[NCC] Club contesting

[tleek8az]

Happy Labor Day weekend to the NCC Warriors......

Lots of chatter these days.  With cooler weather finally here, contesters
everywhere are finally turning to contest antenna plans for 2010.  Time to
get out there, inspect everything and try to figure out at least one thing
you can do to improve your station for the 2010-11 season.  Sunspots are
coming.  (Or so they tell me.)

It's time for the Warriors to take off their hats and take a bow.  We had a
great contest season in 2009-10.

*CQWW Club Competition.*  In 2008, NCC's club score for the CQWW contest was
50.8 million points -- which earned us a ranking of #6 -- behind contest
groups with more than ten TIMES the number of entrants.  In 2009, we
bettered that score by more than 10%, submitting a total of 13 logs for 58.9
million points -- and earning NCC the #5 slot.  (The #4 slot had 96 logs
submitted; the #6 slot had 98 logs submitted.)  Way to go Warriors!!!

*ARRL Club Competition.  *In 2009, NCC won the ARRL medium-sized gavel for
(at least) the 4th consecutive year.  (Results for 2005 and before are not
yet on line......does anyone remember the last year NCC did NOT win the
medium club gavel?)  In 2009, we submitted 16 logs for an aggregate score of
28.6 million points.  But in 2010, we did amazingly better.  We submitted *31
entries* for an aggregate score of *58.5 million points *-- a 105% increase.
*  *This would have qualified for the number 4 spot in the unlimited
category -- even though the #5  unlimited entrant (which, paradoxically, was
NCCC) had *128 entries.  *Way to go Warriors.  We should be especially proud
of our success here, given that it is easy to slack off when you keep
winning.

*2010 Contests.  *The 2010 contests will be here before you know it.  And
there is lots of good DX coming between now and then.  So dust off your
radios, mics and keys, clean the dust out of the amplifiers, run those SWR
checks to make sure nothing broke over the summer, and have fun with this
great hobby.

73,
Tom, K8AZ