BearCreekHam

2011-11-27T08:12:00.000-08:00

Kerry (K3RRY), Jack (KJ6EVI) and I (AE6RF) made a "fly by" of Fremont Peak with an eye to activating it as part of the 4H Radio Project and Summits On The Air (SOTA).

The weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold, no wind. (Unlike other visits to that locale...)

Wind and blowing fog at Fremont Peak

We had great panoramic views at all points during the hike, San Juan Batista, Santa Cruz Mountains, the Monterey Bay, Salinas, all perfect and reasonably clear. Every 10 yards brought a new "oh wow" view.

Selected photos from trip

I'm obese and out of shape. No excuses, I need to thank Jack and Kerry for their patience as I took breaks along the way. The climb was a bit steeper than I've been able to practice over the last month or two (time change and weather).

It was a great afternoon with a couple of unanticipated adventures...

First off, while talking with the ranger in the parking lot, she got a radio call and went haring up the road we were going to be hiking on. (That's not good).

We did about the first 1/5th of the hike and then heard a siren. (That's really not good).

At about 1/3 we saw a CalSTAR air ambulance circling for a landing (That's really, REALLY not good).

I flipped my HT over to CalCord ( the typical frequency for ground-to-air ambulance communications around here). There they were... "Female patient, 52 years, victim of a fall, head injury with lacerations and a large hemotoma behind the ear. Probable LOC..."

We kept going until we got to the base of the final climb to the peak (rock scrambling/climbing...). The first responders were there discussing how they were going to a) get the patient and b) get her down. We could see the site about 90 feet directly above us, up a 30-45 degree slope.

With CAL FIRE, Cal State Parks, AMR, and CalSTAR personnel all over the peak above us, we decided to stay put and have some lunch. It took about 45 minutes for the various personnel to get the lady down off the Peak. They wound up with a rope and walk method down the 30-45 degree slope that we were having lunch under. (We moved rapidly once it became clear they were heading for us.)

With the patient heading for the (normal) ambulance to take them to the air ambulance, we resumed our hike, encountering Ms Ranger again, still wearing her trauma backpack. She gave us sound advice for climbing up and down and kidded us to be careful because she didn't want to come back up again that afternoon...

We were able to watch the air ambulance take off, from our perch on Fremont Peak. The helicopter started roughly 300' below us! (Loading the video to YouTube as I type.)

Video of CALSTAR take off

We started up the final climb. It quickly turned into a "Stairs of Cirith Ungol" adventure.

Rock stairs, steeper rock stairs, rock scrambling, steeper rock scrambling. Hands and feet rock climbing,

and then... THE TOP!

The view was worth every minute of the climb. Plus the awesome feeling of being someplace where I never thought I'd be. We spend about 20 minutes at the summit of the Peak making 4 radio contacts (N1WC, W6DNE, KE6AFE, and KG6WIL, 3 simplex, one possible repeater) to see what the conditions were like. (We had great coverage on 2m FM, but signals from the nearby radio towers would interfere at times.)

I "hands and feet"ed and rode my rump down from the peak back to the merely "steeper rock stairs."

At that point we started our trip back down the hill. But not before encountering an old friend.

Three years ago during the California QSO Party, we were visited by a tarantula. He came out Sunday afternoon to see us off as we were leaving.
Video of CQP tarantula

Turns out he heard we were coming and wandered all the way from the Doe campground to the Peak to visit with us today. We all said hello, he waved goodbye and we parted ways. Hopefully for another chat again soon...

We arrived at the truck during early sunset, so had a brief snack and enjoyed the beautiful colors before starting for home...

GREAT FUN was had by all!

2011-01-23T07:38:00.000-08:00

Lessons learned during the 2011 January ARRL VHF Sweepstakes:

#1 Get antennas / set-up ready beforehand
#2 Have a stable vehicle, operating position
#3 Computer interface is needed to readily play the "band follow-me" game
#4 Computers and radio displays don't like sunlight/glare
#5 Need better feedline (non grabbed out of the box at the last minute) to "hear better"
#6 Need better antennas to "hear better"
#7 Need patience, munchies and "refreshments" to better cope with low activity levels

More this afternoon.

2010-12-01T07:46:00.000-08:00

The CQ World Wide DX CW contest was really fun.

I wasn't doing it "seriously" as defined by others, but "seriously" as defined by me. The conditions were wonderful. What does that mean?

Well, it was cloudy and raining. That meant that the solar system(s) that cause the majority of my noise were quieter than normal. I was running the FT-1000MP Mark V at 200 watts, so I felt "loud."

I was able to contact European stations "at will" on Sunday morning. I found rare DX countries and worked them BEFORE anybody had spotted them.

Generally a really great time. It was about 9 hours to contact 130 stations. A "serious" contester would have done that in 45 minutes to an hour.

But I had a blast!

2010-11-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

OK,

Sweepstakes is behind us. Got all four logs submitted, but need to update the SS SSB K6WC log. For some reason the "Unlimited" didn't get in there. There was a pretty good surprise in the NCCC standings. In the total standings I broke the 70th percentile AND was above several really good contesters that I idolize. I HATE just grinding points but sometimes that's what suffices...

I'll probably play a little bit in the WW DX CW contest this weekend. Nothing serious, just cherry picking to pick up some new DXCC countries.

Really looking forward to a couple of the 160m contests this December and January.

Hopefully I'll get to posting here regularly again.

2009-10-16T12:16:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure if I'm braver about not asking for repeats, or better at getting stuff the first time, but right now the improvement appears to be statistically significant...

UTC Call Recv Sent Pref Chk

00:00:19 G3PYI 599 0001 599 0001 G3

00:00:36 AB3AH 599 0002 599 0002 AB3

00:01:20 JR1KSK 599 0002 599 0003 JR1

00:01:41 G3AJX 599 0002 599 0004 G3

00:01:57 KF2JC 599 0005 599 0005 KF2

00:02:25 9A5I 599 0002 599 0006 9A5

00:02:49 JA2CUS 599 0006 599 0007 JA2

00:03:09 DK0WK 599 0001 599 0008 DK0

00:03:27 JA9AVU 599 0002 599 0009 JA9

00:03:58 CX1JM 599 0008 599 0010 CX1

00:04:25 K1NK 599 0003 599 0011 K1

00:04:52 NS1W 599 0002 599 0012 NS1

2009-10-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

Gone for a long time.
Field Day in the bag.
As has CQP.

CW seems to have improved a bit for the rest though...

UTC Call Recv Sent Pref Chk
00:00:34 K0LWV 599 0001 599 0001 K0
00:01:43 DR400PG 599 0002 599 0002 DR400
00:02:01 JE2VFX 599 0004 599 0003 JE2
00:02:32 LY4G 599 0003 599 0004 LY4
00:02:59 JA3VPA 569 0001 599 0005 JA3
00:03:19 F4FCX 599 0001 599 0006 F4
00:03:50 CN2FB 599 0002 599 0007 CN2
00:04:20 IR4X 599 0004 599 0008 IR4
00:04:34 K7ENA 599 0004 599 0009 K7
00:05:23 RZ3EA 599 0011 599 0010 RZ3
00:05:39 K5QNT 599 0008 599 0011 K5
00:05:57 N9AVI 599 0007 599 0012 N9
00:06:22 KE5AZ 599 0004 599 0013 KE5
00:06:43 RZ0SR 599 0008 599 0014 RZ0
00:07:26 UA4PAY 599 0003 599 0015 UA4
00:07:41 OK2DW 599 0006 599 0016 OK2
00:08:30 JR4PUR/1 599 0008 599 0017 JR1
00:08:52 VE1KC 599 0005 599 0018 VE1
00:09:25 SQ9IAJ 599 0006 599 0019 SQ9
00:09:46 F5RMK 599 0021 599 0020 F5

2009-02-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

Long time no blog.

I've got a couple that can go here in the next couple of days. I PROMISE I'll do better.

Thing #1 "Where there's a will there's a way" My adventures in the ARRL 160m CW and Stew Perry Top Band Distance Challenge contests.

Thing #2 "Straight Key Night"

Thing #3 Night numbers 2, 3 and 4 building the K3

2008-04-08T23:29:00.000-07:00

Goals for the evening:

Practice CW, either on the air or with Morse Runner.
Get AL-80a wired back in and running
Swap Bencher and Begali paddles

Actual happenings

Get amp wired back in. Discover that it is STILL sick. Mope dejectedly for 20 minutes.
Swap Bencher and Begali paddles. Rejoice in low expectations.
Decide to work over dejection by installing the new DX Engineering 1:1 balun for my doublet. Installs OK. But gives the MFJ-998 tuner kittens. Mope dejectedly for a while longer.
Listen to on-the-air CW while moping.
Do two runs of Morse Runner. Rates: 95 Q/hour and 60 Q/hour. Sulk off to bed.

On the good side?
Our CQP wall paper arrived as did three CQP tee-shirts. They're very PURPLE!

Time for bed and hopes for a better tomorrow.

2008-03-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

With Joey in "high-energy" mode I didn't crawl into the shack until almost 9:30 PM last night.

With my sights on getting the Amp/tuner part of my shack put back together last night I learned the following lessons:

1) The MFJ-998 auto tuner doesn't deal with balanced lines.

2) My best antenna is the inverted-vee (yep, you see this coming) fed with... balanced line.

3) The MFJ-998 is bigger than I thought, barely fitting into the foot print of the 238B.

4) MFJ documentation still isn't quite up to snuff. The technical parameters of the MFJ-998's amplifier control interface aren't included anywhere.

5) You can't work 'em if you can't hear 'em.

6) You can still work decent DX with 100W and an 'over the oak tree' antenna if you're willing to be crafty and diligently apply good DX techniques.

7) CW (still) kicks butt.

In the bag at the end of the evening: CM6, V31, KH6 and TO5 against varying levels of pile-ups.

2007-12-16T09:03:00.000-08:00

FINALLY got my 30m j-pole up over the house in a rough inverted-vee configuration late yesterday afternoon. And then ran out of daylight to continue getting it on the air. Hopefully I'll get a chance to play with it this afternoon.

(Today is a Mr Mom day.)

Why 30m?

Well, the HF propagation prediction stuff that I do shows it to be my "best band" for the times that I'm on.

Plus it is a lower power WARC band, so I'm not so far out of bed power wise.
Double plus not so many people have specific 30m antennas, so hopefully my signal will "stand out."

Oh, and it only allows CW and digital signals. Heh-heh-heh...

No contesting, but should be better for DX than my normal 40m.

So, there ya go.

2007-09-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

So I've been staging/integrating the CQP station most of the afternoon.

I promised to get on the air for the CQ WW RTTY contest. Had the filters installed in the radio, the radio working, the computer attached and mostly working with the radio...

... but I couldn't get the antenna to load up. Tried a couple different things, but it still wouldn't load up.

Physically inspected it. "Oh, there it IS!" No connection from the center conductor of the SO-259 UHF connector socket and that side of the actual antenna.

No worries, I tore it apart and soldered in a new wire to make the connection.

Lo and behold! It works.

Time on the clock? 5:06 pm PDT. Six minutes after the end of the contest.

Not a single RTTY on the bands anywhere.

Oh well.

I still need to do the following things this evening:

Integrate the foot switch. (Into microKeyer)
Integrate the Heathkit SB-200 amp. (Into microKeyer)
Characterize the 10/15/20m fan dipole we'll be using. (I hope it is
close enough so we can get away with tuning with the amp and not
need a separate antenna tuner.)
Possibly characterize the 40/80/160 fan dipole we'll by using.

To do tomorrow:

Get the proper headset to rig converter adapter and integrate it.

2007-09-23T19:33:00.000-07:00

My SB-201 has stopped working twice since I've had it. Essentially the the transmit/receive relay would stop working.

Greg suggested that I clean the contacts with a piece of paper. That worked, but about 6-8 hours of operation later the same thing happened. Clean the contacts again, good to go.

Now, I REALLY like the amp. It gets all sorts of "very clean signal, very nice sound" comments on CW. But I really couldn't trust it for contesting. Besides, it gets pretty warm when "doing" RTTY. Plus Greg blew his up doing RTTY.

For the short term I put my AL-80a into service. It it a bit more modern than the SB-201 and runs a bit more power. However it too has its "issues." For some reason it doesn't want to tune on 80m. But I digress.

So... I wanted to get an AL-600S, light-weight, solid-state 600W amp for the California QSO Party. But Ameritron has back ordered them until forever...

The AL-80a weighs a ton, so I ain't taking it on the road. The SB-201 weighs a lot, but not enough to totally preclude taking it on the road.

The solution? Fix the SB-201. So I ordered a new relay from Harbaugh (sp?). It arrived on Friday.

Today I tore into the amp. Now I am not a "tear into your equipment and replace critical parts" sort of guy... But with help from my good friend Bill (who was a ham 'once upon a time' but let his license lapse. That hasn't stopped him from building a KX-1... Just got to get him to take the darn test...) we got the relay out, and the new one in.

We lugged it down stairs and tried it out. It worked for a minute or two then stopped. After some thrashing around we discovered that the Amp Keyer had died. Fortunately, due to mis-placing the Amp Keyer a couple of weeks ago, I just happened to have a brand new spare, just sitting in the box ready to go.

Wired everything back up again, and lo and behold... The amp works swell.

Made a quick QSO with Bob, W7AYN who gave me yet another "nice and clean signal through the amp" report.

VICTORY!

2007-09-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

Hacking my way through the "Get Your Feet Wet" "contest" I got to experience my first inbound CW pile up.

