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I really thought my MOCAD streak for 2012 was going to come to an end.

Last night, I could not participate in the 40 Meter QRP-L Fox hunt due to rally bad local QRN.  80 Meters was like a desolate, deserted island.  No QRN; but no signals either.  Checking the Reverse Beacon Network, my CQs were being heard all up and down the Eastern Seaboard. There were just no takers.

Fortunately, I was able to get on this morning between dropping off Joey and Cara at school and leaving for work.  I heard Eduardo CO8LY on 17 meters calling “CQ DX” and gave him a call.  I got an answer, so Eduardo in the log (for the umpteenth time, probably) and the streak lives another day.

And if I didn’t make any contacts, it would have been a disappointment – BUT ….. the world will still have kept on turning, the sun still shining, the bunnies and birdies would still be dancing on the lawn.  In the grand scheme of Things, this miniscule streak means nothing.  But human nature being what it is ……..

Tomorrow is FYBO.  I hope to get on for an hour or two in the afternoon. The forecast is for partly cloudy skies and a high in the low to mid 40s.  I will be using the PFR3A and the Buddistick on the magmount on top of the Jeep.  Not a true mobile set up as there’s NO WAY that I would drive around with that antenna on my car.  First underpass I tried to navigate would be a disaster! I will be restricted to 20 and 40 Meters as that’s what the PFR3A has.  If 15 Meters is way open and all the action is there, it looks like I will be SOL.  But if that’s the case, then them’s the breaks.

The other thing I want to do this weekend, if I get the time, is to play around with a new acquisition.  Through my good friend Bob W3BBO, I was able to get my mitts on a “pre-owned” MFJ-1026 unit. I would like to hook that up see if it helps give the knock out punch to this local QRN.  I will have to utilize the K2’s two antenna connectors now as one for transmitting and the other for listening.  According to the 1026 unit’s instructions, you really shouldn’t use it with a rig that has a built in autotuner.  But, if I use “A” to listen with and “B” to transmit with, I should be OK.  Just have to be careful and pay attention to what I am doing.

Good luck to all the QRPers who will be participating in FYBO. Hope to hear and work you tomorrow.

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

On 14.275MHz I have been listening to a ‘news’ broadcast by K1MAN. This may not be news to many of you but it’s the first time I’ve heard what seems like a pre-recorder loop of ‘news’ going on and on and on. Surely this isn’t legal?

I quick Google later I found out that this is an on going issue with the FCC, ARRL and just about every governing body in the US. So not really legal but loop holes are loop holes. Time to close them.

Oh dear

Last year, I managed to scrape together some equipment funds at work to buy a small spectrograph system for studying atmospheric light emissions (airglow and aurora).  A co-worker secured the funds and contacts for us to install it at an observatory in Greenland.  Because we need to make the measurements at night, and because the instrument was delivered in early December, we made immediate plans to go to Greenland as soon as possible.  (Sarah is certainly laughing at this point because the plans were actually far from immediate and we bought our passage just over one week before departure.)

Greenland is only a short (4- to 6-hour) flight from the NE U.S., however the only route that operates in winter (and indeed the only commercial route) is on Air Greenland via Copenhagen, which operates four round-trip flights per week in winter.  This turned getting there into a two-day affair of perverse travel arrangements totaling over 12,000 air miles to go about 4200 miles round-trip on the great circle.  I met my co-worker, a United Airlines devotee (myself an American Airlines devotee), in Copenhagen and we flew to Kangerlussuaq (Sondrestrom) on Air Greenland.

One of the things that strikes you about Greenland as you approach Kangerlussuaq is how otherworldly and remote it is.  Kangerlussuaq is the site of the former U.S. Sondrestrom Air Force Base, and one of two runways (the other is at Thule) on the island large enough to accommodate aircraft capable of flying to Greenland from abroad (this is a mild, although amusing exaggeration).  Air Greenland has its hub there, shuttling passengers off to towns around Greenland on twin-engine turboprops like the Dash-8.  It is, as our host explained, “…not your typical Greenland town.  It is far inland at the end of the fjord and not on the coast.  The only reason it exists is because of the airport.”  Fuel and supplies are all brought in from outside.  Like most current and former U.S. military installations worldwide, it is reliant on diesel fuel for its on-going existence.  It’s sobering to be someplace that is totally unsustainable, although one might argue similarly of many U.S. cities, but I digress.

Kangerlussuaq is also near “the dog line,” north of which sled dogs are very common.  Here is one of the two road hazard signs we saw while driving around…dogsled crossing:

The instrument set up easily the first afternoon and we were able to collect some data with it that night.  As we were setting the instrument up, we heard reports of an Earth-directed CME from the Sun and hoped for aurora over the next few days. We were not disappointed…

The second night, I stood “aurora watch” in the cold while my warm-blooded co-worker processed the previous night’s data.  Soon, I saw some faint cloudy white sheets way down on the horizon and I ran back in to alert him and retrieve the camera tripod.  This photograph was taken facing toward the east southeast.

And, the 3.5-MW peak L-band incoherent scatter radar was running.  The dish is blurred because it is moving.

And, here is a shot of my fan dipole strung up on the DK9SQ mast.

Speaking of radio, I did manage to make a few QSOs as OX/K8GU on 17 meters, but not as many as I would have liked.  The combination of high absorption in the auroral oval (mostly to our south during our stay), little sunlight, a poor low-angle shot (required to avoid the auroral zone) to North America, short openings, and the fact that we were well-occupied with work for the four days we were there conspired to keep my contact count low.  QSOs will go into LoTW soon—the certificate was issued yesterday.  I have not yet designed a card, but there will be a special card.  Thanks to those who did contact me.

Southgate ARC News ran a short piece on TAPR and appointing PCB manufacturers the other day. Reading onto this could be catastrophic but I can see that Hermes is getting closer. I’ve been following this for a little while know and bump into Kevin Wheatly, M0KHZ, the project leader every once in a while. I am really looking forward to this innovative piece of kit coming to the open market. Having seen a very early prototype a few years ago I would love to get one of my greasy paws on one of these. A high performance (HF) shack in a very small box! Hold onto your hats for Dayton then!

2012 is rolling along nicely and Linux in the Ham Shack is rolling along with it, bringing you new ways to use your computer with amateur radio, and sometimes just technology for fun (and maybe profit). This time around, the guys break into politics — just slightly — and get a few grievances of their chests. In the middle segment, Richard and Russ discuss terminal emulation, something a radio amateur might need for accessing modems built into rigs or running packet TNCs. Finally, our intrepid co-hosts open up the mail bag and respond to listener feedback. If you would like to contribute feedback, please do so by sending us e-mail at [email protected] or calling in on our voice line at +1-909-547-7469.

73 de The LHS Guys