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Over the past few weeks I had put some extra dust gathering ham gear up for sale. The sale was a successes and I ended up making 400.00 ham bucks. My main purpose for selling off some gear was to gather the funds for the new Elecraft K3 synthesizer (KSYNA3A as it's called) Without going into detail…..it's a very nice upgrade to the already great K3. While at the Elecraft site I was looking at what else the my K3 could do with in regards to upgrades. I came across the high stability ref oscillator  called the KTCXO3-1, it would be a great addition since I am now getting more into the digi modes and the less frequency drift the better. It's a 100.00 dollar upgrade and I wanted to do some more research on the topic before dishing out the cash! I ventured over to Google and typed it in, low and behold one of the sites that came up was VE3WDM blog!! Hmmm did I post about this at some time?? Off I went to my site and to my shock I found out I ordered the KTCXO3-1 when I ordered my new K3. It sure was good I looked into this before placing my order but having said that Elecraft is a great company and after explaining my realization I have had no problem sending it back. I'm getting older so the memory is getting shorter.

Oliver is asking……"Ahhhh dinner!!!

I took part in the ARRL CW contest this weekend in a part time way, I was not able to go full tilt as I had things around the house that needed to be done. I skipped the Friday evening as it's most of the big guns going at record setting CW speeds. I operated QRP, single band, non assisted, single transmuter and with my MFJ 1788 magnetic loop antenna. The bands were alive with CW and you would never think we were in the downswing of a solar cycle! Then conditions over all were great on 15m I was able to get on from early morning into the early evening. In the morning the bands were filled with

The rig setup

Europe and as the late afternoon rolled around the South Pacific started to boom in along with Central and south America. Some of the standout locations I heard were Bangladesh, Guam, Japan, New Zealand and South Sudan. None of which I was able to contact the pileups were HUGE!! Some of the highlights for me were contacting Hawaii, Cuba,  and grabbing a new DXCC Dominican Republic.
Score rundown is as follows
Contacts        DXCC's      Points
81                   39                9360

The equipment  used was the Elecraft K3 with 500,400 and 250 inrad filters, the Elecraft P3, Begali Contour Key and the Flex control external VFO knob and last but not least the MFJ 1788 Magnetic loop antenna. The software used were N1MM+ contest software, N4PY rig control software and MRP40 CW code reader for the chain saw speed code. I never had Murphy pay me any visits during

The contest software

the contest which really is a first time. I found 15m to be a great band very low noise floor and lots of action. I did venture up to 20m for a listen and from my location it was very noisy and I was glad I decided to stick with 15m.  Sunday seemed to be an easier day for making contacts I had far less repeats to do, Saturday I really had to work for each and every contact. Looking forward to the next CW contest!

Monday was a stay in and stay warm day oh and also I was able to fit in some ham radio time as well. Next weekend is the ARRL CW DX contest weekend and since I had time on my hands I thought I would finally install N1MM+ on my PC. Up to this point I have been using the older version of N1MM, the only time for me to update was just before a contest. According to Murphy's law if you update your contest software just before a contest bad things will happen! N1MM+ has some nice new features all of which I have not tried as of yet. While I was setting up and getting to know N1MM+ I had my K3 on and was rolling around the 20m band. I was able to make 2 DX contacts the first one being IK3VUT from italy. He was calling CQ and he came back to me on my first call to him. This was not your typically fast contact Luca gave you a report but also shared his name, thanked me for answering his CQ and asked my name. It was not a long QSO but it was nice to not just have a 599 and move on Luca gave me an honest 559 signal report.
late afternoon it was time to go out with Julie who had a photography assignment that involved us going downtown (Toronto) for some shots she needed to get. It sure was cold out but soon we would be back to our warm home and just a little more radio time as she edited some photos. This time on 20m  I heard HC5AI calling CQ from Ecuador and after some going back and forth he got my call and the contact was made.

