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It’s the end of the world as we know it

19 December 2012 | by Larry W2LJ | Leave a Comment (0)

was the title of a catchy tune a few years back. I am one of those who takes no stock in ancient Mayan prophecies – BUT …….. if there are any Hams out there who are like that that guy in Hong Kong who sold all his stuff thinking that the world is ending Friday – don’t go through the trouble of selling. I’ll be willing to take your Ham gear off your hands for free!

Seriously, though …… don’t forget the Zombie Shuffle is this Friday night, to poke a little fun at those nasty ol’ Mayans, Here’s a little reminder from Paul NA5N:

Zombies and Maya Kings, Gosh. Where has the time gone? Seems it was just summer, then Thanksgiving, Christmas next week … oh yeah, and the end of the world thing this Friday. Hate it when doomsday sneaks up on you like that! 🙂

So a reminder that our special 2012 “End of the World” Zombie Shuffle will be THIS FRIDAY, famous December 21, from local sundown (considered 5pm local) to midnight. Just as the Maya calendar runs out of rock. Early enough to get a little 20M in there before resorting to 40M. Solar flux is 115-120, quiet geomagnetic field, and no big competing contests which should provide fairly decent evening bands.
Rules and other ramblings at: http://www.zianet.com/qrp/ZOMBIE/zombie.htm

NEW TO QRP OR CONTESTING? This is for you. A contest that serves no purpose whatsoever except get on the air and have fun no matter what your code speed or how rusty your fist may be. We all know Zombies can’t crack out 35 wpm in those old blood soaked rags, right? Scoring is based more on serendipity (recording those Zombie numbers) than operating skill. Over the years, we’ve had quite a few new QRPers who accomplished their first real CW QSOs during the Zombie Shuffle. That’s what it’s all about … to give everyone a chance to get on the air and pound some brass.

ZOMBIE NUMBERS can be obtained from Jan if you don’t have one. Zombie numbers are good for life. Or, send your 3-digit telephone area code if you wish. We’re pretty close to hitting 1,000 Zombie numbers assigned (like 35-40 to go).

ZOMBIE BADGE: It was reported by several that the Zombie badge link wasn’t working on the above Zombie page. I have repaired the link for those who wish to print out their own Zombie/Area 51 badge.

MAYA KINGS: We have 13 Maya Kings willing to serve you this year fairly evenly scattered across the empire. Plenty of chances to work some bonus points.
For their name, they will be sending MAYA KING, MAYA, KING, or even KING JOE or KING RON (or whatever their name is) as they decide. We even have a special KING ELVIS. Each Maya King worked is worth an additional 666 points.

I’m sure between sending CQ BOO and KING ELVIS, we’ll drive the QRO folks nuts trying to figure this thing out!

Whether you get on for 2-3 QSOs, or work several hours, you’ll have fun. And, thanks for participating. After all, the end of the world only comes along every so often. I think the last one was Y2K.

I was listening to Coast to Coast AM radio show this weekend, and one doomsday believer claimed that “every major observatory is tracking the collision course of planet Nibiru with Earth on Dec. 21 – and all observatory employees have been sworn to secrecy.” At the VLA (merely the world’s largest radio telescope), I must have missed that inter-office email! With the internet, Twitter, and Facebook, how on Earth could you keep something like that secret these days?

However, I do feel there’s a chance of a minor earthquake or a volcano might blow its top. Not because the Mayan Calendar says so … but just to prove God has a sense of humor. He can’t wait to drive those doomsdayers nuts! 🙂

72, Paul NA5N

OK, so you may have noticed Paul mentioning that you get extra bonus points for working a Maya King. I happen to be one of those 13 QRP Ops who have volunteered. Just sayin’ ………… you might be able to rack up some extra points for working Maya King W2LJ – so listen for me!

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].

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Handiham World for 19 December 2012 (Last of the year)

19 December 2012 | by Patrick WA0TDA | Leave a Comment (1)

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

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Eleven down, One to go

19 December 2012 | by Jerry KDØBIK | Leave a Comment (0)

This blog update on my 2012 Challenge of having at least one QSO per day is late. However, I’m still very much on track and as I post this update, I have less than two weeks to go. Barring the Mayan’s were correct or some other catastrophic issue occur, I should easily coast through the remaining time without a problem.

