Spring Comes in Like a Lion...

Well, March has been a really busy month for me.  I was ill, so I had more time to #occupyhamshack.  I’m feeling much better now, thank you, and I’m dying to get out for a road trip or two.  With a day left in the month, I’ve have 881 contacts so far.  That, of course, includes the ARRL International DX contest and the CQ WPX contest, but still that’s too much time on the radio.

I blame JT65HF.  I’m a “multitasker” by nature, and I find that I can watch the news, keep up with Twitter, play Microsoft Hearts, and never miss a contact on JT65.  It’s just my wife and I, and I have the radio shack/man cave at one end of the house, and she has her craft room at the other end and neither of us watches much television.   At first I thought I would quickly run out of unique contacts on JT65.  After all, how many people are going to use such a limited means of communications?  It’s only thirteen characters and it takes minutes to make a contact.   And yet, here they come.   From the Falklands to the North Pole, they’ll piling up on 14.076, 21.076, etc., and I work ‘em all.

And then there is Twitter.  I really enjoy my Hamtwit friends.  These are the hams I follow and who follow me on Twitter.   I’m always interested to see where @wb0lcw is lurking on the bands.  I see him turning up on 40 or 20 in the evenings.  Along with all our friends, we went through the ordeal when @NR4CB lost her mother.  The outpouring of love was fantastic.  I find myself wondering if @ke7jtu is getting enough to eat.  It seems like he forgets to eat when he’s busy.   I’ve never met these people, but I feel like I know them.  And yes, I’ve worked a few of them on the air.  If you’re not on twitter, go there and look for the hashtags #hamradio or #hamr and join in the conversation.

After working two of the spring contests, I vowed I’d never work another contest without a decent headset.  The Heil Proset 6 arrived via UPS from HRO this afternoon.  I ordered the cable for the TS-480 and setup was a snap.  I didn’t order the footswitch because I already have two.   Some twenty-five years ago, I picked up two footswitches out the bargain bin at the RatShack.  I paid .50 for each and I’ve had them in my stash, unused, since then.  I remember thinking that while I didn’t have a use for them at the time, I probably would someday!   Of course, the bands are down today, and I haven’t had a chance to burn through the ether with my new toy yet, but I’m looking forward to giving then a try. 

The CQWPX Contest

I enjoy working contests; especially sideband contests, and the CQWPX Contest over the weekend was no exception.   I’ve submitted my log to the contest officials.  I made 120 contacts for a claimed score of 33810.  This is the typical score of a “dabbler” like me.  I didn’t work it too hard for a lot of reasons.  I didn’t work anything on Friday night (in local time) because I was tired from a full day.  I slept late on Saturday to recoup some sleep time lost.  I got into the contest for sure at about noon.  I worked about five hours and worked 100 stations on 10, 20, 15, and a little on 40 meters. 

Sunday morning is reserved for church and lunch with my granddaughter.   I got back on the air at about 2:30 and worked another 20 stations mostly on 10 and 20 meters.  I wish I had put more time into it.  There’s a possibility that I could have worked some other exotic stations, although snagging V55V, Namibia, was worth the entire contest for me. 

Lessons learned.  I will acquire a decent headset with a good microphone and a foot switch before I work another sideband contest; I have in mind the Heil Proset if I can find the $hambucks to make the purchase.  It’s been difficult for me to justify such an expense before, but now in my dotage I need some help in these situations.   I have a 40 meter dipole sitting on the shelf in my equipment closet that needs to be up in the air.  The135ft OCFD does fine on 40 meters, but in my heart, I know the single band dipole will give me better results. 

Although I used the CQWPX contest log from http://www.n3fjp.com/ .I wrote the contacts out to an ADIF file which I then imported into my HRD log.  One of the chores you have to do is a look-up on each contact to gather the full information from QRZ.  This also serves as a sort of filter.  I deleted four contacts for which I could not find QRZ or HAMCALL information.  After I finished updating the entries, I uploaded them to LOTW and eQSL. I can only imagine how busy those sites were this weekend.  I have, in fact, received a few eQSL cards from the contest and I expect to receive more over the next few weeks.  I’m always surprised how many contesters use eQSL and especially LOTW.  I then used the N3FJP program to write a Cabrillo File for submission to the contest officials. 

