Technical Sessions & Speakers

Banquet Speaker: Tom Taormina, K5RC/W7RN
How To Build Your Dream Station, Without Divorce

Tom Taormina is in his 50th year of DXing and contesting. He holds DXCC # 1 with 367 confirmed. He is the previous editor of the National Contest Journal and the West Gulf DX Bulletin. In 2007, he was inducted in the CQ Contest Hall of Fame. He and his wife, K7AFO, live in Virginia City Nevada where they are building the N5JJ – K5LZO Memorial Contest Station.

Breakfast Speakers: Rick Smith, KT7G and Jake Otten, N7WO: A Double Contest and DX Trip to Belize
More details will be forthcoming.

Joe Rudi, NK7U
Well known contester and World Series Baseball Outfielder Joe Rudi will be addressing the audience.
More details will be forthcoming.

Ward Silver, N0AX and Bill Sawders, K7ZM
ARRL Forum
Ward and Bill plan to address the new CW Skimmer technology from the ARRL Contest Branch perspective, and provide an update on what is happening in the Contest Branch.

Rudy Severns, N6LF
Ground Systems For HF Verticals: some field measurements, advice and surprises.Comments from Rudy:
"Over the past year I have been busy conducting a series of field measurements on verticals and their associated ground systems. While there is lots of theory and modeling, there is very little in the way of good experimental measurements at HF for hams. Some of the talk will be a review of basics but I also have some useful and practical new information which, as far as I can tell, has not been presented before. There are some things going on with verticals which nobody seems to have noticed before which can have a profound effect on performance."

Paul Nyland, K7PN
Large Tower and Antenna Installations
Paul will discuss the requirements, safety issues and tools needed for the installation of large towers and antennas.

Al Rovner, K7AR
Digital Modes 101
Al will present a tutorial on digital modes such as RTTY and PSK. Al will cover what hardware is needed, how to connect the hardware, what software applications are available, and how the current generation of contest software supports these modes.

Bill Vanderheide, N7OU and Bob Norin, W7YAQ
A Pacific Perspective – Sun but No Sunspots
Defying logic, common sense, and the propagation charts, Bill N7OU and Bob W7YAQ set out in early 2008 for the Pacific for the 3rd time in 2 years. This time they took their lightweight gear to T32, Eastern Kiribati. They will tell you how they stayed amused – “drafting VP6DX”, and sightseeing around London, Paris, Poland, and Banana. They’ll also give a rundown of bottom-of-the-cycle conditions from T32 versus E51/s, E51/n, 3D2/f and 3D2/r.