AmateurRadio.com

No contacts heard or made but it's working

Good afternoon from the shack of VE3WDM, it's a long weekend up this way with Monday being a holiday! I have been seeing lots of posts about Dayton and a huge amount of tweets. It would seem that most if not all major manufactures have some new goodies they are premiering at Dayton. For those of you who read this blog and are sending use the news of Dayton.......KEEP IT UP!! So what's new around here.....well I have updated my VE3WDM K2 build blog with a new page. This is my second Elecraft K2 I have built and I wanted to blog about it. I want to highlight the build as well try to make this blog a good resource  for ham radio kit builders. This K2 build is taking longer with taking pictures and blogging about it but I am having a hoot. Today I decided to get WSPR going once again in the shack, well I must admit that at first it was to TRY to get WSPR going again. I did have WSPR installed and running with my K3 in the past and for some reason (as I have found many digi modes do) the rig would not come out of transmit. No matter what I did I could not  repair this odd event. Today I decided to remove the WSPR program from my PC and start fresh. I am happy to say that all is working well agian. A fellow blogger Bas had mentioned to me while I was comparing my attic dipole to my new Alexloop antenna that WSPR would be a very good way to compare the two. At this point this evening I am just making sure WSPR is functioning as it should and so far all looks well. My next step will be to put the attic dipole up against the Alexloop.

This is a great idea from Ten-Tec which was introduced at Dayton....I give you the QRPer blog he has done a stellar preview. Check it out and get the grey matter excited!!

Setup for test. (Laptop running Ubuntu update)

The propagation conditions have not been all that great over the last couple of days so what a better time to do some on air Alexloop vs attic dipole comparisons! Here is the setup I used my Elecraft K3 putting the Alexloop in antenna 1 on the K3 and left the dipole on antenna 2 on the K3. This way I can use the internal tuner for the dipole and remove the antenna tuner for the Alexloop with just the push of a button on the K3. The power output was 5 watts, figured I would go to the top end of QRP considering the atmospheric conditions being not so hot. The Alexloop was up in my radio room facing West out the widow and East through my house walls. The Dipole is in a "Z" configuration in the attic so it kinda is facing most all directions. The Alexloop frequency was 14.061 and the dipole was 14.059 and I was using CW along side the Reverse Beacon network. The current atmosphiric conditions at the time of the test were:
A-5
K3
SFI 157
SN 173
Below is the results of the test.....not so well it would seem the Alexloop netted zero and the dipole only one. So is seems for a more acurate comparison better conditions are needed.

It may look like rain on the window but it's very much snow

It has been a week of not  much radio time and one of where you just seem to be spinning your wheels and not getting to far. In the evenings once dinner is done I am just to tired to hit the radio. The weather last week was great very warm and showers only now and then. The temp's were in around 24C dinners were BBQ's each night and even turning on the A.C was being considered. That was short lived when this weekend came

Male Polar bear

around and the temp's dropped. When I say dropped I mean it has gone from 24C last week to snow falling today and frost warnings for this evening. My Saturday was spent with Julie at the Metro Toronto ZOO.    We are about an hour and 20 minutes away from the zoo but this place is amazing and well worth the drive.

Sumatran tiger...seeing us as dinner dinner

Julie and I were there for 9 hours and we still did not cover the entire property. There are over 5,000 animals, about 1.3 million people visit the zoo each year. There are both huge outdoor exhibits and very very well done indoor as well. Julie was able to take 1500 pictures (and now is editing them) if you ever come to visit Toronto this is a must see venue. Here are some of Julies ZOO shots from our amazing day.

White Lion not to camera shy

Jaguar having his say

Last evening I had a very short time on the radio I was not expecting much as the conditions have not been stellar. I did find 20m to be very busy and not reflecting the solar conditions. On May 2nd I was able to work EA4DRV and last night I heard him on again calling CQ. I gave him a call and made the contact with only 100mW's for a miles per watt of 37,968! Shortly after my contact I heard him giving a report to fellow blogger Larry W2LJ. I was only able to hear Larry very faintly just above the noise level. I did do a little more fishing but time was tight and I had to shut things down for the evening. This evening I think I am going to throw the line out again and see how the fishing goes!

RBN spots (click to enlarge)

The weather once again was great and I wanted to take the Alexloop out onto my back deck to see  how it would do once again. The other day I had no spots at all but this day was a complete different story. I was operating  my KX3 at 3 watts. The antenna as was already mention is the Alexloop mounted on a tripod. I called CQ on 20m,30m and 40m it was the late afternoon and nothing could be heard at my end at all. I was spotted only in the States but conditions have not been all that great. I did hear some American stations on 30m but they were just at the noise level. By the spots on the Reverse Beacon Network my signal is getting out! I am excited to see how this antenna does once the condition improve.

Relaxing on the deck.

Last evening myself and a bathroom mat had a little hip hop time.....translation.....I was standing on a bathroom mat lost my balance causing me to "hop" and out went the hip!!! Today it was no work, off to the Chiropractor and physio. The good news is no disk problems just muscle but I still have to be very careful as I do have lower back disk issues. So what does this have to do with ham radio....nothing....BUT this does...It was a very nice sunny day out and I wanted to relax on the deck and not become board, so I gathered up (very gently) the KX3, Alexloop, Sony MDR-V150 head phones and a pad of paper.

New loop to tripod adapter