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I would encourage you all to take part in the Club72 QRP Marathon.  I am having a blast!

After work and dinner, I came down to the basement once again, to try to find some decent DX on the bands. Each day for the month of April (that’s how long the Marathon runs) my goal is to try to work one DX station on each of the bands. Tonight I was successful on 20, 17, 15 and 10 Meters, before the clock turned to 00:00 UTC.  All QSOs were made with the KX3 at 5 Watts

20 Meters – G6PZ in England – HF9V antenna
17 Meters – FG5FR in Guadeloupe – HF9V antenna
15 Meters – CM2YI in Cuba – EDZ antenna
10 Meters – ZL1ALZ in New Zealand – HF9V antenna

And you could have knocked me over with a feather with regards to ZL1ALZ.  I was tuning around 10 Meters just to see what I could hear.  John was quite audible about 579.  I figured he was running at least 100 Watts, possibly more.  I put out my call thinking that he would never hear my 5 Watts. Boy, was I wrong!  First shot, John came back to me!  John has one set of really fine business ears, that’s all I have to say!

According to QRZ, John is 9,088 miles away from me – so that makes this QSO 1,817.6 miles per Watt. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, made my day!  10 Meters is so wonderful when it’s open and conditions are good. Oh, and by the way, this was my first time working New Zealand using QRP – a very good day, indeed!

The SSN is at 119, and the Solar Flux is 131.  The K Index is 1 and the A Index is 3 – that spells for good DX conditions with a low noise floor.  I sure hope these good conditions last over the weekend.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

There! That sounds like the beginning of an Alcoholics Anonymous story, doesn’t it? I’ll explain my confession about being a Lid in just a little while.

Actually, the evening started well. After dinner, I was able to get on the radio for a bit and found some activity. My first goal was to work some QRP DX. Now that I have entered the Club 72 DX Marathon, I don’t want to be the only US station entered and show up dead last. To that end, I was successful and worked PP1CZ from Brazil on 17 Meters. To my delight, I found activity on 10 Meters also, and I was fortunate enough to get 6Y5KF from Jamaica and LU1FAM from Argentina into my log. I entered the PP1CZ and LU1FAM as official QSOs for the day.

Now, onto the 80 Meter QRP Foxhunts and my liddiness issues.  The first Fox was easy. I was easily able to find Jim K4AXF. Since Jim is located in Virginia, that’s a real easy shot from New Jersey on 80 Meters. Using the KX3’s Dual Watch feature, I had Jim’s pelt within 16 minutes from the beginning of the hunt.

The second Fox was Jerry N9AW. Normally, Jerry is an easy catch for me. Most Wisconsin and Minnesota Foxes are. Sometimes I think I have a pipeline to that part of the country. But this time his signal was weak, so I waited for a while before calling. Sure as anything, Jerry’s signal started improving. Again, using Dual Watch, I was able to figure out rather easily where he was listening. I began calling, but for some reason, I just wasn’t making it.

That’s when I discovered my error! I looked down and noticed that after I had worked K4AXF, I had turned the split function off. Horror of horrors! I had forgotten to turn the split function back on and I was calling N9AW on his calling frequency!  The “Prime No-No” of Foxhunting! If I could have dug a hole, I would have jumped in and closed it up after myself. I had probably angered a whole bunch of my brother and sister Hounds. Imaginary mutterings of “Lid” stung my ears. My deepest and sincerest apologies, my fellow Foxhunters. I have violated the sacred Foxhunters Code of Conduct. I will accept the 40 lashes with a wet noodle that I am entitled to.

After rectifying my mistake, though, I got Jerry in the log in very short order. In fact, it only took one call. Amazing how well things can go when you use the equipment properly.

My fellow Fox hunters are a kind and magnanimous group, so I doubt anyone will give me grief. But that won’t be necessary, as I will give myself plenty, and will do my best to make sure I don’t make the same mistake a second time.

Being a Lid is no fun.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

I had a meeting to attend this evening, so I wasn’t able spend too much time behind the K3. But after I got home, I did run downstairs to fire up the rig. 30 Meters seemed active, so I camped out there for a bit.

In short order, I worked 9A6C in Croatia and CN8KD in Morocco. I nabbed both these stations with QRP power levels. I threw out my call a few times for A45XR in Oman. But by that point, he had been spotted on the Cluster and the pileup was enormous. Even though I have never worked Oman before, I did not up the power and jump into the fray. I was just too tired.

A little bit up the band, OK did hear ER1OO, Wlad in Moldova. I tried him a few times, but I kept on getting “W3L?”. It was obvious that he was having difficulty hearing me. Not wishing to torture Wlad any further, I pulled the Big Switch for the night.

No commitments for tomorrow night, except for the 80 Meter Fox hunt, which is the very last one for the 2012/2013 Winter season. Maybe I will hear some more good DX before the hunt begins.

