Videos Show Two Very Different Aspects of Ham Radio

August 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Tim, N9PUZ, recently posted URLs to two YouTube videos to the HamRadioHelpGroup mailing list. They show two very different aspects of ham radio. The first shows what can happen when lightning strikes an antenna.

This second one is really incredible. If you’ve ever worked any of the DX contests, chances are you’ve worked OH8X. It’s a monster contest club. One of their towers is a 100m (330-ft.) monster that holds a three-element Yagi for 160m and a five-element Yagi for 80m. But, ham radio is not all they use the tower for. Watch below:

Filed Under: antennas, DX

WA2HOM: Adding Countries to the Log

May 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I’m usually not one to work the big contests, but there are some advantages to participating, even if you don’t have a lot of time or plan to submit a log. One of the advantages is that there are a lot of countries on, and you can add to total of countries that  you’ve worked.

This weekend was the CQ WPX  CW contest. I only operated for about three hours, the bands were kind of lousy on Saturday, and I only worked 15 meters, but even so, I managed to add eight countries to the WA2HOM log. They include:

  • HK1R – Colombia
  • SZ1A – Greece
  • 6W/RK4FF – Senegal
  • HQ9R – Honduras
  • EF8M – Canary Islands
  • J7A – Dominica
  • J39BS – Grenada
  • HC2SL – Ecuador

It’s nothing real exotic, but new ones nonetheless.

Filed Under: Contests, DX, Hands-On Museum

Daily Double

May 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Last Wednesday evening, I hit the Daily Double, working two special event stations. The first was N4G, a special event station for the “Cannon County Good Old Days” in Woodbury, TN.

Flag of the Mosquito Nation

The second was H77REX, a special event station commemorating the 350th anniversary of the Mosquito Nation. The Mosquitos are the indigenous people in what is now Nicaragua.

Last night, I also hit the Daily Double, but of a slightly different nature. When I got on last night, I first tuned up on 30m. My first contact was with SE6Y, who answered my CQ.

After QSYing to 40m, I again called CQ. This time, SM6DLY, another Swedish station answered my call, completing my Swedish Daily Double. I love it when DX stations answer my CQ.

Filed Under: DX, Special Events

No-Nonsense Guide to DXing

April 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

No, the New DXers Handbook by Bryce K. Anderson, K7UA, isn’t the latest in my series of No-Nonsense guides to amateur radio, but it could be. This free e-book lays it all out for new DXers in much the same style that I have tried to lay it all out for those trying to get into the hobby.

The book takes this no-nonsense approach right off the bat. K7UA couldn’t put it more simply, “Listening is the key to successful DXing.” It’s not watching the DX clusters, or reading DX bulletins. It’s listening.

Further down, K7UA maintains that an important skill for a DXer is persistence. You have to be in your shack when the DX is on the air. As the author says, “You can’t work them if you are not there!”

My one quibble with the book is that I think he gives short shrift to CW operation. Although K7UA concedes that CW is perhaps the most efficient mode, he also says, “SSB might well now be the DXer’s primary mode.” I’m not so sure about that. All of the recent DXpeditions and many, if not most, DX stations operate CW.

I’ll even go a step further, and say that your chances of working a DXpediition are better on CW than on phone. This is mainly because they can work them faster on CW than on SSB, and this gives you a better chance of making contact, especially when conditions aren’t optimal.

At any rate, the New DXers Handbook is a great read, and you can’t beat the price. It’s FREE!

Filed Under: Books and Magazines, DX

All l Can Say is WOW!!

April 17, 2011 by Leave a Comment

To break in the new beam yesterday, down at the museum, we participated in a couple of contests: the CQ Manchester Mineira DX Contest (MM) and the Michigan QSO Party (MIQP).  All I can say is, “WOW!!”

I got there just before 11 am. Jim, K8ELR, was already there making out QSL cards. Since the MIQP didn’t start until noon, I thought I’d tune around and see what bands were open. I first tried 15m CW. That’s how I discovered the MM DX contest. The band was very open to Europe, especially with the new beam. In short order, I worked a dozen or more Europeans and Caribbean stations.

What a difference the beam makes! With the 20m inverted vee, nearly every QSO was a challenge, but with the beam, I worked every station I called, usually on the first try. This was so amazing that I was actually getting a little giddy.

About 11:45 am, I decided that I better get set up for the MIQP. I had brought my WinKeyer (since the Omni VII doesn’t have a memory keyer!), and wanted to hook it up to the N1MM program. I had done this quite easily at home, but I could not, unfortunately, get it to work on the computer down at the museum. The computer seemed to be talking to the keyer, but the function keys didn’t work. (If anyone has any ideas on what I’m doing wrong, I’d be happy to hear them.)