Folks were being very relaxed about who owned a frequency but I finished one contact and then heard...

... Well... A mess. Seemed like a constant single pitched tone for a couple of seconds, then some brief space and it started up again. Clearly not QRM or a tune-upper, but...

Then, after about 3-4 seconds it hit me... "Oh, so that's what two or more stations *exactly* zero beat sounds like!!!"

So, after that blinding flash of the obvious I waited another second or so until there was enough spacing to grab a couple of characters, "??BZ/E de AE6RF/N KN" and got on with my life.

The same thing happened at the end of my third QSO. By the end of the third people had wandered off.

Pretty cool, eh?

2007-09-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of the FISTS "Get Your Feet Wet" contest (about the same as the old Novice Roundup).

Since the contractors finished early I got to play some radio. Not sure how many contacts I've made today. It's all paper log. All hand keyed. But... A bunch.

Heck I even picked up DE!!!

Also made a couple of contacts in the WA QSO Party. Not lots, but enough so that folks don't have to worry about me being thrown out as Unique.

Plus two normal, non-contest CW QSOs. One was normal FISTS QSO, the other guy was just calling CQ.

I'm basically a ragchewer at heart so will typically take time out of a contest to have a nice CW ragchew.

It's all good.

But my head is spinning and I'm hearing CW even with the radio off.

2007-09-12T23:01:00.000-07:00

So, after a somewhat traumatic day, I plopped myself down in front of the radio.

Nobody home on 20m and 30m so I start at the low end of 40m and work my way up.

7.0029 MHz. KE3/?V ??? Huh?

Nope... CE3/VE7SV. Weak, but copyable.

Try working him using the paddles a couple of times. Nope.

Set up the internal memory keyer in the Icom. Nope.

Finally decide I'm going to need more gun.

Find a RCA/RCA cable and hook the Icom up the AL-80a.

Try it into the MFJ dummy load that I have. RF feedback all over the place. Not good.

Find a "quiet" out of the way spot on 40m to tune up. DRAT, with the microKeyer down I don't have an easy CW tune mode. Oh well, kick it over to RTTY. Seems to tune OK. Clearing 500W easy. Does dim things a bit when I key...

Tune back down to 7.0029 Mhz.

He's not there anymore.

Tune back up to 7042 kHz or so and try a couple CQs. No takers.

Not my night. I'm gonna go eat worms.

Oh well, at least I have some cycles into the AL-80a now.

2007-08-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

It's been a REALLY long time since my last post.

Well... We "did" Field Day. Lots of stories.

We also did the NAQP RTTY.

At this point I'm slowly getting my house station back together after those two events. I tore everything down and started over from a bare table. I got some shelves and some cinder block pavers to put in shelves. Of course the shelves are 6" too short... @@

I got the Icom IC-756ProII working and made 2 (two) contacts in the NAQP SSB contest. The Heathkit SB-210 broke down again. Seems like the same T/R relay problem that it had before. I put the Ameritron AL-80A into the shelf instead. On of the next steps is to get that amp running in the station.

It also seems like I broke something in the RTTY chain. The microKeyer and software seem to be working OK, but I don't get any diddle on the actual radio. I need to ohm out the cable and perhaps even bring the oscilloscope on line and try to isolate where the problem is.

The summer evenings are nice and I'm spending time with my wife and kids, rather than buried down in the radio shack.

Seems like "the right thing to do."

Take care all!

WR

2007-06-11T19:42:00.000-07:00

CW WAS 43/40
RTTY WAS 43/42
CW DXCC 27/15

2007-06-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

RTTY WAS: 42/42
CW WAS: 43/38
CW DXCC: 27/13

Too much other stuff to do.

2007-06-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

Trying to catch up on my QSLing.

16 Domestic QSL cards tonight.

30 Foreign QSL cards to go.

Got to use some of the new "Star Wars" stamps. They should make the receivers look twice. Particularly the great big "Darth Vader" stamp. That one is HUGE.

Nite all!

2007-05-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

For the past year or so I've known my station is somewhat deaf. My antennas are less than stellar, my terrain is horrid, and I've got nasty noise.

Frequently I'd see spots of this or that DXpedition saying "loud in N CA" but not be able to hear them. I can't hear the late night state/county hunter net on 40m, etc...

So I decided to measure it.

The Northern California CX Federation (NCDXF) maintains a world-wide set of HF beacons running on 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 meters. These beacons are ordered so that you can check how well you hear them from around the world on a single band in 3 min and all 5 bands in 15 min.

Link to NCDXF beacon page

I used a piece of software called Faros (Faros web page) to control my radio and chart how well I was hearing the beacons. It provides a SNR rating for each received signal.

I compared this against a propagation prediction for what I *might* be hearing. For prediction I used the HamCAP, IonoProbe, and ITS HF combination.

This story is a bit better when you add pretty pictures...

First, here is an output from Faros. It shows all 18 NCDXF beacons for 24 hours for all 5 bands. It reads from left to right with 00:00Z on the left and the vertical lines are 3 hour increments. Black means no signal received. The other colors are "the hotter the better." Green is better than blue. Light blue is better than dark blue, etc.

So, I can hear the UN station in New York from about 21:00Z to 04:00Z.
Hawaii kicks in about 03:00Z for about 5 hours, then comes back about 16:00Z for another 3 hrs.
New Zealand comes in from about 02:30Z until about 05:00Z.

All of these are on 20 meters, except a brief blip for 4U1UN and ZL6B on 18 meters.

So, the above represents the "reality" of what I'm (not) hearing.

Here is the theory of what I "should" be hearing from those stations... The vertical axis is frequency, the horizontal axis is time from 00:00Z to 23:59Z and "lighter is better" in terms of SNR. Note the text at the bottom of the screen as it shows the "peak" measurement time and value. Those should correlate to the actual measurements.

(Measurements are SNR as measured by Faros and predicted by HamCAP/ITS HF using propagation parameters updated for the current conditions by IonoProbe. All results are at 20m.)

For New York:

4U1UN:
Best measured: 14.4 dB
Prediction at that time: 37 dB
Difference: 23 dB

For Hawaii:

KH6WO:
Best measured: 3.2 dB
Prediction at that time: 51 dB
Difference 48 dB

For New Zealand:

ZL6B:
Best measured: 8 dB
Prediction at that time: 43 dB
Difference: 35 dB

You can see that the results grossly resemble the predictions... But you need to subtract, oh, 30 to 40 dB to get the "reality" from the predictions...

So, it seems that I'm spotting the prediction 23 to 48 dB of signal to noise.

Ugh! As JV said after listening to the noise "It's a wonder you ever work anybody."

"Agn?"

2007-05-12T07:28:00.001-07:00

God Bless that unknown ham who brought his equipment to Eastbrook Elementary School in Los Altos, CA all those years ago...

I remember being knee high to a grasshopper and it being "love at first sight." Must have been in 3rd or 4th grade.

That's been too many years ago. The school has long since closed, but I can still picture the equipment and hear the sounds in my mind.

I observed that all the gear must have been pretty expensive and he replied that you could make your own. Even that was puzzling to my elementary school mind.

It didn't take more than couple of years before I was haunting the Explorer post and the Electronic Museum Amateur Radio club.

As I started, God Bless that man for all the enjoyment he unknowingly brought to my life.

2007-05-10T23:38:00.001-07:00

I did a burst of foreign QSLing to beat the postage hike on Monday.

Don't know how many are going out, but it is dozens. 21 today, another 20 tomorrow.

But at this point everything foreign is caught up except Swain's Island. That can wait a little bit.

Then... Time to get to work on DXCC CW... "seriously."

2007-05-06T23:59:00.000-07:00

It's bedtime.

Did the 7th District QSO Party and handed out points in the New England QSO party this weekend. Also made two generic CW QSOs as well.

The SB-201 packed it in after 2 contacts in the 7QP so I was at only 100W for the rest of the contest. Greg suggested I clean the relay contacts. BINGO, that did the trick.

I'm trying to get caught up on my QSLing.

First priority are any foreign contacts that I don't have a Logbook of the World entry for. I'm doing those in batches of roughly 15. Earliest contacts first. Slow work. QSL card, postage, labels, International Reply Coupons, comments.

The second priority will be all CW contacts that I don't have a card or LoTW confirmation for. EQSL will count but only for those contacts I don't need for Worked All States. Also, those contacts I don't need for WAS will get a card, but not a SASE or "Please QSL" comment. Just keeping my karma clean.

It "would be nice" to get them all done before the postage increase on 5.14.07.

Oh BOY!

2007-04-28T23:52:00.000-07:00

Greetings all,

I've been working CW seriously a bit over a year now, with a couple multi-month gaps due to real life getting in the way of the hobby.

I'd set a couple goals and it's time to assess where I stand against them. The overall objective is to get to the point where I can "head copy" like an OF at about 30-40 WPM and/or be able to run a frequency, at speed, in a standard CW contest.

The goals?

500 CW contacts
My log currently records 302. Initially contest QSOs weren't going to count, however; since they force me to improve my speed, they count now.

100 different FISTS contacts
There isn't any automated way of checking this at the moment. My guess is between a dozen and two dozen. I haven't been making it a strong focus of QSOs. It turns out that I've worked a lot of FIST members without getting numbers on the air. Working a FISTS contest would probably help.

WAS CW
34 worked / 31 confirmed. Still need the following: AL, AR, CT, DE, GA, ID, MD, ME, NH, NY, RI, SC, SD, VT, WV, WY. Contesting is probably the best way to pick those up.

I've picked up two more goals along the way: DXCC CW and WAS RTTY.

DXCC CW
Very early on for this one. It is a friendly competition between AE6RR and me. Who can get to DXCC CW first. Worked 11 with 7 confirmed.

WAS RTTY
Pretty much a target of opportunity due to having fun RTTY contesting. 47 states with 46 confirmed. I still need the following: DE, ME, VT, WY.

My record on RuftXP is 37 WPM and 24 valid QSOs in 15 minutes on Morse Runner.

I am reasonably confident in my CW skills for normal QSOs, but fast contest exchanges and/or fast DX stations still leave my head spinning.

On the whole I'm still having fun and still motivated. We'll have to see what improvements the following months bring.

73 all!

2007-04-24T23:31:00.001-07:00

Sigh...

I *know* the rule is to always listen for a long time before jumping in, but when I heard nice strong RTTY signals on 40m tonight I just had to try.

And got trapped into 2 rounds of the 3905 net as "fresh meat."

No macros set up or anything... I adapted what I had as the net went on, so by the end I shouldn't have been too liddish.

Now to send out a BUNCH of RTTY QSL cards to those gents.

2007-04-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

OK,

So, I believe I got N8S on the following:

14.195 4/12/07 03:30
3.791 4/12/07 06:21
7.005 4/12/07 06:23

80m was pretty weak, so I'm not COMPLETELY completely sure, but I had the amp turned on and it was the first call into almost no pile up...

And 40m? I had been calling for about 2 hours at that point (heck only 5 to 7 minutes un-split) so it really caught me napping when something like my call came back. But I did send 5nn and got a tu.

Oh well, perhaps try again tomorrow night "just to make sure."

P.S. The microKeyer isn't a legit way to key my amp. It doesn't key for the Icom's internal keyer, or then transmitting RTTY via the front panel transmit switch. Naughty naughty!

2007-04-08T00:43:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Finally got to to participle in my first RTTY contest running power. 500+ Watts (as opposed to 100W) makes running a frequency marginally more productive.

Anyway. The amp gets warm... really warm... when "running."

I've got the drive dialed back so the amp is only putting out about 500W, but it still gets plenty warm on top. I'll need to see if adding some additional cooling would help.

The system also "locks up" in transmit mode on 80m. Sorta weird.

Went through and added clip on cores to all of the leads attached to the microKeyer. They seemed to help... Perhaps tripling the power required for a lock up.

My next step is to get real torrides, or perhaps "double up" the cores.

Not sure what my rate is going to look like. Also seems to be a new noise source.

The 3.1 MHz noise source is still there. At this point the smart money says it is in the SLVWD plant.

Zzzzz, Good night.

2007-03-22T23:40:00.000-07:00

I knew things were going too well.

The SB-201 is supposed to read 2400V. It is only reading 1800V. (OK, closer to 1890V, but still)

Pulled it out of the shack this evening and will take it into work. Craig and I might be able to check it out tomorrow.

Nite nite!

2007-03-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

Made my first QRO contact this afternoon. Milt, K4OSO sounded curious about my tuning up on 20m. (Yes, I actually IDed).

He gave me a true 599 "arm chair copy" in Rockville, VA as the band was on its way out. (I gave him a 579, but it faded all the way out towards the end).

The Heathkit SB-201's relay is very loud. I'm using the MicroKeyer's built in PA (power amplifier) interface (set to RElay contact) to drive the amp's Tx/Rx.

It tuned up pretty well. Seems happy to run 500W or so according to the power meter on the Ten Tec 238B tuner.

The oak tree is still standing. Nicki says that the lights didn't flicker and no other weirdness occurred.

So... I guess I'm good to go on the Heathkit.

Now I REALLY need to get my shack decluttered and reorganized so that I can get things together in a semi-professional manner...

2007-03-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

Antenna adventures...

I've known for a while that my operations had outgrown the G5RV Jr that was up about 25' in the oak tree.

If nothing else it was suboptimal on 40m and had no 80m capability at all.

The long term plan is to get a 80m inverted-v ladder line fed doublet up at the top of the oak tree (nominally 70'). Should play well on 80m and do OK on the other bands.