I’ve done pretty well this season. I am going to miss the hunts, and will eagerly await the 20 Meter Summer season.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

April marks the beginning of the Club 72 QRP Marathon. This is not a contest, but is a QRP DX operating activity. In a nutshell, it’s basically a friendly competition to see how you can do against other QRPers on a sort of a “miles per Watt” basis.

I had two QRP DX QSOs tonight. One with EA8BVP on 20 Meters, which was a 2X QRP QSO, and one with HR9/WQ7R on 10 Meters, where I was the lone QRP station.

QSOs are permitted on any HF band, 160 through 10 Meters. You can enter your best DX QSO per band, per day for the entire month of April. All the calculations are figured out for you. All you need to enter is the QSO date and time, the calls (yours and the station you worked), the Maidenhead locators for both stations, and the output power of both stations.

So far, out of 16 stations competing, I am in 11th place. I think it’s pretty obvious that the leaders need not fear me. So far, I am the only stateside station competing.

This is more than anything, a personal challenge to get on the air and work as much QRP DX as possible. I have no idea how I will end up, but it will be a fun and interesting journey.

You do not have to be a Club 72 member to participate, but membership is free, so why not look into it. You can simply Google “Club 72 QRP” and you will get the hyperlink to the Website. Normally, I would provide the link for you, but I am typing this on my Android tablet, and providing a link is not as simple a task as it would be were I at my desktop computer.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

A good day today. Not much operating as I had to install a new PC monitor here in the shack and then a new Freetime Freesat receiver down in the living room. It’s one of the new ones with WiFi support so I don’t need to run a network cable down to the living room which all existing boxes have required.

After that I came up to the shack to see if I had installed any new QRM generators. Switched to 10m PSK31 and heard a single solitary station – TO7BC  from Mayotte!

I’m not a DXer but this signal on its own in the clear was too much to resist. It took about 15 minutes to break the pileup. I couldn’t hear any other callers so I used XIT to dial in 0.5kHz up and hoped for the best. After a while with no success I decided to go up another 100Hz and he came right back! I must have been the only station who received a 579 report.

I shall check the website later to see if I got in the log. I will also have to find out where Mayotte Island is! I don’t often get to work DXpedition stations so I’m quite pleased with this afternoon’s work. I’ll check for QRM generators another time.

It’s called the Music Bullet.

In honor of Holy Week, I will be charitable and not refer to certain ops the way I might normally be so inclined.

I had two nice rag chews on 40 Meters busted up by inconsiderate ops.  The first QSO was with Howard K4LXY.  This was a 2X QRP QSO. Howard was using his KX1 and I was using my KX3. We were going at it pretty well until a certain W2 station (I will refrain form posting the suffix, although I certainly made note of it) came on frequency and called CQ right on top of us. Before that, another station came on frequency, but had the decency to “QRL?” and politely moved when he discovered that there was a QSO in progress.  Unfortunately, this W2 station didn’t bother with such niceties.

The second QSO was with Hank K1PUG.  Hank had answered my CQ, which I sent AFTER listening to the frequency to make sure it wasn’t being used AND after sending a “QRL?” with no response. Our QSO was evolving into a rather nice discussion about the Ten Tec equipment that Hank was using.  Again, this chat was going nicely until some digital mode (not familiar with the sound enough to know which mode it was) user came on and just put the complete kibosh on things. For crying out loud, we were on 7.035 MHz.  Can’t digital stations stay above 7.060 MHz? It’s bad enough when they practically come down to the Extra portion of the band on contest weekends. Can’t they leave CW ops in peace during a weeknight?

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon OF …… back in the 90’s when I was doing A LOT of digital mode work, we made sure to stay above 7.060 MHz on 40 Meters – EVEN during contest weekends.  Has civility been completely thrown out the window?  Man, I hate sounding like some bitter old man; but now I think I can begin to understand how they get that way.

Anyway, I jumped on over to 30 Meters to escape the madness and worked HC1MD/HC2, Dr. Rick Dorsch in Ecuador.  Rick is operating from the Fallaron Dillon Lighthouse through Friday, according to his QRZ page.

Although Dr. Rick was 599 here, I didn’t know whether or not to expect that I was going to be able to get him with QRP.  For some reason, I don’t always have the best of luck working South American stations.  I guess maybe my antennas don’t radiate all that well in that direction.  But I did indeed, work Dr. Rick with 5 Watts with the 88′ EDZ antenna.  According to the QRZ page, Dr. Rick was using a Yaesu FT-857D at 100 Watts to an Outbacker vertical.  When I read that after our QSO, I was even more impressed! I wonder if he’s an ear doctor, because he has to have a good pair of ears to have picked me out of the pack!

And so ends my night.  Have to turn in so I can get up and go to work tomorrow.  But Friday is a day off as it’s Good Friday.  The bad news is that W3BBO e-mailed me today to inform me that the Easter Island DXpedition ceased operations today.  Another one missed!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!