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November, 2016

The Pileup

Newsletter of the CDXA

CDXA PacketCluster & Other Communication Systems

K4MD (AR Cluster via Telnet) k4md.no-ip.com

W4DXA (AR Cluster via Telnet) w4dxa.no-ip.com

CDXA Repeater 147.18 MHz (+600 ) W4DXA, Near Fort Mill, SC

World Wide Web Homepage www.cdxa.org

Wednesday Luncheon (11:30 AM) Skyland Family Restaurant, 4544 South Boulevard, Charlotte, NC

K4MD Joe Simpkins President

W4GRW Bill Fisher Vice-Pres.

W3ZL Cliff Wagoner Sec.-Treas.

K4MD Joe Simpkins Cluster Mgr.

AD4IE Paul Ponak Contest Mgr.

W3GQ Paul Sturpe W4 QSL Bureau Manager

WB4BXW Wayne Setzer Webmaster

NV4A John Forbus Editor

It’s almost Party Time

The 2016 Holiday Party and Annual Officer Elec-tion (for more information on the Election see Page 3) is almost here. It’s going to be December 3rd, At Big Daddy’s of Lake Norman, 1162 River Hwy (Route 150) Mooresville, NC 28117. Here are the details: TIME: Cocktails with Cash Bar beginning at 6:30 PM, Dinner service starting at 7:15 PM, Program and Officer Elections begins at 8:30 PM

MENU: PLATED MEAL CHOICES Rib Eye Steak with one side and Salad bar Prime Rib with one side and Salad bar Seafood Platter: Fish, Shrimp, Oysters & Clam Strips with one side and Salad bar Teriyaki Chicken with one side and Salad bar SIDE CHOICES French Fries, Baked Potato, Sweet Potato or Steamed Vegetables DRINKS: Soda, Tea, Coffee, & water. ***You will make your dinner selections at the Dinner, no need to select in advance, and no worry about parking. There’s plenty.***

DEADLINE TO RSVP: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 For directions to the CDXA Holiday Party, please enter in your home address into this link: https://goo.gl/utTgyN.

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November, 2016

The Pileup Official Newsletter of the Carolina DX Association

Copyright 2016

Published monthly 10 times per year, excluding the months of June and December. The purpose of the association is to secure for the members the pleasures and benefits of the association of persons having a common interest in Amateur Radio. Members of the CDXA shall adhere to “The Amateur’s Code” as published from time to time in The ARRL Handbook for Radio Amateurs, and shall consist of those valid licensed amateur operators having an interest in promoting amateur radio. Long distance communications (DX) is of special interest to members of the association, but said interest is not a requirement of membership. Yearly dues are $25.00. A second licensed Amateur family member living in the same household can join for $5.00 for a total family price of $30.00 per year. The total price for 3 or more licensed family members living in the same household is only $35.00 per year. All family members enjoy full member status. Dues are payable annually in December by check or through the CDXA website, to the Secretary/Treasurer: Cliff Wagoner, W3ZL P. O. Box 577 Davidson, NC 28036 Address, telephone, and email address changes should be directed to the Secretary/Treasurer at the above address or via email at: jcw53@cornell.edu.

DX King News

Paul Ponak, AD4IE

1: Full details of our DX King Contest and your chance to win a $100 gift card from Amazon are in the Janu ary Pileup. 2: Here are the reports for the 2016 DX King compete tion. Below are the scores entered as of October 31. 3: Please remember to go to the website and use the

link to post your score at the end of each month. Note that if you don’t enter an update for a specific month, we will go back two months, and use the latest numbers you have posted. To get your num-bers up to date, simply send them in next month. Just don’t forget there are only 2 more months to go!