But... with the North American RTTY Sprint coming up I needed something better in a hurry. I ordered a TrueTalk WA2NAN G5RV from Kerry and it arrived in the nick of time.

Now a G5RV Jr is 52 feet long and about 17 feet high. A normal G5RV is 102' and 31' high.

My lot is only 70' x 100'. Some changes were clearly indicated.

I had hoped to take Friday afternoon off and get the antenna up. No such luck. So Saturday morning found me in the side yard looking up at the tree and muttering.

I'd found another limb... more or less in the clear... more or less 34' up... more or less in the center of my property's 100' side.

I just couldn't get a line over it with my typical waterbottle sling method to save my life. Forty feet is normally the limit. For some reason 30 plus a little feet wasn't doing the trick.

So plan B. The Easy Up slingshot and fishing reel doohickey. First shot, looked like it did the trick, but was too short. Second shot... line broke and lost the weight. Down to town for some more weights. No joy. Use nuts instead. No joy. Lots of broken line.

Finally Greg, N6CK had pity on me and we were able to get the line over in one shot with his fishing pole/slingshot arrangement.

We finally got the antenna more or less in place 27 minutes before the contest started. And Greg had a 25 minute drive back to his station.

What a GUY! (Note to self: Self, add an Elmer's section to your webpage.)

So... The new antenna seems to work much better on 40m and 80m bue also seems deaf on 20m. Perhaps because the main lobe is staring right into the 1800' ridge 300 yards to my east.

Oh well.

Contest results? Four hours and 80 contacts.

Band QSOs Pts Sec

3.5 25 25 0

7 38 38 7

14 17 17 6

Total 80 80 13

Score : 1,040

Enough for now.

2007-03-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

Took some time and characterized the G5RV with the Ten Tec 238B tuner.

Got 80-15m to under 1.5:1 SWR. Most everything down to 1.0:1.

Recorded the results in Excel so I don't have to futz too much redoing them.

Really doesn't like 10m for some reason. IIRC the tuner isn't as good there. No worries.

Following their instructions it was occasionally iffy about which LowZ/HiZ side I wound up on. Sometimes it just wouldn't "tune down" on the side that their algorithm said it should be, so I tried the other side and got a better match.

Go figure.

Next step... One of the amps. I'm tempted to start with the SB-201 first because it seems a bit "friendlier." I think it is the blue paint vs black paint. How's that for hard science? Chuckle.

Or it could be that the SB-201 is already on the same level of the house as the shack and the AL-80A requires schlepping?

Nah...

2007-03-07T23:27:00.000-08:00

Blech.

Tried some CW tonight. Conditions pretty poor. Checked the A index... 17. Ugh.

Heard E51PJT in the Cook Islands. He was working EU only.

Sigh.

2007-02-12T23:24:00.000-08:00

Got the TenTec 238B High Power Antenna Tuner and an MFJ dummy load into the shack this evening.

Time to play with the antenna tuner and my current antennas.

A couple interesting discoveries.

My rig's SWR protection circuit will "fold back" the power to about 10W.
It takes about 30W to get the 238B's SWR meter to set correctly.
The 238's tuning procedure assumes that its SWR meter is set correctly.
Things tune easier if you understand what the instructions REALLY say to do when the best match is obtained when the capacitor is set to zero. (Go to the other side of BYPASS)
The G5RV Jr REALLY sucks on 30m (I knew that, but rediscovered it).
My 80m EFHW inverted-U tunes pretty well on 30m (I didn't know that)
Next time I'd rather play with the antenna tuner using an antenna analyzer rather than my nice expensive rig...

It was funny discovering the feedback between the rig's SWR protection circuit and the tuner as I was dialing things in. As the tuner was tuned better, the SWR would go down, allowing more power through and generally messing with the metric that I was using to judge "success."

Once I figured out what was going on I could compensate, but things were really weird for a couple of minutes... ;-)

All in all a good evening. It will take one more evening to formally characterize the antennas and create appropriate "cheat sheets."

Once I have that down it will be time to lay in...

(crack of thunder and organ music)

.. the amplifier.

2007-02-03T21:10:00.000-08:00

The plan was to get up at 07:00 PST and work the VT, DE and MN QSO parties this morning before taking the dog to the vet, a long delayed Home Depot visit and a couple other errands.

But...

There were too many things going on this morning to make any coherent progress. Most of the signals I heard were FOC contesters. The RTTY signals I was hearing were mostly rag chews. The phone was scattered all over the place, but no testers.

Finally answered a FISTS CQ and picked up another set of FISTS & CC #'s.

The best laid plans of mice and me...

Oh well... Perhaps I'll get on and try the Mexican RTTY contest this evening.

2007-02-01T23:35:00.000-08:00

Futzing around with the sx/260 and my UPS.

The goal is to have the sx/260 running a Telpac node and be able to ride through any minor (up to about one hour) power outage.

So I needed to install the UPS software.

GAG! The software weenies have taken over the world "UPS Server" "UPS Agent" "UPS Console"

GAG! GAG! I _just_ want to have the UPS tell the computer to gracefully shutdown.

I don't want to "play" network administrator.

And after all this? I still probably have the computer plugged into a "surge" outlet rather than a "UPS" outlet.

Need to check more tomorrow.

Not to mention that the network equipment UPS croaked a couple months ago. Prolly just needs new batteries, but... one more hassle.

Back at it...

2007-01-30T13:43:00.000-08:00

A new philosophy for CW...

"If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly."

AMEN!

2007-01-29T23:05:00.000-08:00

Wow, my head really isn't into Morse Code this evening.

One 10th place and one middle of the pack on RufzXP.

And only 17 contacts in 15 minutes on Morse Runner.

Yuck. Better go to bed.

At least I have a Request For Quotation into www.thewireman.com for my new doublet.

Night night!

2007-01-28T17:31:00.000-08:00

It's been a pretty good weekend.

Four main things to do:

Unpack and smoke test the TS-790A
Bring up the Dell sx/260
Spend a bit of time in the RTTY Sprint contest
Spend a bit of time in the CQ 160m CW contest.

+++++

I was able to open and smoke test the replacement TS-790A. All the lights came on. I would really like to rearrange the shack some to make "real" space available for this radio. It is too nice to be "hacked" into place.

+++++

Second I wanted to bring up the Dell SX/260 that I bought via ebay. Locals Jeff and JV had purchased a couple and deemed them a good deal. After playing with one, I agree.

The Dell sx/260 is pretty nice. Older machine. About the size of a college hardback dictionary. ~$250 on ebay. Moved all of my ham radio software over to it last night and this afternoon.

It maxes out at 144W rather than 300W (need to actually measure the draw). Should be much cheaper to run. It is also Windows XP, so it should be more stable than the other machine.

MMTTY
Installed and since I've been dealing with it on pretty much every computer I own it went flawlessly.

N1MM with CW
Same here.

AGWPE and TelPac
Pretty painless as well. Need to contact the AGWPE people to get another license key for the new computer.

+++++

BARTG RTTY Sprint

My results from playing around in the BARTG RTTY Sprint. Again, not serious, basically checking to make sure my MMTTY set-up was working right, and to hand out points.

BARTGRTTYS Score Summary Sheet

Start Date : 2007-01-29

Band : ALL
Power : LOW
Mode : RTTY
Club/Team : Northern California Constest Club
Software: N1MM Logger V7.1.1

Band QSOs Pts Cty Sec Cnt
7 7 7 0 1 0
14 18 18 4 11 2
28 1 1 1 1 1
Total 26 26 5 13 3

Score : 1,404

+++++

CQ 160m contest

And here are the results of my 160m hacking. This was far from a serious attempt.

CQ160CW Score Summary Sheet

Start Date : 2007-01-27

Power : LOW
Mode : CW

Club/Team : Northern California Constest Club
Software: N1MM Logger V7.0.0

Band QSOs Pts Sta Cty
1.8 27 57 9 0
Total 27 57 9 0

Score : 513

Most of the CW seemed "slow" and all of it was cope-able with. I felt fully comfortable engaging a contact without needing to listen to the exchange first. (Although it was nice if I could.) There were several times when I could make back-to-back minute exchanges.

I need to significantly improve my 160 antenna though...

2007-01-24T21:57:00.000-08:00

The AL-80A arrived, as did the dummy-load/watt-meter. Paid a bit more than I wanted to for a Ten Tec 238B on ebay, but they're a little rare in the used market. It should get here in a week or so.

The only antenna I trust using the amp on without a tuner is the 15m dipole. It's pretty close in tuning and has the advantage of not being close enough to any trees to burn them down.

My wife is a bit afraid of the amp. I have a history of "explosive" incidents and my comment about burning the tree down seems to have sensitized her somehow...

2007-01-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

Note to self:

Self, in your quest for worked all states on CW, please note the following:

Vermont QSO Party: 0000z Feb 3rd thru 2400z Feb 4th
Minnesota QSO Party: 1400Z-2400Z, Feb 3
Delaware QSO Party: 1700Z, Feb 3 to 0500Z, Feb 4 & 1300Z, Feb 4 to 0100Z, Feb 5

2007-01-13T09:53:00.000-08:00

Holy cow! Perhaps I'm getting better at this?

UTC Call Recv Sent Pref Chk
00:00:24 OE3PFW 599 0001 599 0001 OE3 RST
00:00:48 W0QE 599 0001 599 0002 W0
00:01:56 NS2X 569 0004 599 0003 NS2
00:02:29 SV1MF 599 0003 599 0004 SV1
00:03:21 UA9SI 599 0002 599 0005 UA9
00:03:39 W0GHZ 599 0003 599 0006 W0
00:04:09 DL1EIZ 599 0007 599 0007 DL1
00:04:32 LY2UF 599 0007 599 0008 LY2
00:05:26 RA3WJ 599 0005 599 0009 RA3
00:05:58 W0JA 599 0004 599 0010 W0
00:06:47 W5SB 599 0017 599 0011 W5
00:07:12 SP6KFA 599 0004 599 0012 SP6
00:07:50 N9BVA 599 0006 599 0013 N9
00:08:24 NA1Q 599 0005 599 0014 NA1
00:08:49 DL6UHU 599 0011 599 0015 DL6
00:09:41 G3JCU 599 0001 599 0016 G3
00:10:24 DL3BAL 599 0009 599 0017 DL3
00:10:40 W0ARK 599 0002 599 0018 W0
00:11:09 ON5UM 599 0007 599 0019 ON5
00:11:33 K9JS 599 0010 599 0020 K9
00:12:33 UA3QQQ 599 0006 599 0021 UA3
00:13:05 W6TKV 599 0037 599 0022 W6
00:13:39 LX1HD 599 0030 599 0023 LX1
00:14:23 IR5B 599 0039 599 0024 IR5
00:14:45 I8JIT 599 0005 599 0025 I8

That's 25 contacts in 15 minutes. Now if only I can do this in the NAQP!

hi hi hi

2007-01-12T23:58:00.000-08:00

OK, long day.

Checked into the Gordo net. Late, as usual. My mobile mount has some sort of intermittant in it. Also checked into the 9am talk net.

Set up the downstairs computer and MicroKeyer. It seems to be working for rig control and WinKey keying. We'll see tomorrow.

Doing ok on Morse Runner. Consistently better than one Q/minute.

Time for bed.

2007-01-11T23:53:00.000-08:00

Boy do I need to catch up here!

(Will fill in as time allows.)

The saga of the TS-790A

So, I was looking for a good VHF/UHF multi-mode rig because I want to work satellites at some point. After doing some research it seems like the TS-790A was a really good choice and superior to most modern rigs on the market. So going on the used market I found a complete set-up, rig, power supply, speaker, and negotiated a $1200 price for it including shipping.

Background on Conrad - The seller was a long time ham who was having some sort of unspecified family issue that required selling his stuff for cash. I knew this, and certainly didn't grind him on price. Just made sure that the payments were correct and timely (even picked up the $200 shipping tab to help out).

It was clear that the seller REALLY loved the radio and was only selling it under extreme duress.

After some time I received the rig and got it on the air. The reviews are correct. It is a VERY sweet radio.

So light/dark another day. Sure enough about a 1/2 year later I get an email from Conrad asking if he can buy the rig back. I don't want to lose the radio, but it is "Golden Rule" time. And it doesn't count if you only apply it when it is easy...

Finding another rig
The hunt for the manuals
Waiting for the check.

Improvements status

Noise is biggest
No further progress on antennas
Amp(s) on order

Kid's Day

Grumpy old men and clueless teenagers on the repeaters
Greg and some guy on 20m SSB
Abandon: More RTTY RU
Joey goes to town!

ARRL RTTY Round Up

Arrival
Early results
Grumpy wife
The next morning
Leaving for Kid's Day

Stew Perry

Original plan
Change in plans
Run to radio shack
Fun with a sling shot
It just won't tune
Two contacts

Adventures in QRM

JV
PG&E
The ambassador and Christmas cookies
Calling the manufacture
Recalling the home owner
Waiting...

2006-12-17T23:38:00.000-08:00

The Elecraft KX-1 radio arrived on Friday (as per previous email).

Powered it up yesterday, but finally got enough time to try to get it on the air this evening.

Decided to try "armchair copy." Cut a 44' doublet out of some speaker twinlead and ran it though the house (my wife was laughing at me).

I heard a couple of stations on 40m & 80m. 30m and 20m were dead at 22:30 PST, imagine that.

The short story is that the SWR (not to mention antenna position) was unacceptable at 40m. There were indications that one station was able to hear me, but not very well.

