Operating Archives - KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

Amateur radio tip of the day: DXers have their own set of phonetics

May 15, 2013 by Dan KB6NU Leave a Comment

While it’s always appropriate to use the standard NATO phonetics, DXers have their own set of phonetics. For example, you will often here “Mexico” instead of “Mike” or “Honolulu” instead of “Hotel.” This is especially true in DX contests. So, if a DX station doesn’t seem to understand the NATO phonetics, give the “DXer phonetics” a try.

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Filed Under: DX, Operating

From my Twitter feed: Field Day, HackRF, intruders

May 12, 2013 by Dan KB6NU Leave a Comment

N5NTG
AMATEUR RADIO FIELD DAY – GET OUT AND OPERATE: Field Day Is Just Around The Corner – Plan Now …http://t.co/crdHOFKEno

Chris_Diemoz
Who’s intruding #hamradio bands (and how)? The answer is blowing in the April @IARU_R1Monitoring System newsletter!http://t.co/Afp6XUScxH

n0rc
Giving Away HackRF #sdr http://t.co/zxXnOyg4q2 #hamr #diy #electronics

Filed Under: Clubs, Contests, Gear/Gadgets

From my Twitter feed: N1MM, good-looking hams, ham-radio growth

May 8, 2013 by Dan KB6NU Leave a Comment

EC7AKV
New Version 13.05.00 of #N1MM is available from website http://t.co/wtmm4Q8bj4 #hamr #hamradio #cqwpx #cqww #ure @ure_es

K1NSS
WHY HAMS SO GOOD-LOOKING? Miracle Mask secret coverup shockerhttp://t.co/ZVkrcQQsu8 #hamr #hamradio #RSGB #QRP #CQWW

nnerdsllc
Ham Radio Growing In The Age Of Twitter : NPR - #nerd #hamradio #hamr -http://t.co/4kZ1VJHDSS

Filed Under: Contests, Software, The Service

From my inbox: 43 years of 73 magazine, SP DX contest, useless answer

May 3, 2013 by Dan KB6NU 2 Comments

I found these three items in my inbox this past week…Dan

43 years of 73 on-line
Wayne Green has now released all back issues of 73 to the public domain. Although the last issue was published more than ten years ago, there’s still lots of good stuff to be found in them. You can download individual issues by going to archive.org. Indexes can be found on these web pages…

The first lists the contents of each issue. The second has direct links to the to the issues at archive.org.

The cover shown at right, a takeoff on MAD Magazine, is one of my favorite covers. Take a closer look at the soldering job Al Freddy is about to attempt. Click on the image to get a larger version if you can’t quite make it out.

Wayne Green actually published the first article that I ever wrote, “Assembling Robots with a TRS-80.” I was 23 or 24 at the time. It was published in Byte, arguably the first widely-read magazine for computer hobbyists. The article was a short one on how to program in assembly language on the TRS-80. It displayed a robot-like thing on the screen using the blocky graphics available on the TRS-80.

SP DX Contest actually wants my log
A month ago, I made a few contacts in the SP DX Contest. It was only 20 contacts or so, and I had meant to submit the log, but I soon forgot about it. Well, this morning, I go this e-mail:

The first review of logs received for the SP DX Contest 2013 shows that your callsign KB6NU apears in many logs. However you propably have not submitted your log.

The SP DX Contest took place during the first weekend of April (2013.04.06-07). This year we are celebrating 80th Anniversary of the SP DX Contest as it was organized for the first time in 1933. We would like to make the log checking process as accurate as possible. It will also be a honour for us to list your callsing in the final results.

We would kindly ask to send your log to the SP DX Contest Committee, even if you made only a few contacts, even if perhaps you are a causal contester.

Well, how can I refuse? I’ll have to do this as soon as I can get down to the museum again.

Useless answer department
I’ve been doing writeups for the product pages on AmateurRadioSupplies.Com. (Yes, that’s a plug for them, but they’re paying me to do these writeups, and they’re even advertising here on KB6NU.Com.) For the past week, I’ve been working on coax descriptions.

In doing this, one question that came up is why does marine grade coax have a white jacket? I e-mailed a question to Marinco tech support, and got the following answer, “It’s hard to say but I think it is to distinguish it as marine grade vs. house cable.”

Seriously? That’s all there is to it? Does anyone know the real answer?

Filed Under: antennas, Books and Magazines, Contests, DX

Think the bands are crowded during contests? You’re right.

April 29, 2013 by Dan KB6NU Leave a Comment

While writing a post for Radio-Sport.net on the CQ WPX contest, I ran across this slide in a recorded webinar on rules changes for 2013:

cq-wpx-activity

I’m sorry about the quality of the slide, but that’s the best I could do. Even with the poor resolution, you can see that the number of logs that have been submitted for the CQ WPX have just about doubled in the last ten years. Nearly, 5,400 logs were submitted for the CQ WPX SSB contest last year, while more than 4,000 were submitted for the CQ WPX CW contest. These numbers do not include stations who participated in the contest in some way, but did not submit a log.

Want to get in on the action? Well, the RTTY and SSB contests are done for the year, but the CW contest is coming up on May 25-26, 2013.

Filed Under: Contests

Operating Notes: DX @WA2HOM, 4/25/13

April 26, 2013 by Dan KB6NU 2 Comments

The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum is open Thursday evenings, but from September though April I bowl on Thursday nights, so never get to take advantage of that. We’ve finished for the year now, though, so yesterday, I walked down to the museum and put WA2HOM on the air for a couple of hours.

One of my first contacts was with Marco, IZ8LJZ. The contact itself was the standard DX contact, i.e. short and kind of boring, but when I looked him up on QRZ.Com, I found this photo below. What a lovely spot!

