AmateurRadio.com

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!

Here’s another update of interesting important stuff spewing forth from the internet.

The Noise Blankers continue to run amuck on these interwebz, with cutting edge reporting like this: Amateur Radio Club Indicted on Ferritte Trafficking Charges, Special Event Station to Mark Departure of Mother-In-Law, and Man Claims CQ Contest Victory Despite No Contacts. In a related matter, still no word on the status of the Lost Island DX Society (LIDS).

The FISTS CW Club has a web page that measures your callsign weight. The basic idea is that shorter is better, so plug your callsign in and the ham with the lowest score wins! Mine weighs 52, what’s yours?

The ARRL Field Day information is available for download. The logo looks pretty good this year!

Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) is on the way out.

Lots of new content on HamRadioSchool.com.  Stu W0STU has been discussing the Technician License Question of the Week and I contributed some Shack Talk articles.

And remember, everything on the internet is true because the government is watching it.

73, Bob K0NR