AmateurRadio.com

I spent the evening conversing with Ed, KN9V on 40 Meters. Ed sent me an e-mail a few weeks back, asking him if I would meet him on the air for some real live CW practice. We tried earlier this week, but the propagation gods were against us. Tonight we had a much better go.

Ed feels that he’s a little rusty, but it was evident that he’s really doing fine. We were about 559 both ways, and we were able to enjoy a QSO for just about an hour. A little QSB and QRM made it interesting, but it was a very nice QSO.

I hope to meet Ed on the air again soon.

If you feel your Morse Code needs a little work and that you need a CW buddy, then send me an e-mail at [email protected].

Time permitting, I’d love to make a sked with you and work with you on the air. Now that the KPA3 amp is installed in my K3, I can turn on the afterburners so that you wouldn’t have to strain to hear me. Although, if you’re so inclined as to want to attempt a 2X QRP QSO, you wouldn’t get any arguments from me!  I am comfortable sending anywhere between 5 to about 23 WPM, and I can go on any band from 160 to 6 Meters.

I am available most weeknights, and would be glad to hear from you.

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].

What’s the point of PSK125? I just finished a session running PSK31 on 15m (which was really lively, by the way) when I thought I’d just check 10m to see if anything was going on up there. I soon found that there wasn’t much. The waterfall was devoid of traces, apart from a weak, wide, nebulous trace which proved to be PSK125.  PY2DN was calling CQ, but try as I might he couldn’t decode me.

It appeared that he was making some QSOs, presumably with people enjoying better 10m propagation than I had. PY2DN’s signal was far from perfect copy. Most times he transmitted I received mostly garbage. But I’m sure there was enough energy in the transmission to produce solid copy had he been using PSK31.

I guess the point of PSK125 is speed. PY2DN’s CQ and my reply both lasted about two seconds. But what’s the hurry? Not only can I not type that fast, I can’t even click macro buttons that fast. So the time saved is for nothing. I accept there is a role for PSK63 in contests, when speed matters, but only when signals are strong enough to provide good copy. PSK125 is a step too far. It spreads the energy too thinly.

I’ve tried loads of new digital modes but I keep on coming back to good old PSK31. I find it more satisfying in the long run. There’s tons of activity from heaps of different locations. You can often find a PSK31 signal when the CW and SSB band segments are dead. PSK31 is a real QSO mode where you can actually converse with somebody and exchange information with them. And you don’t need to run a kilowatt to a huge tribander to be successful. I was calling CQ on 15m with 40w to my attic dipole and I felt like a big gun: I was getting replies, including DX replies, to every other call.

I think PSK31 has earned its place alongside CW and SSB as one of the staple modes of amateur radio. Other modes are just for temporary amusement.

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

A huge sunspot has formed on the sun – big enough to make the “regular” news.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/massive-sunspot-forms-20130220

So, as an Amateur Radio operator you’ve heard about sunspots, you’ve read about sunspots, you may have even prayed for sunspots ……. but what do you KNOW about sunspots?

I have perused the Internet and have come across several articles by our own Paul Harden, NA5N of Very Large Array (and Zombie Shuffle) fame.  He’s our authority on things of the sun.  I have found the best of his words and are pasting them here for your edification:

From Paul Harden NA5N, some solar weather basics:

We all know the sun goes through a solar cycle about every 11 years. During the minimun, or QUIET SUN, there are few sunspots, the solar flux is very low ( less than100), which means the sun’s ionizing radiation is quite low. As a result, our upper atmosphere, where the E and F layers reside, are not well ionized. This means the E and F layers do not reflect HF radio waves very well … and most of your signals will pass right on through to space to be picked up by Jodie Foster in the sequel to “Contact.” One measure of how well ionized our E and F layers are is the MUF, or Maximum Usable Frequency. During the quiet sun, the MUF is often below 15-18MHz. This is why 15M and 10M are “dead” during the quiet sun, except for local (line-of-sight) communications.

However, during the solar maximum or ACTIVE SUN, there are many sunspots, the solar flux is high, and this highly ionizes our ionosphere. This in turn means our E and F layers become very reflective to HF signals. Virtually all the power hitting the E and F layers will be reflected back to Earth and Jodie Foster will hear nothing out in space. This high reflectivity causes the MUF to rise, often to above 30MHz. And when this occurs, 10M will be open all day long to support global communications by using “skip propagation” … in that your signals are skipping (or being reflected) off the ionosphere back to earth.