Will take it to work with me tomorrow and put the doublet WAY up a tree and see if that does any better. (Darn solar flares and CME causing dead bands...)

Will report more later.

2006-12-05T22:11:00.000-08:00

As for station improvements... I'm working down a list.

1) S9++ power line noise:

JV will be coming over sometime this week to help hunt it down. Then we'll get PG&E on the case.

2) Better antenna(s). This will be an incremental effort due to negotiations with the XYL.

Europe-facing 15m/30m fan dipole (I put up a dedicated 15m dipole for SS)
Replace existing G5RV Jr with 20m EDZ
VHF/UHF/uwave improvements over what I have (for what little it is worth...)
More radials for the 80/160m antenna then unknown at this time improvements.

Operator skills improvement: More "time in chair" for experience and better skills.

At some point I'll want/need to "apprentice" at a "real" station.
Greg N6CK has invited me to go multi-op for the RTTY Roundup.
There are some things that just need to be learned that way.

Winning the lottery so I can move to a more RF-friendly location.

I _will_ improve and do significantly better. However, my available time is constrained by family commitments.

It's about the improvements at this point.

2006-11-30T23:40:00.000-08:00

Holy cow... Lots to catch up on... Not so much time before I fall asleep.

Tonight. HF was doo-doo and got on too late for SLVARC net or NTS net...

So I set up the Kenwood TS-790 I've had in a box for a month or two.

SWEET!!! Older radio, but it sounds WONDERFUL.

Got it working on two local 2m repeaters and one 440 repeater.

Gee, each band has its own antenna socket. Who would have guessed. Better read the manual some more guy...

++++++

Met most all of my goals for Sweepstakes, but worked like a dog in doing so. It took until Wednesday or Thursday to recover. (Staying up until 4:00 am making contacts on 80m probably didn't help...)

Over 6 hours, over 100 contacts. Life was good.

++++++

Wanted to work some of the CQ World Wide DX contest, but real life prevented it. Oh well.

++++++

Been hunting down RFI to my HF rig. Knocked down the ethernet interference with some help from K9YC. The old "peeling an onion" situation.

OK, that's enough for right now.

73 de WR

2006-11-15T17:13:00.000-08:00

Sweepstakes goals:

Get contest software set-up and running

Contest software seems happy. Need to install and configure history info.

Get software set up for rig control

Rig control seems to be working, but does funky things with the two VFOs. Need to ask Greg (or somebody) how to get it into a more intuitive mode.

Get software set up for packet spotting

Got software set up for packet spotting, entered several telnet sites and pre-set the filters.

Get station set up for voice keying (at least for my callsign)

Somewhat stumped on this one. Ran out of time before bedtime.

(All of the above prior to Thursday night session)

4/5 isn't too bad...

Practice during the Thursday night session
Work at least 8 hours of the contest
Work at least 100 stations
Check in to NCCC net at least once during the contest
Submit logs to ARRL (duh) & NCCC.

Modest, but hopefully doable, starting from zero.

2006-11-13T23:21:00.000-08:00

Attended the first 1.5 hours of the Northern California Contest Club this evening. Bob K6XX and Jim K9YC were there.

Got home and 40m was pretty quiet, but did have a really nice QSO with Darron, WA5TCZ.

I seem to have plateaued at about 18 wpm for the moment. That's OK, I'll keep working on it.

In the mean time? I'm having FUN!!!

2006-11-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

Musings:

Looking at various propagation prediction programs ,30m should be my best band, but I barely hear anything and have only had a couple of contacts on 30m.

My 15m performance in the CQ World Wide (WW) Single Side Band (SSB) contest showed that something was wrong.

Quickly looking at my G5RV Jr antenna analysis results shows that those two bands are the worst in terms of SWR. Above 6:1. Reading some literature shows that those two bands are the worst for most G5RVs.

Hmmm... Time for a 30m / 15m fan dipole?

Then I could take down the G5RV and put up a dedicated 40m / 20m fan dipole. Something to think about.

Oh well... Back to Daddy-dom.

2006-11-06T22:46:00.001-08:00

Well...

It wasn't esthetically pleasing, but I was on the air for this evening's Spartan Sprint.

Between late at work and having to get home to rescue the babysitter I couldn't do anything formal.

So I pulled off of Hwy 9 in Castle Rock and hooked the Palm Paddles to my Icom 706MkIIG and used the hamstick.

My goal was to 1) get on the air and 2) make at least 2 contacts between 18:00 and 19:15. I made 3. Plus had a shot at two others, but just couldn't get heard.

I don't feel so bad about "throwing myself into a contact" during a Spartan Sprint. The folks are very friendly and not TOO serious about the contest side of things.

So that was my "playtime" for the evening.

73 de WyreRider

2006-11-06T22:46:00.000-08:00

Greetings all.

Hope your ears stop hearing CW tone sometime in the next couple of days...

The good news is that I did get about 3 hours in on the contest. Damn that was hard! But I was starting to get the hang of it towards the end.

The main objective was to improve my CW operating.

My CW skills are embryonic and contesting skills are even less than that. But at some point you just gotta "jump in," make mistakes and learn. No time like the present. I've read that contests are great for improving CW speed and my shack could certainly use improvement.

My goals were as follows:

Get the rig, software,etc set up for CW contesting
Get on the air to get the CW contest learning curve started
Make at least 10 or 12 contacts

I had planned on getting serious operating time in on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. XYL and Murphy had other ideas.

Goal 1: Getting the rig, software, etc set up for CW contesting

This was harder than you might think. Murphy was out in full force (see below) but I managed to bludgeon him into submission with perseverance.

Murphy attack number one:

The past week allowed me to get my CMOS-4 keyer attached to the rig and the CI-V rig control running. Unfortunately, the CMOS-4 keyer got REALLY flaky as I was programming it for the Sweepstakes exchange on Friday night.

No problem, I've got a K-3 keyer stashed away as a backup.

Murphy attack number two:

The power connector in the K-3 is a 5mm OD x 2.5mm ID coaxial power connector. One size smaller than my standard. And the K-3 doesn't have an internal battery.

That's OK. I'll eat an hour of operating on Saturday to run down to Radio Shack to get the right connector...

Murphy attack number three:

(You see this coming...)
Radio Shack is all out of that connector.

Punt back to plan C... Use the keyer built into the ACLog variant Sweepstakes logger I have.
The keyer is... rudimentary. Oye. So Sunday afternoon saw me building a keying cable for the computer.

So what I wound up with was as follows:

Icom IC-756ProII into a LDG AT-100Pro autotuner, connected to a G5RV Junior up about 30' in an oak tree.

The Icom was controlled via the front panel, and forwarded its band and frequency to the ACLog November Sweepstakes logging program via CI-V (the Icom rig control interface).

CW keying was done using the ACLog's built in keyer, through a Rascal rig interface, to the Icom.

I initially played with feeding the audio back into the computer for CWget, but that quickly proved to be a losing proposition. Besides, the point was to improve CW skills...

Goal 1 lessons learned:

A better keyer is significantly desired.
See if there is better logging software available.

Goal 2: Get on the air and get the contest learning curve started.

I've piddled around with a couple other contests, but basically at a "oh, there is something going on today, I wonder what the exchange is..." level. I've seriously tried a couple of the Adventure Radio Society's Spartan Sprints, but my CW skills were so poor that they lead to EXTREME frustration. I vowed to improve my CW chops. This is part of that vow.

While Greg (N6CK) and Bob (K6XX) will answer any questions, I really don't have a "hands on" contest Elmer. So I'm starting from zero. That means I'll make EXTREMELY stupid mistakes while figuring things out. (I hate looking stupid...) For instance: I figured that AGN? would be in use. I wasn't really prepared for a NR? CK? or SEC? when they came at me the first couple of times. After a few go-arounds, I got a clue and was able to function. But starting frow scratch... it takes a bit of Lidishness to ramp up...

Well... the "sink or swim" method has strong and weak points, but since I'm still alive, I guess there's hope. ;-)

Goal 2 Lessons learned:

Be ready for segemented AGN? requests.
Throwing myself at a contact isn't quite as painful as I thought it might be. The other operators might disagree.

Goal 3: Make at least 10-12 contacts

Not a stellar goal, but also not bad considering that getting on the air at all is a significant accomplishment for me.

I tried to listen to a station long enough to suss out their exchange data, log it then make the contact. As I got more comfortable I would get to the "screw it, nobody is calling this guy, I'll just hack my way through it in real time" mode more often. I hope that the "serious" contesters would rather deal with my lidishness rather that just call CQ without making any contacts.

Note: Bob, thanks for slowing down for me.
Note: Greg, I heard you on 40m.

So, I made 16 contacts, with 14 sections (Including NJ, which is a new state on CW). My rate was picking up towards the end. Then two cute kids told me it was dinner time and hobby time quickly made way for family time.

73 de WyreRider

2006-10-31T22:47:00.000-08:00

Halloween.

Normally I try for a CW contact every evening, but this evening the shack needed some cleaning.

On the plus side:

The amount of generic paper around my operating position has been significantly reduced
I found my other Logikit CMOS 4 keyer
I found the CAT / CI-V cable and got the Icom IC-756Pro II working with ACLog
I got ACLog working with Logbook of the World
I got ACLog working with its own callbook database
I downloaded the FCC callbook database and started converting it

On the minus side:

My MFJ-269 is still missing in action. :-(

Oh well, I've got a bit more looking to do before I go to bed.

[edit: OK, the MFJ-269 showed up, and I've figured out a way to get state information automatically added to my ACLog stuff during import. Tried to hear XF4DL on 160m. No joy.]

Good night all...

2006-10-29T07:29:00.000-08:00

CQ World Wide SSB Phone contest weekend...

The story so far...

+++++

Given very limited time this afternoon, and being kicked out of my shack due to a party being thrown by my XYL, I figured that 15m was going to be open in the afternoon.

So I throw a 15m ham stick onto my air. As long as I'm within 500 yards of the shack I'm good to go.

I practice at my daughter's horse lesson. The band is quiet, noise in the S0 to S3 range with LOTS of stations. Very tempting to work them for contacts and turn the log in as a check log. (I'm nowhere nowhere near competitive anyway.) But no, I'll be a good boy.

Get home, quick like a bunny copy down the already worked stations so I don't dupe, head back out the the car.

Sigh. Noise at S8 to S9. TOLD you my location is noisy.

So I run the band trying to make contact. Listened to about 10 stations, got contacts with none of them.

Turn off the rig and come back in for the remainder of the party. Not a happy ending.

Oh well, we've got Sweepstakes and a Spartan Sprint coming up.

+++++

Well after waking up I realized I've made two big mistakes:

I didn't try to work the "split" stations on 40m. If there were stations in the US portion of 40m listening down, there were probably foreign stations listening up... Oh well... These things are a learning experience.
I didn't get on 160m last night. Could have picked up some easy multipliers. Oh well... see above.

+++++

Well, it's past midnight and this "non-serious" contester's rate has dropped through the floor.

I'm a bit over 1700 points in about 5 hours in the chair. Still don't have a Europe or Africa.

Bob is all over the place...
Heard Kamal pick up a contact just before I dialed in. (At least I'm pretty sure I did.)
And "Radio Radio" was working 75 about 1/2 an hour ago.

Good night all, happy hunting and see ya tomorrow.

+++++

I know AE6RR is out there. Heard him make a JA contact.

Also heard Bob K6XX, made a quick call, but he was working a string of JA's so decided not to annoy him further.

I think I've got about 400 pts at the moment. Took me a while to figure out that working US stations wasn't worth anything except the multiplier. Rank beginner... That's me. In every sense.

Lots of JAs, some Argentinians.

Heard Germany earlier this morning but couldn't get to him. Grrr.

I'm only getting about 1/3 of the foreign stations I'm trying to call.

If I can make it in 6 or 8 go rounds I move on.

Right now seems a great time to work [far] east, but... it's dinner time.

There will probably be lots of VEs later tonight on 40m.

This is addictive. Wonder if I can WAC this weekend? Need Europe and Africa.

2006-10-25T23:18:00.000-07:00

Slow night.

20m, 30m, 40m and 80m pretty much dead. I sent CQs here and there but to no response.

What the heck, tuned 160m and there was a bit of activity. One guy calling CQ.

I answered back and got him on the second call. We both had mediocre signal reports so it was a two and out, but... that was my first CW QSO on 160m.

My antenna is a 1/4 wave inverted-u over a 70 foot oak tree. It's feedpoint is 6-8 feet off the ground and has a single tuned radial. It is fed with 450 ohm ladder line back to the shack window. Then in a 4:1 balun, a couple feet of coax and into the tuner.

It isn't pretty, and probably is really lousy, but it IS on the air.

So there! Pbbbt!

2006-10-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

Tried to get XF4DL on 80m CW.

Too much ewwwww! (He was only working EU stations).

So I hopped up to 40m and made a DX contact with exotic Pasadena. That's OK he was a physics prof at CalTech.

That counts, right?

Heard the illusive Japanese maritime mobile again. JH8FNB/MM.

He comes up, makes a contact and seems to go away. I've heard him three times now and called twice.

THAT'S the sort of thing I can get into hunting.

++++++

10/22/06

Spent the past couple of days at Sierra Sky Ranch in Oakhurst CA.

I was able to get on the air for at least one contact each day.

The Yaesu FT-817ND was the rig for all my HF activities. (I also had my mobile dual-bander in the truck, but couldn't find anybody to talk to on the local repeaters...)