A little after noon, I decided to give up on this, and just program the keyer itself and operate stand-alone. About 12:10, we were working the MIQP on 20m using the callsign W8CWN, the callsign of H. Richard Crane, a distinguished professor of physics at the University of Michigan and one of the founders of the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.

Again, the performance of the beam was just spectacular, at least compared to our 20m inverted vee. We pointed the beam west and easily worked stations on the West Coast. We pointed the beam east and got calls from Europeans and the East Coast.

Using the beam, our noise level seemed to be lower, too, although not as low as I would like it. We’re going to have to work on that some more.

We worked a lot of 40m, too, using our 40m inverted vee. That antenna has always worked pretty well for us, and the band was in good shape yesterday afternoon. There was a lot of short skip on 40m, allowing us work quite a few Michigan counties.

Overall, we made 195 contacts in nearly five hours. That’s certainly not championship form, but it’s a lot better than we’ve done in the past, and we really had a blast, both operating the contest and explaining what we were doing to the museum visitors. It’s just too bad that the museum closed at 5pm and we had to stop.

Filed Under: Contests, DX, Hands-On Museum, Operating

Operating Notes: 3/7/11

March 8, 2011 by 2 Comments

DX contesting
Saturday night, my XYL was working, and I had nothing else to do, so I turned on the radio. I made a couple of CW contacts on 40m, then remembered there was a big DX phone contest going on.

I tuned around a bit and heard quite a bit of DX as the band was in pretty good shape. I didn’t want to really spend a lot of time doing this, but I did want to play around a little. What I decided to do was to make  one pass through the band 7.200 MHz to 7.125 MHz.

This took me 40 minutes to complete, and in that time, I worked 12 stations: TI5N, IO5O, TA7KW, EI7M, HK1T, EA3BOX, TM6M, PJ2T, S51YI, YT8A, CO8CY, AND ZF2AH. It was amusing, and I think I did alright for just having 100W and dipole. Also, if you notice, I bagged another station whose callsign spells a word (EA3BOX).

Cayman Islands
I’ve worked several Cayman Islands stations in the past, but you don’t really hear all that many on the air.  There are more PJ stations on the air than there are ZF stations, for example.

That’s why I was kind of surprised to work another ZF2—ZF2LC—this evening. The signals were quite strong on 30m tonight, though, and maybe this guy was winding down from the contest over the weekend.

Sable Island
There was a station on from Sable Island this evening, too. There was a huge pileup on 30m the other night when a Sable Island station came on the air. So big that I couldn’t break in.

Tonight, though, it was a different story. I worked him on my second call.

I don’t know what all the fuss is about, though. Sable Island is really not that far away, nor is it very hard to work.

DXCC
As I reported the other day, I now  have 89 countries confirmed via Logbook of the World (LOTW). Tonight, I checked my paper cards against the LOTW confirmations.

I came  up with 16 more, including Samoa, the Slovak Republic, and Bolivia. That brings me to 105 confirmed, enough for DXCC! I know that’s not a big deal to a lot of you, but it’s something. :)

Filed Under: Awards, Contests, DX

Miscellaneous Notes: LOTW Update, E-Books, W8AO/W8IO

March 4, 2011 by 2 Comments

LOTW Update
My last posting on my experiences with Logbook of the World (LOTW), “Is LOTW More Trouble Than It’s Worth,” was one of my most popular posts, in terms of the number of responses it generated. I published that in November 2009. Since then, I again changed computers in my shack, and not wishing to go through the hellacious process I went through last time, I just haven’t bothered getting LOTW up and running again.

A couple of days ago, however, a fellow graciously asked me if I would QSL via LOTW. He asked so nicely, I could hardly refuse. Besides, it had been more than a year since I last uploaded my log to LOTW.

Fortunately for me, this time the installation process went without a hitch, and I had it all up and running again in less than 15 minutes. I uploaded my latest QSOs in short order too.   As of Sat, 5 Mar 2011 UTC, I have  10,133 QSOs uploaded and 1,507 QSOs confirmed, including 89 countries. This is compared to 8,928 QSOs uploaded and 1,160 confirmed, including 81 countries on Nov. 30, 2009. I’ll have 90 countries as soon as S9DX uploads their logs.

