AmateurRadio.com

Let me start with saying that I love having goals and challenging myself in different ways… I came up with a challenge that I didn’t think would be too hard to meet but would be fun and stretch my operating time a little more than I have been on the air in a while. I love DStar and the fact that I live in an Antenna Restricted area makes me try to be more creative than ever on keeping my radio skills high as well as having some fun doing it. 50 States WAS is always one of the first challenges people go after when getting on HF so I thought why not try to do 50 States on DStar and to make it interesting come up with a catchy way to say it so there grew: 50 States in 50 Days. Sounds catchy right? I thought so…

Honestly, it should be a very easy goal to attain from a technology standpoint I mean get on a Reflector and you could pick off 5-6 states on a major reflector in on setting. Also, just linking to 50 repeaters should only take you what a day or two to do if you just rush through it…. Here is what do you haven’t added… Full time job, wife, two kids with full schedules, 4 dogs, 15 other hobbies and the fact that I’m pretty tired at the end of my day!! I have thought about doing this project for a while but I jumped in with both feet tonight with some free time I had tonight….

With that said… Let’s get started!!

March 30 –

• Linked to KI4WXS in the Charlotte area to talk to my friend John – KJ4KJM who I got into the hobby and we had a quick QSO on his way home from work.
• Linked to AA1HD in Vernon Connecticut because I was on a roll at this point and reconnected to one of my oldest (no age but long term) friends in the hobby Fran (W1FJM)
• Linked to AC7O in UT and I got a change to meet Bob – KF7LQS who just got a 91ad and was learning his way around DStar from Logan, UT. Really nice guy and someone you should connect with if your online
• Linked to K3PDR in Philadelphia, PA as my wife happened to be in that area and I LOVE THE FOOD there. After a few calls… K3DS Dennis came back to me while he was putting some finishing touches on his Shack.

Since we have some thunderstorms coming through and tornado warnings in effect I decided to shut down and take the rest of the night off. I’ll be back to my quest tomorrow hopefully…

Full story: Worked all States DSTAR – 50 states in 50 days | NickToday Blog

This afternoon I walked down to the Pemigewasset River and worked Italy and Germany.

There’s a steep hillside trail leading into the Corps of Engineers flood control area along the river. In the winter the trail is used mostly by snowmobiles. Today the trail is covered with several inches of snow… the remnants from a snow storm last week. It’s sunny with a brilliant blue sky. The temperature is 42F.

At the bottom of the hill, the trail crosses a lovely brook which feeds into the Pemi. Only a couple of weeks ago it was frozen solid. Now it’s flowing again.

I walk about a mile and come to a spot overlooking Shaw Cove. As the trail rounds a sharp corner, the warm sun has
melted the snow along the edge. It’s a good place to sit and there are some tall pine trees lining the trail.

I toss a half wave wire over a branch and set up the HB-1B on 20 meters. The band is active.

Right away I hear IK2CIO, Vini calling CQ. We quickly exchange 599s and send 73. I tell Vini I am running 4W and he confirms the contact.

I tune down the band a bit and hear Holger, DK4LX just finishing a QSO. I call him and he answers giving me a 439. He says he’s in a rush and apologizes for not chatting. I thank him for his answer and tell him I am running 4 watts. He wants to know more… my QTH, the rig… and the antenna. He copies all the information and congratulates me on the setup. He wishes me good luck and I tell him I will send some photos of my location.

I’ve only operated for about 10 minutes, but my tiny signal has reached Europe, and I am thrilled to have a beautiful hike and witness the magic of radio once again. I pack up and hike up the hill.

The DXMaps website run by Gabriel EA6VQ needs your support. This is the site that plots contacts spotted to the DX Cluster on a map, band by band, to show propagation in real-time. It is especially invaluable during the summer Sporadic-E season to track the rapidly-moving band openings.

