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Monday was a holiday here in Ontario called family day Julie is taking some photography course's and with that comes homework. Today she had to get out side and take some pictures we came up with the idea of a raptor bird sanctuary not to far from home. I also got to thinking that while she was snapping I could be dahing and ditting on my KX3!! This was a win win for the two of us we were out spending time with each other (kinda) and doing our hobby's  to boot. My setup was the Elecraft KX3, mobile whip on a diamond trunk lip mount. The temperatures outside were way to cold for me to venture out. During the evening it dropped to -17C and during the day was up to -10C. I opted to stay in the car with the sun shinning in it was very comfee and a little to warm at times. We were there for about 2 hours, I was able to make just one contact. But it's all about having fun with the radio and getting out. Joe W2KJ is from North Carolina and was also running a KX3 (my first KX3 to KX3 QRP QSO) at 4 watts. I found Joe calling CQ on the 20m QRP frequency. We gave each other 559 reports and some antenna info, name, QTH, power and then it was time to move on.  My KX3 being set at 1 watt gave me a miles per watt contact of 644.

So why did I title this post "To close for CW comfort" this has to do with the other CW "events" that I was exposed to! I have read about this in other blogs from other op's which are CW operators who seem for some reason to blend letters together regarding their call. I had at least 6 op's who's call I had a very very hard time making out. There was one DX station who's call ended in WVR BUT for the longest time I was not sure if it was W##, even the code reader on the KX3 was having a real hard time. I then ran across 10+ on the S meter  European station but I could not give him a call as I had (and I mean NO CLUE) what his call was!! It was very hard to tell were the CQ  stopped and the call was being sent. Now folks for any of you reading my blog and who also have had a CW QSO with me I know my code elegance has left you scratching your head at times.....but I just can't understand how code that has no spaces and just runs as one long word how these op's ever get answers to their CQ requests.
When I got home I put my Elecraft k3 into test mode (meaning no code is sent over the air) and tried to send some sloppy code and watched to see if the K3 was able to decode. (you can setup the K3 to not only show incoming code but also your code as you send it) The only reading the K3 would give me were not letters or numbers just lots of  *****......translation...the K3 also has no idea. As with most CW op's out there you also have your code being sent to you through  your headphones. Does the code not sound odd to these op's???
Anyway time to get off my soapbox now.............

Julie was out and about snapping shots!!

For me the ARRL  DX CW contest is over, I have some blog, email and cleaning to do for the rest of the day. Over all the contest was a success for me not that I broke any records with regards to points or number of contacts. I was very pleased with how the station and antenna were working, I find that contests are a great way to see how the rig and antenna preform. With regards to the rig and software I merged N1MM logger and N4PY rig control software through LP-bridge and as an added bonus I was able to also use the Flexradio's flex control vfo knob.....now that was a mouthful!! Lets break this down shall we N1MM is the

At 40mW and below this is the reading

contest logger that I use, N4PY is the software I use to control my K3. LP-bridge is a virtual port program that allows these two programs to somewhat talk to each other. I say somewhat as there are some minor issues. (there is another virtual port program VSP manager that allows perfect integration but I did not want to install it just before a contest) Oh and the FlexRadio FlexControl works fantastic with N4PY's rig control program and through LP-Bridge also works with N1MM as well. Another software program I ended
up purchasing was MRP40 cw decoding program. Now my code is not to bad at all but during contests I have found that for some reason some stations send at the speed of sound. (not sure why as they may loose more contacts that gain as folks just move on being not able to understand the fast code) For those stations this is were MRP40 shines.

Programs running during the contest

This is as far as I am concerned one of the best decoding programs. For those who want to participate in a CW contest but your code is not up to par this program will get you in on the action.  It's not free but is well worth the money!!

That was the software success for the contest other great events were being able to keep my power down to 1 watt....except for 2 contacts were the power creeped up to 3 watts. Did I say the power was kept to 1 watt? That was for a total number of  6 contacts the rest of the DX contacts went into the log with power numbers varying from 10mW's to 900mW's!!
Here is how the power numbers broke down
Contacts          Power
2                      10mW
13                     20mW
2                       40mW
4                       50mW
14                     100mW
22                     500mW
12                     From above 500 to 900mW
6                       1 watt
2                        3 watts

77                      TOTAL
I did say there was some records broken here at VE3WDM and they are
1. 69 DX contacts with under 1 watt in a contest!
2. Miles per watt bar is set higher.....CR3A with 10mW is 344,468 miles per watt 
                                                       DL6FBL with 10mW is 400,126 miles per watt

10mW on the QRPometer

I was not concerned about QSO per hour rate as at these power levels most of the time I had to try more than several times to make a contact. My radio equipment was (for those of  you wondering) the Elecraft K3, Elecraft P3, QRPometer, LP-100 meter, Hendricks 41dB attenuator and the last but not least the monster antenna......an attic dipole the Alpha Delta DX-EE.......that's right an attic dipole!!

In the thick of things

Well I am in the thick of things with the ARRL CW contest and as for my goals....I wanted to stay below 5 watts and try to get as many QRPp contacts as possible. Up to this point my QRPp contacts in the contest are at 92%!!! Because I am making mainly QRPp contacts the total contacts up to this point is suffering as I have to take the time to make the QSO. If there is even a faint signal coming back to the DX station I have to wait in line and sometimes these lines are over 5 minutes, this affects my total contact count big time. Some of the highlights up to this point in the contest are..........

