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Oopsy!

22 September 2012 | by Larry W2LJ | Leave a Comment (0)

Forgot a score. And it affects the Top Ten – mea culpa, mea culpa. mea maxima culpa!

My apologies to Pete W1PNS who came in with a score of 4620 – so let me rephrase this …..

The Top 11 Finishers

KXØR – 11984 points

NØSS – 5840 points

NK9G – 5520 points

K9DXA – 5016 points
W1PNS – 4620 points

W4QO – 3760 points

W2LJ – 3672 points

WGØAT – 3268 points

K4UPG – 2320 points

AF40 – 2025 points

AD4S – 2016 points

Golly gee, and Pete went to so much trouble to post niceness about the Skeeter Hunt on his blog and I went and left him out – truly and purely accidentally with no malice a forethought.

Thanks, Pete, for being so understanding. I’ll get the hang of this yet, 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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2012 NJQRP Skeeter Hunt Results

21 September 2012 | by Larry W2LJ | Leave a Comment (0)

Are in! Well, partly that is!

I have yet to post the Soapbox pictures and comments – that WILL be completed by the end of the weekend, God willing and the creek don’t rise. But for a spreadsheet of the scores, you can visit – http://www.qsl.net/w2lj/index%20page%203

123 of you signed up for Skeeter numbers and there were a number of non-Skeeter participants (how many exactly, is known only to God). 45 logs were received, so I am going to very roughly guesstimate and hope that was maybe a 25% log submission rate. Not bad for our first year, I guess!

The Top 10 Finishers

KXØR – 11984 points

NØSS – 5840 points

NK9G – 5520 points

K9DXA – 5016 points

W4QO – 3760 points

W2LJ – 3672 points

WGØAT – 3268 points

K4UPG – 2320 points

AF40 – 2025 points

AD4S – 2016 points

But in my book, all who participated were #1 Finishers.

Special kudos to NØSS, NE5DL,K4UPG, and ACØXR who fashioned homebrewed keys just for the Skeeter hunt.

I had a blast putting this together, operating in it and now tallying up the results. A very, very special “Thank You” goes out to the NJQRP Club, especially George N2APB and Joe N2CX for lending “Big Name” sponsorship for this event.

I will announce on this venue when the Soapbox page is done – I hope that will be by Sunday evening. And yes, Virginia, this year’s Skeeter Hunt was enough of a success where there will be a 2013 version. Any suggestions you might have towards improving the event will be entertained – please send me a private e-mail. I am considering opening up a SSB category next year to encourage those who feel that CW is not their thing.

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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Beacon update

21 September 2012 | by Juilian G4ILO | Leave a Comment (2)

I have updated the beacon data file for VOAProp today. The NCDXF/IARU beacons in Kenya (5Z4B) and Argentina (LU4AA) are back on the air after a long absence.

The thought crossed my mind: Now we have WSPR and remote beacon skimmers covering all bands, does anyone use these beacons any more?

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

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Very embarrassing

20 September 2012 | by Mike VE9KK | Leave a Comment (4)

The bands were very dead for DXCC's so I turned the radio off and decided to just do some web surfing and that soon became same old same old. I then had a brain storm that it has been just way to long since I had a good old fashioned QSO. Most of my time has been hunting for counties that I need for my ARRL Jubilee award. This meant for the past few weeks and maybe a month or so I have been just working the CW key with "599 73 TU" and that's it. I turned the K3 on and it just happen to be on 14.060 and KM4CU was calling CQ. I came back to him and the QRP to QRP conversation began..........so I thought!! Tom's code was great from Florida........my code..... not so much. I was absolutely embarrassed. I kept messing up his call, I could not even get passed "nice to meet you" it was like my mind went BLANK I was not able to figure out what to say and how to translate it to code!!! Tom was very fast to send his 73's to me (it was like I was an ugly date). Once again I just struggled with the ending and once done ( which seemed like for ever) Tom was just gone........it was like a Morse code blind date that just went south very fast.......very embarrassing!!!! Tom if you read this blog I am very sorry for the code train wreak. LESSON LEARNED

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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Ham Nation 65

20 September 2012 | by Bob K9EID | Leave a Comment (1)

The Science of the Phased Array

HD Video URL:

http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp4/twit.cachefly.net/video/hn/hn0065/hn0065_h264m_1280x720_1872.mp4

Video URL:

http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp4/twit.cachefly.net/video/hn/hn0065/hn0065_h264m_864x480_500.mp4

Video URL (mobile):

http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp4/twit.cachefly.net/video/hn/hn0065/hn0065_h264b_640x368_256.mp4

MP3 feed URL:

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/hn0065.mp3

Hosts: George Thomas (W5JDX), Gordon West (WB6NOA), and Bob Heil (K9EID).

Phased array explained, Bob narrates PBR, build at home Open Beacon, and more.

Guests: Cheryl Lasek (K9BIK), and Don Wilbanks (AE5DW)

Download or subscribe to this show at http://twit.tv/hn.

Submit your own video to Ham Nation! See the Video Guidelines, http://www.frozen-in-time.com/guide/

We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv.

Thanks to Joe Walsh who wrote and plays the Ham Nation theme.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

People:

Bob Heil

Sponsors:

icomamerica.com/hamnation

Dr. Bob Heil, K9EID, is the founder of Heil Sound and host of TWiT.tv's Ham Nation which streams live each Tuesday at 6:00pm PT (9:00pm ET) at http://live.twit.tv. Contact him at [email protected].

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My first 24 hours on WSPR

20 September 2012 | by Sverre LA3ZA | Leave a Comment (0)

My first beacon on 30 m, a free-running Ultimate QRSS kit (no GPS) has now been running for a full 24 hours using the Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR) mode. The figure comes from the WSPRnet page.

With an output power of about 150 mW to an 80 m horizontal loop it has not been possible to reach beyond Europe so far. Perhaps this will happen in the future with better conditions and/or with some more output power.

Added 26.9.2012: I made it for the first time across the Atlantic!
Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
2012-09-26 00:50, LA3ZA, 10.140262, -26, -2, JO59fu, 0.2, WB2EEE, FN21xh, 5852, 290

Sverre Holm, LA3ZA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Norway. Contact him at [email protected].

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A couple of 6 and 10 reports

20 September 2012 | by Alex G7KSE | Leave a Comment (1)

Martin Harrison, G3USF has collated a couple more 6 and 10 reports which he’s passed on to me. They are available at the usual place (here). Any feedback is always welcome so please don’t hesitate in getting in contact if you would like to add anything.

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].

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