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