AmateurRadio.com

posting Jim W1PID’s accounts of his portable ops on my blog.

http://www.w1pid.com/hike/hike.html

This is a report on his latest trip to Knox Mountain and the DX he worked while there.

I am sorry for not being original and I certainly don’t mean to steal Jim’s thunder in any way.  He posts these to QRP-L, but these are always so good, they’re worth sharing with those of you who might not be subscribers to QRP-L.

These little reports that Jim posts are a huge inspiration to me; and I hope they serve that purpose for you too.  You don’t need to be stuck in your “normal” shack all day in order to make contacts or work distant countries.  You know it as well as I do – a radio, a battery, a key and some wire is all you need for a passport to the rest of the globe.

Thanks Jim, for sharing again!  These keep me wanting to do the same. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

“There’s nothing better than a QRP radio, some wire and the great outdoors!”

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].

Those who are familiar with me will know that I wasn't even born when this LA3ZA QSL-card was issued in 1949. This is because I am second generation LA3ZA after my father. When the callsign was reissued to me in 2001 it had been inactive for 40 years or so.

I still have the Hallicrafters S40A receiver which my father used with a 2 W input homemade tube transmitter. The S40A (image below) was what introduced me to shortwave listening during the good conditions of the solar peak in the late sixties, despite its mediocre performance I would say.
Read more »

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

I wish….

I just realized I haven’t published a blog update regarding my new basement ham shack, home office, podcast studio and man-cave in some time.  Actually, I believe it was sometime in May just after I finished the texture phase.

Of course, I’ve been using my other forms of new media to keep everyone informed.  I’ve talked about my progress on PARP.  PARP is my weekly and monthly amateur radio podcast.  PARP + is a weekly review of all the on-air (and some off-air gatherings) taking place in the amateur radio community.  My regular version of PARP is monthly and includes a educational topic such as SOTA, JT-65, Preparedness, How to get your license etc.  Please visit MyAmateurRadio.com to learn more about the practical amateur radio podcast.

According to the countdown clock located on KD0BIK.com, we are getting closer and closer to the big day.  That is the Colorado QSO Party and the day I planned to be in the new ham shack.  Will it happen????

The last time I blogged about my ham shack progress, I mentioned having just finished the texture phase.  Boy what a mess that was.  After texture came the painting phase for both the ceiling and the walls.  The paint went on with ease and was completed in two weekends. 

It was around the time I wrapped up the paint phase (mid June) when we started making decisions on flooring and cabinets.  The cabinets were ordered via Home Depot and their Hampton Bay line of custom cabinetry.  I wanted to make sure I ordered the cabinets earlier enough so they would arrive in Denver just after the flooring was finished. 

The flooring we selected for the basement area is TrafficMaster Allure from Home Depot.  It goes down in strips measuring 6 x 36 inches and is advertised as the easiest floor to install. 

I need to stop for a minute just to say…I haven’t always worked in the Information Technology field.  I’ve done a wide range of jobs and for a number of years I worked for the State of Texas Public School system and performed general maintenance.  But even before that, I’ve always enjoyed building things and learning about construction.  I spent four years in high school taking classes in wood shop, metal shop and even in the agricultural trade.  Most of what I learned between my own high school education and working in the Texas school system is what I’ve used to construct my new ham shack area. 

However, one area of education has been more important than any other.  My Dad can make anything out of nothing.  Fortunately, all through my life my Dad has shared his knowledge (some he learned from his Father) with me.  Now I’m not a master craftsman…far from it, but what I’ve learned from my Dad is truly what has allowed me to do all this work.  Even including installing a tile floor. 

Oh…one more thing.  The time I spent working at the school in Texas, was also 3-4 years I was able to work alongside my Dad.  It’s hard to imagine just how much kids can damage a school in 9 months and we had 3 months during the summer to patch it all back together.  That was a lot of fun and something I’ll always remember.  Thank you Daddy!

My own tile floor went down just as advertised and really looks good.  My wife and I spent the week of July 4th on a staycation (a stay at home vacation) and while we managed to get out of the house and up to the mountains (including one SOTA activation) I also managed to get all of the flooring installed. 

The cabinets arrived almost on schedule.  They are great quality (real wood) and the price was right.  All cabinets were pre-assembled (no flat pack) and arrived on three pallets.  The trucking company rolled them into my garage and I unpacked, inspected and moved each one through the house and down into the basement. 

