AmateurRadio.com

For some time now there has been a rumour of a new radio coming out from Kenwood.
In Japan Kenwood is anouning a new addition to the family of radios. They are saying the TS990S will be released Feb 2013.  It's a great radio with many features and great specs...but it comes with a very steep price tag.....9,138.78. I am just not sure how folks come up with the cash for rigs like this.

View of the TTF on the TS 990S

For more spec's TS 990S
Independent DSP filtering for each receiver
7 inch TTF display
3.5 inch TTF sub display
independent receivers
Updates via the internet

Below are some rigs with similar spec's and price tag to boot.
IC 7800
200 watts
independent receivers
7 inch TTF screen
12,500
FTDX 9000D
Has a TTF 6.5 inches
200 watts
Sub receiver
10,900
Yasue has 5 HF radio's under 2,000 and 9 rigs above, Icom has 4 rigs under 2,000 and 4 rigs over. (not including IC 7100 as it's not out yet) Kenwood has 5 under 2,000 and one above. Ten Tec 4 rigs under 2,000 and 2 rigs over. As for Elecraft 2 rigs under 2,000 and no rigs over 2,000 ( I did not include the kit rigs as with Ten Tec as well)  Lets not forget Flex radio they have 2 rigs under 2,000 and 3 over 2,000 this includes the just released 6500 and 6700 series rigs. The market for Amateur radios under 2,000 is fairly decent but that still is a steep price for a rig. Lets not forget with a lot of these radios there are extras that may have to be purchased to have the rig you want. So just as there are Roll Royce and Bentley's so there are also the high end radio gear and they must sell  or they would not produce them.

In 2012 according to my log all my contacts were CW and QRP or QRPp type contacts. This is the 3rd year that I have made just CW contacts. The reason being SSB in the past would bother my neighbours and since this is a stealth operation SSB is OUT. As for the digital modes I just have a very low frustration factor not a good combination for setting up digital modes. Maybe 2013 will have me mellow a bit to try the digital modes again.

2012	100	500	CW: 100.00% Phone: 0.00% Data: 0.00%
2011	49	258	CW: 100.00% Phone: 0.00% Data: 0.00%
2010	25	170	CW: 100.00% Phone: 0.00% Data: 0.00%
2009	10	192	CW: 19.27% Phone: 0.00% Data: 80.73%
2008	45	495	CW: 36.57% Phone: 0.00% Data: 63.43%

Club log was great in helping me get a snap shot of my log for 2012. According to Club log I was able to hit 125 QRP DXCC contacts for the year! Unfortunately I was not able to qualify for the ARRL DXCC Jubilee award as they were not counting all the DXCC entities. I was able to accumulate 83 DXCC's toward that award but this award only ran for the year of 2012 so I came up short.
My contacts for the year were 500, I thought it was a lot more but there were times I would forget to log contacts. BUT I almost doubled my contact total from the year before of 258. Seems I have to get away from the soldering iron and on the rig more!!
I was able to make it into 23 CQ zones
Some of my highlight contacts were Gibraltar, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Jordan and ST. Pierre & Miquelo.
Finally I was able to better my 1,000 miles per watt distance to 45,869 miles per watt with a QRPp contact to HA8JV with 100mWs of power.

Just before the New Year my PC had what seems to be a software problem and I ended up losing all my data on my PC and had to start from scratch with a reformatted hard drive. I did not realize how much junk I had on my computer and that does explain why it was getting rather slow. Now that the hard drive is re-formatted and most (but not all) of my software is loaded back on I am able to get on the radio and have some fun!!! I still have some computer to radio and radio to computer communications to sort out but I felt it was time to take a break and just hobby.

Some of E77DX's antennas!!!

I had a look at the propagation and it looks not to bad at all I have not had that much time to really be paying attention to band conditions with all the "making the shack computer happy" again. Flux at 145 and sunspot in the 180's I thought WOW things are looking up! It was now time to turn on the K3 pump the power to a top end of 5 watts and let-r-go............
I was able to make a fast DX 599 and go report to E77DX in Bosnia and I check on QRZ.COM and he sure does have a wild setup!! Emir was coming in around an S3 and I had to use my APF to really pic him out of a rising noise floor. This was on 30m's and I seem to find this a really go to band for me. I then for some reason jumped down to 10m's and VA7WW was calling CQ and he was in around an S2 to S3 here

Now that is some great looking landscape!!

at VE3WDM. Bill had a good copy on me and we exchanged info and then conditions changed and we had
to cut the QSO short but it was nice to have a CW conversation as to the 599 and move on. At this moment I am on 10m's again with VFO A in my right ear listening to QX3XR and KR7Q in my left ear on another spot on 10m's. Well I just contacted Peter OX3XR in Greenland he gave me a 559.......radio is so much more fun than farting around with the computer....