Thursday I put together my Pac-12 antenna first thing in the morning and checked into the "Gordo" net. Later I pulled out my 50' No Counterpoise antenna and checked into the Noon Time Net.

I tried to make a QRP CW contact for 3 hours before hooking up with a chap in Chico, CA.

Friday and Saturday I used my Appalachian Trail dipole (a 40m doublet) as an inverted-vee. The "water bottle" method managed to get the center point up 35' or so.

It was pretty humorous, the total span of the antenna and support lines was 150' or so. I had to go way, WAY out to get the guy lines above head height.

Anyhow. The dipole is the gold standard of antennas. The Appalachian Trail dipole was head and shoulders above the other two antennas. The additional height and apateur might have helped... ;-)

My Friday contact was made even before I got the antenna tuned in.

Saturday was harder. There was a RTTY contest going on. So? So I got killed on 40m then jumped up to 20m and had a nice QSO with a guy near Houston, TX.

No big DX. No huge numbers of Qs. But I did have fun and operated QRP portable in the great outdoors. (3 more logged CW QSOs and 2 new FISTS numbers. wo0T!)

2006-10-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

Things are settling down into a nice pace.

And a best ever Morse Runner at 24 contacts/24 multipliers (100% valid) in 15 minutes...

UTC Call Recv Sent Pref Chk
00:00:35 YY5AFD 599 002 599 001 YY5

00:01:27 JH7GYG 599 002 599 002 JH7

00:02:01 DK7DV 599 002 599 003 DK7

00:02:44 PY2NA 599 003 599 004 PY2

00:03:52 JE3HHT 599 005 599 005 JE3

00:04:33 SP1AMU 599 007 599 006 SP1

00:05:14 DC8QT 599 005 599 007 DC8

00:05:51 UY5QJ 599 003 599 008 UY5

00:06:19 YI9ZF 599 017 599 009 YI9

00:06:50 W1NA 599 004 599 010 W1

00:07:18 MD6V 599 011 599 011 MD6

00:07:44 I1OCQ 599 022 599 012 I1

00:08:05 KR4WI 599 007 599 013 KR4

00:08:47 VK2BPN 599 009 599 014 VK2

00:09:11 G5BM 599 007 599 015 G5

00:09:30 AJ4DX 599 002 599 016 AJ4

00:10:04 DG8DBW 599 007 599 017 DG8

00:10:36 IK3OYU 599 026 599 018 IK3

00:11:26 W2MUM 599 030 599 019 W2

00:12:12 UR8QR 599 020 599 020 UR8

00:13:09 UA3QNS 599 018 599 021 UA3

00:13:40 VY1WUD 599 009 599 022 VY1

00:14:11 N7WA 599 013 599 023 N7

00:14:49 SQ1BVG 599 003 599 024 SQ1

2006-10-09T23:28:00.000-07:00

Life has finally settled down enough so I could get on the air for a random CW QSO this evening.

N9TMU "Clay" from IL.

Darn that feels good.

(And that was after a full day of work, a post-placement assessment from the social worker in charge of Joey's adoption, a 20 minute talk on comparative religion with my 7 year old daughter...)

Life is good.

+++++

On Saturday I worked the Ridgetrail Cruz event.

Got to spend from 9:30 until 2:30 on the ridge just west of Skyline Road. Wonderful weather.

Things were REALLY slow about noon so I set up my FT-817 with the Miracle Whip. 40 meters was in beautiful condition. Signals from EVERYWHERE were loud with almost no noise.

Unfortunately I couldn't get out using the Miracle Whip. Sigh... Why bother?

I wanted to get on the air for the California QSO Party that evening, but the XYL had me booked for a "real life" party. I had fun, but the contesting would have been a good experience too.

So it goes.

2006-08-25T10:21:00.000-07:00

Morse Runner of 20 contacts in 15 minutes this morning.

Now if I could only do that in real life...

2006-08-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

Slow times.

Been REALLY busy at work.

Have worked a couple of events recently:

Race Through the Redwoods
Santa Cruz Mountain Challenge (SAG driver)
Fireworks 50 (Endurance horse race)

Found some neat CW practice programs:

The RufzXP - Tancredi website

Hard to explain. It sends you a callsign in Morse Code. You either get it right or wrong. If you get it right, the sending speed of the next callsign increases. If you get it wrong, the speed decreases.

It is sorta like a boot camp for CW. Always pressing you JUST faster than you can go. My top speed has gone from 24 WPM to 29 WPM, according to this program.

And

A CW Bandwidth test

This one tests your ability to copy weak signals, at or below the noise floor. I don't fully understand it yet, but it is really cool.

I'm lagging at sending out QSL cards. Perhaps this weekend.

Finally, a recent Morse Runner run (17 verified in 15 minutes):

UTC Call Recv Sent Pref Chk
00:00:18 N4KK 599 001 599 001 N4
00:01:16 PY1HA 599 001 599 002 PY1
00:01:49 LY2LA 599 001 599 003 LY2
00:03:41 IK4BHO 599 003 599 004 IK4
00:04:13 YO2BEH 599 009 599 005 YO2
00:04:49 JA2ATE 599 011 599 006 JA2
00:05:43 JA1KZP 599 006 599 007 JA1
00:06:11 ON4LO 599 009 599 008 ON4
00:06:41 W4LM 599 006 599 009 W4
00:07:22 AA5DH 599 006 599 010 AA5
00:08:41 K3NM 599 003 599 011 K3 NR
00:09:28 JA1OZK 599 002 599 012 JA1
00:10:08 W9TY 599 004 599 013 W9
00:10:48 KT9W 599 004 599 014 KT9
00:12:05 J41YM 599 026 599 015 J41
00:13:15 UA3TCJ 599 012 599 016 UA3
00:13:32 K8DDP 599 004 599 017 K8
00:14:11 VE3MGY 599 005 599 018 VE3
00:15:00 W2CO 599 003 599 019 W2 NIL

2006-07-03T21:34:00.000-07:00

Bob Wolbert, K6XX wrote:
> WR,
>
> Thanks for the info, and for the QSO. I hope you did well.
>
> For me, 80m was just too noisy. 40m only produced 7 QSOs. 20m was better, with
> 53.
>
> 73 de Bob, K6XX

It was the most frustrating 2 hours I've had in a very LONG time.

It didn't get to the point where I just turned off the rig and walked away, but it came close.

Chuckle. You put out a big signal on 20m. I was at the Mt Bielawsky lookout. The many over S9 signal shut down 20m so I went down to 40m. As soon as I would hear you on 40 I'd jump back up. I was sorta proud of that gambit.

This is my third one of these, and frankly... I suck at them. Between #1 and #2 I made some gear improvements and fixed some reliability things so I was able to at least operate all the way through the second one.

For the second one, it became clear that my CW operating skills simply are not up to snuff. So I practiced a whole bunch the past month and thought that I'd do better this month. Nope. Nope. Nope. Still stink-a-roo.

I wanted to search and pounce. The plan was to sit on a station until I could suss out their exchange and then make a contact. Last month I was able to sort of make that happen, but my CW skills weren't good enough and my patience wasn't up to snuff. This month things were just so chaotic, I couldn't make it work. I've got multiple pages of callsigns that I couldn't string together exchanges on, or couldn't hear me.

Anyhow. Very frustrating. Another month to work on basic operating skills.

At least I got a nice sunset out of it.

60 Qs under tonight's conditions should be top 20% or so. I don't know if you went with a light weight rig or not, but if you went with your FT-817 plus a battery and keyer that should be very competitive...

2006-06-19T23:38:00.000-07:00

The "broadcasting day" started with a check in to the Gordo net from my home station.

Then a long 2m simplex FM QSO with Scott, WA6LIE as I was right behind him on Bear Creek Rd. The chances of that happening are pretty LONG indeed!

Then a late-early check in to the 9AM Talk Net.

Then a late check in to the noon time net (who's seemingly only purpose is to allow folks to check in...)

Some various chatting on 2m FM on the way home.

OK, nice QSO with Joe W3BC, in Pittsburgh, PA (actually Moon, PA but who's checking).

And then a good Morse Runner, breaking my previous record of 15 in 15 minutes. 16 in 15 minutes, plus one additional Q that was a duplicate. (Not fair, the program cheats!)

73 & Gud nite

2006-06-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

Finally.

According to DX Propagation the bands were not in really good shape tonight. I was also really tired, so I did a pair of Morse Runner sessions instead of getting on the air.

I've been using Morse Runner as a benchmark on my CW skills. Morse Runner is a "contest simulator" that includes QRN (natural noise), QRM (other ham signals interfering with you), QSB (fading), flutter, and LIDs (other contesters who don't know the rules, forget to log you, send you the wrong numbers, etc...) It makes for a really good practice session if you can't get on the air...

Anyway... I'd been trying to break 15 QSOs in a 15 minute period ever since I started using the software.

Now I've been getting better, first it was about 8, but writing everything down. I've been slowly inching up, but the ellusive 15 QSOs in 15 minutes has alluded me for months.

Tonight I got it!

UTC Call Recv Sent Pref Chk
00:00:50 OE6MY 599 002 599 001 OE6
00:01:16 KG4DX 599 001 599 002 KG4
00:01:52 G0CHE 599 002 599 003 G0
00:04:54 M0CMK 599 004 599 004 M0
00:05:26 JA8HCH 599 002 599 005 JA8
00:06:08 K1GUN 599 012 599 006 K1
00:06:39 UT7M 599 007 599 007 UT7
00:07:25 ON6LO 599 019 599 008 ON6
00:08:51 EA5AKR 599 002 599 009 EA5
00:09:57 OK1ITK 599 025 599 010 OK1
00:10:24 K9JE 599 018 599 011 K9
00:11:13 OK1KCF 599 021 599 012 OK1
00:11:57 PY1LI 599 022 599 013 PY1
00:13:12 VE2OWL 599 017 599 014 VE2
00:14:01 N1OEF 599 011 599 015 N1

The 15 WPM seems really readable. I'm copying most callsigns correctly the first pass.

Good deal. I am getting better!

73 and gud nite.

2006-06-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

Drat.

OK at some point I should tell about my abortive adventures on the air in Old Virginny.

And the Thursday QRP in the Park.

But for now I've got another 13 Qs in 15 minutes on Morse Runner. Argh. It started off really well...

ZZzzz.

2006-06-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

OK,

Things haven't slowed down any, but I'll spend a couple minutes anyway...

I got to Murphy Park a bit early and started to set up.

It was clear and mild but a bit breezy. Just enough to blow bags away and make keeping the log book open a chore...

First thing up was the JacKite collapsing fiberglass pole. After a bit of scouting I decided to duct tape it to a garbage can between two trees.

The pole (still collapsed) fell over twice while I was attempting to tape it. A couple at a nearby table was starting to get amused. Next I pulled the Appalachian Trail doublet out of its bag. And of course the wind caught the bag and carried it 50 or 75 yards before I could catch it...

(More amusement for the bystanders)

Next was to put up the dipole. I used my ever popular water bottle sling. Unfortunately the water bottle came off on the first attempt. A second couple started getting amused.

After 4 or 5 attempts the first half of the antenna was up. So I went to the second tree. It took 4 more attempts. Two VERY amused couples.

But at this point I was able to put up the JacKite mast and things started to come together. Out came the "big black bag of QRP-goodness" and the Yaesu, Palm Paddles, 2 A-hr battery and antenna tuner all set-up very quickly. Amusement was turning to interest.

The Appalachian Trail doublet tuned up just fine on 40m, but the best I could do on 20m was "four bars" on the Yaesu. That's bad. Perhaps it had something to do with the 20 feet of 300 ohm feed line that was lying on the ground?

Note to self: I need to ask what to do with "extra" twinlead. Scott WA6LIE might know...

Anyhow there were LOTS of loud signals on 40m. Also lots of signals on 20m, but they all sounded sort of muffled. Could it have something to do with the "four bars?"

The signals were loud, but also, REALLY fast. This led me to what I now believe was a critical mistake. Rather than being patient and slowly teasing out the exchange of those fast stations, I went tuning on trying to find stations that I could easily copy. Next month I'll be patient and "Listen, listen, listen" and get those stations in the log.

So, at the end of the day there were 4 contacts in the log. CA, UT, CO and NV. 30 on 40m and 1 on 20m. Pretty cool, eh? 5 watts outbound, some 5W and some 2W inbound. From here to Colorado with 5 watts from a park bench!

Everything came down much faster than it went up.

So, there ya go. The story of my second Spartan Sprint. I'm REALLY looking forward to the third one.

73 de WyreRider

2006-06-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

Greetings all,

Today was a good day. Gordo net, 9AM Talk Net.

Spartan Sprint in Murphy Park, Sunnyvale CA.

I had two goals:

First to operate outside (acomplished)
Second to make 10 contacts (only made four, but picked up three new states!)

Need to figure out what the lessons learned were. Probably to be more patient with faster senders while doing search and pounce... Will sleep on it.

This evening had two solid QSOs.

Tomorrow will be a LONG day so it's bedtime.

Will add more on the Spartan Sprint from my "soapbox"

73 de WyreRider

2006-05-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

OK quick update.

Last night, a good QSO with Louie, KB7DEL, up in Sitka, AK. My second AK QSO and first "real" one as the first one was my contact during the Spartan Sprint.

Monday night was W7AMA's first CW contact. He did GREAT for a first time, including solid copy of one of our exchanges. I love being able to do that!

Sunday a pair of QSOs with Mike, KA5REJ and Jason VE7FXY. Jason was my first Canadian CW contact.