SOLAR FLUX (SF) is a number that attempts to describe the total power output of the sun at radio wavelengths, which in turn helps describe the total ionizing power delivered to our ionosphere. The higher the SF, the more ionization, and the more reflective our ionosphere is to HF.

An SF of less than 100 is fairly poor propagation, the MUF  will be lower than 15MHz.  An SF of more than 150 is fairly good propagation, the MUF will be greater than 25MHz

A general rule of the thumb is 10M is open when the solar flux is greater than 150.

IONIZATION. The solar radiation reaching the Earth contains IONIZING radiation. This means the incoming solar radiation can rip electrons away from the oxygen molecules high in our atmosphere. So now you have all these “free electrons” roaming around that makes the upper atmosphere (or ionosphere) more dense. Now the mass or weight doesn’t change, it’s just denser. This density causes your RF signal to not pass onto space. In the real case, your RF signal strikes all these free electrons, and that is what reflects them back to earth … DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS when ionization occurs.

This is why the higher bands, such as 15M and 10M, are open (that is, signals being reflected back to earth) during the DAYLIGHT HOURS, but these same bands go dead (no reflective propagation) nearly as soon as the sun sets – because the sun’s ionizing radiation goes away.

This is also why these same bands tend to be completely dead during the quiet sun, because there is insufficient ionizing radiation to cause ionization for reflection. This is a phenomenon of the active sun, the period we are well into right now. And, during a quiet sun, the ionization can be so low, that the MUF drops below 14MHz at night, which is why even 20M can go dead at night. During an active sun, the MUF almost always remains above 15MHz even at night, which is why 20M often becomes a ’round-the-clock band during the active sun.

So what about 40M? Truth is, the solar cycle has virtually no effect on 40M or below. Propagation on 40M remains pretty much the same during the active sun as it does the quiet sun, because the MUF seldom drops below 10MHz. This is why 40M is the main nighttime band, year in and year out. Even with low ionization, the very long wavelengths of the lower frequencies will be reflected by the ionosphere. This would be like rolling a basketball through the popcorn balls … while the high frequency RF (the marbles) pass through pretty easy, certainly the low frequencies (basketball) would not. Quiet sun or active sun.

The active sun DOES effect 40M in that absorption to RF can be very good to very bad, or very high noise levels from geomagnetic storms … both due to solar flare activity that occurs only during an active sun. A large solar flare sends an extra dose of ionizing radiation to the Earth. This can raise the MUF to very high frequencies (greater than 100MHz), but this radiation can also penetrate far into our atmosphere to ionize the lower D-layer. RF signals must pass through the D-layer on their way to the upper E and F layers, where the reflection occurs. The more ionized the D-layer is, the more collisions that will take place with your RF signal, absorbing or attenuating some of its power. Thus, high absorption to HF signals can occur during and after a solar flare. Your poor little QRP signals just vanish on their way to the E and F layers!

80M signals are almost always highly or fully attenuated by the D-layer, and what “propagation” that occurs on 80M is actually by the signals traveling across the Earth’s surface, or “ground wave” propagation. The wave front is confined between the Earth’s surface and the D-layer, which causes attenuation to the power as it travels along the ground, skims the D-layer, and propagates through the dense atmosphere near the surface. This is why QRP on 80M is challenging at best since the absorption rates are fairly high – day and night, quiet sun or active.

The other major effect to HF propagation during the active sun is geomagnetic storms. Very briefly, this is caused by a shock wave from a solar flare hitting the Earth’s magnetic field, causing it to compress and wiggle for awhile. And while it’s wiggling, it’s generating huge electrical currents, which in turn creates gobs of noise on HF.

…BAND…. THE QUIET SUN………. / ……….THE ACTIVE SUN
——————————————————————–
….80M…. Seldom has skip propagation…..Seldom has skip propagation
….40M…. Open around the clock……………..Open around the clock
….30M…. Open daylight hours………………….Open around the clock
….20M…. Open daylight hours………………….Open around the clock (usually)
….15M…. Dead – no skip propagation……….Open – daylight hours only
….10M…. Dead – no skip propagation……….Open – daylight hours only
——————————————————————–

See also – http://www.gqrp.com/SOLAR_HO.pdf  This link explains the A and K Indices and other phenomena associated with solar weather. It also contains other pertinent links to other valuable solar weather sites.

Thank you, Paul!

So to recap (and this is a very general nutshell, and in W2LJ’s words)

High Solar Flux and sunspot numbers = increased ionization of the ionosphere =  good propagation = happy Hams.