The picture below shows both the wall cabinets and the floor cabinets installed in their final location (along with flooring).  Across the top of both sets of floor cabinets will be the countertop/desktop/worktop surface.   

There are many reasons why this project has been years in the making.  Remember I began framing this space in 2008, but didn’t work on it much from 2009 – 2011.   With some excellent guidance, planning and encouragement from my wife, I kicked off 2012 with the New Year’s Resolution of completing this space.   She has been instrumental in getting this space from the 2×4 phase to what you see above.  Thank you honey!!

However, each step (painting, flooring, cabinet) including the countertop decision has been one that has taken time.  In other words, we had to pick flooring to match cabinets and cabinets to match wall.  The countertop needed to blend in with all and it just required a lot of shopping around.  While we never contemplated going with granite, as we began shopping around and comparing different products such as laminate, solid surface, quartz and granite, we learned the price difference between quality solid surface and granite was close….actually very close. 

The other consideration is resale value.  While we have no plans to sell our house,  the decisions we make regarding everything from the type of roof shingle, type of window replacement and the home office area are all with resale value in mind.  This basement space would make someone a fantastic home office or even a hobby/craft room.  Likewise, it will also make a fantastic ham shack. 

Alright…time to wrap things up.  Just yesterday (Monday, 6 August) we had the granite counter install company come and perform a laser measurement of the space.  I’m told the lead time from measurement to install is approx. 10-14 days.  As of today, Tuesday 7 August I am 24 days away from the planned opening date.  So YES!!  I do believe I’ll be in the new space on-time.

Meanwhile, I still have a few items of trim to install.  I’m hoping to finish the trim work (requires sawing and that creates dust) in the next two weeks.  Then if the countertop install is on schedule, I can (and will) begin moving into the new space.  Painting of doors and trim (and wall touchups here and there) can all be done with radios and computers in place. 

I’m really excited and yes I’m a little burned out on working on this project almost every weekend.  But I’m in the home stretch now…see you at the finish line.

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].

For more years than I care to remember I’ve always used qrz.com to look up calls I’ve worked or heard on the bands. Recently I’ve noticed that the site wants me to log in every time I try to access the details of a call. Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I’m sure that you didn’t used to have to log in to see the basic details, and the site remembered your login for at least a week.  Now it seems you have to log in every day if you aren’t a subscriber. This isn’t very convenient, even though I understand the reason for it (presumably to encourage more people to subscribe.) I now hardly ever visit qrz.com.

The G4ILO page at QRZCQ.com

Using Google to search for a call I found that one of the first results returned was from a site called qrzcq.com. I didn’t at first notice the different URL. QRZCQ has a callsign lookup similar to QRZ.com – it even uses the same URL format – but doesn’t require a login to access the details. The site’s database already holds quite a bit of information about me – all of it already in the public domain but I won’t ask where it came from! I have just registered with the site so as to edit and add to the information shown on the G4ILO page.

I don’t know who is behind the new site but they seem to have done a good job on it. The pages look a lot more attractive than qrz.com and they aren’t stuffed with ads – though it is early days yet and I suppose the desire to “monetize” the site will come eventually. But right now qrzcq.com looks like a venture that is well worth supporting, visiting and updating your own page.

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

Here is the report on the Colorado 14er Event operation from Mount Sneffels. Joyce K0JJW and I drove our Jeep up to the “upper trailhead” for Sneffels, arriving at 6 AM. The 14ers.com web site describes the trailhead and route.
On paper, the climb is not that difficult but there is quite a bit of loose rock that you have to navigate…annoying on the ascent and very tiring on the descent. We reached the summit at 9AM and fired up the radio gear.

Mt Sneffels (and the other peaks in the San Juans) is a long distance from many of the fourteeners. Take a look at the fourteener map on 14ers.com. Previously, I had operated from Pikes Peak where you hear tons of stations calling and Mount Antero which is centrally located so you can easily work all of the 14ers. Operating from Mt Sneffels is different — kind of like you have fallen off the edge of the earth.

We soon found that the omnidirectional antennas were not that effective at pulling out the other 14er stations and that the Arrow II yagi antenna was the way to go. I’ll so some more analysis on this later.

Most of the contacts were made with the Yaesu FT-817 but we also used a pair of HTs. Note that we used both FM and SSB.

I had my Yaesu VX-8GR burping out APRS packets for the upper half of the hike but it appears they only made it to an IGate when we were on the summit.

The weather was awesome so we stayed on the summit until 11:40 AM. After we finally worked Pikes, we decided to head down. The clouds were building but we did not expect it to amount to much. But the storm moved in quickly and we did get snowed on while hiking down.