Sunday afternoon was spent putting up wire antennnas at Jim's, K9YC, house in Bonny Doon. A Chicago native, who now has 8.5 acres with redwoods, is really looking forward to putting up an antenna farm.

The slingshot launcher broke, so I gave a several hour long demonstration of what can be done with a water bottle and rope. His 10/15/20m fan dipole went up about 25' (double what it was). And his 40/80 trap dipole is probably closer to 30-35'. (Triple what it was). Plus the orientation is better. He still has room to double those heights once he finds a "real" launcher.

Saturday I played at the WPX CW contest. My goal was 5 contacts. The contest speeds were too fast for me, so I picked out a couple of stations and did the best I could. One of those stations was KF6A, who is actually Bob, K6XX across the valley. He's a big contester who is a local "nice guy." I whipped off an email when I realized who it was and got a really nice, classy note back. Even during the contest when he was trying for 1000 QSOs.

Part of Saturday was also spent trying to get on 6m. A roundly frustrating experience. I can't hear anything. Not on the G5RV, Not on the loop, not on a homebrew 6m delta loop I threw together. Whaa! Oh well. As JV says, improvements can always be made.

OK, that's all I have time for.

73 de WyreRider

2006-05-27T00:40:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Busy week as always. Good QSO tonight with Al, WA7UQE in Longview, WA.

Hope to make 5 contest contacts this weekend.

2006-05-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

Hi, BearCreekHam, I'm in, finally. Will do more in depth after a while.
Cheers, Altos Mom

2006-05-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

Made it into the "Gordo" net this morning on the way into work.

Also a quick 9AM Talk Net check-in.

Also got into the Noontime net. But the rig was dimming again. Plus the SWR was high to the hamstick. Gotta work that out one of these days... I have this nagging urge to get a set of paddles or a key for the mobile rig... I guess CW really is addictive.

This evening I practiced CW with Sam, KE6ZRW on 2m.

+++++

I've decided that my apparent "reduction" in speed was actually a symptom of working into faster QSOs.

The keyer is set to 15 WPM and I've been spacing for about 12-13 (I think). As I've had more QSOs I've probably been "ooching" up in speed. Thus the reduction in copy percentage.

That's OK, I can live with that. To double check my theory I ran a couple sessions of Morse Runner and I'm at 13 QSOs in 15 minutes. Which is where I was. But now, I'm just barely getting denied moving to 14 where as before it was lucky if I made 13.

Short term goals:

One CW QSO per day, two on weekends.
Ten contest QSOs in the next Spartan Sprint.

Mid-term goals:

500 CW QSOs
20 WPM
Worked All States on CW.

+++++

Time for bed.

2006-05-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry for no updates for a couple of days.

Life was really busy.

Let's see. Wednesday...

Nobody wanted to be Net Control for the 9AM Talk Net. So I did it mobile for the 20 minutes from 17 & 85 to work. Did OK, but had really bad luck on call signs breaking. It was really hard to pick them off. Oh well. Nobody else stepped up and I did a reasonable job.

Thursday. A yearly celebration. Was volunteered to give the "2 way radio" segment to the SLV CERT training class. It ran about 1/2 an hour and from the questions it seemed like the class was fully engaged and learning well. wo0t!

Friday. Had a doctor's appointment, which I messed up and missed by a week... Anyhow made for a really productive Friday ham-wise. Four. Count them four contacts on Friday.

There is a FISTS sprint today, so if I get a spare hour, I'll try that.

Gotta go put my QSL cards in the mail now...

2006-05-06T18:31:00.000-07:00

I've been fighting radio frequency noise issues for some time.

I've already hunted down the two biggest culprits, a battery charger (heard from 1/4-1/2 mile away) and a light dimmer switch.

That's taken the noise from 20 to 40 dB over S9 down to "just S9."

In a concerted effort this afternoon I also located a treadmill as a significant source of noise. Leaving me a significant dilemma...

I've still got hum.

If I put an AM radio near any of the three antennas' coax, I get significant hum.

If I run the radio off of battery and disconnect the earth ground the hum mostly goes away. (The entire system is floating at that point). As soon as I connect the "black" lead back to a power supply, or reconnect the earth ground, the hum comes back.

Now given the "construction techniques" used in this house, I wouldn't rule out hum on the house ground. But JV and I pounded in 4 eight-foot copper rods into my front yard. They are connected together with two pieces of 6? or 8? gauge copper wire, one of which continues into the shack. I believe the "earth ground" is about as good as you're going to get in these mountains without the addition of chemicals to the soil or a pond (hmmm... two hobbies with one project... gotta remember that one.)

I'm guessing that I'm getting AC hum into the system someplace(s) and when it sees a path to ground (either house or earth) it makes itself known.

With everything unplugged and the system floating, the 40m band is glitteringly alive with signals. I don't normally hear that (contest or not). It normally sounds sort of muted or muffled.

HELP?!?

Rig: Icom IC-706MkIIg.
Power: Astron 30A and 88 A-hr battery in parallel through a PowerGate
Antennas: HF #1 G5RV Jr, HF #2 ~170' circumference vertical loop, VHF/UHF Diamond D130 Discone, VHF packet, dual-band j-pole.

2006-05-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

Frustration.

Was characterizing my loop antenna and blew up the antenna analyzer.

Bands are mostly dead, but 40m is active. But all contesters going way faster than I can cope with.

Whahhh!

+++++

2006-05-05T07:29:00.000-07:00

Thursdays are self-declared "QRP in the Park" days around here.

I had some very painful surgery earlier this year and since I spent a lot of the recovery time learning Morse code and reading the ARRL's QRP book, I bought myself a Yaesu FT-817ND as a "get well" present.

So pretty much every Thursday when work and weather cooperate, Craig (AE6RR) and I head to Murphy park in Sunnyvale for some QRP in the sunshine.

This morning I heard K6OTT on the 9am Talk Net announce that he was going "LunchPacking" I quickly chimed in with a "me too."

I arrived at Murphy park about 12:10. Joanne, KG6TJJ, was already there. She had heard the comments on the 9am Talk Net and was curious about portable operation and how to run a FT-817.

I quickly set-up, demonstrating equipment and explaining things between bites of sandwich.

There was a choice of antennas. I had both a Pac-12 and an end fed 1/2 wave wire & counterpoise for 40m with me. Running a bit late, as usual, I felt the wire would go up faster.

Luck was with me. The first try using the "water bottle sling" launching method went over the desired tree branch, 25-30' up. That put the antenna in an inverted-U. Figuring that "the more wire, the higher, the better" and my luck was holding, I made another successful launch and had the entire inverted L 20-30' up.

The set-up was a FT-817ND, a EM-2 tuner and a 7 A-hr gel cell for power. I used the stock mic and an Astatic for SSB and PalmPaddles for CW.

The bands weren't in really good shape. The first thing we did was make sure we got a contact with Andreas, K6OTT. We really had to pull him out of the noise. Since it was Joanne's first 20m contact she was tickled pink. She was very glad it was you and on equipment like she had at home. Andreas had helped her out with her equipment so it was a triple win!

Since Joanne was newer than I, I gave her a bit of a guided tour of 20m. We had solid copy on the maritime net and county hunters, but didn't hear the
DX net or the SSTV guys. Weird!

Once I determined that 20m wasn't going to happen, I went down to 40m and
checked into the noon-time net. I got a resigned tone from the net
control when checking in QRP... The signal _is_ pretty hard to copy in
Reno... :-(

We dropped back to 20m just in time to hear Andreas calling CQ on CW. He was doing 599 where we were. It was a REALLY nice demonstration of the difference between CW and SSB for Joanne.

Three contacts, weird bands, learning experiences, great weather.

What more can you ask? (More contacts perhaps?)

2006-05-03T23:57:00.000-07:00

This evening's CW QSO was with Doug, WC7C in Ephrates, WA.

Good check in to the noontime net from my car. Low power still got a "good signal" report from net control.

The SWR on the hamstick was a minimum of 1.8:1, quickly rising above that in "reasonable" parts of the band. I'll need to revisit that once I have the mobile mount issues straightened out.

Bedtime... PAST bedtime.

2006-05-03T08:02:00.000-07:00

5/2

This evening's CW QSO was with Bob, KE7BAW from Wilderville, OR

If I received correctly he was using a 400 foot long antenna. W00t!!!

I also checked in to the noontime net from my car. For some reason the display lights were dimming when I transmitted. Wonder why?

I'll bring out the antenna analyzer and power "toy" and trouble shoot it tomorrow.

2006-05-01T22:30:00.000-07:00

From 5/1

Spartan Sprint
The first Monday of every month the Adventure Radio Society holds a two hour long contest, the Spartan Sprint. I had wanted to do it last month, but some family commitment or another got in the way.

This month I got a kitchen pass, and was good to go. The original concept was to set up in some park or another and operate from outside. However real life intervened, the hours ran out, so I decided to operate QRP from my home station, but using the FT-817 instead of the Icom-706.

Yeah right. The FT-817 was OK, but it was getting KILLED by QRN/QRM. So I punted back to the Icom 706 with the power turned all the way down.

My goal going in to my first Spartan Sprint, (and first real contest outside of field day) was ONE contact.

I started on 15m. Not much happening. Tried 40m and 20m. Boy those folks are sending FAST. Signals aren't too bad. Finally found a clear station that I could JUST BARELY copy. KL7CW. I botched the exchange the first time, but got it right the second time.
With that under my belt I started looking for my second contact of the contest. Came back to a station, but he has looking for a normal QSO rather than a contest contact.

Being the rawchewer that I am, I punted on the last 15 minutes of the contest to have a nice long QSO with Stan NY6G, from Alameda, CA.

Anyhow. I was basically pretty clueless on the contest, but learned a little. Having gotten over the initial hump, I'll shoot for 10 contacts next month.

Also, firmly determed that manual antenna tuning really bites during contests...

Finally as I was recovering for the evening I also had another good rag chew with Dave W6NFU, from Saugus, CA.

From 4/30

The loop adventure
I've been wanting to put up another antenna for a long while. I inally settled on a 1/2 wave vertical antenna for 40m. 1/2 wave verticals "in theory" don't need radials. Since I don't have a lot of room for radials that seemed like a good idea.

The plan was to shoot a line over the oak tree on my property and suspend the 1/2 wave vertical from the top of the tree. I figured that if the feedpoint was elevated I might even get away with 4 short radials to make it a 1/4 wave on 80m too.

So after a couple of abortive shots with the slingshot, I get the line over the perfect top of the tree. But I also got a nice branch about half way up going up and another one about halfway down on the way down.

Looking up at the configuration, I had a perfect set up for a diamond, vertical loop. It needed to be about 140 feet in circumference in order to be reasonant on 40m. Unfortunately it wound up 25 feet short of being able to "close the loop."

So?

So I put the additional 25 feet in and hope that it plays OK. I haven't been able to characterize the antenna yet, but the antenna tuner loads it up and it seems to have a couple of dB over the G5RV Jr on 20m. "It works"

Evening contact
Fate favored me with a nice contact on Sunday evening. Roy, WQ9Z, from Il was an excellent FISTS ambassador. I've been meaning to join FISTS ever since my initial abortive attempt to learn CW more than a year ago. I'll join the next time I sit down to write checks. The FISTS folks have an even higher percentage of "good folks" than the CW community at large.

My "old fashioned" ham goal
Deep down at heart I'm a people person. I love to ragchew. Neither the DX or contest bugs have bitten yet.

On the other hand I love doing public events. The Adventure Radio Society seems like the "bee's knees" to me. Frankly, I like Field Day better than I like Christmas. No... REALLY!

So other than to use CW for QRP "out in the field" I didn't really have a ham related goal for it. Now I do.

Working All States, CW only. It is a good "old school" ham goal. It will help me get serious about logging and QSL cards. (Which I also *love* to send out...)

So, now I have two goals...

Goal #1: 500 CW contacts. One per day, two on weekends.
Goal #2: Worked All States using only CW.

That should keep me off the streets!

73 de WyreRider

2006-04-29T17:07:00.000-07:00

Got the Appalachian Trail dipole put together. I used an MFJ 33' fiberglass pole to hang it up on. That put the feedpoint roughly 30' off the ground. I had the legs in a rough "inverted vee" configuration. The end insulators were about 6 feet off the ground.

The first attempt was resonant with an SWR of 1.3:1 at 6.8 MHz.

I shortened it up another 1.5 ft and got really reasonable results.

Here is the SWR curve. The Y-Axis is SWR with 1.0 at the bottom and 0.2 unit intervals.

Since my three main operating frequencies on 40m are 7.060 and 7.250 and 7.2685 MHz that should work just peachy.

I called CQ both CW and SSB but nobody came back. Answered a CW from W7WE but he didn't hear me. Finally asked for a signal report from a group that had just broken up. Jim, K6SEK came back and gave me a 56 or a 57.

Jim is exotic DX. Aptos, CA. All of 20 miles away. Hi hi!

I'll have lessons learned from tuning and using the Appalachian Dipole later this evening...

Top segment: Weight supported

Top segment: Ring Guage

MFJ Pole: Coax supported vs free

MFJ Pole: "Coming down!"

Yaesu FT-817 "SWR meter":

2006-04-29T00:04:00.000-07:00

Not a lot to post tonight. I'm up too late.

Tried CWs on 40 and 20m. No joy. Listened around a lot. No joy.

Hunted down another 40m noise source. Light dimmer. That's two.

