AmateurRadio.com

Do you make them?  Are they successful?  Will you make New Year’s resolutions for 2012?  What about resolutions geared specifically towards amateur radio?

If you’ve been listening to the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast for the past few years, you know the January episode features a few suggested New Year’s resolution ideas geared towards the amateur radio hobby.  This January will be no different and episode 51 will provide you numerous ideas for your very own New Year’s resolutions.  Of course, I’ll also share some of my own with you and provide a follow-up on how successful I was with my 2011 plans.

Again, amateur radio specific resolutions could be anything from upgrading to a new license class, trying a new mode, learning CW, volunteering in your community via ARES, RACES etc. or even something as simple as joining a local amateur radio club.

If you are thinking of specific amateur radio New Year’s resolutions of your own, please email me with your idea and how you plan to accomplish it.  I’ll read some of the suggestions during episode 51.

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].

The final hours before the actual opening of orders for the new Elecraft KX3 saw a mix of bizarre behaviours on the KX3 email list from impatient petulance and other weirdly strange attention seeking. They were a tiny minority in a sea of patient fans happy with the frequent updates from the Elecraft team. In the end when they started taking orders it wasn’t really a surprise. And Elecraft met their December deadline and kept some holiday suspense to the end.

Stephen Rapley, VK2RH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New South Wales, Australia. Contact him at [email protected].

Finally some snow for Christmas......

Well it's Tuesday and it's the last day off for me before going back to work. The day has been spent in a very leisurely fashion. The only outing today was early morning to the Chiropractor and that was it. The weather has turned to snow here for the first time this winter snow is staying on the ground. I thought it would be a great day to spend at the radio as the Christmas season for me has been very busy with "stuff" ohter than radio. I tuned the K3 to 14.060 and found K9EEI calling CQ. So at 500mW's I answered his CQ, Carl was 599 here with his 5 watts and I was 569 into Illinois. At the end of our pleasant QSO we exchanged emails as well. Now during the QSO for some reason my keyer was acting up. What I mean by this is it would send radium dot's one after the other without me keying the keyer. The keyer that I have is the Begali contour which is Iambic
paddle with magnetic return. I played with the adjustments some time ago without testing it....thus the strange behavior of the key. It was time to adjust the key and on the Elecraft K3 you can put the rig into test mode. This way you can adjust the keyer with out transmitting on the air. After adjusting the key it was time to do some WSPR and maybe some PSK31. I wanted to see how the bands were doing so it was WSPR first. I have a sheet of paper on how to set up the radio for WSPR. (soon I am going to make up a macro so setup is just a push of a button on the K3) Well for some reason I was not transmitting a signal!! I checked and rechecked the settings of both the computer, K3 and sound card. All seemed to be good but still no signal so it was off to PSK31. I was able to decode signals on 20 meters and it seemed pretty active. After setting up things for PSK31 I again had no transmit !!!!  I tried a little of this and some of that but nothing. Now I was muttering to myself  how much a pain in the @#$& the digi modes were. Well it was back to good old CW and they can stick the digi modes for now.  Back to CW and about 2 hours wasted playing with the silly digital modes I keyed my trusty Begali key.....NOTHING....I was not transmitting!!! Then it hit me the dam K3 was still in test mode from me adjusting the keyer!!! Sometimes these added features can be a real pain. Next time I will just switch to the dummy load and transmit into that........ like the old days.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

I remember a couple of years ago, VHF/UHF tropo conditions were good around Boxing Day. Well, although today wasn’t Boxing Day, it was our Boxing Day Bank holiday.

This morning as I was dealing with some e-mails, I had the VHF FM rig running on 145.500 and heard a selection of stations from G6XOR up in Derby to others in the Midlands. Sadly, I wasn’t able to respond at the time. However, I did later work John M6CTI near Heathrow, who was running 5W.

After Julie and I had come back from a walk this afternoon and the Christmas Cumulatives had ended, I checked the bands anyway. The GB3VHF beacon was loud and PI7CIS and ON0VHF on 144MHz above average. Oddly, PI7CIS on 432MHz was inaudible with me. I was just about to close when I heard DL6NAA from JO50 call 2E0NEY on 144MHz.

Happily, Rene, DL6NAA called CQ and after a couple of calls I was able to work him with good signals. He runs 750W to a good antenna system so I was not sure he would hear my little station. I listened for a while and heard him move to 432MHz. I was pleased to find I could hear him there too. Something of a pileup developed so I decided to drop my call in on CW, which seemed to work and I was delighted to work him.

Check out the DL0AR website to see pictures of the antenna system that DL6NAA uses. You’ll see why he’s so loud. Thanks for the contacts Rene!

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

A few days ago I recorded and made available the 50th episode of the practical amateur radio podcast.  A few hours later I started coming down with cold-like symptoms and spent a few days resting to try to get ahead of this prior to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  I’m glad to report I did manage to get just slightly ahead and at least appeared to be alive and coherent.   Thank God for cold meds, chicken noodle soup and my wonderful wife. 

If you’ve been around from the beginning, you already know I started PARP in May 2008.  The 50th episode wraps up the 4th season and I truly look forward to 2012 and many, many more episodes.

Episode 50 is devoted to SOTA or Summits On The Air.  I realize I’ve recently blogged about and have also talked a lot about SOTA.  While the activity is certainly a new passion, I realize there is much, much more to the hobby.  However, based on comments I’ve received from listeners via email, Twitter and Facebook…I know many have an interest and wanted to discuss the topic so you might plan and conduct your own SOTA chasing and/or activations. 

PARP is available and you can subscribe via iTunes, Zune or stream directly from MyAmateurRadio.com.  Want to stream on the go from your favorite smart phone device?  You can do that as well from our mobile site.

Finally, as a Christmas gift to my family and I suppose to the podcast, I now own a small HD Sony video camera.  I do plan to create some supplemental video content for PARP and will also document some (perhaps) all of my SOTA activations. 

Thank you for listening. 

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 some reason around the Christmas season every year, I think of one of my favorite films… Evil Roy Slade. This year, I had planned to do some serious kit and homebrewing on my days off. But I managed to cut my stubby index finger while trying to fix our dishwasher. Somehow some broken glass was in the drain basket when I went feeling around. OUCH… ever try to solder and handle small parts with a wounded finger?  How about operating a straight key like I do?

So I share a clip from my buddy Mickey Rooney and his character in the movie. Hope you have a Happy Holiday!

 

Kelly McClelland, K4UPG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Florida, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Myself , Julie and Oliver wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].