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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The SEC University Club Event: We had a great time and wish you had been there!</font></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Auburn University Amateur Radio Club, Station K4RY, had a great activity morning this past Saturday </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">prior to the SEC championship game. Along with seven other SEC university radio clubs, K4RY went on </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">the air to make contact with as many stations as it could. The results were spectacular in my mind, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">a lot of fun, and a little bit tiring. Kudos to operators Byron, KI4OVP, and Peter, KD5OCR, who </span></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">operated the radios with me starting at about 8:30 AM CST. </font></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I must mention the 'amplifier' we used to help us rack up so many contacts. A couple of weeks prior </font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">to the event, we applied for a special event 1 by 1 callsign. Since there are only a few </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">restrictions on what one can request, we asked to be assigned "W1E", so that we could use the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">phonetics "War One Eagle" on phone! At that point, Auburn's football team was still #2 in the BCS, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">but we had faith! </span></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">After the callsign was approved, in addition to the note that had been in the most recent QST about </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">the SEC activity overall, we sent notice that AUARC would be using the special call sign to the ARRL </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">Southeastern Division director, Greg, W4OVK. Although he is a staunch 'other school in the state' </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">fan, Greg graciously posted our information to the ARRL Southeastern Division mail reflector, which </span></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">then distributed it to over 10,000 hams in the southeast. We also checked into the Alabama Traffic </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">Net on Thursday evening and Friday morning and evening and announced that the special call sign </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">would be in use. Auburn football then went to #1 in the BCS. At that point, the pump was primed.</span></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Saturday morning, we fired up the old 1970's vintage Kenwood TS-130 transceiver. The station would </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">just be running 100 watts since the linear amplifier interconnecting cables are still configured for </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">the Clubs ailing Kenwood TS-450 transceiver. We'd been invited to check into the South Coast </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">Amateur Radio Service (SouthCARS) on 7251 kHz, which we did with a very cordial greeting from the </span></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">net control station. We mentioned that we were headed for a clear spot around 7243 kHz, and then </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">moved to that freqency. The NCS said he'd send people our way if they were looking for us. Upon </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">arrival on 7243 kHz, we listened first in good amateur style while we discussed among ourselves what </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">information we had to share with the potential contacts. Still not a sound, not even a peep, on </span></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">7243 kHz. </font></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Figuring we needed to get going, I picked up the microphone and said, "CQ forty meters, this is </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">special events station W1E, War One Eagle, operating from the Auburn University Amateur Radio Club, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">QRZed?" At that point, about ten firehoses of stations sprayed out of the speaker on the frequency! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">Peter and I were both amazed and for a second, I really was puzzled what to do. We started working </span></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">one station after the other, starting with the strong ones and trying to give mobile stations a bit </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">of an advantage if we heard someone signing 'mobile'. This continued on and on until after 2 PM </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">when things suddenly went quiet, almost as if a light switch had been turned off. </span></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">After things died down, we took a look at the log, and we'd worked about 228 contacts which included </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">a couple of local stations on 2 meter FM. The most distance I believe was probably a Wisconsin </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">contact. While this was not a contest, email I've seen from a couple of the other university clubs </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">indicated that U Florida had about 160 contacts, and U Tennessee, the organizer, had about 60. I've </span></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">not heard anything from the others, but I do know that U Arkansas, LSU, and Ole Miss operated </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">Saturday morning. We had a fair share of contacts with fans from other SEC teams, but there was </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">overwhelming support from the Auburn family hams out there, including many that identified </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">themselves as Auburn alumni. </span></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">My opinion is that the AUARC W1E operation in the SEC event was very sucessful. We had an event </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">where we really held our own, and gave us a number of 'lessons learned' to use in upcoming contest </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">operations. We could not have done this without the assistance of a lot of people: Our Club faculty </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">sponsor and station trustee, Dr. John Hung, KI4NHX, who had encouraged us to go after this activity; </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">our former Club alumni who installed an antenna on the roof that worked amazingly well; and the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">support of the ARRL officials in publicizing our operation. We also want to thank former COSAM Dean </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">Stew Schneller, K4JOP, and his wife for coming by the shack and giving us moral support when we were </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">pretty worn out! I'm sure there are other helpers that we've missed - thanks to you all. </span></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I started this saying that we had a great time, and we surely did. Although I know there were </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">competing campus activities that morning, and a big football game in Atlanta, we certainly would </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">have enjoyed having more Club member operators. There is another school club related event coming </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">up during the week of 14-18 February, 2011. Member, please pencil it in on your calendars now. That </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">activity will run all week, so there will be plenty of time to fit your on-the-air operation in with </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">classes and other activities. I think we can build on our experiences and lessons learned from this </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">past weekend to be the number one university radio club in that contest. </span></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">War Eagle! and 73,</font></div>
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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">John...</font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">WB4LNM</font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">EE '75</font></div>
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