Cleaning up my 40m noise is sorta like the "lowering the stream" quality philosophy.

Essentually removing the big rocks from a stream allows you to "lower the water in the stream" which in turn reveals more, but smaller, rocks.

Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow.

2006-04-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

Tried to check into the "Gordo" ARES/Rescue net again this morning.

Conditions were still really bad, but I stopped at the "Piddle Point" up near the summit of highway nine. JV (K6HJU), Dave (W8FLL) and Craig (AE6RR) were all hearable.

So we had a SLV mini-version of the 40m net.

Noontime was too busy to get on the radio.

Ran the SLVARC net this evening. 5 people: Tom KG6AO, Brad KD6ZJN, Donya KI6DAR and Sam KE6ZRW made it in.

After net Sam checked in for some SLV slow speed CW practice. He worked through a couple of "bumps" and we went at it for about 45 minutes.

Tomorrow I get to go to the bank & post office for a new toy.

Hopefully that will leave some time for a little QRP in the Park, but maybe not.

If I'm feeling like beating myself up, I'll focus on working weak stations for a while... :-)

2006-04-26T23:25:00.000-07:00

For 4/26

A good day over all.

First off tried to check in to the "Gordo" ARES/Rescue net on 40m on my way to work. No joy. Propagation on 40m was "weird." I could hear the foreign broadcast stations but only one station in California.

It turns out that there were a series of solar flares this morning!

Noon was better. I was able to check in to the Noontime net on 40m and got a good signal report using the Alinco DX-70H and a 40m ham stick on my car. First mobile contact, eh?

Finally, got to have a really nice CW QSO with "Dick" K8GTQ of Flushing, MI on 20m. I was just tuning around and caught a quick CW. And... and everything worked "the way it's supposed to."

After that I did some more tuning around on 40m but didn't find anything happening. Also tried a couple quick CQ's on 30m but didn't really hear anybody. There may have been one station that tried, but I'm not even sure about that.

I like the concept of 30m so I'll have to try it some more.

Finally, I installed a pair of filters into the Icom-706MkIIg. A FL-100 500 Hz CW filter and a 2.8 kHz wide SSB filter. I think the CW filter will help a lot. But I think I made a mistake on the wide SSB filter. Oh well... The price was right...

For 4/25

Heard the "Gordo" Rescue/ARES net, but was on too late to check in. (Got to leave the house earlier!).

The noontime net was unhearable due to strange propagation.

Ran the SLVARES net this evening. We had 13 check ins. Pretty good for a "boring old spring night." We've got a good group of hams up here in the valley.

Finally when fishing for a CW QSO to finish off the day, I called CQ on 10m hoping that one of my SLV QRS buddies might be listening. Sure enough, back came Hap KQ6YV, my CW guru/Elmer.

I wasn't as focused as I normally am, but the QSO was great as it stood. It flowed well and I had "pert near" 100% copy. I'd really like to get fast enough so that Hap can use his bug.

Practice, practice, practice!!!

2006-04-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

Best news?

I had a nice CW QSO on 40m with WB5KJE "Bob" in Paris, TX.

FINALLY some luck on CW.

Next best news?

Got the Alinco sorta working in the Saab. Swapped out the 720 lip mount for the 730 and whaled down on all the fasteners. I _still_ don't trust it mobile, but at least I can operate it when I'm parked.

I've got the 20m and 40m antennas in the trunk. If I'm standing still I'll try the Gordo net tomorrow morning. And certainly the Noontime net tomorrow at lunch.

Bedtime!

2006-04-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

Real world experience QRP/portable in Oakhurst...

The PAC-12 antenna 4/20

The PAC-12 is MUCH better than a "Miracle" Whip.

On Thursday (about 14:30 PDT) I set up using the PAC-12 portable vertical antenna. At James, of Pacific Antenna, suggestion I added an additional 2 one-foot sections between the feedpoint and the bottom of the loading coil (for better efficiency on 40m). A quick check using the "SWR" meter on the Yaesu-817ND showed that the sweet spot on the loading coil didn't change with this addition.

My immediate reaction was that the antenna isn't mechanically sound in this configuration. There was a lot of "teetering" going on. It sorta leaned off in one direction or another.

I can't tell much one way or the other if my actual "on the air signal" improved. The band was really noisy, but I was able to check into the Noontime net, after many repeats and a relay...

Lesson learned: I need to get a field strength meter if I'm going to play with these things seriously.

Dropping down into the CW portion of the band drove the SWR meter on the rig from zero bars to two bars. Three bars is supposed to be the beginning of "bad". Being the tweaker that I am, I moved the tap on the coil up a wire or two and brought it back down to zero. Nice practice I suppose...

Good old wire: 4/21
Get da fire in da wire en git it up higher.

The 1/2 wave end-fed was much better than the PAC-12. It was in a rough inverted-U configuration. First leg up roughly 25', then horizontal or slightly up to about 30' for 35' then the rest of it dangling down. (I misjudged the distance between the two limbs, but since they were a nice height for my water bottle launching method I figured to leave well enough alone...)

I used the 40m set-up with a 1/4 wave counter poise and a ZM-2 tuner.

It was a different day, so propagation was a bit different, but I did get into the Noontime net first call with a signal report of S2 "Good signal for QRP."

Then I shifted to 20m and did much better when I folded said counterpoise in 1/2.
Heard Texas and Il but didn't work either of them. Time/battery.

Will add a sling shot to my kit before the next outing.

2006-04-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

From 4/18

Tested the Astatic M6 575 microphone with Craig, AE6RR today at lunch. We tweaked with both the Volume and Tone adjustments. The volume gives a roughly 10-15 dB change in received S-meter reading. I parked it at about "6", or just above the 'L' in volume. Any higher didn't get good results.

The tone was a bit harder to adjust. Higher seemed better to Craig, but it sounded "nasal" to me at the highest levels, so I backed it down to about 75%.

Need to run some A/B tests on the air to see if it actually is any better than the stock mic.

From 4/17

Hooked up the Astatic M6 575 power mic to the rig. The PTT works. The rig's modulation meter seems to move when I talk. Will test tomorrow with Craig.

From 4/15
More frustration.

From 4/14

EXTREME frustration. Spent about 1.5 hours calling CQ on various bands.

80m 3.550 MHz
40m
20m 14.050 MHz
15m

No responses.

2006-04-13T22:29:00.000-07:00

PAC-12 antenna experience

I assembled the PAC-12 and laid it out in about 5 minutes. The longest
part was putting out the radials.

I then dialed in the multi-band coil for 40m using an MFJ-296 antenna
analyzer. I was pretty much able to get the SWR down to 1.0 or 1.1 on
the coil's "sweet spot" and was pretty much able to keep the SWR down
below 2.0 across the band.

The PAC-12 was attached to a Yaesu FT-817 running on its internal
battery pack and with the stock microphone. It was on "high" power. A
whopping 2.5 watts. The battery wasn't fully charged beforehand but it
should have been between 2/3 and 1/2 full when I started.

I tested the antenna by checking into the noon time net on 7.2685 MHz.
The network control station was coming in 5xS8. Some of the other
stations we S9+. A San Francisco station was about S2.

The outbound signal sure wasn't breaking any pile-ups but they were
eventually able to get my call. I'm guessing I was about 3x3. The net
control then tried to get me in contact with Craig, AE6RR. He was mobile
someplace in the Mountain View/Sunnyvale area. I heard Craig 5xS8. Craig
was unable to hear me. I'm betting NVIS was working but the signal was
too weak for local groundwave.

My impression is that the PAC-12 was doing better than the inverted-L
end-fed 1/2 wave strung in the trees that I normally use. Of course it
was MUCH better than the (snork) "Miracle" whip. (The miracle is that I
suspended disbelief to shell out $90 for it.) I still think that the
NVIS folded dipole is the "best" of the antennas we've tried.

I then tuned the PAC-12 up on 20m. It was about 1.5 at the "sweet spot"
and 2.0 at one end and about 2.2 at the other. Since the radio's battery
had petered out I just tuned it using the analyzer. We'll need to leave
the operating to another day.

The PAC-12 came apart about as fast as it went up. The longest part was
coiling the radials.

I also quickly tested the Palm Paddles, but didn't expect anybody to
answer my short CQ at 2.5W on 40m. They worked, that's all I was
expecting to find out.

My biggest lesson learned is that the FT-817 internal battery pack
really isn't the way to go. It doesn't hold up very long and limits the
output to 2.5W more or less. The radio goes to 5W with external power.
Sounds like I need that extra signal strength. I really should shoot for
a 4x4 signal to be kind to the folks at the other end.

Second is that I probably need to get a different mic going for some
additional punch. If I'm giving up 3 to 6 dB by not having any speech
compression, that should be an easy thing to fix. The Astatic microphone
is in the bag, but I'm not quite sure of the pin-out. I should just hook
something up and try it.

++++++++++++

Sheesh. I called CW on 10, 20 and 40 meters to no avail. Came back to one guy, but somebody else beat me to it.

Copy parts of multiple different QRS QSOs.

Very frustrating. Oh well. Patience, patience, patience...

2006-04-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

From 4/11
Wanted to operate at noon-time but didn't get the opportunity.

JV didn't come out to play this evening but Hap did.

We had a nice CW QSO. He says my fist is getting better. However I have a tendency to run words together and occasionally stop in the middle of a word.

Guilty as charged. Sometimes I need to stop and think of the spelling. Perhaps I should break between words, get the spelling then continue. Kills two birds with one stone.

OK, hassles galore the next couple of days. Hope to get some noon-time or evening CW in.

And hope I have power tomorrow morning.

73 de WyreRider.

From 4/9
Not much operating, VERY tired.

Did hunt down one of my noise sources. It was a Battery Tender in the garage. Heard it about 1/2 a mile away.

Located it with my Yaesu FT-817, Miracle Whip and pseudo body fade techniques.

Still have several more to hunt down, but this was the nastiest one.

2006-04-07T23:36:00.000-07:00

Dear Lord,

Please keep a$$holes away from me, and not allow me to become an a$$hole like them.

I know I am called to "love them" but there are folks that are much more loveable when you can't see or hear them.

Amen.

Wyrerider.

2006-04-07T00:12:00.000-07:00

From 4/6

Was running really late this morning so no 9am talk net. Instead rag chewed with "the normal suspects" on the W6WLS/W6MOW machines, switching to WR6ABD as I got into Silicon Valley.

Noon on Thursdays is self-designated "QRP in the Park" day. I grabbed a sandwich and headed to Washington Park in Sunnyvale.

I used the water-bottle method to string an end-fed 1/2 wave antenna into the trees. The lawn guy came over and wondered what it was. I told him that it was wire for a ham radio antenna and I would take it down when I was done. He wanted to know if "I was talking to aliens" I assured him that it was more like Reno and Sacramento. He thought that was pretty cool and went back to mowing.

My normal first test is to check into the noontime net on 40m, but I just couldn't hear net control. Could hear lots of other people, just not net control...

So I tuned on down the band and heard AE6VR calling CQ from Los Angeles Harbor. I replied. It sounded like I was about 3 or 2 by 3. It was pretty rough copy for Jimmy, but we did make the contact work. He was running 100W into a hamstick mobile. That got him a 5x8 in Sunnyvale. My 2.5W almost didn't get the job done...

The end-fed antenna is very easy to put up, but I have a sneaking feeling that the folded dipole actually worked a lot better...

The evening was taken up by the County ARES' Emergency Communications class. The last one. I got my certificate. That and $4.25 will get me a cup of coffee. Actually the training was good to get everybody "on the same page." The exercise went MUCH better than the SET did last year.

++++++

From 4/5

Noon was fun. I hooked up the paddles, key, keyer and fired up the rig in the shack at work. Sent out two CQs and back came Kern, W7BXD in Klamath Falls, OR.

I only copied about 70% but it was my first non-scheduled CW QSO, and also my first one from the shack at work. COOL!

Somehow 60 whole watts seemed sorta wasteful... ;-)

Wednesday evening Greg, KI6CK was on so we had a nice, relaxed CW QSO on 10m

2006-04-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

Lots for today and I'm tired/need to sleep, so I'll get an outline down and maybe edit it to fill in later.

+++++

Joined Adventure Radio Society. #2122 yea!

+++++

9am talk net.

+++++

Checked into the noon-time net on 40m from the work shack. Lots of noise, but did the best I could with the rig's filters. I want to make a couple CW QSOs from that shack too. Maybe tomorrow.

+++++

Ran the Santa Cruz County and San Lorenzeo Valley ARES nets.

+++++

CW QSO with Hap (KQ6YV)

Poor Sam couldn't hear us on 10m. Did get Telpac to work for him though.

+++++

Analyzed the antenna improvements.

The center of the G5RV Junior is up about 24 ft. Both ends are at about 20 ft.

The ends used to be at 8 ft and maybe 12 ft.

I'm sure that Jeff feels that the SWR measurements taken through 50 feet of RG-8 feedline aren't valid, but they're what I have.

I dropped from 1.9 down to 1.7 on the low end of 40m. It stayed the same on the higher end.

30m was the same

20m dropped from 3.3 to 2.5 at the low end, with a similar drop across the band.

17m stayed the same

15m dropped from 6.6 to 6, across the band

12m dropped from 6.2 to 5.2

10m and 6m stayed the same.

So, "minor improvements" but I'm pleased I was actually able to measure a difference (and it was in the right direction.

2006-04-03T23:02:00.000-07:00

For 4/3

9 am talk net check in.

