AmateurRadio.com

The CQ world-wide CW WPX contest is on this weekend. The bands will come alive with Morse code,  there will be slow speed, high speed and what the heck did they send speed!! Contests give operators an opportunity to sharpen their radio skills, work on their code speed, see how a new antenna works, fire up the amplifier or turn the power down to QRPp levels and see what happens. Here at VE3WDM I am going to set what I consider an unusual goal for this contest. This time am not concerned with points, multipliers or the quantity of contacts. My goal for this contest is to pick up as many DXCC's as I can. I have been working on my DXCC Jubilee award and what better place but a world-wide contest to add to the DXCC count. So for me it will be search and pounce needed DXCC's in this contest at a QRP power level. Now  you just can't have one goal for a contest can you...........
Other goals for the weekend adventure
1. I have been playing with the Morse runner program each day working on keyboard copying....we will see how that works in a contest situation.
2. I want to take advantage of my sub receiver in my Elecraft K3. Use it to scope out other bands or listen for pileup's to die down.

 To everyone participating in the contest all the best. May the propagation god's be smiling on us this weekend......rest up hammy's and hope to see you on my Elecraft P3!!!
Good luck all!

Well over here at VE3WDM I have had a type of  mystery interference that shows up now and then check out the Youtube video below and see if you can identify it. Oh and as a sideline I have searched the internet for examples of interference and anomalies  such as AC line noise, Static crashes and birdies to name a few and have not been able to find anything!! Maybe someone could put up on Youtube examples of gremlins we hams may run across. Anyway post your ideas as to what this is..............

Found some time last night to spend at the rig most of the time during the week once things are done for the evening I'm just to tired for hobby time. Seems I found my second wind and I took advantage and flipped the K3 on. I was able to receive Turkey, Guernsey and Newfoundland.  My five watts was just not making it. To bad they all would had been new DXCC's for me to add to the count. Booming in on 10m's was HC2AC from Ecuador a country that is already on my DXCC list. I dropped my power down to 1 watts and gave him a call. He came back to me right away with a great report. With one watt it gave me a 3,151 miles per watt contact. As I look back I should have dropped the power to 500mW's or less and moved the power upward to see how little it took to make the contact. Conditions were such that as fast as he was booming in  HC2AC was down at the noise level and then gone.

The plan this weekend was to get some new DXCC's logged for the Diamond Jubilee award I am working on. As the saying goes "things did not go as planned" it's now Sunday aftern with next to no radio time in and the time I was on it seemed the bands out this way were dead. So it was off to plan "B"..... enter all the contacts I have made into a great Excel program made just for the Diamond Jubilee award. My count was 74 contacts.....so I thought anyway. You see this is my first effort at the DXCC  award and it seems I was off with my contact count. For example lets look at Jamaica and Cayman Islands.......I had Jamaica, Turks and Caicos islands then finally Cayman Islands oh to be in the Cayman's now but that is another post I counted that as 3..... NOT......It's only one (blog world tell me I'm wrong) I also had the same problem with  the West Indies, Great Britain and so on!!! So my count went from 74 to 63 confirmed DXCC's. So with that good news under my belt it was time to enter the information into the Excel spread sheet. The info needed is Call sign, band, date and time. I did have some troubles matching calls to countries as they were special event calls, they are no where close to the DXCC prefix. For example Gibraltar is a ZB2 prefix but my logged call is ZQ2FK. The call is a special call in honor of the Diamond Jubilee in England. Some other calls were special contest call signs. For example Martinique DXCC is FM8 or FM the contest call from there was TO5X....not even close. It was a frustrating event matching these calls to the DXCC country list at times. Now my plans are for late afternoon and evening' I am going to sit at the computer once again (this time with a Guinness) and log more calls into the Excel spreed sheet. 

Dayton with many more surprises

My issue of QST came in yesterday and the back page made the new Kenwood rig official !!  There is a great pic there of the new TS 990S but with little to no spec's. The available spec's brag of a top RF output of 200 watts, HF and 50mhz, built in antenna tuner,built in power supply and really thats about all the info Kenwood released in the full page release. Viewing the picture one can see two USB ports which are nicely placed on the front of the rig. A very impressive color TTF display along with a band scope, not if the rig houses two independent receivers but it would seem so as there are independent controls for each receiver on the right hand side of the radio. Not sure as of yet what the optional components of the TS 990S are.  So what are your impressions of the new kid on the block??

