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I hiked again on Shute Hill today. It was a glorious, warm day with a brilliant blue sky. Once again I worked GM0HCQ/MM, the Royal Research Vessel, James Clark Ross. The vessel is on its way to the Falkland Islands and today was a bit north of the Equator… at about the same latitude as Equatorial Guinea in Africa. I also worked California, NC and TN.

It was nearly 70F on the ground where I sat beneath an oak tree. I set up on 15 meters with a 22 foot wire and the ATS-4. I tuned the wire with an Elecraft T-1. First I heard Andy, KN6ZA calling CQ and answered. My report was only 449 but he copied most of the exchange. “Enjoy UR hike X UR 4W is working,” he sent.  Going up the band a bit I heard Mike, GM0HCQ/MM  finishing up a QSO, and I called him. I had worked him the other day, and I was excited to hear him once again.

     -Mike, GM0HCQ in the radio room of the James Clark Ross-

Mike gave me a 449 and gave his QTH at 5N/20W. He was about a 579. It’s always thrilling for me to work a ship at sea. Here’s a photo of the vessel.

-The James Clark Ross entering the harbor at Uruguay-

After contacting the ship, I moved to 20 meters and worked two stations in the CW Ops sprint. The first was N4AF in NC; the second was N4ZZ in TN. These were quick exchanges with name and number.

Shute Hill  is a beautiful area to hike and operate. It’s absolutely quiet and the afternoon sun is a welcome as the days get cooler.

NY3A	W2LJ	3560.4	CQ [LoTW]	9 dB	20 wpm	0112z 24 Oct
K3MM	W2LJ	3560.4	CQ [LoTW]	5 dB	19 wpm	0112z 24 Oct
W4KKN	W2LJ	3560.4	CQ [LoTW]	13 dB	19 wpm	0111z 24 Oct
KM3T	W2LJ	3560.4	CQ [LoTW]	8 dB	19 wpm	0111z 24 Oct
NY3A	W2LJ	7041.0	CQ [LoTW]	11 dB	19 wpm	0109z 24 Oct
K1TTT	W2LJ	7041.0	CQ [LoTW]	7 dB	19 wpm	0109z 24 Oct
W4KAZ	W2LJ	7041.0	CQ [LoTW]	5 dB	20 wpm	0108z 24 Oct
W2RDX	W2LJ	7041.0	CQ [LoTW]	12 dB	19 wpm	0108z 24 Oct
KQ8M	W2LJ	7041.0	CQ [LoTW]	5 dB	19 wpm	0108z 24 Oct
AA4VV	W2LJ	7041.0	CQ [LoTW]	8 dB	19 wpm	0108z 24 Oct
W4KKN	W2LJ	7041.0	CQ [LoTW]	16 dB	19 wpm	0108z 24 Oct
KM3T	W2LJ	7041.0	CQ [LoTW]	7 dB	20 wpm	0108z 24 Oct
K3MM	W2LJ	7041.0	CQ [LoTW]	16 dB	20 wpm	0107z 24 Oct
W3LPL	W2LJ	7041.0	CQ [LoTW]	7 dB	20 wpm	0107z 24 Oct
WA7LNW	W2LJ	10116.0	CQ [LoTW]	9 dB	21 wpm	0105z 24 Oct

Antenna was the 88′ EDZ – rig was the K3 – power out was 500 mW.

No QSOs, but interesting to see where I was heard via the Reverse Beacon Network.

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

The useless machine or ultimate machine originates from Claude Shannon, the scientist who figured out how to find the channel capacity in a communications system. I bought the basic machine as a kit from Solarbotics.

But then I added a few features:

• A delay circuit that makes it look more alive as it gives the impression of doing some thinking before it responds to the switch.
• Sound that varies with how open the lid is and the amount of light that hits the photosensitive resistor. It was inspired by the design of the Growl and Scream Altoids of FightCube.
• A couple of LEDs, a red one when it opens and a blue one when it closes.

The circuits were built on small pieces of veroboard and the circuit diagram can be downloaded from here. In retrospect I’m not completely happy with the sound, it could have growled and screamed even more, but then how much effort can one really justify putting into a project which is – useless – anyway?

When I got back to the car this evening around 1815z I switched on the 10m rig. It was tuned to the CW end and it immediately became apparent that conditions were still good – with a fierce pileup being audible. I didn’t stick around to see who it was.

I headed up to 29MHz to look for AM stations. One or two were audible, but the one that caught my ear was Rob W1AEX who was coming in really well. As I drove out of the station and towards home, I listened to Rob making some QSOs. To my surprise, rather than using boat anchor type gear, it turned out that Rob was using up to date SDR gear, a Flex radio. It sounded great! I laughed when Rob explained he was using a $2.79 microphone! There was quite a pileup going, so sadly I couldn’t attract Rob’s attention, but the story doesn’t end there.

I heard Malcolm, G8NRP calling Rob too. When it was clear neither of us had got through the pileup, I asked Malcolm if he had time to QSY and make a contact. We did, and it was a first AM QSO for both of us, which was a lot of fun. Not great DX, being 10 miles or so, but it’s a start!

Meanwhile, checkout Rob W1AEX’s station here

10m WSPR spots @ G4ILO 23 October 2012

Fell asleep after lunch so the WSPRing went on uninterrupted. This was the result.

When you look back on the peaks of solar cycles, I find that some of the memories usually feature 28MHz. Last cycle I spent loads of time on 28MHz CW working across the US and beyond from a tiny garden in Windsor, with a stealth wire antenna! The cycle before that, I remember listening to mobiles driving around Tokyo on 29MHz FM on my converted CB set with a small antenna in the loft.

I wonder what this cycle’s memories will be? Maybe some of the low power WSPR and JT65A. But this evening, driving home would be a contender. The KQ2H repeater was end stop on the Anytone and absolutely jammed with people trying to access it. After a couple of abortive attempts to put a call through, I sat back and listened.

6Y5SJ was working into the UK and Germany. A mobile in London was working a fixed station in Essex- over a path of 7000 miles or so! But what was brilliant was listening to (I think – this is from memory) K2SLJ/P using a UHF portable working another portable in New York through a UHF link. One of them was using 1W from a Baofeng UV-3R. How cool that their signals are crossing the Atlantic and beyond.