Callsign Category Coun-tries Zones Total

K5EK Unlimited 275 40 315

K7BV Unlimited 268 40 308

W3GQ Unlimited 251 39 290

W4HG Unlimited 247 40 287

VE3UTT Unlimited 215 40 255

N4PQX Unlimited 199 39 238

K4HC Limited 190 38 228

WR2K Unlimited 180 39 219

K8YC Unlimited 181 35 216

K2SX Unlimited 164 37 201

NV4A Unlimited 157 34 191

KZ2I Unlimited 150 39 189

W3ZL Formula 155 34 189

W3OA Unlimited 148 36 184

KZ2I Unlimited 138 38 176

K4FS Unlimited 142 33 175

W3ZL Formula 141 28 169

KZ2I Unlimited 130 36 166

K3IRV Formula 129 30 159

N4GBK Limited 115 30 145

W4WNT Formula 84 22 106

WFRA/SK

We are sad to announce that one of our own, John "Les" Zavadil, W4FRA, from Rocky Mount, be-came a Silent Key on Oct. 22nd. Bill Fisher, W4GRW, says that he has known Les for the last 10 years, and that “…he was one of the ‘good guys’ that we get the opportunity to meet in our lives. He will certainly be missed.” Les was born and raised in Nebraska. He graduat-ed from the University of New Mexico with a BSEE degree, and served in the US Navy for 21 years, where he received a Master’s in EE from the Navy Post Graduate School in Monterey, CA, and retired as a Lt. Commander. After leaving the Na-vy in 1981, he worked for Government contractors including Comptek Systems and ITT Avionics before he and his wife Debby re-tired to Rocky Mount in 1995. Our sympathies

go out to Les’

wife Debby, and

his family.

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November, 2016

It’s Election Time

CDXA’s annual election will be held at the Holiday Par-ty on Dec. 3rd. You can vote by proxy at https://goo.gl/HUJQEG in case you won’t be able to make it to the party, or would rather just get your vote in now. Just remember that if you vote by proxy, you can’t vote again at the Party. Wilson Caselli, K1MIJ, this year’s Nominating Official, did not receive any more nomina-tions by the 12 November midnight deadline, so this will be the officer candidate lineup for 2017: Paul Trotter, AA4ZZ, President Bill Fisher, W4GRW, Vice President, returning Cliff Wagoner, W3ZL, Secretary-Treasurer returning Paul Sturpe, W3GQ, QSL Manager returning Wayne Setzer, WB4BXW, Webmaster returning Joe Simpkins, K4MD, Cluster Manager, returning John Forbus, NV4A, Contest Manager Mike Kesiah, WA2TGE, Pileup Editor Welcome & Congratulations to Paul and Mike for vol-unteering to serve! Thanks to Paul, AD4IE, for your service as Contest Manager this term and VP previously! Thanks to Joe Simpkins for stepping up in our time of need as President. You brought lots of experience to the position, and have been a very calming and powerful influence on the club, yet again ! Here’s a short bio from each of the “new” nominees: Mike Kesiah, WA2TGE, nominee for Pileup Editor: Mike became an amateur radio operator in 1964 while teaching school in Ahoskie, NC. Using his ham knowledge he got a job with IBM Field Engineering. Five years later he was later transferred to upstate New York and received his current “2” call. Extra class came a few years later. The opening of the IBM Charlotte facility gave him a chance to return to his home in Mecklenburg County. Mike and Alice are currently retired in Rock Hill where both he and Alice are living the retired lifestyle. Paul Trotter, AA4ZZ, nominee for President: Paul grew up in Charlotte. He got his Novice license and upgraded to Extra class while in high school. Paul studied electrical engineering at Duke University and got an MBA from the University of Virginia. He is in

the construction and real estate development business. Paul and his wife Kathy have two sons in high school. Paul is part of a team which regularly finishes in the top 5 in the ARRL June and September VHF contests. John Forbus, NV4A, nominee for Contest Manager ….And since I’m running for Contest Manager instead

of returning as Pileup Editor, here’s a bit about me. I’m

a Georgia boy, and I got my Novice license in 1963, as

WN4OPQ. I became WA4OPQ in 1964. My ham in-

terests even back then were DXing and CW contesting.

Somehow, getting my EE degree through the co-op pro-

gram at Ga. Tech, getting married, working and helping

Gail raise two boys (not to mention sailing, ski-

ing ...water and snow, and other outdoor activities to

keep two boys busy) seemed to keep me pretty busy for

a lot of years. I worked for the Government for almost

20 years, and then for a few small to mid-sized Govern-

ment contractors. I started as a hardware design engi-

neer, mostly doing QRP HF and VHF radio design and

development. I somehow got snagged into doing more

management and less engineering, even managing some

large software communications projects. It went down-

hill from there, and I ended up doing mergers and acqui-

sitions and running the Defense Sector of a small public

company ...go figure. When my health caused a sudden

“retirement” from the workforce, I decided to get back

into ham radio. I started putting a station together, and

decided to see if I could get a short call for CW. I ended

up with NV4A, both because it was short, and it was

“Northern Virginia.” Who knew I wasn’t going to feel

well enough to actually get back on the air till we were

in North Carolina. Oh well. Gail and I are here with

our family and lots of ham friends, and we’re loving it.

Smile…. ...you ARE using smile.amazon.com aren’t you? Set it in your Favorites, or just leave a tab up all the time, es-pecially this time of the year. Details of how the pro-gram helps CDXF are in the October Pileup.

