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Spent my birthday participating (casually) in the Straight Key Century Club Weekend Sprint. My Lake Fredrica neighborhood site was where I set up my shelter and 3 antennas. I had a 40m dipole fed with twinlead up 40 ft and running E-W. An End Fed Halfwave for 20m was nearly vertical suspended by a nearby tree. A twinlead 44 ft doublet on my 20 ft Jackite with the ends at 16 feet was setup running N-S to give me a bit of a mini-smorgasbord of antenna choices. Since it was really sunny, I hooked up my ACME GC100 Solar Charger and VW Solar Panel.

Bands were decent with 40m quiet and some DX coming through early from Eu stations. Nice to hear that again. 20m came alive and was pretty much the go to band for the majority of the day. I did check 15m a couple times but did not hear much and no one replied to my CQ’s.

In the middle of a QSO, my Jackite pole decided to collapse but I was able to finish the QSO with one end of the dipole about 4 feet above the ground. hi hi

The highlight of the day was my last QSO with EA3NO, Lluis in Spain. As the special station for the sprint there was a lot of competition but Lluis hung in there with my weak signal and pulled me out of the crowd after a couple attempts. THANK YOU FOR THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT Lluis!

Still wondering what a CPG is? Contest Point Giver! I am a really casual contester. Really the only reason I participate is that contests offer a fairly good opportunity to make some QSO’s. When you are QRP you have to do a lot of listening, plus pounce and search, but serious contesters will dig out weak signals to make the QSO’s so it is fun. I enjoy giving out points and reading the mail on ops that are faster than my cw comfort zone. Good practice, eh?

Here’s some photos from the day. Enjoy!

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72,

Kelly K4UPG PB #173 SKCC #5415

This is going to be pretty short, because there’s not a whole lot to say. I had a few hours of free time this weekend to work in the ARRL September VHF QSO Party contest. I’m not really sure where the name “QSO Party” comes from, but this was one of the most boring parties that I’ve even been to. (For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is just another contest, hence my question about the name.) Typically band conditions for VHF contests aren’t terrific in September, but usually there are a reasonable number of people to work. This year wasn’t typical.

As with most of my contesting efforts, I participate on a part-time basis. I had a few hours Saturday afternoon and more hours Sunday afternoon. I think that my total operating time was around 6 hours, and for those 6 hours, I managed an average of about 7 1/2 QSOs per hour, for a grand total of 45 contacts. That was just plain awful. I only worked 6 meters, and had a total of 10 grids for the contest. Most of the folks who I spoke with were having similar results.

I generally like the VHF contests, particularly on 6m, because you never know when the band might open up and you’ll suddenly be able to work across the country. This year, the farthest contact that I had was in FM18 in Virginia to the south, and FM43 in Maine to the north. Usually there will be an opening down to the south or southwest, and typically I’ll pick up a few grids in Florida, but not this year.

A lot of that six hours was spent with either the voice or CW keyer sending my CQs while I occupied myself otherwise. (Sharon’s glad, because it gave me a chance to finally upgrade her computer from an ancient version of Eudora to the current version of Thunderbird. But I digress…)

The only consolation that I have is that it seems that the folks in my area were all in the same boat, but I can’t say that this was one of the more fun contests in recent memory.

Here’s my score summary:

        Band  Mode  QSOs    Pts   Grd
          50  CW       3      3     1
          50  USB     42      42    9
       Total  Both    45      45   10

Score: 450

 450 points? Seriously? Ouch. I miss 2006. (Ok, those were earlier in the summer, but they sure were a lot more fun.)

Congratulations New England RadioSport enthusiasts for crafting an award winning proposal. Doug Grant, K1DG, Chairman, WRTC2014, Inc. stated in CQ Contest Reflector, “We consider this a great honor, and will work hard to make the event enjoyable and memorable for everyone involved.”

RadioSport Russia set the new standard and raised the bar for competitors and participants. A job well done that benefited the future of ham radio. We have an example of world class competition that speaks to international goodwill and the enduring spirit of wireless communications, nothing less than field day style, for the young at heart.

The task in New England is monumental and I’m hedging the assembled team of passionate volunteers and excellent leadership will produce one for ham radio’s history book. This is an exciting moment for RadioSport USA!

Contest on.

See Also.
World Radio Team Championship 2010 Russia.

Series Three Episode Nineteen of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast. News Stories include:

• Return of SumbandilaSat SO-67
• Amateur station seeks new home 
• EAP Multi-band 2010
• New Lancashire RAYNET group 
• Try amateur radio direction finding
• Bicycle tour needs more radio hams 
• A very bright weekend for lighthouses 
• RSGB Convention deep space lecture 
• Open Source Digital Voice Codec 
• Morse and Music 
• Vuvuzela Morse Code 
• Milestone for WIA Centenary Award 
• New D-STAR repeater installed in ARRL lab

Your feedback, upcoming events, Hints, Tips and Tricks and Martin (M1MRB)discusses rediscovering listening.

I want to thank Ed, N4EMG who helped bring ham radio blogging to the Internet and for sharing his personal journal as well. There is a season for everything. I’m experiencing that change when the leaves begin morphing while the deep slumber of winter is soon to arrive. I met a friend through the spirit of ham radio blogging and will miss Ed’s contribution.

Ed, please leave your blog, your contribution is part of ham radio’s history. Who knows what one year will bring or for that matter five years from now? We are among the early new media pioneers and now it is reaching ubiquity within our community.

Or, perhaps now is a good time for a vacation from the blog, gather new material without having to journal about what was learned. I’m having fun writing out traditional QSL cards and watching the mailbox. Finally, I’m getting after my basic awards like DXCC, WAS, and WAC as well. Likewise, I’m confirming counties and building up my grid square count. Today, KI6QDH and I worked on his 3-element tri-bander with its new 40 meter add on kit. What a hoot!

There is a season for everything and best 73 to Ed, N4EMG from the shack relaxation zone.

Two months ago I got a new Dell Inspiron laptop to use for my work. I have been very pleased with the computer which is quite fast and has a good keyboard and a very nice screen. However this afternoon I switched it on to do a bit of work and was typing away when the hard drive started making a noise like a cat with indigestion – which anyone who has ever done tech support will recognize as the sound of a hard drive attempting to read a bad sector.

Windows froze, there was no way out but to long-press the power switch, losing the work I had been doing. On start-up, Windows insisted on doing a disk check and printed up a lot of messages that appeared to be to do with errors on the hard drive. Eventually I was able to restart, Windows booted up and it seems to be working normally again. But my confidence in the system’s reliability has taken a blow. In my experience hard drives don’t malfunction once and then run perfectly for ever after. But there’s no sign of any fault now, so I have little option but to wait until the next time it starts making funny noises. 🙁

This morning I worked Kei, JI1BBN, on 15m PSK31 using 50W to the MFJ magnetic loop in the attic.

 I heard several other DX stations on both the loop and the dipole, including DU3MEL in the Philippines whom I last worked in 2003, also on 15m. That was also the last time I worked Japan. Then I would only have been using QRP with my Elecraft K3, and the antenna would have been a horizontal loop of wire round the perimeter of the attic, with a 4:1 balun at the centre of one side, tuned using the K2 internal ATU.

What’s that about stealth antennas not working?