December is always a busy month for me. My wife and I typically travel down to Texas to visit my family in early December. This year was no exception. I carried my Buddipole, Elecraft KX3 and my laptop and was successful at getting at least one JT65 QSO each day. On the last evening a cold front moved into the area and I had to enlist my darling wife to come and help hold the Buddipole antenna tripod. While I had concerns I might not be successful at getting contacts with this setup, the stress was for not. Band conditions were fine and I managed to work many stations running just 5-10 watts out of the KX3. The picture is my Buddipole setup as a dipole in my grandmothers front yard.

Anyway, enough about December…here are my results for November.

The QSO breakdown for November is as follows:

Mode
Number QSO’s

JT65
34

SSB
19

PSK31
0

2m FM
2

Additional notes of interest:

DX Stations Worked in November – 3

New DX Entities in November – 0

Total QSO’s for 2012 – 1392

Total consecutive QSO days – 335

Days left in 2012 – 31

Until next time…

73 de KD0BIK

Jerry Taylor, KD0BIK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. He is the host of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast. Contact him at [email protected].

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The accidental QRPer

19 December 2012 | by Juilian G4ILO | Leave a Comment (0)

HF band conditions are not all that good at the moment. I was on 20m (in itself an indication that conditions on the higher bands are poor) and tried to call a couple of US stations but all I got was QRZ? I heard Jarda OK1DMZ calling CQ and he was a strong signal so I replied. Back came a 599 report. It was only when I sent the station details and sent my power that I realized I had it set to 5 watts!

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve found myself accidentally operating QRP because the rig was set to 5 watts after having been WSPRing at that power level. In better conditions I’ve made several contacts before realizing my mistake, which just shows that QRP does not always result in having a weak signal. But when conditions are like they are at the moment, power helps!

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

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Hesitation

18 December 2012 | by Larry W2LJ | Leave a Comment (5)

I have hesitated to comment about the events that took place last Friday in Newtown, CT a scant hundred miles away. This blog is supposed to be a fun and sometimes even uplifting place – a place to escape the unspeakable horrors that sometimes invade our world. But some things need to be said; for we live in this world and cannot evade the realities.

Like many others, I was filled with shock, horror and grief.

As a parent, I was horrified. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain and emptiness pervading the souls of those parents and grandparents who have lost a child – the girls and boys who have lost a sibling – the husbands who lost their wives, the one young man who lost his intended fiancé. If I was in any one of their places, I would want to die. I cannot imagine my life without my wife, or my son or my daughter. My prayers go out to them, that in this time of intense grief, that God will be with them for support and comfort.

As a second tier responder, my heart goes out to the police and EMS personnel who were on scene. What they witnessed will never go away. They will forevermore, have indelibly imprinted in their memories the scene of carnage and pure evil that happened there. In addition to the pain of others that they had to deal with, there will always be personal questions – “Could I have done more?” “Could I have done something different?” Even though these brave men and women did an absolute heroic and “textbook” job by preventing more killing than actually took place, they are human, too. Their desire, their instinct, their reason for being is to defend, protect, help and heal. Their utter inability to do more than the monumental job they did will weigh heavily on some of them. In their minds, their job is do more, they always think they can do more – it’s a hard reality to learn that sometimes, you can’t.

The debates will go on about gun control and should we allow this and should we allow that. For the record, I do not own a gun and I have no desire to own one. That being said, I do not have a problem with law abiding citizens who do. Gun control laws are necessary, to be sure. But thinking that you can legislate this problem away by banning guns altogether is an answer that is cheap, and is the easy way out. What created the incident at Sandy Hook, and incidents like these run way deeper than just people getting their hands on guns.

I am now going to state a couple of personal beliefs that will be very unpopular, and even considered “Right Wing Whacko” by some.

As a society, we have abandoned certain values that have served us so well in past generations.