Keep in mind that giant sunspots can be too much of a good thing, though, causing geomagnetic disturbances and solar flares which can muck everything up.

High A and K Index values = higher noise level on the bands and higher chance for signal absorption and a lowering of the MUF = bad propagation = sad Hams.

In the end, like everything else in nature, it’s all a fine balance.

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].

So you say you’re not into the “Big Gun” contests; because as a QRPer, you feel like a fish out of water.  What’s a QRPer to do?

Fortunately, there are a bunch of operating events (contests, if you will) that were designed just with you in mind.  Some of these are annual events, some are monthly, some are seasonal.  Here are some good ones that I can think of right off the top of my head:

Monthly ARS Spartan Sprint – this occurs on the first Monday of every month – this is a two hour sprint that runs from 9:00 to 11:00 PM Eastern time (you can do the math for your time zone).  Sponsored by the Adventure Radio Society, there are two divisions – the Tubby and Skinny Divisions.  The divisions are determined by the weight of the equipment you are using. The goal is to use as small and light and portable a station as you can manage – although that’s not a requirement to participate. Information about these Sprints can be found here.

Flying Pigs Run For the Bacon – this sprint occurs on the third Sunday of every month.  Another two hour sprint that again, runs from 9:00 to 11:00 PM Eastern time.  This is a very friendly, low pressure sprint where slow speed coders are welcome.  You don’t need to be a member of the Flying Pigs to participate; but it’s fun to have a Piggie number to exchange instead of just the “standard” 5W designation.  Besides, it’s free to join – the club’s motto? “No dues, no rules, just have fun!”  Further information can be found here.

NAQCC Monthly Sprint – these sprints are rapidly gaining in popularity. The North American QRP CW Club was founded by Tom Mitchell WY3H and John Shannon K3WWP. They recently just held their 100th sprint since the club was founded and close to 200 logs were submitted after all was said and done.  That amount of logs has to rival even the bigger QRP ARCI contests, I’ll wager. You have to pay attention to the days on these sprints however, because they alternate monthly between Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. And the contest time is a bit different also – 8:30 to 10:30 Easter time.  Membership in the NAQCC is also free and more info can be yours, here.

Of course the QRP Amateur Radio Club International sponsors a whole bunch of contests and sprints throughout the year.  There are Spring and Fall QSO Parties and events such as the Hoot Owl Sprint, QRP Field Day, the HF Grid Square Sprint, Fireside Sprint, etc.  QRP ARCI is a fine organization and they publish a tremendous magazine called “QRP Quarterly”.  More information about these operating events can be found here.

Then there are also the seasonal, primarily outdoor sprints such as the recently completed Freeze Your Buns Off, and others such as QRP To The Field, QRP Afield, Flight of the Bumblebees, (and my favorite) the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt.  You can Google any of those for further information.

The NJQRP Skeeter Hunt will be held again this August.  The sprint will be have an SSB category for 2013, so those of you who are not into CW can also join in on the fun.  There will be a theme and bonus points awarded for home brewing something specifically for the event; but those details haven’t been ironed out yet.  A general contest announcement will be made near the beginning of May, and Skeeter numbers can be applied for as of May 1st.

Lastly, there are also “miscellaneous” indoor QRP operating events that are held each year, that are not sponsored by major clubs.  The one that comes to mind immediately, for example, is the Zombie Shuffle which is run by Paul Hardin NA5N and his wife Jan N0QT.  This is usually held the weekend before Halloween and is a ton of fun.

There are also the Winter and Summer QRP Fox hunts.  If you like the thrill of navigating your way through a QRP pile up, then these are for you.  The Winter season runs from November to March.  There are two hunts each week, usually on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  One is on 80 Meters and the other is on 40 Meters.  During the Summer, the hunts are on 20 Meters and past practice is that they have been held on Thursday evenings.  Details here.

If you want to build up your log totals, hone your operating skills and have a ton of fun in the process, take some time to investigate what I’ve mentioned here.  If you’ve never tried any of these before, get your feet wet and join in. You’ll be an Old Pro in no time!

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’m no stranger to Linux. I’ve run numerous distributions since about 1995, even venturing into BSD territory, running FreeBSD and some other Berkeley variants. I’ve also used Linux quite a bit in my professional life for servers. However, I’ve never made the jump to using it as my primary desktop operating system at home; it’s always been a novelty to play with and never a desktop workhorse that I would use to actually get things done.