Occupy Ham Shack

I’ve wanted to make a blog entry for several days now, but I haven’t been able to get down to it.  Let’s face it.  I really feel lousy.  I’m suffering (and that is the operational word here) from a bronchial infection.  And as usual, the medicine is almost as bad as the disease itself.  The meds I’m taking make me drowsy, and it’s hard for me to concentrate.  About the only mode I’ve been able to work with any consistency is JT65HF, and I’ve worked a ton of that.  Yep I missed a few transmissions because I was too slow to respond.  As I said before, if I didn’t have JTAlert I would probably miss them all!

I’ve tried a few new things.  I’m trying to learn how to write command code for my TS-480.  I managed to install two buttons on the HRD desktop that tunes the radio directly to the 20 meter and 40 meter JT65 frequencies.  Not a great accomplishment, but I’m satisfied that I’m on my way to greatness.  If only I could find the “bring me a cup of coffee” command set…

I’ve been working a little more SSTV, and I actually had a DX contact on 14.230!  Well now, Puerto Rico is on the DX list.  I worked a station in Louisiana and one in Illinois as well.  Just now when I’m starting to work some SSTV, I find that I’m behind the curve again.  Have you heard of EasyPal?  Well, I hadn’t either, until I broke in on those guys on 14.233 and found out they were sending digital pictures on EasyPal.   They sent me to http://kc1cs.com/ to download the software, and only after a brief setup with no fine tuning, I was copying a nice digital picture.  Now all I have to do is learn how to transmit a digital picture.

I’m trying to regain my CW expertise.  It’s a long road ahead to get back to where I was in the 80’s and 90’s, but I’m determined to give it a try.  I tried using DM780 for keyboard CW and that’s just terrible, and because I don’t have a paddle I can’t load anything into the Winkeyer or the CW memories on the TS-480.  Thanks to Pete @WB0LCW who showed me how to use the KYCmd option under CW in DM780, I can now write macros to send in real CW and I can use my new-to-me Bencher Straight Key. Now I can send CQ and get my call right all at the same time, and then let my fist take over when the connection is made at which time the sending quality drops a few notches.  I will have a paddle in a few days.  I gave up on it last time and passed it along to another ham, but I ordered a new one, and I’m going to try it again. I’ve made a few CW contacts recently.  Today I’ve worked four stations so far, VE1AHC, IC8POF, SP4LNV and K5UTG.  Thanks guys for your patience.

I designed a new QSL card and I’d like to know what you think about it.

Beware the Ides of March

Well, it certainly was the Ides of March today.  The ham bands were brutal and were up and down like a rollercoaster all day long.  In all, I managed to work thirty-one stations today in JT65 and PSK-31.  The big excitement today was working JQ1TIV, Satoshi Yoshida in JT65.  Japanese stations are very rare for me here in the Piedmont of North Carolina, and I take ‘em when I can get ‘em. 

I’m suffering with a bronchial infection that exacerbates my COPD, so I’m pretty much at home for the time being.  Yesterday I did get out for a while to see my GP who prescribed some Avelox and Prednisone to help me through.  But it just takes time to recover.  In the meantime, I can #occupyhamshack, watch FOX news all day, and just fiddle around. 

I received several QSL cards in the mail today and was happy to see that two of them were from #hamtwitnet friends.

I’ll be playing around a bit this weekend with the following contests.

• Russian DX Contest
• Oklahoma QSO Party
• Virginia QSO Party
• North Dakota QSO Party

Have fun this weekend, and I hope to hear you in the ether or catch you on twitter!

The Solar Flare is just a big dud!

While I’m been preparing this blog entry, I’ve been working JT65HF on 20 meters, and I think the solar flare is just a big dud.  Twenty meters is open both to Europe and the West Coast and I’ve worked Austria, Belgium, California, Utah, France, Germany, Northern Ireland and North Carolina!

My ham shack is also my man cave, and therefore contains many of the goodies I use to relax.  I have a gun safe built in where I keep my weapons when they’re not in use or on standby.   I keep a loaded weapon on my desk, except when the younger grandchildren come to visit.  This is a case of” rather have it than need it and not have it.”   

