KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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The Weekend in Ham Radio at KB6NU – Feb. 26-27, 2005

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On Saturday, I didn’t make a single contact–at least not any radio contacts. I had plenty of face-to-face contacts at the ARROW monthly breakfast, including a nice chat about getting back on the air and working CW with a guy whose call I forget now (sorry about that!). He was telling me about a psychiatrist named Fred S. Keller who actually Certificate of Merit by President Truman for his work during WWII which led to improved methods for teaching the code. He’s a guy I never heard of before, and it would be interesting to know more about his findings.

Other activities–including a visit to the Michigan State Univ. Kresge Art Museum and installing Linux on a ‘new’ old computer–occupied my time for the rest of the day. Somehow, I simply couldn’t fit in a QSO.

Today was a different story, however. I finished up the Linux installation around 11:30 am, and ate lunch. I puttered around the office until about 1:00, when I decided to head down to the shack. After turning on the rig, I discovered that it the NC QSO Party was in full swing. I didn’t have much choice but to jump right in, especially considering that I was the highest scorer from the state of Michigan last year. I joke about this because while I was indeed the highest scorer from the state of Michigan, I accomplished this feet with seven contacts, scoring a grand total of 155 points.

This year, I was determined to do better. After downloading and installing N3FJP’s NCQP logging software, I got down to business. In the next two and half hours, I racked up about 2,500 points, working 27 different counties. About 60% of the Qs were on CW and the remaining 40% on phone. At that point, I stopped to make and eat dinner.

The bug had hold of me, though, and I couldn’t resist heading downstairs again after dinner. I spent another hour and a half or so, working another 13 counties (making it 40 out of 100), and pushing my point total to over 6,000. Not too shabby, I don’t think.

I also fit in a little DX while working the contest. I took a short break around 6:30 pm, switching to 30m to see what was happening there. I caught 8P9NX calling CQ and had a short QSO with him. Also, at one point, I was calling CQ NCQP de KB6NU/MI. I got calls from both F6EVN and CU2TJ, who were also trying to make NC contacts and misunderstood my call.

Finally, I checked into the Univ of Michigan ARC net at 8 pm. It’s spring break week at the U and some of the guys have said they’re going to use the time to improve their code speed, and they’re going to take me up on my offer to work with them. I have a sked tomorrow after the ARROW net to work KG6URI on 2m CW. It will be interesting to see how well my dual-band ground plane works on the lower portion of the band.

This Weekend on the Radio at KB6NU: My Best Score Yet!

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The main ham radio activity this weeked at KB6NU was the FISTS Winter Sprint. It was really a blast. I did way better than the Fall Sprint, scoring 11,670 points on 79 QSOs and 30 multipliers. I followed pretty much the same strategy I did in the Fall Sprint. I operated just enough on 20m and 15m to add to the multiplier total and then banged away on 40m to roll up the QSOs. I didn’t work any DX this time, but I did increase my multipllier total from 21 to 30.

I even got to camp out on 7.058–the FISTS calling frequency–for about 30 or 40 minutes towards the end of the Sprint. I had a nice clear frequency for a while, but then N3BBO set up shop a couple 100 Hz away. Fortunately, I could filter him out pretty well, and it didn’t seem to stop other stations from hearing me and calling me.

My last QSO of the contest was with K4KSR, who was running QRP. When N3BBO transmitted, he covered him up completely. K4KSR stuck with me though, through several repeats, to complete the QSO. Thanks, Bill!

For those of you not familiar with the Fist Sprint, let me note that the exchange is kind of long. Stations must exchange a signal report, their sections, their names, and their FISTS number. On top of that, some operators will also send their FISTS Century Club number. Since this is not required, it annoys some guys. I must admit that it annoyed me, especially right at the end of the Sprint, when I really wanted to add a few more Qs to the log. Then, I remembered that one of the charms of the FISTS Sprint is the laidback nature of the contest. I took a deep breath, and the irritation melted away.

Yet Another CW CourseThis afternoon, I finally got around to checking out the K7QO CW Course, gracoiusly sent to me by KC8SVB. This course is somewhat different than others in that there’s no program involved. Instead, it’s a series of .mp3 files, which you play either on a computer, or if you burn them onto a CD, a portable CD player.

This latter feature makes it useful to those who want to study in the car or on a plane, but don’t want to haul around a laptop. You can get the course from http://puffin.tamucc.edu/k7qo/. You can download a PDF of the manual from http://puffin.tamucc.edu/k7qo/manual.pdf.

More stuff at Technorati.Com

Big Weekend for State QSO Parties February 5 & 6

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According to the ARRL Contest Rate Sheet, there are five state QSO Parties next weekend:

These low-key contests are usually a lot of fun, and I know the hams in those states would appreciate it if you jumped in there and gave them a few Qs. While they do overlap in spots, they don’t overlap completely, so it may actually be possible to compete in several of them.

Contesting and Band Choice

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After my mediocre performance in the Fists Sprint a couple of weeks ago, which I blamed on my antenna, I decided that I’d better put up my 20m ground plan antenna again. So, this morning, just before the North Carolina QSO Party was to start, I threw a rope over a tree branch in the front yard and hauled up the ground plane. I spread out the two radials, snaked the coax into the house, and I was in business. The SWR measured 1.2:1.

I tuned to 14.040 and worked a couple of stations and began to think that I was going to do OK. That quickly came to an end, however. The band must have changed, because stations that were truly coming in 599 suddenly dropped way down in strength. In fact, I was hearing European stations calling the NC stations that were stronger here than the NC stations. I even tuned down to 14.033 and worked one of the Germans just for the heck of it.

Apparently, the radiation angle of the ground plane was too low and skipping right over North Carolina. I probably should have gotten on 40m, but I still don’t have an antenna for that band. I guess that should be my next project. The best band to work NC at this point might actually be 30m, but by gentleman’s agreement, there’s no contesting on the 30m band.

Oh, well. The contest runs to 10 pm tonight, so perhaps I’ll get back on a little later and see if anything’s cooking.

Update 5-9-04:
Despite my mediocre performance (7 total QSOs, 155 total points), I actually had the highest score in the state of Michigan. (It was probably the only score from the state of Michigan.) For my efforts, I received a certificate, noting my first place finish.