DXMaps plots DX contacts band by band in real time

The trouble with any web site is that if it becomes very popular the costs of running it grow beyond what most people can afford as a hobby. According to EA6VQ the cost of a new dedicated server for the site will be $250 a month. So he is asking users to become “supporter users” by donating $33 US per year. But any donation is welcome.

If you are an active operator, especially on six metres and up, you will know how invaluable DXMaps.com is. Hopefully hams will step up to the plate and send Gabriel a donation.

Series Six Episode Six of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Australian Broadcaster Condemns Chinese radio jamming
• Digital Modes for France
• Thailand plans for digital radio
• Florida Radio Ham issued $25,000 fine
• Man pleads guilty to receiving stolen antenna
• Re-introduction of the DVRPTR_V1 Boards as a Low Cost Solution for Building Hotspots, Repeaters and Stand-alone Repeaters
• Sandford Mill Radio Museum Open Day
• Boom microphone donated to National VOA Museum
• UK Ham wins Cass Award
• Radio Hams ready for Great Utah Shake-Out
• Radio Hams test APRS underground
• PAøøKING, special call for a King
  

Martin Rothwell (M0SGL) reviews using a Raspberry Pi DVAP Hotspot and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) discuses Capacitors

Series Six Episode Six of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Australian Broadcaster Condemns Chinese radio jamming
• Digital Modes for France
• Thailand plans for digital radio
• Florida Radio Ham issued $25,000 fine
• Man pleads guilty to receiving stolen antenna
• Re-introduction of the DVRPTR_V1 Boards as a Low Cost Solution for Building Hotspots, Repeaters and Stand-alone Repeaters
• Sandford Mill Radio Museum Open Day
• Boom microphone donated to National VOA Museum
• UK Ham wins Cass Award
• Radio Hams ready for Great Utah Shake-Out
• Radio Hams test APRS underground
• PAøøKING, special call for a King
  

Martin Rothwell (M0SGL) reviews using a Raspberry Pi DVAP Hotspot and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) discuses Capacitors

Series Six Episode Six of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news,  Martin Rothwell(M0SGL) reviews using a Raspberry Pi DVAP Hotspot and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) discusses capacitors

• Australian Broadcaster Condemns Chinese radio jamming
• Digital Modes for France
• Thailand plans for digital radio
• Florida Radio Ham issued $25,000 fine
• Man pleads guilty to receiving stolen antenna
• Re-introduction of the DVRPTR_V1 Boards as a Low Cost Solution for Building Hotspots, Repeaters and Stand-alone Repeaters
• Sandford Mill Radio Museum Open Day
• Boom microphone donated to National VOA Museum
• UK Ham wins Cass Award
• Radio Hams ready for Great Utah Shake-Out
• Radio Hams test APRS underground
• PAøøKING, special call for a King

I managed to break the pileup on 40 Meters tonight to work Vlad in Senegal for a new band. This makes for contacts now on 40, 20, 17 and 12 Meters, all via QRP. I also worked Vlad once on 20 Meters with QRO power, think it was 85 Watts.

Spring must be on the way though, as the band was super noisy tonight. Lots of QRN made it tough for two QRP rag chews (2X KX3 QSOs, by the way) that I had earlier in the evening. There were static crashes galore! Someone must have been getting some pretty bad thunderstorms.

20 Meters was decent this afternoon, as I was able to work SP6CEW in my ancestral country, Poland. I was also able to work S57KW in Slovenia.

When I spoke with Bob W3BBO on Echo link this afternoon, he told me that he had pretty good success on 17 Meters today. When I was tuning the bands this afternoon, 17, 15 and 12 Meters sounded pretty sparse to me with very few loud signals.

Tomorrow, we are forecast for more snow. Hopefully, it won’t be much. In any event, the ground has had a chance to warm up, so any snow that falls should melt pretty quickly. Spring officially began a few days ago, but it sure hasn’t felt like it.

One of my first radio goals for 2013 is to get about another couple dozen radials down for the HF9V. My Butternut is my “go to” antenna, so it will not be wasted effort. I want to get them down early, so that come late May or early June, they will have disappeared into the grass.

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