E-Books
As I mentioned before, I’ve started selling Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook e-book versions of the No-Nonsenses Technician Class License Study Guide. While it’s not in any danger of breaking any sales records, I have been somewhat amused. In two and a half months, it’s sold about 20 copies.

W8AO/W8IO
Last Saturday, down at the museum, I worked W8IO,  who lives in Macedonia, OH. About an hour later, I get a call from W8AO, who lives in Wooster, OH, only about 50 miles away from Macedonia. During the course of our conversation, I mentioned that I’d worked W8IO earlier that morning.

On his next transmission, W8IO tells me that he used to work W8AO all the time, but that he hadn’t heard him in quite a while. (That’s not too surprising, actually–they’re only 50 miles apart.) He asked me to convey his regards next time I worked him. I just thought it was quite a coincidence to work both these guys so close together, and that they knew one another.

Filed Under: Awards, Classes/Testing/Licensing, DX, Operating, QSLs

Ork, Ork

February 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

For the past few evenings, there’s been a big pileup from about 7.025 MHz to 7.028 MHz. I guessed that it was some new DXpedition that I hadn’t heard about and just tuned around it. Well, last night, curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to find out what all the fuss was about.

As it turns out, it’s VP8ORK, on the South Orkney Islands. According to the VP8ORK QRZ.Com page:

The Microlite Penguins DXpedition team will be activating the South Orkney Islands (DXCC VP8/O, IOTA AN-008) from January 27 to February 8, 2011. Safe and reliable Antarctic transportation has been secured by the experienced RV Braveheart, and activity will be on all HF bands 160m-10m using SSB, CW and RTTY.

For more information, go to http://www.vp8o.com.

Even though I’m only an occasional DXer, I decided to jump into the pile last night. One reason for this is that I happen to live on Orkney Drive here in Ann Arbor, MI.

After about 15 minutes, though, I got bored and tuned downband, where I happened to run into 9Y4VU on Trinidad and Tobago. Not as good a catch, perhaps, but still the first Trinidadian for me.

As for working VP8ORK, I’ll keep trying. Maybe I’ll get lucky with them, too.

Filed Under: DX, Operating Tagged With: ,

Holy QSO, Batman!

January 29, 2011 by 1 Comment

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve worked two special event DX stations, both having a religious theme:

  • PR150PLMPR150PLM is a special event station celebrating the 150th anniversary of the  birthday (January 21, 1861) of  Brazilian’s scientist, inventor and radio pioneer, Priest Landell de Moura. The station is active only until January 31, so if you want to work it you’ll have to hurry. I worked it on 40m CW, but their QRZ.Com page says that they are active on 10, 15, 17, 20, 30, 40 and 80m  SSB,  CW and digital modes. QSL via PR7AYE (pray, get it?), direct or via the bureau.
  • LZ11PGPLZ11PGP is a special callsign created to honor the Bulgarian Saints Gavriil Lesnovski and Prohor Pshinski. Furthermore, the QRZ.Com page goes on to say that contacting LZ11PGP counts toward the  ”All Bulgarian Saints” award and 10 points towards “St. Teodosii Tyrnovski” award. To qualify for the award, European stations must contact 10 of the 14 stations using special callsigns commemorating Bulgarian Orthodox Saints. Stations outside Europe need only make five contacts. For a complete list of special callsigns, see the LZ11PGP QRZ.Com page.
Filed Under: DX, Operating

CW Ops Wanted

February 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Jim, K8ELR, forwarded this to me this afternoon:

KURDISTAN DXPEDITION NEEDS MORSE OPS
Paul Ewing, N6PSE, says that he has several open positions for CW operators on the DXpedition team headed to Kurdistan in April. Ewing says that costs for this DXpedition are quite reasonable and they will be operating from a very safe and secure facility. Anyone interested in joining the DXpedition team may contact Ewing directly by e-mail to paul (at) n6pse (dot) com or check out the website at www.yi9pse.com. (GB2RS)

According to the website, they plan on running two CW stations, each equipped with an ICOM IC-7600 and SteppIR beam antenna and 300-ft. Beverage antenna.

The current team includes:

  • N6PSE – Paul Ewing
  • N6OX – Bob Grimmick
  • JH4RHF – Jun Tanaka
  • AH6HY – David Flack
  • N2WB – Bill Beyer
  • YI1UNH – Heathem Sabah
  • K3VN – Al Hernandez
  • K3LP – David Collingham
  • WØUCE – Jack Ritter
  • W5KDJ – Wayne Rogers
  • FM5CD – Michel Brunelle
Filed Under: CW, DX Tagged With: ,
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