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This ground rod took forever to pound in.

I had the opportunity in the spring to pick up free of charge 2 copper-clad 8-foot ground rods free of charge as long as I picked them up. It was about an hour's drive for me but free ground rods were well worth the trip. Also, I was able to meet one of the hams from our contest club and have a coffee and a nice chat. As things go I had many things to do around the house and installing ground rods was low on the list.  Well, September was here and I did not want to wait any longer and the decision was made to pound in two ground rods.
I did some online searching for ways to install ground rods and one way was to rent a tool that basically pounds them in. It's like a concrete hammer drill but for ground rods. I contacted the local building store who rented them and I was told for 1/2 day it was about 250.00!!!! Well, it first was time for plan B to see how that worked out. Plan B was to put the ground rods in on my own steam! Online there were many videos of folks who lifted the ground rod and slammed it into the ground. They kept doing this and added water into the hole as they went along. When the ground rod was close to the surface they used a hammer for the rest.  Another common thread in the videos was best case was to do this job after a few days of rain as this also helped out. As plans would have it did rain here for a few days and just after the rain I thought "It's a nice day to pound some ground rods in". Out I went with my trusty water bottles, work gloves and lots of ambition. I have to say the first ground rod at the base of my Hustler 4BTV went in very easily. So bubbling with confidence I moved to the second location which was for a ground rod that was to ground my station.
This spot was not as smooth going, the first attempt came to an abrupt stop at about the 4-foot mark. The only thing I could figure was I hit a tree root from one of our Maple trees. The second attempt was a charm BUT it was not easy going. I added water and slammed the ground rod down and it did go in but very very very slowly. Finally, success and both ground rods were in and connected to the antenna and the other to a ground bus in my shack.

 

The news is out the new Icom IC 7760 is out with a bit of a lunch bag letdown feeling among hams.  As Rob Sherwood put in on the 7610 groups io site:

"Unless I am missing something, why would I "upgrade"  from a 7610 to a 7760? With minimal details at this point, why would the lab numbers be noticeably better?"

Some of the highlights are: 

A separate control head from the RF deck. This is nice to see and you can move the rig around the house but the specs say it requires a gigabit Ethernet connection to function. 

200 watts power output.  

15 separated bandpass filters. (7610 has 13)

The addition of a 2.4-inch sub-display for filter display or band stacking and so on.

A preset FT8 menu for the Digi fans. 

4 antenna inputs. (7610 has 2)

Other than a few other minor stuff it basically is a 7610 but for double the price. But if an extra 100 watts, 2 extra bandpass filters, 2 extra antenna ports and an easy FT8 setup rev's your engine then the extra money is well spent I guess.
Here is the link from Icom with all the details and you can judge for yourself.
Icom IC 7760

 It's nice we are in the upswing regarding our solar cycle but along with that comes an active sun both in a good way and not so good way.  This weekend is the running of the WAE CW contest and well the solar flux index is off the scale at 306 the sun had a few hiccups over the past few days in the way of solar flares directed toward Earth. The flares tossed out some juice (ionizing radiation) toward us and more specifically right into our ionosphere layer D! We now have a D layer that has become a suction cup for HF radio signals. How does all this translate into a CW contest you ask.....well I'm calling "CQ contest"  and no one comes back to you. When someone does come back to me due to this peculating of the ionosphere at one point they are S8 and then gone! But I can say the solar gods are fair about things in that conditions are like this all over. No sense getting upset about it as this is all part of the solar puzzle that at times we enjoy and other times we spend time doing none ham things. While at the same time checking back in now and then to see how conditions are. 

All of us are at one place or another in our CW journey and with each path there are up and down times. Times when things connect and other times when there is a disconnect. If you think about it this is not just CW that operates this way. When you are learning to drive one day you can parallel park like a pro and the next day you could not do it if your life depended on it. Learning the times table back in school and you are great with the 9 times table....then in class, you are asked 9x7  and you go blank. Well, going beyond ICR can be the same way. Is there something beyond ICR you ask.....by golly Miss Mollie there is! 

