[BARC] Boring Report

[Tree N6TR]

Sorry - the Boring Report has been on vacation for about a year, but 
is now back.  Since there are some exciting things to announce, it won't
live down to your expectations however.

You probably missed the announcements on the other contest forums about
the upcoming WRTC event.  Held in July, this is an opportunity for world
class contesters to show what they are good at and to have lots of fun.

Well, I am happy to announce that the next WRTC will be held in Boring, 
Oregon!  Here are the details:

Announcing WRTC-2001!!!  It will be held at Camp Boring on July 4th 
through the 9th.  All BARC members are invited.  The women and childern
will be sent away, so there will be 'round the clock events.

Planned competitions include:

    - Six meter moonbounce receiving competition.
    - Tower section race.
    - Best excuse competition.
    - Fresh Raspberry eating contest.
    - Riding lawn mower slalom.
    - Monty Python endurance tests.
    - Intel stock basics (demonstration by N6TR using his Yo-Yo).
    - How dumb is the dog (using a pocket LASER pointer).

    and a big favorite at camp Boring

    - How to improve your contest scores by using common garden
      vegetables.

In order to reduce stress on the contest reflectors, the selection process
for the competitors was done totally in secret.  They will be announced
on the second day of the event and will have 24 hours to show up (ham
radio's version of the La Mans start).

All BARC members are invited to be present and act as judges.  

During this event, as part of the tower section race, we will be extending
the height one of the towers.  Bert recently found out that his 40 meter 
antenna would work a lot better if it was higher than 8.5 feet.  We will
be putting in new guy anchors and adding an additional 10 foot tower section 
to bring it up to about 850 feet (according to our rough calculations).  This
should result in an increase of signal strength of about log (850 / 8.5) / 20,
or about 100 db.  Bert tells me this is the same as 600 S-points.

In other big news, as part of BARC's continuing support of young people in
contesting, we are kicking off a new fund to help young contesters get to
the next WRTC (in Helsinki).  Details are still being worked out, but 
expect an announcement on the major reflectors (and maybe even this one) 
withing the next 43 hours.

73 Tree N6TR