Kansas City DX Club
Nihiles Ante Unum!
(Zeroes before Ones!)
Home of the Annual Dayton CW Pileup Competition
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Welcome
The Kansas City DX Club is an ARRL-affiliated amateur
radio club open to anyone interested in DX or contesting. Our club callsign is W0CW. Many of our club members are from the Kansas City metropolitan area, on both sides of the Missouri/Kansas state line, but our roster also includes members from all over the United States.
Meetings are normally held on the last Monday of the month....
Our next meeting will be held on Monday evening, June 24, 2013, at the Better Homes and Gardens Kansas City Real Estate Building, 8101 College Blvd, Overland Park, KS 66210. See the meetings page for details....
Program:
Mike Crabtree, AB0X, our renowned newsletter editor, will show us DX contesting in an earlier era of the Kansas City DX Club - entitled "AB0I, Antennas & Ops, DX Contesting Retro Style." A must-see presentation!
Lightning Strikes Three Times at the 2013 Kansas City DX Club Hospitality Suite and Dayton CW Pileup Competition!
A packed house of contesters and DXers from across the USA and around the world witnessed one of the most exciting finishes in the 34 year history of the club's CW Pileup Competition....and they saw it first-hand on the big screen monitor in Suite 525 at the Dayton Crowne Plaza Hotel.
Software developed by Chuck, NO5W, managed the competition on the six laptops in the adjacent testing room, while simultaneously presenting it graphically on the big TV in the main area of the hospitality suite. Each contestant's bar graph (each a different color) grew horizontally across the screen with each correct character copied, while, at at the same time, a section at the top of the screen re-created the running of the current top five players. Dubbed the "Morse Race", each running elicited cheers and moans from the spectatorsl
By the next to last heat, Doug, W9WI, with a score of 57, had a narrow 2-callsign lead over the 55 copied by Yuri, VE3DZ. Enter Dave McCarty, K5GN...Dave was last year's winner, and had recently authored a great article in the most recent edition of the National Contest Journal about that competition. As he described in the article, he had won the contest in 1982 and was presented with the first prize by Bill, K0VBU, the contest's coordinator. Dave's next visit to the Hamvention and the Pielup Contest came 30 years later, in 2012, when he once again took the gold! The NCJ article, sporting photos of Dave and Bill in 1982 and 2012, was entitled "Lightning Strikes Twice at at the KCDXC Pileup Competition", and Dave told the readers that he planned to attend in 2013 to see if lightning would strike again. He didn't consider it likely, and he encouraged everyone to join in the fun and compete.
Back to the race....That heat was really neck and neck, as the screen showed the colored bars of the current leaders, W9WI and VE3DZ, move swiftly across the screen. K5GN kept pace with each of them, and at the finish line, Dave won by a nose! He and Doug each copied 57 calls correctly, but when the dust settled the computer showed that Dave had copied 5 more characters correctly overall, and that landed him in first place!
Dave's prize was a new IC-7200, supplied by Icom America, Inc. Doug took home a beautiful Begali Key as the runner-up, and Yuri, another perennial top finisher, earned a Princeton 80-Meter Inverted L, compliments of our hometown Associated Radio Communications of Overland Park, KS. Gift certificates for the ARRL Shop were provided by the League, and were awarded throughout the evening to suite attendees. We thank those generous contributors, who make the prize presentations memorable each year!
2013 also marked the beginning of another CW Pileup Competition tradition. Steve Romondo, W0MW, a long-time member of the KC DX Club, and now owner of SARCO, manufacturer of all sorts of beautiful laser-engraved items, provided attractive engraved plaques for the winners, as well as a permanent plaque displaying the callsigns of the first winner (Dave, NN1N, in 1980) and all the winners from 1995 to the present. It will be prominently displayed in our suite each year.
The evening's success was also due in no small measure to the very hard work of a dedicated group of club members...KB0U and AB0X manning the beverage department; KY0F keeping the participants calm and queued all evening; AC0C, WA0WOF, K0THN, K0LW and W0MW helping throughout the suite; K0VXU administering each heat of the pileup contest; NO5W helping make sure the networked system performed properly; and K0VBU handling overall coordination. Thanks to each and every one of you... it wouldn't be possible without all that great effort.
Get ready for next year - it will be bigger and better than ever!
73 - Bill, K0VBU
Note: 2013 Pileup Competition results are now available for viewing on the results page. Be sure and check the results, and compare them with theother competitions back to 1995....73, K0VBU
Contesting Contest
Announcing the Kansas City DX Club's 2013
N0SS Memorial Contest
In memory of Tom Hammond, N0SS (SK) - a life member and great friend of the Kansas City DX Club, we are excited to announce a yearlong contest to encourage friendly competition among our members in the many interesting contests available on the bands this year.
Tom was a great contester, and mentored many hams, young and old, in all the facets of radiosport - procedures, strategies, tactics and especially contest behaviour ethics. We encourage all members to enter this year. We know the experienced contesters will be glad to share their expertise with any who request it - especially those who are just getting started in this interesting aspect of our hobby. Plaques and certificates will be awarded to high scorers in several of our categories.
Check out a contest calendar, make plans to dive in and have some fun! The rules for our competition can be found here - or just use the 'N0SS Contesting Contest' link under the Activities heading in the navigation bar on the left side of this page.
Good luck to all!
Your Kansas City DX Club Contest Committee
Dues Reminder...
Check the roster page. It will now indicate the year for which your dues are paid. Don't get dropped from the rolls! No dues increase for 2013.. If you are not paid up yet, please bring cash or a check to the next meeting, or mail a check to our treasurer:
Jeff Blaine, AC0C
5738 Jaymar Dr
Louisburg, KS 66053
Or use Paypal:
Remember, you must be a paid-up member to participate (or continue to participate) in the W0AR DX Challenge!