Steam coming off the water down at the lake

The little motor in the antenna

Today is supposed to be one of the coldest days this winter and up to this point we have had some very cold days! This morning I went out to get our food shopping done and going from the car to the market it was so cold it took your breath away. We live in a condo and in the underground garage the temp was -7C, most of the time it's well above 0C but not today. The temp this morning without the windchill was -22C and the weather is forecasting later later today with the windchill it  will drop to around -40C!! Today is a good time to stay indoors and play radio. The MFJ 1788 seems to have no problem in this cold weather. As a matter of fact the colder the weather be better the SWR, the little motor that operates the large capacitor has no problems in this weather. This afternoon I'm hanging out on 20m at the QRP watering hole of 14.060 calling CQ and listening. I was calling on 15m and it really did not seem like the band was open I then moved up to 20m. Since I was calling CQ I checked the Reverse Beacon Network and noticed that on 15m I was spotted by F5MUX from France. This is the first spot EVER for me from my new location being spotted  outside of the U.S. Well it's getting late in the afternoon and I was skunked on the bands today…..oh well maybe later this evening!

It's time to sell off some more items to get some ham bucks. These are things that have not been used in the shack and are just gathering dust!
1)The qrpometer is a great portable power and watt meter it's a kit that is no longer sold. The power levels go as low as 100mW's and up to 8 watts. I made a case for the unit and added an external battery compartment for easy battery changes. Also it has BNC connectors for easy connect and disconnect. For more info on this great unit follow this link  the price for this unit is 50.00 dollars

2) A balun from from Balun designs it's a 1:1 balun and works great for coax line isolation. It's rated up to 300 watts for more info click on this link
The price of the balun is 25.00
3) Mini Circuits splitter for those of you with a K3 and have the subRX this is very handy to have. I have a link from the Elecraft reflector that better explains this pairing this unit with your K3

The price is 25.00
4)  The rig runner 4005 great for fusing and running your shack accessories and radios.
The price is 50.00
5) KX3 PCKT cables for the KX3 these are brand new and never used.
Price 20.00 including shipping 

6) LP Pan and E-MU 0202 external sound card, the LP Pan is set up for the K3 all the cables are included. Also a  power cord for the LP Pan complete with Anderson Power pole connector and quality USB cable for the E MU 0202 as well as quality coax jumper for LP Pan to K3 or P3. The price for both is 270.00

Extra connectors

7) Elecraft spare VFO A and VFO B knobs the set  for 15.00.

It's like the Borg connected to the collective!

As my readers may have clued in already I am a big Elecraft fan and the two radios I have at the moment are the Elecraft K3 and Elecraft KX3. One of the best things I like about these rigs as well as the accessories such as the P3 and PX3  Elecraft is constantly improving and adding things to the radio. These improvements for the most part are  upgradeable downloads via the internet. The other thing is the upgradable downloads are not complicated to preform, it's as simple as

New software loading

downloading and setting up the utility from Elecraft. From then on  all you do is plug your rig in via USB or serial cable to you PC and double click on the utility icon on your desktop. Your software on your rig is read and if there is any new upgrades you see them on your utility and can download them to your rig...........and that's it! There are release notes telling you what has been added or enhancements to your rig. Time for me to get off my soapbox now.

Back in 2012 I made my first and only to date contact into the Middle East using QRP power of 5 watts. The band conditions were good and 4Z5MU had not been spotted yet, this is also a great advantage to a QRP signal. Once the spot goes out the band gets crowded and the amps start warm up the QRP signal cools down. The other week his QSL card arrived and reminded me about the contact. As often happens when I hear a call and at the same time writing it down the rabbit ears go up when the result at the end of my pencil is a sweet DX call. One the first things that goes through my mind is "did I copy the call correct?" Once I realize it was copied correctly the next question is "where is the pileup" Now the game in my head begins……I now know this is a very sweet opportunity but I want to make sure they are not operating split and end up calling where I should not be! As I do this in the back of my mind there is a little voice saying "hurry up fool before the pileup starts and you loose the opportunity" This time the questions were answered and the opportunity of 4Z5MU made it into the log book and now a QSL card to boot.