1. Contacted DL6FBL with only 10mW's for a miles per watt total of 433,756 per watt an all time record  for me.
2. As was already mentioned 92% of contacts are QRPp and a majority of those are at or below 500mWs.
3. There are so far 9 contacts at or below 50mWs and again all these contacts are DX and not U.S stations.
 As for the rest of the goals like getting up early and racking up lots of time on the contest.........well the bed was sooooo comfee this morning it was very hard to get up and out before 8am! So that goal up to this point has not been met...but there is Sunday!! (dreams are free they say)
As for spending more time in the chair that will have to be weighted out on Sunday evening when the total time on air is looked at.
Contest on....it's off to 40m and maybe 80m as well..........will keep you posted

New monitor in place and ready for ARRL CW contest

Very dusty

This week a new monitor came in via UPS as my old standby monitor after many years of service bit the dust. I ended up ordering the AOC E235F monitor to match my other two 23 in monitors. Oh as a side note if anyone out there has an AOC monitor with a white square that shows up in the upper left hand corner shut off the picture boost bright frame option, which can be found in the monitors menu. Anyway.......With this nice new monitor up and running I did notice only one monitor seemed to be real sharp?? I then did some investigating and found out that my video care (Geforce 9400GT) had
one DVI and one VGA output port. It was the VGA port that was not allowing my new monitor to shine with all it's resolution. I ended up purchasing the Zotac Geforce GT 620 video card. This has two DVI outputs and as with the other care supports dual monitors. A small part of the day today was spend

Rear view of  PC

New on left old on right

removing the Geforce 9400 card and replacing it with the new Zotac GT 620 card. It was great to have the PC out and on the test bench I was able to give the interior a good cleaning. It's very surprising how much dust gets in there and to have the processor nice and clean and running cool will extend the life of the chip. The picture of the back of my PC shows many clip on toroid around most if not every cable as well there is a ground wire grounding the cabinet as well. I also put some snap on chokes on the DVI cable to the new monitor. This way my PC and monitors are RF free!

The view at CT9/OM3RM..

I was sitting at the operating desk this evening setting up N1MM logger for the ARRL CW contest starting Friday. I was sitting with the K3 on 40m and clicking on spots on the N1MM band map, wanting to see if the radio followed and all was working well. There was a spot CT9/OM3RM and I clicked on the spot and the rig did do as it was told  and go to the spot. I could hear Madeira island calling CQ so I gave it a go and low and behold he came back to me!! Now for some this is no big deal BUT for reasons unknown my attic

C6APG setup

dipole just does not like 40m at all. It's to the point were U.S station struggle to hear me. I then saw C6APG in the Bahamas again on 40m gave him a call and he too came back to me. I am in total shock with how 40m is co-operating this evening. I hope this holds up for the contest this weekend it sure will help out the score for sure. Maybe I will spin the K3 antenna tuner and give 80m a go as well! Oh and just for the record both these contacts were done with 5 watts QRP and the faithful attic dipole.

Last years action

It's that time of year again for the ARRL international CW DX contest. The bands will come alive with CW, I hope my CW practice will pay off and I can copy the fast guys!! Last year my goal during this contest was to pick up as many DXCC's as I could. My plans were by year end to have 100 DXCC's QRP in the books. That plan did not work out as I was just a few short of the goal. Another goal back then was to spend more time in the chair operating. This is were I really struggle and end up shutting things down early so we will see what happens this year.

1. Operate the contest with max 5 watts QRP and venture down into the QRPp zone!!
2. Try to pickup the remander of DXCC's needed.
3. To stay in the operating chair longer would be great, have to think about that one this week before the contest starts. 

These three goals seems like a great start and somewhat manageable  Other things that I have to go over is some shack cleaning, make sure N1MM is running up to par and check out SWR on all operating band.....there are more but these being some of the most important.
Good luck to all of you and hope to make contact with you in the contest!!

Working the KX3

OQ5A setup

On Friday I was able to take the opportunity to get some well deserved radio time in. Most weeknights when I get in from work and get the "house stuff" done I find I'm just to tired for the rig. On Friday I was able to fire up the KX3 and try my hand at some QRPp operationing. I was scanning up and down 20m's and found OQ5A from Belgium calling CQ. I adjusted the KX3 to 100mW's of power and gave OQ5A a go, he came back to me and with just a few repeats all the contact info was passed along and the QSO is in the books. This contact  at 100mW's netted me a distance of  37,603 miles per watt. 
I emailed Greet to let him in on some of the station info at this end. He was surprised I was only using 100mW's of power into an attic dipole to boot. Now here is the funny thing about propagation with 100mW's I tried to contact K0DNG in Kansas City Missouri and it was a huge struggle. I was going to up the power but Dennis was sending his 73s to me and moving on to calling CQ again.


Finally I saw on my Maclogger's cluster a spot for W0RW/PM now the cluster showed this to be in Indonesia. He was very weak and kinda in and out and there were other station trying to contact him as well. I topped up the KX3 to the 5 watt level and gave him a go. He came back to me and gave me a respectable report.  Now I thought there was something fishy about this cluster spot showing it as an Indonesian contact. I tripped off to QRZ.com and found out that PM stood for (in this case) pedestrian mobile!!  Paul was in Colorado which is a not even close to Indonesia...(this is my high school geography shinning through) but it was great making contact as I have read on many blogs about Paul and his pedestrian mobile adventures.