AmateurRadio.com

Time was when I used to attend many of the radio rallies. These days, I generally attend one a year – and it’s usually the Harwell Rally – located about 20 minutes drive from home.

Today was the day! And enjoyable it was. No major purchases – just a bit of aerial wire and some back issues of magazines. I did enjoy chatting with Francis, G7CND of GEO – Group for Earth Observation I could easily be tempted to have a go at some of the imaging that the group are doing!

I had a happy hour or two on the Practical Wireless / RadioUser stand, with Rob G3XFD and Tex, G1TEX – chatting to visitors and selling the odd back issue magazine and archive CD.

It was good to see many friends including Graham G4FUJ (who first taught me morse a very long time ago!), Pete 2E0SQL, Rob M0VFC, Paul M3JFM, Mike M0RBD as well of course the Harwell team who put the rally on – great to see Ann G8NVI, Mike G8CUL, Malcolm G8NRP, Bob G0ADH, Mike G0MJW, John G3VPW, Des G3NNG – lots of other smiling faces too.

A great time inspite of some inclement weather!

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

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

• Tasmanian Bush Fires operation
• WICEN involvement in flooding
• Uganda DXpedition
• Arnhem Zoo special event
• United Nations Radio - World Radio Day Stamps
• FCC to modernize Ham Radio rules
• Australia’s first amateur satellite
• VK Mini Contest University ready to go
• Global Amateur Radio Emergency Conference - 2013
• OZ7IGY - 4m beacon now on Next Generation Beacons platform
• Italian Radio Hams on 70 MHz
• Ham Radio Satellite Explorer App

Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) discuss Coax Myths

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

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

• Tasmanian Bush Fires operation
• WICEN involvement in flooding
• Uganda DXpedition
• Arnhem Zoo special event
• United Nations Radio - World Radio Day Stamps
• FCC to modernize Ham Radio rules
• Australia’s first amateur satellite
• VK Mini Contest University ready to go
• Global Amateur Radio Emergency Conference - 2013
• OZ7IGY - 4m beacon now on Next Generation Beacons platform
• Italian Radio Hams on 70 MHz
• Ham Radio Satellite Explorer App

Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) discuss Coax Myths

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Sunday morning I was a bit late getting up. I felt like a change from listening to silence while waiting for someone to come up in DV mode so I decided to try some QRP CW using the KX3 to remove the temptation to turn the power up.

It was clear there was a contest on – the PACC contest – and I worked out that the PA stations were sending a city or county code and the rest were sending a serial number, so I decided to give away a few points.

I set the KX3 to 5 watts to keep in the spirit of QRP and started making some contacts. I thought 40m would be the best band to work Dutch stations from here. In 20 minutes I made 4 QSOs. All came back to my first call, and I was reminded that it really isn’t that difficult to make contacts on the 40m band with an attic antenna and low power.

I reached the bottom of the band and started tuning up the other way but the band seemed to have gone quiet. After a few minutes a light bulb flickered on dimly in my head and I looked at the clock: 1205. I dashed downstairs to get the February RadCom and looked in the contest news. Sure enough, the PACC contest ran from 1200 Saturday to 1200 Sunday. It had finished five minutes ago!

2013/02/10	11:39	7.021	CW	PA5TT	599	001	599	ZL
2013/02/10	11:42	7.019	CW	PA6NB	599	002	599	NB
2013/02/10	11:45	7.018	CW	PA3BWK	599	003	599	UT
2013/02/10	11:55	7.011	CW	PA0AA	599	004	599	UT

I really should get up earlier on Sundays!

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

Series Six Episode Three of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news and Martin (M1MRB & W9ICQ) dicusses coax myths.

• Tasmanian Bush Fires operations
• WICEN involvement in flooding
• Uganda DXpedition
• Arnhem Zoo special event
• United Nations Radio - World Radio Day Stamps
• FCC to modernize Ham Radio rules
• Australia’s first amateur satellite
• VK Mini Contest University ready to go
• Global Amateur Radio Emergency Conference - 2013
• OZ7IGY - 4m beacon now on Next Generation Beacons platform
• Italian Radio Hams on 70 MHz
• Ham Radio Satellite Explorer App

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

The Committee to Preserve Golf November Tango is pleased to announce the availability of the new GNT Polo Shirt. The origins of the GNT frequency traces back to the incident when three ham radio operators found themselves stranded on the shore of Lake Michigan, calling out in desperation for Gin and Tonic. You may recall the unfortunate circumstances that caused confusion about the correct Golf November Tango calling frequency.

Fortunately, this has all been cleared up and The Committee has authorized the sale of the Golf November Tango shirt, with the official GNT frequency embroidered on it. (It seems that the group is really bad at documenting things, so they figured that if they all had a shirt with the frequency written on it, it could only help. See the logo shown to the left.)

These awesome polo shirts are available online in both mens and womens sizes at the Ham Radio Techwear store. The committee apologizes that these shirts are a little late for Christmas presents, but there is always next year.

Remember, when all else fails, make a call on the GNT Frequency.

73, Bob K0NR

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

Working the KX3

OQ5A setup

On Friday I was able to take the opportunity to get some well deserved radio time in. Most weeknights when I get in from work and get the "house stuff" done I find I'm just to tired for the rig. On Friday I was able to fire up the KX3 and try my hand at some QRPp operationing. I was scanning up and down 20m's and found OQ5A from Belgium calling CQ. I adjusted the KX3 to 100mW's of power and gave OQ5A a go, he came back to me and with just a few repeats all the contact info was passed along and the QSO is in the books. This contact  at 100mW's netted me a distance of  37,603 miles per watt. 
I emailed Greet to let him in on some of the station info at this end. He was surprised I was only using 100mW's of power into an attic dipole to boot. Now here is the funny thing about propagation with 100mW's I tried to contact K0DNG in Kansas City Missouri and it was a huge struggle. I was going to up the power but Dennis was sending his 73s to me and moving on to calling CQ again.


Finally I saw on my Maclogger's cluster a spot for W0RW/PM now the cluster showed this to be in Indonesia. He was very weak and kinda in and out and there were other station trying to contact him as well. I topped up the KX3 to the 5 watt level and gave him a go. He came back to me and gave me a respectable report.  Now I thought there was something fishy about this cluster spot showing it as an Indonesian contact. I tripped off to QRZ.com and found out that PM stood for (in this case) pedestrian mobile!!  Paul was in Colorado which is a not even close to Indonesia...(this is my high school geography shinning through) but it was great making contact as I have read on many blogs about Paul and his pedestrian mobile adventures. 
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].