor who translates my weekly spreadsheet into a snazzy web presentation of NS Ladder results at www.ncccsprint.com,\; Kurt, K7NV, our official summer fun promoter; and finally to the always creative and spirited Locust, K6VVA, one of the actual founding members of the N triple See. Be sure to read the entertaining account of NCCC's formative years at www.nccc.cc in the history section. And watch this spot for details about the formation and logic behind the NS Ladder. There is a logic behind the chaos.

Special mention goes to the valuable resource provided by Bruce, WA7BNM who provides our weekly score entry form and calendar entries at www.hornucopia.com . Bruce's co-conspirator Dink, N7WA, provides the valuable NS-Ladder summary to CQ - Contest; it's the starting point for the score compilation and I'm especially grateful to Dink.

And you-all probably thought this all happened by magic. Not the case!

NS-Ladder IV Results -- The Winners

And the winners are:

East of Ms. River Div -- W9RE 24569
West of Ms. River Div -- K7SS 19696
NCCC in CA/NV -- N6RO 19756
Newcomers Div -- K5NZ 8630 (6 of 9 weeks)
2nd place honorable mention -- K9BGL 8179

Club winner in this official non-competition:
NCCC 72,246
SMC 67,298

For the full scoop in all these competition areas . . see www.ncccsprint.com/results
where a couple of tight competitions among non-winners are emphasized in red ink, so to speak.

Please check your scores and send corrections to n6zfo@arrl.net

Certs and prizes are forthcoming.

. . .and the Non-Winners, who are also winners.

Here it is . . the answer the big question . . . WHOOZ in LAST.

Well, it isn't whooz, its none other than our semi-famous blog author and NS Ladder "off the random wire" competitor Scot, KA3DRR/6. Now this was a tough choice, much harder than whooz in first . . . as there was a last minute ringer on the NS Ladder scene, none other than K5NA, who maybe thought he could claim the coveted last place with a 1-event appearance on 160 meters. But you can't displace a seasoned last-place competitor like Scot with just a single appearance. In fact Scot actually showed up for all 18 NS ladder events, joining the Locust, K6VVA and Steve K0XP in that esteemed circle of super-dedicated NSr's. Read the continuing saga of Scot's progress toward the CC&R superstation at ka3drr.blogspot.com

For spirit and dedication beyond what is reasonable we've awarded a special NS Ladder prize to Scot, a 50-foot roll of ladder line to help get that signal where it belongs. Watch for the enhanced KA3DRR signal in future NS events.

73, Bill, n6zfo