Over all it was a very good year as I and my family had good health (I did have a cancer scare but things turned out to be ok).

1.The year started out with me earning my way toward the  ARRL Diamond DXCC award, I wanted to do it QRP style and well I came up short with only 83 DXCCs for the year. BUT having said that I am very very happy with the results of 83 contacts and I am sure I can snag the others this year for a DXCC award in the QRP category.

2. A new radio arrived as well the Elecraft KX3 and that sure is some radio and I  have not yet been able to give it a real good workout.

3. I started out 2012 wanting to increase my CW coping speed for contests and the best way for me to do that was to get on the keyboard.  My keyboard skill is find expect for the numbers and where they were without looking. I have now accomplished that goal as well. I had used various CW programs to help me out with the speed and getting the numbers and keyboarding are now in harmony.

3. I wanted to clean up the shack of unused ham gear no sense it sitting there taking up space....that was done (my beloved KX1 included). I was very surprised at the amount of money that came in from stuff that I was not using......now I am looking at my K2 along with the external Elecraft tuner and amp (100 watt) and thinking of putting in up on the auction block. I have the Elecraft K3, KX3 and ordered another K2 to build and sell over the winter months when ham radio is slow.


4. I was able to work my first split contact which to me was pretty cool.

5. I starting posting videos on Youtube up to this point I have a total of 8 videos, 22 followers and 5,638 views to date. It was rough going at first trying to figure out how to upload, edit the video and getting my Iphone to do a half decent job of recording as that is all I have as of yet.

6. During the summer months I was able to pack up and use my Elecraft K2 for some short QRP CW contests. It was nice to get out in a local park and operate the rig.

7. I descovered the art of QRPp operations and was able to top my miles per watt award

8. My kit building was strong and included Qrpometer, Hendrick attenuator, KX3 (kinda a kit), starting a new Elecraft k2, Smart charger, adding a gell cell to my  K2 as well as some mod's to the Elecraft K3.

9. For some strange reason it was the first year I have not gone to  any ham radio flea markets.....not sure why that is?  Wait a minute I can think of one reason....lots of junk!!

The Blue screen of death

Saturday afternoon started out in a very relaxed way on the computer looking at blogs and then the monitor went a blue colour with lots of geek mumbo jumbo on it......then the PC restarted. All seemed to be ok until it happened again and again turns out this is the "Blue screen of death" I had the bright idea of loading my Win XP CD and running the repair option.  From here it went downhill real fast as the repair process went on it's marry way I noticed it sure was taking along time. I then just happen to see that part way through the repair program the Blue screen of death showed up again. Seems even Win XP repair was caught up in the loop now. I was not able to get back to Windows after trying all kinds of back door options, it seemed my only option was to reformat my hard drive. The thing that bothered me was I was not able to get back into Windows to back up any of my MANY programs!!!! The hard drive formatted ok last night and now it's time to load drivers, programs and then to get them running and happy with my radios.  UPDATE......driver loading not going as planned for some reason the onboard video card can't be found.  In the process of updating to Win XP SP3 maybe that will do the trick.....oh and for those wondering how this blog was done and put up????? Im on my blessed MAC at the moment....:)
Merry Christmas to all my readers!!!

Tis the season to become busy........here at VE3WDM lately the dust has been gathering on my ham equipment. Over the past week and a half I had good intentions of sitting down and getting some radio time in....BUT....it just has not come to be. There has been Christmas shopping, working late during weekdays and on weekends, putting the tree up and the list goes on. By the time I settle in getting on the radio feels more like a chore than hobby. On the happy side I do have 2 weeks off over Christmas and I made a list and checked it twice, there is no naughty on this list just some nice ham radio goals over the break.  This evening I found some time to get fire up the Elecraft K3. To my surprise I did not find the bands (20m, 30m and 40m) not in great shape. I didn't make any contacts but I did hear PY2CW from brazil and a few U.S stations but that was it.