AmateurRadio.com

Series Four Episode Eleven of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Apply to the National Amateur Radio Emergency Database
• International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend Coming Soon
• CASHOTA Ireland and UK Activity Weekend 
• Education Through Amateur Satellites
• New US 4-metre Band Beacon 
• PSAs for Amateur Radio 
• Thousands of Ham Radio Equipment Stolen 
• Walton Fire Rescue Gets Ham Radios
• Enigma Exhibition
• New Radio Listening Guides for Asia-Pacific 
• New 40m beacon tests NAVIS conditions 
• Decline in UK Amateur Exam Passes 
• Saluting Those That Serve

Your feedback, Steve Nichols (G0KYA) Propogation Report, Down Under Report from Ed Durrant (VK2ARE) and a North American HamBrief from Chris Mathieu (N7ICE)

Just when you convinced your wife that your friends were normal…

You take your wife to Dayton! 🙂 (Ok it’s been about 15 years since I did that and I can’t get my wife to come back even still!)

Dayton 2011: Saturday– the BIG day!

Except for the toilets (sewer line) exploding in the afternoon in the flea market… it was a picture perfect Hamvention. Nothing like it ever before for me.

But it looks like driving back it will be “tornado alley”.. I’ll keep my fingers crossed…No Hail… No Hail…

Here’s the day in pictures:

Who is that crazy looking dude with the Astronaut?!?

Well.. it was all fun and games this year.. it’s a wrap for me and the Eastern Iowa DX Association.. I’m praying that the weather isn’t as severe on the way back as predicted.

It was a blast meeting everyone I met at Dayton this year.. I had great fun.. the City of Dayton looks a lot better than it did in 2004, and the weather was beautiful. I had some of the best eyeball QSOs that I’ve had anywhere.

Hopefully it won’t be 7 years before I make the pilgrimage again… catch you all on the bands, eh?

I recently re-posted a link to my satirical “My first annual pre-post-Dayton writeup” that I wrote a few years ago. The intent of that was the poke fun at all the write-ups that showed up after the annual Dayton Hamvention, which, to me, seemed to all say the same thing. However, I noticed a couple of interesting things this year. First, unsurprisingly, technology has advanced enough so that there are many folks blogging and even tweeting from on-site while attending. Second, I noticed that several of the on-site bloggers have been posting really good writeups, not just the usual “big, smelly crowds” and “Hara Arena stinks” comments. (Well, apparently Hara Arena is still badly in need of repair).

I suspect that many of my readers already follow these blogs, but David, K2DSL has been posting on-site updates from his first time to Dayton  on his blog, and Steve, K9ZW has been posting a series of “Random Notes” on his blog, With Varying Frequency – Amateur Radio Ponderings. I’ve found those postings to be informative and can recommend them. There are also a number of other bloggers posting about Hamvention that are syndicated at amateurradio.com (as is this blog).

Most of the tweets on twitter, while occasionally amusing, haven’t been particularly informative, but Jeff, KE9V has been doing a great job of tweeting about some of the new gear that’s showing up, particularly the new portable Elecraft KX3.

I recently re-posted a link to my satirical “My first annual pre-post-Dayton writeup” that I wrote a few years ago. The intent of that was the poke fun at all the write-ups that showed up after the annual Dayton Hamvention, which, to me, seemed to all say the same thing. However, I noticed a couple of interesting things this year. First, unsurprisingly, technology has advanced enough so that there are many folks blogging and even tweeting from on-site while attending. Second, I noticed that several of the on-site bloggers have been posting really good writeups, not just the usual “big, smelly crowds” and “Hara Arena stinks” comments. (Well, apparently Hara Arena is still badly in need of repair).

I suspect that many of my readers already follow these blogs, but David, K2DSL has been posting on-site updates from his first time to Dayton  on his blog, and Steve, K9ZW has been posting a series of “Random Notes” on his blog, With Varying Frequency – Amateur Radio Ponderings. I’ve found those postings to be informative and can recommend them. There are also a number of other bloggers posting about Hamvention that are syndicated at amateurradio.com (as is this blog).

Most of the tweets on twitter, while occasionally amusing, haven’t been particularly informative, but Jeff, KE9V has been doing a great job of tweeting about some of the new gear that’s showing up, particularly the new portable Elecraft KX3.

Today was the first really big Sporadic-E opening of the year. Six metres was wide open across the whole of Europe and Scandinavia. There was even a good 2 metre Sporadic-E opening in central Europe though no propagation appeared to reach the UK.

Yesterday I worked a string of Spanish stations on Six but that opening was not as good as today’s. This morning’s fun began with a contact with OK2IEN, then it was mostly Germans with a few other countries until round about lunch time.

I prefer the relaxing pace of Search and Pounce but when most of the stations you pounce on either have a pile-up and don’t hear you or are S&Ping themselves and move away it’s time to call CQ. It’s not something I often do and it’s almost more than my brain can cope with to talk to people while simultaneously typing into the computer their report, locator and call, but I quickly worked a string of stations and often had two or three at once replying to my CQ calls. This isn’t something that happens often when you run a stealth dipole so you have to enjoy it when you can!

In the afternoon, for a break, I tried JT65A. A lot of the interest in monitoring 50.076 seems to have evaporated when conditions were flat but a few stations were on and I made three contacts using the mode, though none were DX I could not have worked on SSB.

Later the propagation seemed to have shifted North to favour Denmark and Sweden and I worked a number of stations from there, many at massive signal strength. In all I made 45 contacts today – probably more than I have ever made during a single day except when playing in a contest.

I love six metres – it really is the magic band!

A chance to see the new Elecraft KX3 demonstrated by N6KR at the QRP ARCI “Four Days In May” convention in Dayton 2011.