Linux Mint is a Linux distribution that has become more popular recently. It’s based on the venerable Ubuntu distribution and appears to be taking some market share from Ubuntu. Ubuntu in my opinion went off the tracks with its migration to the Unity desktop.  For the first time recently I hit a brick wall trying to install the latest Ubuntu within a virtual machine.  While Ubuntu was quite polished and arguably had the best usability in the Linux world, I still felt that I was often fighting the operating system to make it work.

Linux Mint seems to have taken care of those issues. Last night I made the plunge and partitioned off some space on my hard disk and installed it so I could dual boot between Windows and Linux. The installation went extremely well and within two hours I was able to browse the web, play videos and hear sound, send email, work on Kicad schematics, compile Arduino code, open Excel and Word docs, do my banking with the same program I used on Windows, and I had amateur radio logging and digital programs installed. The only speed bump was getting my wireless working. I was able to fix that in five minutes after Googling and finding one command line to run. On previous distributions, items like this would take hours to resolve and there would be several of them to deal with. For the first time I feel I have something equivalent to what I had on Windows, and it doesn’t look goofy and didn’t require days of tweaking with arcane command line syntax to make it acceptable. The browser actually renders things like they look on Windows. You install a program and it actually appears in the menu. Quite simply, Linux Mint isn’t a compromise like previous desktop installations.

I’ve often complained about the state of amateur radio open source software. I stand by my previous statements as I think we still don’t have a suite of amateur radio open source software that compares with offerings in Windows, mainly in the areas of logging and contest programs. However, CQRLog has evolved quite a bit and I’ve decided to take a more minimalist approach and see if I can make it work. I still think Ham Radio Deluxe is the gold standard, but lately I’ve become annoyed with its bloat and the commercialization and marketing of it.

I’m still keeping my Windows partition, mainly to run one particular contest program and store my documents (which I access from Linux), but I may eventually run Virtual Box on Linux and have a small Windows installation virtualized to run the contest program rather than booting back into Linux.

Will this be the time I finally run my shack on Linux?  I hope.

Anthony, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com.

Monday was a holiday here in Ontario called family day Julie is taking some photography course's and with that comes homework. Today she had to get out side and take some pictures we came up with the idea of a raptor bird sanctuary not to far from home. I also got to thinking that while she was snapping I could be dahing and ditting on my KX3!! This was a win win for the two of us we were out spending time with each other (kinda) and doing our hobby's  to boot. My setup was the Elecraft KX3, mobile whip on a diamond trunk lip mount. The temperatures outside were way to cold for me to venture out. During the evening it dropped to -17C and during the day was up to -10C. I opted to stay in the car with the sun shinning in it was very comfee and a little to warm at times. We were there for about 2 hours, I was able to make just one contact. But it's all about having fun with the radio and getting out. Joe W2KJ is from North Carolina and was also running a KX3 (my first KX3 to KX3 QRP QSO) at 4 watts. I found Joe calling CQ on the 20m QRP frequency. We gave each other 559 reports and some antenna info, name, QTH, power and then it was time to move on.  My KX3 being set at 1 watt gave me a miles per watt contact of 644.

So why did I title this post "To close for CW comfort" this has to do with the other CW "events" that I was exposed to! I have read about this in other blogs from other op's which are CW operators who seem for some reason to blend letters together regarding their call. I had at least 6 op's who's call I had a very very hard time making out. There was one DX station who's call ended in WVR BUT for the longest time I was not sure if it was W##, even the code reader on the KX3 was having a real hard time. I then ran across 10+ on the S meter  European station but I could not give him a call as I had (and I mean NO CLUE) what his call was!! It was very hard to tell were the CQ  stopped and the call was being sent. Now folks for any of you reading my blog and who also have had a CW QSO with me I know my code elegance has left you scratching your head at times.....but I just can't understand how code that has no spaces and just runs as one long word how these op's ever get answers to their CQ requests.
When I got home I put my Elecraft k3 into test mode (meaning no code is sent over the air) and tried to send some sloppy code and watched to see if the K3 was able to decode. (you can setup the K3 to not only show incoming code but also your code as you send it) The only reading the K3 would give me were not letters or numbers just lots of  *****......translation...the K3 also has no idea. As with most CW op's out there you also have your code being sent to you through  your headphones. Does the code not sound odd to these op's???
Anyway time to get off my soapbox now.............
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Pat Tice, WA0TDA, is the manager of HANDI-HAM and a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].