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I was doing some cleaning around the house the other day and came across a QSL card of the very first contact I made.  It was June 6th, 1989 and I was pounding out CQ with my Bencher BY-1 Iambic paddle. I had a script all made up with a step by step CW QSO contact information. As I very well remember things did not go as planned.  I now know I just was experiencing what any new green CW op would experience. I was listening to the code that was being sent and writing it down on paper but then I missed a letter and started to concentrate on the missed letter. This meant I missed even more code and was lost in no time. I had to do I mental reset and carry on. At some points, I fell into the bad habit of counting dits and dahs and not hearing the rhythm again it was panic setting in. When it came time to send I wanted to for some reason send just a bit faster than I was receiving well that did not work out too well when I was receiving and the code was coming back at me just a bit faster! While on the subject of sending I did find myself messing up letters and having to send words again. Then frustration set in which made it worse, but I did complete the QSO. As stressful as it may have seemed I was thrilled and could not wait for my next contact. 

At that time my station setup was the Icom IC-745 it was second hand but I loved it and had served me for many years.  My antenna was the Crushcraft R4 vertical antenna which for my location was the best solution. I did not own the house I was living in so a tower and beam were out of the question. Also, the lot was small so no room for ground radial. The R4 answered my needs as it did not need ground radials and had a very small footprint. As stated earlier I had the Bencher BY-1 key.

Can any of you remember your first contact and the gear you were using at the time? 

 It has been 15 days since my last post but my last post was about our cat Oliver and our best buddy who we said goodbye to.  Some may think it strange but we have his ashes back home now in a cat urn.  It's only his ashes but to Julie and me, Oliver is back home now. 

It's now time to round the corner and get back to ham radio blogging. In my last radio post, I had just finished rebuilding my PC  and it's working great. What I mean by great is, it's fast, startup happens almost right away and all the radio programs work great. The other big event computer-wise was I finally upgraded from Win7 to Win10. In the past, I have posted about my going back and forth regarding upgrading to Win10. My first upgrade was a free upgrade that Microsoft offered if you were operating Win7. I did that (installed Win10 over top of Win7) and it was a disaster I was having sound device issues, some of my radio programs intermittently were giving me issues and some of my Windows startups had error messages and failed to start. I was told some or if not all my issues were related to me installing Win10 overtop of Win7 but at that point in time, I was not willing to wipe my drive clean and install Win10 and all my programs.

After my complete PC upgrade, I purchased Win10 and did a clean install on my new solid-state hard drive. I am happy to say that I have had no issues.  I did some research regarding Windows 10 and how on its own it installs updates at startup. I had seen many a post on radio sites how one day Win10 OS was without issue and the next startup there was issues.  Many times it was due to the fact that an update was the issue that created a problem! I was reading that a very recent Windows update if you had a solid-state hard drive and ran Windows defrag program it would not defrag your drive but erase the drive! As a side note, one should not defrag a solid-state drive in the first place. But there were many upset Windows users who had solid-state hard drives that were wiped clean!

Back to Windows 10 updating issue, I solved that by downloading a program that turns off Windows automatic update.  You can also turn Windows update off for 7 days at a time from within the Windows update program itself but you have to remember to reset it after 7 days or you will be updated. There are a few free programs out there that will stop Windows from updating The one I use is called Windows update blocker but there are others.... WUB, Windows update manager or WuMgr and Winupdatestop. The Windows update blocker program I use works great. 

I do believe it is important to update Windows as it is very important and keeps Windows running smooth and secure. Now you ask I feel windows updates are important but I have an update blocker installed on my PC? Let me explain the method to my madness, each month on the second Tuesday Microsoft sends out their update to our PC's. These updates at first do have issues and over the course of a few weeks Microsoft learns of them and sends out fixes.  I don't want to be a guinea pig for Microsofts updates and the best way for me to deal with this is to update after most if not all issues have been dealt with. I don't have a Microsoft crystal ball to know when to update but I do belong to a group that provides its members with a safe time to allow your OS to update. 

I have mentioned this group in a past post, the group is called Ask Woody and for a donation, it provides valuable information, posts and user groups for Windows users.  The group informs its users of safe update times to update as well as they will sectionalize the updates informing users of a certain update at this time should be avoided.  I do know about Mac and Linux OS's but I have tried both and for the radio programs I want run these OS's just don't cut it for me. 

Well, it's time for me to say 73 and thanks for stopping by the blog.....see you soon with a new post. 

Today we said good-bye to my best buddy of 15 years.....Oliver. Peace be with you, my little buddy you will be missed very much. 

And so it begins

At the end of 2020, I decided it was time to update my PC as it has never been done for over 10 years. The choice I had was to purchase a new PC or rebuild what I have, I decided to rebuild the existing PC I have. I choose this as it gives me what I want, I do the upgrades, order the parts that I want and I can leave room for further upgrades in the future. The items I kept were my ATX tower, 750-watt power supply (as it was very new)  GeForce GT 740 video card,1TB Western Digital Black and a 1TB Seagate hard drive for backup purposes. 