Marco, IZ8LJZ lives in Praiano, on the beautiful Amalfi Coast.

20m was open to Europe, so I made several more DX contacts before I left for the day. One of them was with Tom, G3HGE. We were both 599, and we had a not-so-normal DX contact, chatting for nearly 30 minutes.

Tom’s QRZ page said that he used to be a manufacturer of amateur radio gear, so earlier today, I Googled him. As it turns out, Tom was the man behind TW Electronics, a manufacturer of VHF gear from 1958 – 2000. There’s a nice history of the company on the TW website.

Now in his 80s, Tom now makes paddles and bugs. I don’t know if he’d like this comparison, but you might call him the “English Begali.” His latest creation, the TW Olympic shown below is a dual-lever bug that uses magnetic tension. He was using this bug for our QSO, and it sounded great. I’m already thinking that maybe I could get the XYL to put that on my Christmas list.

The TW Olympic is a two-lever “bug” that uses magnetic tension and has a speed range of 14 – 28 wpm.

Filed Under: CW, DX, Hands-On Museum

Operating notes: MI QSO Party, Rookie Roundup

April 22, 2013 by Dan KB6NU 2 Comments

I started the weekend off by going to the ARROW monthly breakfast. I don’t know why, but attendance was way down this month. Only eight of us showed up. One notable presence was Sam, KC8QCZ. We hadn’t seen him for quite a while.

After breakfast, I had intended to make a ton of points in the Michigan QSO Party from the Hands-On Museum station. Instead of using WA2HOM, which would have only confused people, we used W8CWN, the former callsign of Dr. Richard Crane, a U-M physicist and the builder of some of the earliest exhibits at the museum.

Ed, AB8OJ, met me down there, but unfortunately, the propagation gods were not with us. 15m and 10m were completely quiet. 20m was a little better, but even there, conditions were only fair to poor. After about three hours, we just gave up with only 74 QSOs in the logbook.

As it turns out, all the activity was on 40m, and we still don’t have the 40m inverted V back up yet at the museum. I really should have made more of an effort to do this last fall. It’s the first thing on my list to do when (if?) the weather here warms up enough to get up on the roof.

Saturday evening, I did operate the MIQP from home for about three hours. Since I don’t have an 80m antenna, I stuck to 40m. I was thinking of trying 20m again, but there was so much activity on 40m, I didn’t bother to listen to 20m.

The propagation was very favorable for MIQP operation. Not only was the propagation long enough to contact the eastern half of the U.S., it was also short enough to make contacts in the neighboring states and many MI counties. I ended up making more than twice as many contacts at home as I did at the museum in roughly the same amount of time. I quit at just after 10pm with just over 40,000 points.

On Sunday, I went down to the museum again for a short time. 20m was still in pretty lousy shape, but I made a couple of CW contacts, then went looking for the Rotarians on Amateur Radio net. I was again unable to find them, but I did log into the Heathkit Net right at the tail-end of that net.

I then tuned around a bit before pulling the plug. I found a couple of stations working the Rookie Roundup. One of them was working W6YX, the Stanford University Amateur Radio Club station. The other was a husband and wife team working the same station with both their calls. I thought that was pretty cool.

Filed Under: Contests, Operating

KB6NU places second for Michigan in the Florida QSO Party

April 16, 2013 by Dan KB6NU 2 Comments

I got this in the mail yesterday:

2012-fqp-certificate

My first thought was, “Boy, it sure took them a long time to send this to me.” I honestly don’t even remember working this contest.

Then, I saw the info sheet for this year’s contest. The 2013 Florida QSO Party takes place the weekend of April 27-28. They’re just trying to drum up business. I’ll have to try to get #1 this year. If you’re in Florida, listen for me.

Filed Under: Contests

WA2HOM Operating Report: Toad Suck, counties, Polish DX

April 7, 2013 by Dan KB6NU 1 Comment

I had a blast down at WA2HOM today.

One of my first contacts was with W5STR, the club station for the Small Town Amateur Radio Service (STARS), a club in Arkansas. The club was operating from a campground in Toad Suck, AK. Yes, you read that right–the place they were operating from is named Toad Suck, a place that a recent poll says has the “most unfortunate name” in the U.S.

As you may know, I’m a sucker (pun intended) for odd place names. That being the case, I had to find out how Toad Suck got its name. According to their website:

Long ago, steamboats traveled the Arkansas River when the water was at the right depth. When it wasn’t, the captains and their crew tied up to wait where the Toad Suck Lock and Dam now spans the river. While they waited, they refreshed themselves at the local tavern there, to the dismay of the folks living nearby, who said: “They suck on the bottle ’til they swell up like toads.” Hence, the name Toad Suck. The tavern is long gone, but the legend lives on.

I love it.

og3077f_back_1_

Next, I worked Heikki, OG3077F. On his QSL card, found on QRZ.Com and shown above, Heikki says, “I applied for this special callsign to commemorate my contacts with all 3,077 U.S. counties, all on CW, which took me 24 years to complete. I started chasing U.S. counties in 1987, which I met Bud, W0UBT, in Minnesota. He gave me the USA County Record Book, as a gift, and upon my return to Finland, I started to fill it up. Many thanks to all of my local and international county hunter riends for all of your support throughout all of these years.”

Finally, I worked 20 stations in the Polish DX contest. One of the stations I worked was SP9ATE, whose QSL card will be a nice addition to my collection of QSLs from stations whose callsigns spell words. I almost worked SP9GEM, but after many attempts to get him to copy my callsign, he gave up and went on to the next QSO.

Filed Under: Contests, DX, Operating, Special Events