In many cases, the reverence for life, from beginning to end, has completely disappeared. Life is no longer held sacred, no longer believed to be a gift from God. It is a thing to be used, bought and sold, initiated or terminated as we see fit. The dignity of personhood is gone. It is becoming more and more commonplace to see others as “things” and “commodities” to be used for the purposes of gaining wealth, sexual pleasure, or whatever else is desired. Or even worse, people are considered “obstacles” to be gotten rid of, or to be ignored. Life has become cheap; and unfortunately, some people have no problem whatsoever, taking lives that are not theirs , or even their own.

The importance of the family, as the building block of civilization has been disappearing with lightspeed. For thousands of years, a mother and a father raised a family and taught their children the necessary values required to maintain a civil society. Today, in many instances, we see “kids having kids”. We need to have adult men and women forming deep and lifetime commitments, who will be faithful and true to each other and to their children. Our disposable society has come to the point where the family has become disposable, also. Anything goes – today, people get married (or not), have kids and then walk away when “My wife doesn’t understand me” or “My husband doesn’t love me anymore”. That has to stop. We need adults to be adults and kids to be kids. A good and stable family life is the key to a successful and thriving society.

Secondly, we have to be proponents of true love. Love is not bounding from bed to bed, from relationship to relationship, seeing how many times you can “score”. Men have to suck it up, and “be men” – good husbands and faithful fathers. Same thing goes for women, you have to decide to be good wives and faithful mothers. When you take that step and decide to get married, you are in essence subjugating your own desires and wants and putting ahead of yourself the lives of your spouse and children. This is not an easy task; as by human nature we are all selfish and tend to think of ourselves first. But when you are willing to put another person or persons before yourself – that is true love. Love is an ongoing, conscious decision, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication, it’s not just a feeling that comes and goes.

Thirdly, education has to begin at home. When it comes down to it, it is the school’s responsibility to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, etc – subjects of knowledge. Teachers are not parents – parents are supposed to be parents. It is the parent’s job to teach honesty, integrity, reliability, accountability and all the other virtues and moral values which form a well rounded human being, and in turn a civil society. This is a daunting task – ask any new parent. Children do not come with an owner’s manual. But thank God, up until now we seem to have been given the ability to figure it out for thousands of years. It takes time, a lot of love and a lot of patience, a lot of self denial – sometimes more than you think you have in you. But if can lose your pride and get down on your knees and ask God for the help you need, He will grant it.

When the foundations of society falls apart, it is no surprise that ensuing chaos occurs. Unless we reverse the path we seem to be on, things will only get worse – not better. But, if we were to revert to the values and morals that were held so dear and sacred for so long, I truly believe our society will heal and improve. Evil will always be with us – but with God’s help we can fight back, if we choose to.

Sorry for the rant – next post will be radio related (I promise!)

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].

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To Endeavour

18 December 2012 | by Scot Morrison | Leave a Comment (0)

Endeavour

Engines

Scale of Endeavour

The conclusion of one more year is reaching its climax and requires reflection. The endeavor verb meaning is try hard to achieve something while its noun is an attempt to achieve a goal. I recently spent a weekend in Los Angeles visiting a few locations in addition to the California Science Center in Exposition Park. It was a remarkable experience brought to me by friends and family.

I was thunderstruck by the scale of shuttle Endeavour named after the British HMS Endeavour which took Captain James Cook on his first voyage of discovery according to Wikipedia.

Certainly, current events are weighing heavily on my mind, as I seek an understanding of my responsibility in this world. I thought of endeavor that is achieve and attempt to achieve a goal.

What are your ham radio goals for next year?

73 from the shackadelic near the beach.

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Tis the season………..

17 December 2012 | by Mike VE9KK | Leave a Comment (2)

Tis the season to become busy........here at VE3WDM lately the dust has been gathering on my ham equipment. Over the past week and a half I had good intentions of sitting down and getting some radio time in....BUT....it just has not come to be. There has been Christmas shopping, working late during weekdays and on weekends, putting the tree up and the list goes on. By the time I settle in getting on the radio feels more like a chore than hobby. On the happy side I do have 2 weeks off over Christmas and I made a list and checked it twice, there is no naughty on this list just some nice ham radio goals over the break. This evening I found some time to get fire up the Elecraft K3. To my surprise I did not find the bands (20m, 30m and 40m) not in great shape. I didn't make any contacts but I did hear PY2CW from brazil and a few U.S stations but that was it.

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

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