I have a very nice Toshiba 27 inch HDTV on a wall mount that runs with the news constantly except when I’m working sideband or CW.   I can watch TV and work JT65HF or SSTV or any of the other digital modes.  If it were not for JTALERT, I’d miss half of the QSO’s. 

A few days ago, my graphics card went south and I had to depend on the onboard graphics processor for a few days.  I don’t do any gaming, but I do like to have dual monitors for ham radio.  I have a 27in Dell widescreen monitor on the main desk and a 19in HP widescreen located above the main monitor.  When I’m working JT65HF I use the top monitor to track Twitter and the main monitor to run the TS-480 via HRD and DM-780.  Well my new Sapphire 6450 came from amazon yesterday and I installed that and got back to my regular dual monitor operating mode.

Having the graphics down gave me the opportunity to do a little first echelon maintenance on my main computer, the Dell 520.  I opened it up and cleaned it with a soft brush and a can of compressed air.  Took the time to reseat all the cards and check each connector for the hard drives and other peripherals.

For those of you who are using the Prolific USB to serial adapter, I suggest you invest in a good RS-232 card like the SD-PEX15022 PCI-express 2X serial port.   http://www.amazon.com/Best-Connectivity-SD-PEX15022-PCI-Express-MSC9901/dp/B003D3MFHM/ref=pd_cp_e_0  .  If you’re running a laptop, you don’t have this option, of course, but as part of your maintenance, you should zero out all your unused ports.  As you probably know, every time you plug in your adapter to a different USB port, another com port is assigned.  After a while you run out of com ports (or at least lower number ports!) or you find yourself trying to connect to com port 42.

There are ways to clear these ports on other operating systems, but I use Win7 32 bit, and that’s the scenario I’ll give you.  Navigate to http://www.fettesps.com/how-to-remove-com-ports-which-are-in-use/  and follow the simple instructions there.  Delete any com port that’s not currently in use.  It may be an illusion, but the com port I use for HRD seems to run better after purging the others.  The first time I did this, I found com ports in use from my CH340 Flight Simulator Console!  I don’t even own it anymore; it’s been gone for years!

The Contest is Over!

Well, the ARRL International DX contest has come and gone, and I think I did pretty well for a barefoot station.  I made contacts on all bands except 160 Meters.  My antenna simply will not tune to that band, much to my chagrin, because I specifically had it in mind while home brewing the aerial.  It’s a 135ft Off Center Fed dipole that’s up at 45ft, and it should be performing better than it is.  My other antenna, the 20 meter Center Fed Vertical Dipole was the workhorse for the contest, so most of my contacts were on this band.  I worked 140 stations and claimed a score of 36,120.  I’ve submitted my log, and while I don’t expect to “sweep the field” mine will serve as a check log for others.

Regardless, I had a lot of fun.  There were some great contest stations on the air, and I think I tagged most of those.  Of course, I didn’t hear any Japanese stations; they are rare indeed in my neck of the woods.  Maybe if I had that 100ft tower with the big Steppir on top… sigh.  There were also some 100 watt contest stations on the air, and I worked as many of those I could.  P40l and P43E were on the air with 100 watts on 20 meters, and some like T05A and LW3DC were on the air with 500 watts.

Getting Ready for the ARRL International DX Contest

I don't work many contests, but the ARRL International DX contest has always been a favorite of mine. So today I've been getting ready for the big start. I blew the cobwebs out of the SB-1000 and lit it up to operate for a while on twenty meters; I worked an SSTV QSO on 14.230 mHz with YV5JF, Jose in Venezuela. I tuned the amp up to about 500 watts and let it roar for the seemingly endless transmission that's associated with slow scan television. I switched over to SSB and worked SP9LJD, Les in Poland and E77DX a contest station in Bosnia-Herzegovina on 20 meters. They were doing the same thing I was doing, getting ready for the contest. I downloaded the latest version of the contest software from N3FJP http://www.n3fjp.com  and got that all set up. I know a lot of people use different software for contests, but the N3FJP suite is my favorite. I use Ham Radio Deluxe at all other times, but if you use it, you know that it doesn't do contests very well.

I'll be looking for you on the air this weekend.  #occupyhamshack