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A picture says more then 1000 words. I finally found a way to import the WSPR data from the database output on the WSPRnet.org website. It is rather complicated but will try to get back to that later. Interesting is that I can now finally do what I want with the data. I mean the things I like. Like a worldmap, a earthglobe and DXCC counting.

The globe is made through HRD V4 with google earth. The results were not shocking today. But for 100mW in my Alu-tape antenna not that bad.

I will try to reproduce everything tomorrow and write kind of a manual how to get the WSPR data converted to ADIF and then import it in your favorite logger.

Below all the spots that were made of my 100mW transmission today.

So with my PSU fixed I thought I would try my luck in the ARRL 10-meter contest. I have never participated in a contest before, but with 10 meters so hot nowadays I’d thought I’d give it a try. Murphy reared its head, so with the wife and kids all sick there was lots of housework to do and too little time behind the set. But I did sneak in an hour or four over two days. My goal: to practise my CW skills. My thought was that doing many short exchanges would give me enough practice to get a little more fluent with the key. So I started out on Saturday morning answering CQs, but nobody came back to me. Fiddled with my side tone, checked my signal with another receiver, no problems found. After four tries I gave up and went up to the SSB portion. Great fun: one Brazilian after another and my first Argentinian on 10 meters. Great to have the comfort of 100 Watts – makes life a lot easier.

Sunday morning the sunspots were lower, but I did manage a couple of State side stations. But it irked me that I hadn’t logged one CW QSO, so I tried again in the afternoon. Found a strong enough signal from Japan and after the second try it worked. Europe was okay and I did log one Dutch station: PI4TUE, the station of the University of Eindhoven, very close to my place of birth.

I had to stop there, but when I came back I switched to SSB again. Worked some Europeans and then, all of a sudden, CX2DDP. via long path. These kind of QSOs are fun though short and I guess Hector Rubens was as surprised as I was. After 75 QSOs I called it a day, which that was right when the band was closing. I’m not in for the numbers, so I am already happy with so many QSOs. I worked 32 different entities in SSB and six in CW, so a grant total of 38 multiplier points. Indeed, no contest for die-hard contesting hams and I doubt that I will often enter other contests.

But the best thing about this contest was that I got my private language student to do a QSO. He is a 16 year old, very shy boy, whom I teach English on Saturday afternoons. He just graduated from high school and he now goes to polytech, which give us a common interest: electronics. Every week I show him some radio related stuff, so this week it was how a QSO is being done. After showing him the ropes and teaching him the NATO alphabet I let him answer CQs with my call sign. He soon found out that you have to open your mouth and speak slowly, clearly and – when using SSB – loudly. Unfortunately these are traits that most Asians don’t possess. But he found it very “cool” that you could call all the way to Europe so he made an effort and in the end he managed a QSO on his own with JA7BEW. He will soon know more about electronics than I, so the exam for a radio licence will be a piece of cake then. Another ham in the making. Who says contests have no use?

What can I tell, can propagation get any better? I only made 15 QSOs in the morning as my second operator did not know which buttons to push, so I had to follow her with my eyes constantly before she would switch off the entire station. That almost happened! Anyway, when she was away and in bed for her afternoon nappy I made te rest of the QSOs and stopped at 200. 15:15 UTC like yesterday. At that time the greyline was jumping in and the frequency went crazy. Worked 1 station/minute last 20 minutes. Signals booming from Europe, South, Central and North America with signals over S-9. Real fun to contest like this even without a beam. So different from my first ARRL 10m contest in 2006 when I actually obtained first place in the same category as now because I was the only participant! A overview: 2006-22 QSOs, 2007-30 QSOs (as PA25HSG), 2008-20 QSOs, 2009-21 QSO’s, 2010-5 QSOs, 2011-200 QSOs. What a difference!! Lot’s of nice DXCC worked a few new ones on 10m. A all band new one today was Guam which was surprisingly easy to work, and as he worked a lot of Dutch stations there seems to be a small path of propagation in between. Don’t know how many USA/Canada stations I worked as I lost count, I probabely worked some new states. A list of interesting DXCC:

A61BK (UAE), UA9XL (As.Russia), RK8I (Uzbekistan), HS0ZDG (Thailand), V25R (Antigua&Barbuda), VK6IR (Australia), UN6P (Kazachstan), CE1DY (Chile), AU2JCB (India), B7P (China), LV5V (Argentina), CO2CW (Cuba), SV5DKL (Dodecanese), HI3TEJ (Dominican Rep.), TR8CA (Gabon), BX5AA (Taiwan), EK6TA (Armenia), KP2A (US Virgin Isl.), TI5N (Costa Rica), NH2DX (Guam), HZ1FI (Saudi Arabia), PU2LEP (Brazil), HK1NA (Colombia).

Well, this time it was more luck than anything else. Let me explain.