Radio Log

Local
Time  Freq        Callsign  Location    Comments
 0934 144.200 USB   N0KE    near Silt   Phil, 100 miles away
 0949 432.100 USB   N0KE    near Silt
 0954 147.420 FM    W0NX    Quandary    Keith, strong signal
 1006 147.420 FM    WE7C    near Cortez Glen, 70 miles away
 1018 147.510 FM    WO9S    Mt Evans    Jon
 1049 147.450 FM    KM5TY   Huron       Strong signal
 1058 147.435 FM    KD0EGE  Lincoln
 1100 147.420 FM    KC0VFO  aeronautical mobile
 1110 147.420 FM    KT0AM   Shavano     Mark, strong signal
 1115 147.420 FM    KI6ASW  Blanca      Strong signal
 1130 144.200 USB   KB0SA   Pikes Peak  Eric
 1132 144.200 USB   W0STU   Pikes Peak  Stu
 1135 147.480 FM    W0STU   Pikes Peak  Stu

Joyce ended up logging for me and pointing the antenna, so she only worked Glen WE7C on 147.42 MHz. She also got to explain to the other hikers what the heck we were doing. People seemed genuinely interested and when we told them we just talked to Quandary or Evans, they’d say “that’s cool.”

This was a Summits On the Air activation, the first ever for Mount Sneffels (W0/UR-001). All in all, a good day playing ham radio in the mountains.

Thanks to everyone that came out to play.

73, Bob K0NR

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

During the NAQP CW contest

In Canada Monday is a civic holiday.....translation...LONG WEEKEND!!! The weather has been a mixed bag of sun, heat and thunderstorms with heavy rain storms. On Friday a package arrived for me from A&A Engineering. My Elecraft K2 is outfitted with the the internal rechargeable battery. A&A Engineering offers a great charger called a smart charger it's combo 1amp swithchable to .05amp charger. Of coarse I ordered it as a kit and I am looking forward to building it in the near future. So there will be more on the charger when the build happens this thing is great and can really extend the life of your rechargeable batteries.




On Saturday I took part in the NAQP CW contest. It was this day and mostly early evening and evening that the thunder and lightening storms came my way. This limited my on air time in the contest.  I entered as QRP at 5 watts and was going to lower the power into the mW range but the conditions would not allow it. I was having a hard enough time making contacts with 5 watts.

First time it has been blank

 I decided to take the plunge and purchase the Elecraft KX3 my previous post talks about selling off gear for funds BUT the great news is all but two (very minor) items have been sold. I was able this afternoon to call Elecraft and place my order for the KX3. Along the radio the optioned I ordered were the KXFL3 dual-Passband Roofing Filter, KXAT3 Internal, 20-W Automatic Antenna Tuner, KXPD3 Precision Iambic Keyer Paddle and the KXBC3 Internal NiMH Charger with Real-Time Clock. The wait time for this rig is anywhere from 60 to 90 days. 
 So that is how the weekend more or less went here at VE3WDM!!


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

For the first time in many months the weather and workload was just about right to get out on one of the local fells for a ‘quick’ activation. I say quick because that was the plan but it didn’t really pan out that way.

Lank Rigg is a fairly unassuming fell not too far fro the cold fell road near to Ennerdale Bridge. I cycle past it very often but so far it hadn’t shown itself as somewhere to go for a summit activation. I only had the morning to play with as I had committed to going to the club to help sort out our shack which is creaking under the weight of under use. I managed to get this rare shot of some sun shining somewhere where I wasn’t – the sun does exist after all!

Approaching the fell from the fell road is easy enough and I only had the company of a few sheep and slugs on the way to the summit. A bit of mist on the summit cleared then re-appeared with vengeance so after some longer QSO’s I headed off down the direct route rather than following the valley between Lank Rigg and Whoap which forms the easy route. This was supposed to be quicker but turned out to be significantly longer due to the amount of water in the beck at the bottom. Heavy rains hadn’t fully cleared and I chickened out of the crossing as I was fairly sure that the volume of water could have knocked me over if I wasn’t careful. So having made my bed I had the follow the route all the way to a footbridge and walk back up the road. Several miles of detour.

So, today’s summit activation lesson is, watch out for becks that need bridges or pack some waders if you’re feeling brave. Otherwise enjoy the longer walk back to the car and see parts of the valley you wouldn’t ever expect to see.

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