AmateurRadio.com

As written here before, as a backpacker and ham operator, the Summits on the Air program had become a passion of mine. And, as written here before, I have a passion for traveling light. Every extra ounce in a backpack is important and seems to be multiplied by some unknown factor derived from  the vertical gain of your trek. Backpacking for backpacking's sake is bad enough, but throw radios into the pack and the challenge is amplified. One of my standard practices is to take a small backpack and make decisions on what not to take as opposed to taking a big pack with room for more gear, because you will fill it up.

So with this thought in mind I saw where LNR has come out with a more "trail friendly" 40/20/10 EFHW antenna, lighter than their current version, total weight, 3.5 oz. So I bought one. As I pondered my efforts to save weight in my pack, I had a thought and it went something like this, "Mike, the thing that you carry on the trail that weighs the most isn't your antenna or even your pack, it's you".  I am obsessing on ozs. in my pack and I am more than a few pounds over weight. On average your pack, plus or minus, should be around 16% of our body weight, so by far the largest impact I can have on my total weight is to drop a few pounds myself. Now I will admit, losing weight is not as much fun as buying lighter and more efficient gear, but it will probably have a much more significant impact on the weight I take up the hill..

One thing you will never confuse a hamfest with is a Triathlete convention. We have a hobby that is usually performed sitting down. So having a niche in the hobby that requires us to exercise a little is a good thing. I ran five marathons in the '80's, including the New York Marathon in 1982, so I know what it feels like to be in shape. I don't feel that way now, so I am making a commitment to drop a few pounds.

However, I will still obsess about lighter gear.
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

It was inevitable this would happen: someone has started a Yahoo! group for the JT9 mode. Pity they couldn’t have made it a Google group like the one for JT65A but I guess more hams have Yahoo! accounts than Google accounts.

There was already a fairly quiet WSJT group but this will keep the discussions about using JT9 on HF separate from the rather esoteric MS and EME stuff.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

This appeared on their Facebook page today:

This is the EFT-10/20/40, which is a “Trail Friendly” version of their popular EF-10/20/40MKII antenna.  The one shown above comes in at a weight of 3.5 ounces.  The EF-10/20/40MKII, which I have, is already no burden to carry. But if you’re one of those guys who are into serious hiking (can you say Appalachian Trail?), where every quarter of an ounce makes a huge difference, then you may want to look into this baby.

I love my EF-10/20/40MKII.  I tuned it so that I don’t need to use the KX3’s autotuner. It didn’t take long and only needed a minor adjustment – it was THAT close right out of the package.  Using one of these is simplicity in itself – get one end up in a tree, hook the other end to the radio and go to town! And you make contacts – plenty of them.

The LNR Webpage can be found by clicking here.

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

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

I only managed 4 QSOs in abour as many hours using JT9-1 this morning. I worked LU8EX whom I recognized having made a JT65A contact with him in the past. Hopefully more operators will make the switch from JT65A to JT9-1. At the moment it feels like I’ve worked everybody. I was spotted many times by VK3AMA even when I was running 5 watts. Pity there is no-one else in Oz using the mode yet.

I switched to PSK31 in the afternoon and my QSO rate immediately improved. A nice catch was Luc PR8EP whose QSL card I picture here.

Another good one was Eric HS0ZJK in Phetchaburi, Thailand. He is only the second Thai station I have worked, and both were on 15m.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

I have it on good authority, that there will be a new ARRL sponsored challenge coming this spring.  The MacGuyver Challenge (as it is being

referred to) will judge the builders’ abilities in creating a 1 Watt or higher 40M CW transmitter, using the highest percentage of household items possible.  The word is that the prize may already be claimed by junkbox-king Kyle Scrapschen, KB2CRP, who was showing his self titled “Junk Drawer Rig” at this year’s Mohawk Valley Hamfest in Sprakers, NY.  Using 17 antique twist-ties, an engraved spork, a lump of some crystallized kitchen-matter, and vintage Mattel Speak-and-Spell, Kyle claims to have had a QSO with a ham aboard a spam-fishing trawler off the coast of  Gough Island!

In other news, it’s April 1st.  Have a great one folks.  I was going to post a story about actually receiving my Xiegu X1M, but that’s NOT funny.

 

–Neil W2NDG

Neil Goldstein, W2NDG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New York, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Happy April Fool’s Day!

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

This past weekend, I had to great time working the CQ WPX (SSB) Contest. I am pretty much an HF Slacker but I do like getting on the air once in a while for these contests. The attraction seems to be the opportunity to make lots of contacts in a short time and picking up a few new countries. The format for this contest is really fun…multipliers are based on the callsign prefix, so “everyone is DX”…sort of. CQ has an awards program (CQ WPX Award) that is also based on prefixes worked, so the contest is a good way to pursue that award. The ARRL recently added CQ WPX Award support to Logbook of the World, which will help with confirming contacts. Us HF Slackers don’t like messing around with actually sending QSL cards when transferring a few bytes electronically is sufficient.

I operated from our mountain cabin, with just 100W to a trap dipole up in the trees. Not a Big Gun station, especially not in this contest. There were quite a few stations on the Caribbean, many of them contest DXpeditions. Conditions were pretty good on 20M and 15M, with 10M also quite usable during portions of the day.

        Band    QSOs     Pts  WPX
           7      39      69   30 
          14      71     142   59
          21      81     163   54
          28       9      24    6
       Total     200     398  149
       Score : 59,302

The last time I submitted a log for CQ WPX was in 2011 with roughly the same station. That year, I made 98 QSOs for a score of 18,920. So this year’s score is an improvement over that effort.

But the most important thing is to have fun messing around with radios.

73, Bob K0NR

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].