One new 2 old hard drives

The replacement parts were the following: 

MSI MPG Z490   This is a very nice motherboard with room for expansion. 

Intel i5 10600K Comet Lake 4.1 GHz

32GB G.Skill DDR4 3200 RAM

Cool Master Hyper 212 CPU cooling fan

Win10 pro 64 bit

Crucial MX500 1TB SSD Hard drive 

The new PC build works great and I finally made the jump to Win10 as my OS. The SSD hard drive is a very nice change and the speed is great. My not so old Western Digital 1 TB hard drive now holds my SSD image files and my Seagate 1 TB drive hold my SSD hard drive clones. By the way, the backup software that I use is Macruim Reflect. It is easy to use and has worked for me without any issues and while using Windows 7 I had to use it twice. If you are a home user the software is free to download and use. 

RAM and CPU fan installed

While I was doing the build I did had a comment on my blog where a reader made me aware of a site called Ask woody. This site is a great resource for PC users and to have full access a donation is asked for. I made my donation and got full access as it's a great place to learn and get feedback. Did I have any issues with the build......yes I did. For starters the Cool Master CPU fan instructions were TERRIBLE and thank goodness I found a YouTube video on how to install the fan on my i5 chip. EVEN with a video I messed up a bit and installed the fan on the CPU facing the wrong direction and I only knew this once I tried to install the RAM and it did not fit. The fan and assembly had to be rotated 180 degrees and then all was good for the RAM installation. When I initialized and formatted the SSD hard drive I'm not sure what I did but it had to be done again as when the OS was in the process of the install  I was getting error messages about the SSD hard drive. 

Next, it was time to install all radio programs and the software that runs alongside them. I am happy to say that all software installed without issue and I am up and running and very happy with the upgrade. 

 More news on the upcoming QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo March 13-14 2021

 Once again I am looking back over the year and as most of you will agree it sure has been a year of changes! I'm not going to get into any politics or pandemic stuff but I will say that COVID has really affected the ham radio world. The Amateur radio community has in my humble opinion reacted to the pandemic in a very positive way. Club meetings are now online, clubs have a system of checking in on their club members throughout the week, worldwide there have been many "stayathome" call signs, we even had a virtual hamfest, radio dealers have in some areas gone to curbside pickup or bolstered their online presence. This list could go on and on but kudos to the radio community for stepping up and making a difference during this very strange time. 

Closer to home what does VE9KK's year in review look like? Let's start with the 2020 goals I set out 3 main goals for myself: 

- Register for CWop's academy code course.

- Get involved with the local radio club.

-Contacting some DXpeditions. 

So how did I do.....I did register for the CWops academy and was set up for the fall class. I received an email with the expectations of the students. They suggest that an hour per day is needed along with the online scheduled meetings. As the start time drew closer the home dynamics changed as my wife was now working from home in our home office/hobby room. I also was busier with the home reno's than I thought I would be. It would be tough to practice in the home office and with the Renos, time was very limited. I decided early to give up my spot so another person with the time commitment could use that slot. These courses are very popular and fill up fast and I did not want to put forth only a half effort. Because of this, I wanted to spend more of my free time using CW. 

The club involvement was derailed by COVID as the clubs up this way stopped all meetings and really did not get well into the pandemic. 

Contacting DXpeditions again COVID for the most part derailed that goal. 

The below picture is from club log and shows my 2020 operations by mode. It would seem my goal of getting more involved in CW was a success. In 2014 my CW op's was 5.44% and in 2020 it jumped to 55.98. I am not sure where the SSB stat comes from as I was never on SSB. 

2021 QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo

Last year in my blog I asked this same question, but it was before the Expo had started. I received a mixed bag of responses but now that one Expo has completed some of my readers may have a better idea about the Expo and if they will attend this year?

In my humble opinion, over this past year are a few new givens......COVID is still with us and a new type of stain noticed, video conferencing for personal and business has become the norm, working from home is no longer a novelty, most if not all ham radio clubs have cancelled monthly in-person meetings. On a positive note, clubs have stepped up and offered 2 meter weekly net meetings, club meetings via the many video conferencing programs, contesting has been tweaked to allow for events such as field day to be a success, there is a vaccine to bring hope for 2021 and finally on March 13-14 the 2nd QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo begins. 

I did attend the online Expo last year but in a very part-time effort. At times, I found it frustrating to find my way around (which I did mention in my online survey to the hosts) navigating to sections of the Expo. I found some seminars a bit "fluffy" in content and some were just an advert. Last year it was free this year it's 10.00 early bird or 12.50 at the door.....virtual door that is. I will say that if I am going to drop 10.00 I will make more of an effort to attend the site more often over the 2 days. I have not as yet decided if I am going to drop the 10.00 but will take some time to look over the changes that are in effect for the 2nd annual show. 

My questions to the blog readers are: 

-Did you attend last year's QSO Today Virtual Expo?

-If you did what is some of your input regarding the show?

-If you did not attend why not? 

- Who is going to attend this year either for the first time as an alumnus and why?