Portable op's QTH

VE3WDM portable in action

It was and still is a beautiful day here at VE3WDM there is a nice cool breeze, the sun is shining with a great temp of 17C. I have been itching to get the K2 operating mobile as I have been working most of the winter getting the K2, antenna and mount ready to go. I spent the morning and early afternoon spring cleaning the shack and found some
stuff I really don't use anymore thus it will be sold for  "ham bucks". Cleaning up the shack gave me the warm fuzzes once is was all done and long over due for sure. I just hate looking for

all packed away in trunk

something knowing I have it but not really sure where it is!! Julie was involved with her photography getting some details together for some up coming weddings she is photographing. It was the perfect time for me to jump in the mobile and give the K2 setup a test run. Before I hit the open road I always like to go online to WA7BNM contest site and find out what contests are on for the weekend. It's a great way to make contacts if the QRP fishing holes are fish-less. There were some local QSO parties and the ARI international CW contest. I found a nice quiet place to operate which is real close to home. Setup was a snap but Murphy did play games with me. I had forgotten my binder at home which contained my paper pencil as well as a cheat sheet for the K2 just in case I forget how to do something. I was able to find some scrap paper and pen in my carry bag....so it was off to the races. I set the K2 for 5 watts all my operating would be 20m's as I only have mobile whips for 20m and 40m's at this time (something the ham bucks may help me with) I operated for about 35 minutes in total as dinner had still had to be shopped for and it was BBQ night!!

1.  NN7ZZ                Mendon UT                14.047
2. K7EAR                Solomon AZ               14.040
3. IQ0PG                 Italy ARI contest         14.031        880 miles per watt. 
4. IZ1A                    Italy ARI contest         14.022       QRZ.COM can't find maybe incorrect copying 
5. DL5AXX             Germany ARI contest  14.010       810 miles per watt. 
6. IK2HDF              Italy ARI contest          14.011       834 miles per watt.                                                 I was very happy with the how the antenna and rig worked and was surprised at the distance I was able to get. I know for sure next time I am going to lower the output and start making some 1,000 miles per watt potable contacts. Some things that have to be worked on before next time......remember all the items to bring, some bottled water, longer cable for Palm paddle key and some adjustments to the Palm paddle key are needed. Well it's time to spark up the BBQ and get some dinner...cheers!!!

The new "ham mobile"

Removing some metal from the K400

Well the summer is fast approaching and with it the warm weather. over the winter I started to get things ready for some summer portable op's from my car. It involved getting the Elecraft K2 mobile ready and
setting up an antenna system that was easy to deploy and worked well. Now there was a small hitch in the plans that happened about 2 weeks ago Julie and I decided to downsize our

Need another bag

New and improved mount

cars!! We both had large 4 door Chev Malibu's and loved them.....but so did the gas pumps! We both upgraded to the Scion IQ's half the gas and half the size. Now this meant plans had changed for my summer mobile portable operations....well not really. The Scion is a hatchback and I would just have to use my trunk mount Diamond K400 as a hatchback mount. There was just one small mod that had to be done to the mount to allow it to work on the Scion. That involved removing a small part of the flange that stopped the hatch from closing as it rubbed on the bumper. With that done the K400 fit perfectly on the Scion's hatchback. I was still going to use my faithful and reliable Palomar mono band mobile whips. With the Scion being a  much smaller car I was not sure what the reduced ground plain was going to do to the SWR?? I was prepping for the worst thinking that the SWR was going to be high no matter how I adjusted the stinger on the whip but the K2 antenna tuner would fix that. Well to my pleasure the 20m whip at 14.060 is 1.5 and the 40m whip at 7.030 is 1.4. This was with some adjusting of the length of the stinger but very pleasing

K400 installed

results. The two (for starters) mobile Palomar whips did not really fit into the old lawn chair bag as I had planned so I am going to have to come up with another plan for a carry sack for them. I am going to be stationary mobile....not sure I want to bang out CW whilst driving among the trucks and traffic on the highway!!  

SWR on 20m's