Learning is an adventure no matter what you are challenging yourself with. I am a firm believer that to keep the mind, body and spirit healthy you need to be challenging yourself. This brings me to the next step beyond ICR.  It is the art of words and Q codes training and it is different from  ICR. In my humble opinion, I do feel you should master ICR before you jump into word and Q code recognition.
If you have ICR pretty much happening for you the next step is instant recognition but with a twist. Your brain is very powerful and I can't emphasize this enough. Now understand when I say powerful it does not necessarily mean this next step is going to be a breeze. Remember you have trained your brain to hear a letter or a number and recognize the sound and in a split second.
Now your brain is going to hear QTH, OP, WX, RIG and so on it has been conditioned to tell you Q  T  H. Well it is time to change it up again but not to worry your brain can compartmentalize things with practice. 

How does this new adventure work you ask? Let's go in reverse for a moment and go back to when you were learning ICR. You knew dit dit dit dah sound was "V" as you hear each dit and dah but for  ICR to work that was just too slow and you would get lost and get behind. Oh, which reminds me of the art of copying behind....but that is another post.... moving from copying each dit and dah to ICR you had to speed up the sending of each letter so it was impossible for you to hear each dit and dah but a sound. Learning the sound of each letter was the key.  The brain can handle that with no problem as you know if you have a grip on  ICR. 

Words and Q codes instant recognition is the same, you have to speed things up a little but just a little. Your brain has to hear what QTH sounds like and not Q  T  H. Impossible you say...I bet we all know CQ and 73 at any speed and don't hear the ICR equivalent of each letter. Your brain will put the new word and Q codes in a new compartment in your brain. Soon you will train your brain for words and Q codes. Keep reviewing your ICR as well and in time both will blend into one compartment in your brain.  The key to word and Q code instant recognition is speed up the sending just a bit. You want to hear the sound and each letter as ICR.

As for programs for learning words and Q codes, there are many programs out there that will send you anything a different speeds. If you have mastered ICR you will be aware of some programs that worked for you and chances are they also will function as word and Q code trainers as well. Just like with ICR work with some words or Q codes and then move on to more once those are familiar and then add more. Another excellent way to learn is to also turn the power on your rig to zero and practice sending the words and Q codes you are learning. The more involved your body is in learning the easier moving ahead will be.  

If you have any questions either leave a question in the comment section or email me and my email on my blog.

As ham radio operators no matter what mode you operate one major contributing factor regarding success or failure is the Sun. Propagation reports can be found on the internet, some with cool pictures and others with just lines of data. Things such as solar flares, coronal mass ejection (CME), solar wind and the list goes on. Being able to look at propagation data and interpret it is beneficial. An understanding can help us realize that not all solar flares, CME and high solar wind can mean poor conditions. I found a great site that goes through many areas that make up a propagation report. At some points yes it can get into too much detail but overall I found it to be very informative.
Understanding propagation can be very interesting and also can help you understand the data that is shown.
Here is the LINK to a site that gives great information about propagation.

Here are some propagation sites: 

Solar Ham 

Current ham radio conditions 

My contest contacts

 This weekend was the IARU contest and you can participate in CW, SSB or both. As for me, it was CW only....surprise surprise. The solar weather can affect how radio operations in both a good way and a bad way. This weekend it was a bad way but that is ok as I tell myself the solar weather does not discriminate it treats all operators the same way. The advanced solar forecast prepared contesters for a rough ride but to add to it the Bz index, something we don't hear much about in Solar weather circles was deep in the negative direction. When you have poor solar weather and add in a -Bz index it just makes things worse. What it sounds like to a CW contester is one moment a signal is very decent and then gone and in most cases gone for some time. 

This is a challenge for contesters as when you hear a call sign, come back to them and get a report you generally have no luxury for repeats. If the anomaly happens mid-contact well you most likely cannot log the contact. I find during these conditions you have more stations contacting you more than once on the same band (called a DUPE). Because of the changing condition, you may think the station heard your exchange but they did not and may be asking you for a repeat and you can't hear them asking. So due to the poor conditions, they are not able to log your contact that you think was a solid contact. Whenever I have a station call me that has called me before and is in the log (DUPE) I  always work them again as you are not penalized for it. But there are a few that send "QSO BEFORE" and will not log the contact. 

Anyway, I digress....this year I was able to log more contacts (56) during very poor conditions compared to last year and better yet I almost doubled my score. Last year's score was 69,484 compared to 130,130 this year.  This contest starts on Saturday at 9 am local time and ends on Sunday at 9 am local time. I was up early on Sunday (5:15) to keep adding to the log. I am a morning person and up each day at 6 am so I was not too far off from my normal time.

The final results