If you were on the radio this weekend and are a CW buff then you know some QSO parties were in full swing along with the WAG (worked all Germany) contest were on. Since my blog title has changed to "The world of CW" you may have guessed that I was involved in something by the way of CW this weekend.

I decided to join in on the WAG contest, it's always very well attended, starts Saturday noon my time and ends Sunday noon. The German ops are great at CW and it gives me more practice at running in a CW contest. For the first time, I had no Murphy moments, no RF getting into anything to cause me side issues it sure was a nice change. I will be blogging in the near future as to what I ended up doing to get rid of my what seemed never ending surprise RF issues.  

In the picture above it shows how I use the Icom 7610 in contests.

- I have 2 band scopes up (VFO A and VFO B) at the same time the operating band (top slice) and the is it open yet band (bottom slice) 

- On the left-hand side tabs you will see "BK-IN FULL" or full break-in turned on. This allows me while calling CQ contest to hear the receive for very short times while transmitting. If a station starts to call me I can hear them and stop my transmitting. It takes some time to get used to but is a great tool. 

 - On the band, I am operating (15m in this case VFO A) I have the band edges set to 21.000-21.020 in a contest it can get very busy with signals and this visually spaces them out so when searching and pouncing you can click and tune easy.  

- The bottom slice (VFO B) the band edges are very wide so I can see the full picture of the band to see if it has opened up. 

- On VFO A the 15m band I am calling CQ contest or running as its called. I have the bandwidth set to 400hz. (seen at top BW 400) I do this as some ops come back off frequency and I have no issues hearing them. If I get spotted on a cluster and all hell breaks loose with stations calling me that BW goes to 200hz. if not you just hear a big mess of calls. 

-Some time ago I read a piece about the Icom 7610 contest radio settings. It was stated to use your audio peak filter (APF) set to mid-range, put the noise reduction on (NR), CW filters to either 600, 400 or 200hz and set to sharp not soft and to keep the internal ATU on as they said it can act as a filter. I do all but the last part regarding the ATU. My SWR on all bands is from 1.1 to 1.5. Anyway, I was shocked by just having the APF and NR turned on and how much of a difference it made. At one point in the contest not sure how it happened but the APF and NR were turned off. I was calling CQ contest and stations were coming back to me but they were right at the noise floor and many repeats were needed to make the contact. I then noticed after about 10 very difficult contacts the APF and NF were off. I put them back on and what a joy again. 

Well below is my score and I have to say that before the contest I had sugar plums dancing in my head with a high score but it turned out it was more like roasted chestnuts. Nothing wrong with that and I did have a blast.

It's time once again for The Weekender. This is our departure into the world of hedonism, random topic excursions, whimsy and (hopefully) knowledge. Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us some feedback. Tell us how we're doing. We'd love to hear from you.

73 de The LHS Crew

Crystal Shortwave Receiver of Al Klase (N3FRQ)

The Facebook Crystal Radio DX Group’s fall listening event was held two weekends ago over a two-night listening period. Unlike last year’s event, this was not a contest but rather a leisurely opportunity for members to take some time to see what they could hear with their setups. Also unlike last year, this one introduced and encouraged members to see what they might hear on shortwave! Since circuits losses are measurably much higher as you climb above the broadcast band, audio amplification (AF) was permitted to encourage members to give it a try as this was a whole new region to explore for most of us.

Some of the BCB and SW construction inspired by the recent listening event is shown below. For more information and more sets, please visit the Facebook Group and consider taking part in our next event, sometime in December ... maybe you can build the perfect SW tuner!

Kasey Jean Double-Tuned Loopstick BCB Tuner

James Kern Double-Tuned BCB Tuner

Ferhat Yavas Shortwave Tuner

Armando Anazco BCB Tuner

Doug Allen (K4LY) Shortwave Tuner

Don Dulmage (VE3LYX) Loop SW Tuner

Doug Allen (K4LY) Shortwave Tuner

AmateurLogic.TV Episode 174 is now available for download.

Join the AmateurLogic crew as we celebrate 17 years.
Announcing the winner of the Icom IC-705 portable transceiver and MFJ 8-Band Compact Antenna package. RSP Spectrum Analyzer, Open-Weather on-line satellite image decoder, Irwin Vice Grip Wire Strippers, and a visit from Peter, VK3PB.

Download
YouTube

This post is to lift up the recent editorial published on eHam.net by Onno VK6FLAB in Australia. His long running podcast, Foundations of Amateur Radio, is one of my favorites. I listen to it every time it drops in my podcast catcher. I’m slowly making my way through the previous 500 episodes. Not one has been disappointing. Onno has recently taken on the scourge of social bullying in our hobby. It affects everyone, not just the bullied.

Once the collective atmosphere of a group, however large or small, has become contaminated by the blind or even oblique tolerance of bullying behavior by even one member of the group, it is there for all to be potentially subjected. The tolerance of bullying will precede new members and succeed former ones. While “bad character” may be the original culprit, the social norms of the group become the active agents of that tolerance of it in the future.

To be clear, our community is a welcoming environment, filled with hope and joy, but there is a small rotten element in our midst that we need to rip out root and branch, much like we would if it was deliberate HF interference.

Onno VK6FLAB on eHam.net

Onno’s essay at eHam.net is available through the link below. I encourage you to read it with an open mind as to your own behavior and those with whom you associate. Being bullied through social media tends to begat your own negative response. I wish I could state that I have never responded in that way. But I cannot. My commitment is to reduce any such behaviors in response to those engaged in bullying of me and to defend those being bullied.

As a professional sociologist who has studied social movements, almost always involving violence, I wish that I could offer a complete answer to the problem. But I do know that Onno is on the right track: tolerance of the problem will only exacerbate it. If you value the amateur radio hobby, it is worth your time and consideration to see what Onno has to say.

To read Onno’s editorial at eHam.net, click HERE.

In this episode, we join Martin M1MRB, Dan Romanchik KB6NU, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, Ed Durrant DD5LP and Leslie Butterfield G0CIB to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and in the episode's feature Three mini-reviews.

We would like to thank Jeffery Wilson (VK2JEF) our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

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