Canadian HQ Stn - IARU HF Champ.

[ve2zp at BBS.VE3JF.AMPR.ORG]

Would you like to take part in the IARU HF Championship as the HQ station of
the Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC)?  Read on!

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) sponsors an annual contest, the
IARU HF Championship.  This year's event runs from 1200z Saturday 9 July to
1200z 10 July.  The rules allow the Headquarters stations of member societies
to take part in a separate category.  You don't have to be at the actual HQ 
to be a HQ station, and the rules allow as many as six HQ stations to operate
from each country.  In this contest, HQ stations count as separate 
multipliers, distinct from ITU Zones.  You will undoubtedly be popular if 
you operate as the RAC HQ station.  

If you are interested in operating the contest as the RAC HQ station, whether 
as a single op, or as a multi-op, please contact me, and I'll set it up
for you.  You will be using one of RAC's freshly-issued R-A-C-sufixed 
callsigns (ie, VO1RAC, VE1RAC, VA2RAC, VA3RAC, VE4RAC....) as appropriate 
for your call area, and get a write-up for your efforts in TCA.

This should have been announced in June TCA, but I must confess that I 
slipped up and neglected to get the info to the editor in time.  A similar 
anouncement will appear in a forthcoming edition of the RAC News Service 
packet bulletin.

If you would like to be RAC HQ for a day, please contact me by any of the 
following means:
By Mail at: Dave Goodwin 
            15 Oval
            Aylmer QC  J9H 1T9

By Packet: VE2ZP at VA3TCP.#EON.ON.CAN.NOAM

By InterNet: ve2zp at BBS.VE3JF.AMPR.ORG

Take a look at the cover story in October 1993 TCA to see what last year's
group did.

73, Dave Goodwin VE2ZP/VE9CB
    RAC HF Contest Manager

>From modular!eric at cs.arizona.edu (Eric Gustafson)  Wed May 18 01:50:34 1994
From: modular!eric at cs.arizona.edu (Eric Gustafson) (Eric Gustafson)
Date: Tue, 17 May 94 17:50:34 MST
Subject: FT-1000 and Heil headphones
Message-ID: <9405180050.AA16007 at modular>

Boy, am I glad I'm not in the amateur Radio Manufacturing business like
Yaesu and ICOM are.  First they listen to a lot of people (probably not
contesters) whine about all the high frequency background hiss they can
hear when they plug their walkman or diskman super high effeciency
headphones into ham rigs with stereo phone jacks on the front panel.  The
large effeciency diference between the phones and speakers makes sidetone
level adjustment problematic as well.  So, after a while they decide that
these phones are what is going to be available to the public (especially
the cheap public) for the forseeable future and they finally design the
earphone port to accomodate the high effeciency units.  Do they get kudos
for doing us this service?  Not a bit of it.  They get complaints because
their radios are now not compatible with some single source, quite
expensive, third party units produced specifically for the amateur market.

If I were either ICOM or Yaesu, I would leave my headphone port compatible
with modern headphones (for a number of reasons) and work with the third
party vendor (if possible) to get him to become compatible with the new
radios.  Just lowering the impedance isn't going to do it.  If Heil is
going to be the one who fixes the problem, he will have to use some modern
high effeciency drivers (which are usually around 32 ohms).  If he does so,
it will probably end up saving him some money.  I have seen replacement
diskman phones at Wallgreens checkout stand for 3 bux retail (yup 3 bux
gets you the phones, the packaging, shipping, advertising budget and
everything).  So how much could the drivers really cost?  I got a pair just
to see what 3 dollars US could do in the headphone market.  They weren't as
good as my $150 Sony Digital Audio phones but they were about as
effecient.  For Ham radio use the loss of highs above 10 KHz and lows below
100 Hz would not be a problem but a feature.

Just my $0.02 worth.

73,  Eric  N7CL