I promised a while back that I would tell you about me enjoying the newly repaired TS-440S. I do enjoy it, that’s not the problem, but the amount of enjoyment is short. How come? My power supply consist of two 7 Ah SLA batteries, which I charge with a wall-wart. With a 100 Watts output I can operate for an hour and that’s it. Even in listening mode it’s not more than a few hours longer as the set draws quite a current. When the batteries go flat it takes some 18 hours to charge them again, so I have to plan my activity very well.

So meet Mr. Jack Huang, a.k.a. BU2BA.

He is living down the street from my mother-in-law, on the edge of Banqiao. He is quite an active ham and so it was obvious that I paid him a visit when I first arrived here a year ago. He has a room full of transceivers and a small dipole on the roof of his 15 storey apartment building, so he is limited to daytime operation due to noise. It’s always nice to chat with him and he is much more technical than I ever will be.

I had to sell off all my 220 Volt power supplies before we moved here, because Taiwan has 110 Volt coming out of the wall sockets. Jack had an old 30 ampere PSU lying around which he sold me together with a Yaesu FT-690mkII for a good price. It is a locally made PSU, so no circuit description, modded with a fan and – to be honest – some shoddy soldering. It worked fine until I started to have problems with RF feedback. Over the course of a few months it became worse and worse until I couldn’t even draw 1 Amp of current out of it. With my modest test equipment and knowledge I measured everything I could: all normal. I put in some new transistors and an IC in the voltage regulating circuit, just in case. Learned a lot about PSU’s in the process, but I still couldn’t find the cause. I even made a video of it.

Back to Jack with the 10 pounds of heavy metal. With his sophisticated equipment he tested the whole thing: couldn’t find anything wrong, either. Then he hooked up a 50000 uF capacitor instead of the 2×10000 uF which were in the PSU and waddayaknow? It worked! Out with the old, in with the new. You guessed it: still the same problem.

I am not a technician by nature. I approach everything with logic, curiosity, trial-and-error and by eliminating the impossible. And then there is my gut feeling which said: “it’s the voltage regulator, sonny!” So with the PSU gutted on my bench I noticed this trimming potentiometer on the voltage regulator controlling pin 2 of the CA723CE IC. Time for a dose of curiosity: what does it do if I turn it? Well, it creaked and squeaked a bit and all of a sudden the PSU came back to life. I hooked up a halogen lamp and no problem drawing 2 amps. I hooked up my TS-130v and no problem drawing 4 amps. I would have hooked up my TS-440S, but the kids called for dinner and Sinterklaas was also scheduled to pay us a visit that night (he never forgets Dutch ex-pats, because he is a really nice Saint), so I left it there.

I later took out the potentiometer and couldn’t measure a steady resistance at any point. I guess it is a 20 MOhm one, but I only had a 1 MOhm at hand. That one did the job too, so I was right in time for the ARRL 10 meter contest. All’s well that ends well. So, am I great or am I just lucky?

First of all thanks all that replied to my previous post and send me best wishes and health I really appreciated it. Actually I don’t feel that ill when I keep quiet. But from what I heard Pneumonia can be very treacherous and I don’t want to end at the hospital. So, I heated up the radioshack and did a few hours of DX on 10m today in the ARRL contest. So far not too bad. I worked VK as new DXCC on 10m SSB (VK6IR had the honor). And of course lot’s of other nice DXCCs. Actually when the USA/Canada came in strong the band was that crowded I decided to call CQ up in the 28.800-815 to take some rest and was surprised that there actually was response. I was even spotted on the DX cluster! Band closed very early but I already stopped at 15:15 UTC as my little QRP Anneli was awake from her afternoon nappy and I was very tired as well. Tomorrow is a new day with new chances.

First of all, I want to take a moment to thank the sponsor of this giveaway, Ed from Import Communications.  This isn’t the first time Ed has sponsored a giveaway and I hope everyone appreciates his generosity and ham radio spirit.  Anyone who has worked with Ed will tell you that he’s a great guy and full of integrity.  It’s a real pleasure to work with him to help him give away great stuff!

If you’re one of the 16 winners, please send me an e-mail (editor at amateurradio dot com) with your name, callsign, and mailing address and I will compile the list and forward it to Ed.

Without further delay, here are the winners of our December 2011 giveaway: Read the rest of this entry »

I actually put the old 6 elem. logcell together for the upcoming 10m contest. Never expected that I would actually use it again and forgot to mark bits and pieces. But overall putting it together went smooth.  Unfortenately just when I was ready to get it up the small mast it there was a very heavy storm arriving with thunder, lightning, rain and hail. So, I hope to continue Saturday morning if weather and time alows. Some specs of this antenna. 4 elements fed, gain about 11dBi, front to back >30dB, front to side approx 25dB. Unfortenately I don’t have a heigh mast to put it on. So the specs will not be that good as on say 12 Mtr height. I think even on a low mast it will outperform my multiband vertical on 10m. We will see this weekend.