Also talked to Gordon West about using his Morse Code method on a local repeater (W6JWS-2m). He said yes and wants us to use the "6 CD set." I'll order one presently.

Now it's time to drum up interest and figure out the operations details...

Got home too late for a CW QSO, so did some Code Quick and Morse Runner (12/12 and was just about to put #13 in the log when time ran out... Where have I heard that one before???)

73 de WyreRider

For 4/2

Sunday's largest effort was helping get the 802.11 link going from Ron's (K6EXT) house to the K6FB repeater shack going. I wasn't much direct help, although I did configure the router to forward the web server. oh... wow...

I was quickly tapped however to do maintenance on the KI6EH packet BBS system. I cleaned up the database, renumbered the messages, checked the disks for errors and defragmented them.

After the internet is working, I'm tasked to get a Telpac node set up.

The good news?
There is already a nicely positioned VHF antenna on the mast.

The bad news?
It is currently tuned for 156 MHz (the police band) rather than 145.something (the ham band). Hopefully it will be "good enough" so that a tower climb isn't needed.

The evening wrapped up with a nice CW QSO with Greg KI6CK.

Finally, recorded my 40m noise and forwarded it to several of my Elmers. JV believes it is power line noise. Craig thinks it is a controller, light dimmer or electric motor. And Jeff? Jeff suggests hunting it with an AM broadcast band or shortwave radio.

Sigh. I've never done this before and have absolutely no insight into what I'm supposed to be doing. Argh! Help?!?

2006-04-01T15:06:00.000-08:00

Not much on-the-air today, but did get "one" of the "projects" completed.

The "north" end of my G5RV Junior antenna is now 20' up and the unsightly piece of spring loaded edging is no more.

Huzzah. SOMETHING accomplished.

If I get time after the kiddlettes go to bed this evening, I'll reanalyze the antenna and post the (hopeful) improvements. I'm personally not betting on a big improvement, perhaps an incremental step towards "goodness."

73 de WyreRider

The project list:

PAC-12 antenna: Almost done, needs ribbon cable radials assembled
House front antenna: Needs put up on eaves. Needs ladder and helper.
G5RV Jr antenna: Needs 20' mast installed on back fence.
Short term 40m vertical: Shoot 1/2 wave 40m vertical into the oak tree.
Medium term 160m antenna: Up oak tree, over to other tree, up, up into island tree.
Long term 80m loop: Around property roughly 15-20' up.
Saab: Drill hole for 2/70 and install Yaesu FT-8800
Saab2: Mount for ham sticks and install (?) HF rig
Saab3: Install APRS
Truck: Drill hole for Antennex 2/70 antenna
Truck2: Figure out mount for ham sticks
Truck3: install Icom-706MkIIg and scanner
Truck4: Permanently mount APRS
Build 40m dipole (including ladder line and coax) for FT-817 kit
Make 40m end-fed 1/2 wave for FT-817 kit
Make 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, 6 m ribbon cable counterpoise for FT-817 kit
Get HF Winlink running from the Com Van
Get JNOS running on RF
Help get internet to K6BJ shack.
Install cheesy Telpac node at K6BJ shack
Join FISTS and ARS
Assemble Packer HF linear amplifier kit (yeah right)

2006-03-29T23:14:00.000-08:00

Very interesting day!

Talked to JW/F8DVD on Spitsbergen Island today at lunch. Craig, AE6RR, and I were driving back from lunch, scanning 20 meters and there he was. Calling CQ with no pile-up. S-9 and everything. Craig worked him first, then I did.

100 watts and a hamstick. Gotta love this hobby.

Then we went up and did a bit more work on the abandoned ham shack at work. Installed a tuner and poked around the bands a bit. Didn't find anything worthwhile. Lots of noise. Perhaps something new in the lab. Or perhaps we now know why the shack was abandoned... hi hi.

CW QSO with Greg (KI6CK). Tried to get Sam KE6ZRW into the act but not have a whole lotta luck reaching him. 2m, nope. 6m, nope. 10m, nope.

I tried 80m NVIS and he was able to sorta hear me. Sigh.

Bed time. Life is good.

2006-03-28T23:18:00.000-08:00

The good:

Good CW QSO with Greg (KI6CK) this evening. Also talked with JV on the repeater.
Also stopped by the candy store and picked up a 3' patch cable for the shack at work. Tomorrow at lunch we'll be able to play with the antenna and rig, with a reasonable SWR. Oh boy.

The so-so:
Called CQ on 28.160 and 7.050 to no avail. Chased W9ZN around 40m for a while but he would QSY every time I tried to come back to his CQ. I don't understand that. But oh well. I'll make something work eventually.
Put in some email to a guy about an Alinco DX-70TH for the Saab. He responded that the radio was available, but then stopped replying to email.

What's up, do I have a case of garlic karma or what?

The bad:
Nobody picked up the SLVARES net. Since I was in the middle of dinner with the kids I didn't feel like interrupting that to take the net. Sigh. Can't hold the entire world up...

73 es good night de WyreRider

2006-03-27T21:57:00.000-08:00

"Miracle" Whip?

Snicker.

Really. I _know_ better.

I allowed myself to be suckered into getting a Miracle Whip for my FT-817. Tried it out today at lunch, using my standard methodology... Checking into the noon-time 40m net.

The net control was coming in at S-2 (normally S9+).

When nobody else was checking in the net control said he could tell that there was somebody there, but completely un-readable.

Sigh. I _knew_ that.

Anybody want to buy a used Miracle Whip?

Better as a dessert topping than as an antenna.

73 de WyreRider

2006-03-26T22:43:00.000-08:00

As I asked my wife "Can I have a Do Over on this weekend?"

I didn't get ANYTHING done that I planned to do. Didn't complete ONE task.

Not even one.

The best thing for tonight was a 13/14 on Morse Runner.

2006-03-25T23:37:00.000-08:00

Pretty boring day ham-wise.

Great intentions to build the 1/4 counterpoise and get the backyard 20' pole up came to naught as the XYL scheduled a bunch of stuff in without consulting me. Argh.

Got some Code Quick (software) practice in. Man-o-man, is the software dry as it runs you through the random text.

Wound the evening up with a 15 minute stretch of Morse Runner (12/12) and was three characters away from putting #13 in the log when time ran out. Oh well. Tomorrow night.

73 de WyreRider

2006-03-23T23:22:00.000-08:00

A GREAT day ham-wise.

Got up about 6:00am and tried for contacts on 7.051, 14.050 and 28.160. No joy. There were some QSOs in progress, but most too fast to copy. But I tried anyway. No CQs heard. I tried multiple 3x2 CQs on the above frequencies to no response.

During the commute I had a nice 2m QSO with Greg KI6BJI and Chris KI6AZC. Then checked into the 9am Talk net with Pink KG6ILA. And then Mom KI6DAR checked in for the first time.

Yea!

Lunch was non-ham. Nice QSO with Greg again on the way home. JV K6HJU also chimed in.

Finally, had _great_ back to back CW QSOs with JV and Greg KI6CK on 10m.

Pushed my luck and did 15m with Morse Runner. I swear that program cheats. Had call right, get a "Not In Log", then dumped multiple pile ups on. Then three different stations with multiple AGN?. Oye!

But the CW felt good. Both speed and copy are coming up nicely.

One more try at Morse Runner. 11/11. Not bad, but I could be doing better.

2006-03-22T22:03:00.000-08:00

Boring day.

Did some Code Quick and a 15 minute stint on Morse runner (10 raw, 9 valid). Boo.

Second run (10 raw, 9 valid) Grrr.

I'll run some fast Code Quick QSOs. Foo.

Night!

2006-03-21T22:49:00.000-08:00

A good night and generally great day.

First off, on my way home I get a call from a familiar voice. My mom.

I got to be my mom's first contact. She's now KI6DAR!!! Way to go Mom!!!

Woooot! (Happy dance time!)

Second, Cody ran the county wide net. He jumped in about 2 seconds before I was going to. Then I got to run the SLV ARES net. 11 check-ins. Good deal.

Next Greg, KI6CK and I had a good CW QSO, at a useful speed, with reasonable copy. Happy happy!

Also did a Morse Runner, 10 valid in 15 minutes. Not quite up to normal speed, but got into several nasty pile-ups. Gotta figure out a better way to deal with them...

Lastly, checked out something I was curious about... CW weight. My call seemed "light" but I wasn't sure. So I found a weight checker on the internet and entered a couple of local studly contesters and my CW guru.

K6XX, "Bob" blindingly good contester 54
KQ6YV "Hap" a CW guru 70
KG6AO "Tom" general local dude 60
KI6CK "Greg" another contester 58
AE6RF some guy in the mountains... 48

Chuckle. Lower is better in terms of how long/hard it is to send.

++++++

I've got so many projects going people sometimes wonder which end is up. So... Here is an off the top of my head list of (just ham) projects at various stages of completion...

PAC-12 antenna: Almost done, needs ribbon cable radials assembled
House front antenna: Needs put up on eaves. Needs ladder and helper.
G5RV Jr antenna: Needs 20' mast installed on back fence.
Short term 40m vertical: Shoot 1/2 wave 40m vertical into the oak tree.
Medium term 160m antenna: Up oak tree, over to other tree, up, up into island tree.
Long term 80m loop: Around property roughly 15-20' up.

Saab: Drill hole for 2/70 and install Yaesu FT-8800
Saab2: Mount for ham sticks and install (?) HF rig
Saab3: Install APRS

Truck: Drill hole for Antennex 2/70 antenna
Truck2: Figure out mount for ham sticks
Truck3: install Icom-706MkIIg and scanner
Truck4: Permanently mount APRS

Build 40m dipole (including ladder line and coax) for FT-817 kit
Make 40m end-fed 1/2 wave for FT-817 kit
Make 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, 6 m ribbon cable counterpoise for FT-817 kit

Get HF Winlink running from the Com Van
Get JNOS running on RF

Help get internet to K6BJ shack.
Install cheesy Telpac node at K6BJ shack

Join FISTS and ARS

That doesn't count, work, kids, and the house.

Oh boy!!! :D

Bedtime before I get too stressed by thinking about it all.

2006-03-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

Another didn't get on the air day.

Was suffering "slowsies, dropsies" during code practice at lunch.

Did get my email telling me I passed the IC-100 Incident Command System class. This is a check box saying that I'm trained in ICS basics. It's starting to be a requirement for emergency communication volunteers. Now I need to take the IC-700 which is the NMIS class of the same ilk. Oh boy.

Warmed up with about 7 continuous minutes of random characters using Code Quick (7.7 WPM) then shifted to Morse Runner for 15 minutes.

Better with some extra practice?

UTC Call Recv Sent Pref Chk
00:00:45 LY2CI 599 001 599 001 LY2
00:02:20 YO4ASD 599 002 599 002 YO4
00:02:57 W2HKE 599 002 599 003 W2
00:04:02 DL4PT 599 003 599 004 DL4
00:04:56 GM0JHF 599 001 599 005 GM0
00:06:28 EA5DFE 599 007 599 006 EA5
00:07:44 W7BV 599 002 599 007 W7
00:08:35 K0SRW 599 008 599 008 K0
00:09:32 N3WIZ 599 006 599 009 N3
00:10:50 KB4ZM 579 006 599 010 KB4
00:13:31 JI1EFP 599 004 599 011 JI1
00:14:33 ED2TA 599 011 599 012 ED2

You betcha!

Night night!

2006-03-19T21:38:00.000-08:00

Not much happening. Pretty tired. Somewhat down.

Didn't get a chance to get near a CW rig. So ran Morse Runner three times pretty late.

First run wasn't too good. I was using normal, non-closed headphones and there is a lot of ambient noise near my chair.

UTC Call Recv Sent Pref Chk
00:02:11 IK2WZQ 599 002 599 001 IK2
00:03:07 F5SJB 599 002 599 002 F5
00:05:56 WB1GDG 599 003 599 003 WB1
00:07:09 UR0VX 599 006 599 004 UR0
00:08:24 VE2HQ 599 015 599 005 VE2
00:09:01 W7LAR 599 009 599 006 W7
00:11:23 JA1IVY 599 003 599 007 JA1
00:12:38 KR4WU 599 011 599 008 KR4
00:13:51 OK1JXU 599 005 599 009 OK1 NR

And then a second run with the closed headphones and the SCAF-1 filter

UTC Call Recv Sent Pref Chk
00:00:54 OH2VY 599 001 599 001 OH2
00:01:55 IK7WPD 599 002 599 002 IK7
00:03:07 JR3SRB 599 004 599 003 JR3
00:05:17 KA6G 599 003 599 004 KA6
00:05:56 ZF2NT 599 002 599 005 ZF2
00:08:13 DL8AAM 599 015 599 006 DL8
00:09:18 WC6H 599 006 599 007 WC6
00:10:35 ON7YX 599 026 599 008 ON7
00:11:52 LZ1RN 599 014 599 009 LZ1

And finally with the closed headphones only:

UTC Call Recv Sent Pref Chk
00:01:34 WB8VGE 559 001 599 001 WB8
00:02:15 K4PZC 599 001 599 002 K4
00:05:14 S57IIO 599 002 599 003 S57
00:06:37 DJ7YF 599 001 599 004 DJ7
00:09:49 KD5TFK 599 011 599 005 KD5
00:12:37 N8II 599 007 599 006 N8
00:14:39 JE3GDW 599 027 599 007 JE3

Sigh... I'm just NOT having a good night. Better hang it up and go to bed...

I REALLY need to adjust the SCAF-1 filter because it is giving me white noise with no input. Bad.