AmateurRadio.com

On 30 Meters tonight at 00:52 UTC.  Figured out that he was creeping up a few kHz after each station worked. Got in his path, and got in the log!

A good end to a pretty good day!

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].

Ol’ Man Murphy seemed to be my constant companion today!  I foolishly thought I had everything under control.  I was given yet another lesson in humility today.

I got to the park right at about 12:45 – a lot later than intended.  Some home things came up, and I had to take care of them first. Really no biggie, but still, an unintended delay.

So I get to the park, and get out the wrist rocket.  Load the pouch with my 1 ounce fishing weight, pull  back and aim for a convenient branch. Instead of “BWWWWAAAANG”, I got a loud “SNAP”. One of the elastic bands broke.  OK, take a deep breath, examine the situation. Thanks to the Swiss Army Knife that I always carry, I was able to make some field repairs that would hold me over.  I finally got the wire up like I had it last year.  I hooked up the KX3 and could not get a decent match!  I have no idea why; but I figured I would worry about that later as I was already seriously into the first hour of the contest.

ALWAYS have a back up!  I ran over to the Jeep and pulled out the Buddistick.  W3FF’s antenna literally saved my bacon this afternoon.  I got it set up and got going, one hour into the proceedings.

After that, the afternoon went well and was a success.  I’m never in these things to win – just to have fun and rack up some QSOs.  In all, I made thirty contacts. Twenty six were on 20 Meters and four were on 40 Meters.  I was a bit disappointed with the lack of activity on 40 Meters.  I thought there would be a lot more, especially as the afternoon wore on.  I kept checking 7.040 MHz as well as 7.030 MHz, but except for the four QSOs that I made, there was nothing to be heard.

Something to do before the Skeeter Hunt in two weeks.

Figure out why the wires wouldn’t match.  AND, make new wires out of something more flexible and light.  I was using some wire that I had gotten from an SK’s estate sale that would have been more appropriate for a permanent wire antenna.  I need to get something better for portable ops.

The little blue LiPO battery held up great!  No problems with it going low voltage on me.  By making sure the KX3’s LCD backlight was off, I was able to stay at the full “QRP Gallon” of 5 Watts out for the entire time I operated.

The filtering in the KX3 made an easy job out of working stations that were right on top of each other.  In fact, at one point, John K4BAI came back to me informing me that we had already worked each other. John, if you’re reading this, I was working someone else who was so close to you, it was ridiculous. Yet, the KX3 was able to single the other op out for me with no problem.

Even though there was some frustration, the day turned out well.  And, no more than a half hour after I got home, the skies got dark, the lightning and thunder started and we had real heavy downpours.  But by that time, I was already adding my QSOs to AC Log on this netbook.

Hope you had a great time with FOBB today!  Looks like Jim W1PID did – here’s his report:

http://www.w1pid.com/fobb12/fobb12.html

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].

I was planning on spending some time this weekend participating in IOTA contest...but...I got called into work and by the time I got home and settled in I was only able to put in about an hour toward the contest. This is the first time I had taken part in the contest and was surprised at the turn out, this is a very busy contest for sure. I had hoped to add to my DXCC count by taking advantage of some of the rare islands. I did hear lots of rare DX but that was as far as it got to making any sort of contact. I found the bands to be so so there was an M6 flare along with an R2 radio black out that did not help out conditions. Despite the conditions I was able to make 8 contacts.
On all my contacts I tried with the lowest power possible and worked my way up until I made contact. If  I was at full output (5 watts) and still could not make contact it was time to move along.