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November, 2016

CQWW CW Is the Weekend After Thanksgiving

Paul Ponak, AD4IE

Let’s face it; the conditions for the SSB contest could have been better. There were a rash of CME's from the sun that had a bad effect on the ionosphere, and we have to hope that's all over with for some time. Due to the time change back to standard time remember that the contest will begin at 7:00 PM EST Friday November 25 and last for 48 hours. Please remember to submit your log to CQ to contribute to our club score and put “Carolina DX Association” as your club name. Send your Cabrillo file to: cw@cqww.com . Full rules are available at www.cqww.com/rules.htm, and I suggest that you re-view them before the contest. Remember that if you use a packet cluster, skimmer, a device or computer pro-gram to decode CW, then you must enter the “Assisted” category. If you find that you made a mistake in your report after you filed it, such as leaving out your club name, just make the correction and resubmit your infor-mation to CQ as the robot will accept your last submis-sion. You must submit your log to CQ magazine by 7:00 PM EST Friday December 2, but in order to have the certifi-cates and awards ready in time for our Holiday Party on December 3, I will need your results by Tuesday noon, November 29. Your email to me at ad4ie@arrl.net must contain: number of contacts, number of countries, num-ber of zones, total score, power level (high, low, QRP), and whether you were assisted or non-assisted. The CDXA packet network will be up and will have extra capabilities during the contest that will allow users to see spots from a world-wide network of CW Skim-mers. An article on page 7 of the November 2012 Pileup describes how to do this. There is a change since that article appeared. The spotterCQzone and spotterITU-zone filters now work. If you want to see only spots from spotters in the Eastern USA you can use “set dx filter and spotterituzone=8”. If you want to see spots from spotters in Eastern North America you can use “set dx filter and spottercqzone=5”. Let's hope for better conditions on contest weekend and I hope to see you in the pileups. Here are a few com-ments from our members who entered the SSB contest: K5EK: Assisted --- And boy do I need it. I stopped at 7

pm and did not realize I had another hour until it was too late – and I was really tired. KZ2I: My last contest under the CDXA banner. Squeezed in about 6 hours around packing, hauling, etc. (We're going to miss you, Steve -AD4IE) KC4G: I didn't have as much time to operate as I wanted. Hope this will help the club's score. N4PQX: Poor conditions, very down Friday and most of Saturday (aurora, etc.), seemed to improve some Sun-day, pretty much S&P. Tried to CQ on 15m Sunday as band seemed OK, 30 mins CQing prime time, 4 Q's, that pretty much sums up the conditions for me. I kept checking 10m occasionally which produced some sur-prises, glad I didn't give up on it. Only heard W3OA once, no one else which was odd, but likely the poor conditions. Hopefully CQWW will be better. AA4R: My score doesn't count since I was in Michi-gan, but I'd like to see it posted! (Yes, AD4IE). Awful propagation on all bands, hard weekend's work!!

It’s time to pay your dues to CDXA …and maybe the ARRL too.

The end of the year is coming, believe it or not. Along with turkey and dressing, the CQWW CW Contest, the Holiday Party, and maybe a new radio from Santa, it means it’s time to pay next year’s dues. Dues are $25. A second licensed ham in the family adds $5.00 to that, and 3 or more amateurs in a family pay $35.00. Such a deal. Paying is easy since we take Paypal. Just go to http://www.cdxa.org/form_cdxa_application.php to pay. And thanks in advance. You can also pay your ARRL dues through CDXA by going to http://www.cdxa.org/arrl_renewal.php, and CDXA gets a small amount back from the ARRL.

Amateur Radio Parity Act

From the ARRL: (Use this link for details): Status: On September 12, 2016 ..., the US House of Representa-tives ... unanimously approved H.R. 1301, the Amateur Radio Parity Act, as amended. H.R. 1301 now proceeds to the US Senate for consideration. Click here to read the full story. To send a message to your members of the US Senate, click here.

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November, 2016

2017 SVHFS Conference coming to Charlotte, April 28 & 29, 2017

The leadership team of Bill, W4GRW, Conference Co-Chair, & Paul, AA4ZZ, Conference Co-Chair, Thomas, N4HN, SVHFS Vice President, & Gary, W2ZV, SVHFS BOD member are proud to an-nounce that the 2017 Southeastern VHF Society will hold its 20th Anniversary Conference in Char-lotte, on April 28 & 29, 2017. Guy, W4NUS, will be the Honorary Conference Chairman. This will be the 4th time the SVHFS Conference has been held in Charlotte. The 2017 SVHFS Con-ference will be held at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Charlotte Airport, at 2600 Yorkmont Rd, Charlotte, NC 28208. Previous conference speakers have included Dr Joe Taylor K1JT, Noble prize winner and WSJT Au-thor, ARRL President Kay Cragie, N3KN, and cur-rent ARRL President Rick Roderick K5UR. There will be more information on this big event to fol-

low.

