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This weekend was the running of the Worked All Germany contests or WAG. This contest supports both CW and SSB within the same contest. As for me, it was strictly CW....go figure eh!. As happens now and then just before the contest there was an atmospheric burp and the K index moved to 5! The good thing about this is everyone is affected so your still kinda on the same playing field more or less. 

This is a 24-hour contest that starts at noon Saturday my time. With the poor solar conditions, there was lots of fading in and out (QSB). This resulted in lots of repeats and contacts that started at S7 and ended somewhere in the dust. I take this as an opportunity to sharpen my CW skills and learn more about the Icom 7610 filtering. This time around I took advantage of the two independent receivers the 7610 has. I had a split screen of the band I was on and the next band that could in time show some excitement. This came in very handy today when I noticed 10 meters coming to life. I swapped out 15m for 10m as it seemed to just jump to life. I had 51 contacts in just 1.5 hours and that was during so-so band conditions. I entered the contest as single operator/all band / low power (100 watts). It was a very rainy weekend here so that made it very easy to stay in the radio chair and plug along.

A new addition.....well I did have it in the past and sold it....don't ask

As you know I enjoy my CW contesting and am always looking to make things more easy. When contesting I use N1MM+ logging software which works great. During non-contesting times I use Win4icom radio control software. As a side note this software by VA2FSQ Tom is great and very well supported. He also offers radio control software for Yaesu and Elecraft as well, I have used the Elecraft radio control software (Win4k3) and it was great as well.

When contesting there are times when radio adjustments are needed such as filter settings, APF settings and digi select. To get to these adjustments you have to dig down a few menu settings to get where you want to be. Then I came up with what seemed to be an easy solution......but as they say, nothing is easy.
Using Win4icom the multi-menu changes could be done with one mouse click! With Win4icom you can use multiple 3rd party programs and N1MM+ is one of them. After setting up Win4icom and N1MM+ to speak with each other via virtual com ports I was good to go.......so I thought. 

Win4Icom software

The communication between the two programs was all good except for the N1MM+ cw macros would not key the radio and send the CW message. That is a big issue when contesting, I contacted Tom from Win4icom and he informed me that Win4icom does not support the use of DTR over virtual ports. He then informed me to overcome this issue I needed the Winkeyer from K1EL. The funny thing is I used to have a Winkeyer but sold it! 

I then ordered the Winkeyer and waited for it to come in, when it did I followed very closely the installation instructions for the Winkey. When I started both Win4icom and N1MM+ low and behold all the macros worked like a charm! But as always there is always a hiccup when dealing with computers, software and hardware. 

I had my 9A5N touch keyer connected to the Winkeyer port and then I tried to send code from the key it did not work. I have an early edition of the 9A5N key and it does not like the Winkeyer. I solved the issue by connecting the touch key directly to the Icom 7610 radio.
So now I am off to the races and can have Win4icom, N1MM+ and Winkey all happy and working together.

We have a very diverse hobby with a huge array of opportunities in many directions. You can stick with one forte and then jump in another direction. For me it keeps things interesting and challenging, our hobby has doors of interest that can be opened by old and young alike. But I just don't get it, in this great hobby we have a minority that spends most of their time, energy and blog posts on bashing. FT8, DXpeditions and contesting seem to be the flavour of the times. Some just go on and on seeking to discredit it at every corner. Why...I just don't get it! Move on and spend your time and energy doing other things and get lost in the pleasure our hobby has to offer. 

I get it I too like to work rare ones and yes I have been disappointed that some operations spend more time on certain modes than others. The solution is not to DQRM them. Get over it move on and enjoy the hobby.

 I get it PCs are getting more involved to some way too involved within ham radio While you complain and whine you at the same time miss opportunities. Get over it move on and enjoy the hobby. 

I get it contesting can be a great thing and to others a thorn. The larger contests happen now and then but they do light up the bands with energy and that is good for keeping our bandwidth from the commercial vultures Do what I do hit the WARC bands for a day if you want. Get over it and enjoy the hobby. 

The World of CW is my blog name and for me it's my passion at this time in the hobby, this is the aspect I want to explore. I have gone down SSB, digital and now CW but to bash a part of the hobby is throwing my time away. To those who get bent out of shape, I just don't get it. Get over it and enjoy the hobby.

Greetings from Atlantic Canada, seems we are in for our first major storm this summer from the unfolding hurricane season. We moved to the Maritimes almost 5 years ago and before that time I only had seen reporting on the news regarding hurricanes. Since we have lived here we have had 2 and the first one was only after 2 weeks of living here.......that should have been our sign! But we love it here, the lifestyle, the ocean, the clean air and so on. We are gearing up here for Sunday's arrival of Hurricane Lee, the winds in this area are now forecast around 100 km. That is enough for me to remove the Hustler 4BTV and store it in the shed, put away the patio furniture, take down all hanging plants and anything else that may blow around. We have a generator back up at our home so a power interruption will only be temporary. As you know I am a big CW contesting fan and thank goodness there is no major CW contest this weekend....BUT.......if there was I still have the EndFed ready to go and that would give me my contest fix!

 In quest to be frugal and when ham bucks are needed for a purchase I have in the past taken a look around the shack and put up for sale items that I just were not using or felt I would no long need. Way to often I have found this practice has bitten me more than one time. How many of you have sold a piece of equipment to later find you need it!
I have done that with too many items and it can get very frustrating but I do have to understand that in some cases the new piece of gear that was purchased would never had happened if I did not liquidate some gear. Here are some of the items I have sold and turned around to only purchase the same item later on down the line. LG auto tuner, external SWR meter, noise cancelling unit, antenna switch, Asus Xonar U7 external sound card and the list goes on. Actually it goes on to my most recent purchase the K1EL Winusb keyer, yup had one and sold it and now I need it.
How many of you out there have done the same thing? I have now learned my lesson as I am keeping on my self the external SWR meter, antenna switch and Astron power supply just in case I need them. I have become a ham horder.

 Now that I am retired long weekends seem to sneak up on me as when I was working it seemed they never could come fast enough. As with CW contesting they just don't seem to come fast enough  but space weather has a way of sneaking up and spoiling the contest....well that is what I used to think anyway. In the past, I would faithfully check out the space weather to get a sniff of upcoming conditions for a weekend contest. If things looked rough I would either skip the contest or dip my toes in it just to see how the ride would go. 

Recently I have changed my outlook on the dreaded solar storms. This weekend was the CWops open contest and it is divided into 3 sessions. I took part in the 2nd session only as I had other things on my agenda for the weekend. From 9 am local time to 1 pm is session 2 I jumped in even with a Kp index of 5. I understood it was going to be rough, and I most likely will not beat last year's score but I have decided to use the poor conditions to hone my CW skills. 

In the past when calling CQ contest and having a station come back to me who was almost non-existent and fading in and out I struggled. Now I have the opportunity thanks to the poor solar conditions to practice this skill! I had a ton of fish on 40m and 20m just waiting for me to dig them out of the mud and toss and turn with them as we both faded in and out.

That was how I spent my 4 hours in session 2 of the CWops CW open contest. My score was not the greatest but that was not my goal and considering the poor conditions I would have been frustrated. Instead, I used it as a learning session to work weak and fading stations. When I say weak at times their signal was not even moving my S meter and fading as well. 

Below is my final score and I ended up operating for 3 of the 4 hours as I started late by 30 minutes and I took some breaks.