Pile up for CY9M on my P3

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

Series Five Episode Sixteen of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Olympics frequency regulations start taking effect
• UK Olympics special events satellite operations
• GB2012RA active from Olympic Shooting venue
• Satellite contact between Cuba and Alaska
• SST-US and Virgin Galactic small satellite launches
• Executive Order poses no threat to the Ham Radio service
• Busy month for North Cork Radio Club
• Give kids a Radio Ham Pi - minister
• Raspberry Pi sends live images from near space
• Low-cost Amateur Radio balloon repeater
• CBer fined for interfering with Air Traffic
• From Bermuda to the moon and back
• RF filters and diplexers - Cross Country Wireless
• Transverter for 472 kHz band
• ZL9HR DXpedition to Campbell Island

Listener mailbag and Colin (M6BOY) analysises the RSGB Future document and Martin (M1MRB) gives an introduction to Foxhunting, radio sytle.

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

Hello, listeners! Welcome to the 87th installment of Linux in the Ham Shack. The past couple of episodes have been full of interviews, logic, and information. In short, we’ve totally jumped off our normal bandwagon. In order to fix that, we’ve put together an episode that contains a lot of banter, insight, musing, laughing, music and good times. Somewhere in the middle you’ll find information on Linux, Open Source software, ham radio logging applications, answers to listener feedback, compile instructions for source builds and mention of a secret recording where Russ takes over another podcast and rules the world. Make sure to listen from beginning to end. You’re not going to want to miss a single second.

73 de The LHS Guys

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

The battery is charging and my Lowepro 150 with the KX3 station is ready and raring to go for FOBB tomorrow.

I sincerely hope the weather is better tomorrow, compared to today.  We’ve had heavy, gray, overcast skies all day.  It was threatening to rain all day and in fact, did. from about 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM or so.  No heavy downpours; but if I were outside operating, it would have been enough to force me indoors.

This afternoon, I was able to break the pileup and work 2012L, the Olympics Special Event station on 17 Meters.  I heard them again tonight on 30 Meters; but their signal was not as strong as on 17 Meters this afternoon.

So I decided to frustrate myself for a while and try to bust the pileup working CY9M on 30 Meters.  The pileup covered a 10 kHz patch of spectrum and after a while, I realized I wasn’t going to cut it this night with 5 Watts.  I have worked St. Paul Island years ago; but never QRP.  They’re there till Wednesday, so I have a few more times to give it a shot.  I have them for DXCC credit already, so if I don’t get them in the log, I won’t lose any sleep.

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].

When I’m out and about, I often pop the FT-817 and a couple of antennas in a bag. For 50MHz, I use the ATX-Walkabout antenna, although I noticed today that the SWR is a bit high on the band and I’m not sure why. It’s usable though, particularly if there is Es around.

The other antenna I use quite a bit is the MP-1 antenna. I use it with the FT-817, mostly on CW from 7MHz up to 28MHz. I mentioned on Twitter this morning that I used it and immediately got a couple of ‘what do you think of the MP-1’ comments, seemingly with the subtext of ‘I have one but I don’t get on with it’.

I’m sure a dipole would work better but the MP-1 is very convenient and goes together quickly and seems to me to perform well. It’s essentially a ‘screwdriver’ style antenna. I’ve had my MP-1 for around 10 years now and perhaps the connection onto the coil is not so great now. I sometimes have to fiddle with it a bit to get a good connection, but it’s easily sorted. On 7 MHz with the ribbon radials, it’s quite tricky to tune up, but once you get it into the zone, it’s fine. I worked MM0CPS/P on Tiree this morning running 3W CW to the MP-1. On the higher bands, tuning is easy.

I don’t have the tripod kit, so I usually clamp the antenna to a bench or table. There’s usually something around. I keep meaning to try a photographic tripod, but haven’t checked the fittings yet to see if they are compatible.

The FT-817 is quite heavy on batteries, so if I plan to operate for more than a half our or so, I use my Pentaflex power station (high capacity 12v supply). This is very useful which I actually got to power my telescope, but use it more often for radio and other purposes. I did notice that the PSU made a bit of interference on 28MHz, but moving the PSU away from the antenna solved that.

As I’ve reflected before, contacts with this sort of equipment feels more of an achievement than with bigger equipment and is, therefore, more satisfying I think.

Happy portable operating!

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