The Wayback Machine This month, since it’s my last shot, I thought I’d defer the walk through the history of CDXA, and just reflect on my 5 year tenure as Pileup editor, starting with the January 2012 edition (see the pic-ture of the handsome crew making up the 2012 ros-ter of CDXA officers.) First, I have to say that when I took over the Pileup from John, K8YC, who had been Editor for 12 years, I expected it to be a lifetime job (…although maybe I should have been a bit sus-

picious looking at the grin on John’s face in the picture below taken at the 2011 Holiday Party of me, my wife Gail, John and his wife Barb. Sadly, I’ve found that my somewhat unpredictable health has gotten in the way a few too many times, espe-

cially over the last year. So, in spite of the fact that I’m still very much enjoying editing the Pileup, 5 years it is, and

Thank You to Mike, WA2TGE, for agreeing to

step up. Also thanks to all of you for putting up with me for this long, and for all the help with arti-cles, pictures, correcting typos and errors, and some great ideas. I’m not going away, because I decided that I should be able to take on the role of Contest Manager, especially since Paul, AD4IE, this year’s Contest Manager, has promised to help and to back me up, and since I can basically plagiarize …uh, borrow …from the articles that our former Contest Manager, Dick, W3OA, has written over many years. I also have to thank John for already having had a perfectly usable format in place, and also, with a bit of help from Roger, N4ZC, for providing me with at least 10 years-worth of jokes to use as fill-ins as needed, not to mention some great arti-cles. Don’t worry Mike, I’m passing the trove of jokes on to you, along with all the old Pileups and lots of pictures, and “ancillary material.” Since I’m running for a different Office, I thought it was only fair to put in a short bio of myself this month, since I had asked Mike and Paul, AA4ZZ, for theirs. Im-agine my surprise when I found an almost identical bio of myself in the January 2012 issue. …so may-be failing memory might be another reason to back away. One last thought: The hardest thing I had to do during my tenure as Pileup Editor was to report on SKs, including the article on Les, W4FRA/SK this month. By far the hardest to write about were our buddies Ted, W4VHF/SK, Ken, K4DXA/SK, and Hal, N4QT/SK. All of our SKs are missed. 73 and see you soon in a different role, John, NV4A

The 2012 Officers Left to right: NV4A, K4MD, W4VHF, W3OA, W3GQ, WB4BXW, W3ZL, W4GRW

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November, 2016

The Back Page

Don’t forget that the Holiday Party is December 3, and we’re expecting a great turnout. See Page 1 for de-tails.

We are sad to announce that CDXA member John "Les" Zavadil, W4FRA, from Rocky Mount, became a Si-lent Key on Oct. 22nd. See Page 2.

K5EK remains a bit ahead of K7BV in the DX King Contest, with only a month and a half to go. Page 2.

Page 3 covers the Election for Officers to be held at the Party on December 3. You can vote by proxy with a mouse click, and then a few clicks to register your votes, OR (...not and) vote at the Party.

On Page 4, Paul, AD4IE, reminds us that the CQWW CW is the weekend after Thanksgiving. There are also some soapbox comments from participants in the CQWW Phone Contest.

The 2017 SVHFS Conference is coming to Charlotte, April 28 & 29, 2017, and Bill, W4GRW, and Paul AA4ZZ will be helping organize and run it.

In the “Wayback Machine”, your Pileup Editor takes a look back at the last 5 years of fun with the Pileup.

In “late breaking news”, Dennis, K2SX, is going to be in VP2V for the CQWW CW, operating VP2VQ. He’s not sure who else will be going along, but be sure to look for him.

And a few reminders:

The Amateur Radio Parity Act is now in the Senate. See Page 4. Letters to your senators can help!

Also on Page 4 is a reminder that it’s time to pay our CDXA dues for next year, and a note reminding us that paying ARRL dues through CDXA gives the Club a small rebate for each membership.

Last, but not least, don’t forget to sign up for Amazon Smile if you haven’t already. There’s a short note about it on Page 3.

So, it’s 73 from me. Please welcome Mike, WA2TGE, as your new Pileup Editor in January, and PLEASE help him with some articles and photos. Thanks, John, NV4A