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Over the years, I’ve fancifully imagined that I would build a set of keyer paddles. I even went so far as designing a couple concepts and collecting materials…but, inevitably I moved on from the institution with the machine shop and sucker machinist who was showing me the ropes. About a week ago, Mike, W3MC, posted a bunch of goodies for sale, including a Schurr Einbau key mechanism. Since I love my Profi 2, I snapped it up, recalling also that I had a nice hunk of brass for a base. Today, I cut and milled a little base for it. Lots of finishing and some acrylic work remain, but for now, there’s something special about a freshly-milled hunk of metal.

Although I’ve been aware of some Es happening on 50MHz for the last few days, inevitably, the openings have been when I have been busy or engaging in good works (cleaning the village church, springs to mind!).

This evening after supper, I popped up to the shack to see what satellite passes might be of interest and I decided to check 50MHz. To my delight there was an S9 CW signal around 50.097. A quick listen and a call and IS0GQX was in the log for the first Es QSO of the season.

I heard him work a few others around this area, but no other stations from the Med were heard, and within 5 minutes, the band was quiet again. Love those early season Es openings!

Another month is in the books and the QSO a day goal for 2014 continues.  April was successful in many different ways.  First, it moves me one month closer to ending the year with a QSO each and every day.  I also added two new DX entities to my DX list (Crete and Saint Kitts & Nevis) and I managed to get one state closer to WAS on a few different categories.  Finally, I beat my monthly total QSO record of 393 (set in November 2013) with a grand total of 599 total QSO’s. 

The surge in QSO’s for April is primarily due to my wanting to be better prepared in working contest pileup situations when it’s my turn to operate W1AW/Ø later in May.  I’ve been getting on the air and operating the ARRL Centennial QSO Party as much as possible and as much as band conditions have allowed.  It’s been fun.  I’d love to work you and give you my 5 points as a VE.

I’ve also been successful at chasing (and catching) all the W1AW portable stations.  I will need to make sure I catch a few states on their second time around later in the year.  But my goal is to work them all. 

The QSO breakdown for April is as follows:

Mode  Number QSO’s

JT65 149

JT9 3

SSB 441

PSK31 5

RTTY 1

2m FM 0

Additional notes of interest:

DX Stations Worked in March – 46

New DX Entities in March – 2

Total QSO’s for March – 599

Total QSO’s for 2014 – 818

Total consecutive QSO days – 120

Days left in 2014 – 245

Until next time…

73 de KDØBIK

While this may not be a surprise to those with electrical engineering backgrounds, this is a first for me — never seen this sort of thing before. While the effect is very cool, it’s potentially very dangerous and you shouldn’t go jumping the fence at the neighborhood 50kW shortwave station to try it out.

Wikipedia on plasma speakers:

Plasma speakers are a form of loudspeaker which varies air pressure via a high-energy electrical plasma instead of a solid diaphragm. Connected to the output of an audio amplifier, plasma speakers vary the size of a plasma glow discharge, corona discharge or electric arc which then acts as a massless radiating element, creating the compression waves in air that listeners perceive as sound. The technique is an evolution of William Duddell‘s “singing arc” of 1900, and an innovation related to ion thruster spacecraft propulsion.

The effect takes advantage of two unique principles. Firstly, ionization of gases causes their electrical resistance to drop significantly, making them extremely efficient conductors, which allows them to vibrate sympathetically with magnetic fields. Secondly, the involved plasma, itself a field of ions, has a relatively negligible mass. Thus as current frequency varies, more-resistant air remains mechanically coupled with and is driven by vibration of the more conductive and essentially massless plasma, radiating a potentially ideal reproduction of the sound source.

After doing some looking around, I realize that I’ve seen a similar phenomenon in the past while visiting the Boston Museum of Science — the singing Tesla coil!  Here is a fun example:

(via Reddit)

Here’s a video by Dennis Blanchard, K1YPP who is also the author of “Three Hundred Zeros”

Dennis hiked the Appalachian Trail, among other places and has lived to tell us all about it.  If you haven’t read his book, then you’re missing a good read.  While there’s not a whole lot in devoted to Amatuer Radio, it is a good read nonetheless, and inspiring, too.

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

Paul Signorelli W0RW posted this to QRP-L yesterday. It is entitled “Top 10 Steps for QRPttF Operation”.  This is SO good that it needs to be shared with those who might not subscribe to QRP-L. Paul has spent many a year operating outdoors, particularly pedestrian mobile.  Paul has a wealth of tribal knowledge built up here and this is good – very good, but often overlooked advice.

Here are the Top Ten Steps that I take for successful QRP Portable operation:

1. Propagation and Band Activity.
When you operate portable you want to work as many people as possible so the band conditions must be good. This means that you have to keep track of the propagation conditions before planning an operation. I try to look for propagation predictions for the band I plan to operate on but they are not very reliable. I check the QSL Net propagation site at <http://dx.qsl.net/propagation/>

The flux is always changing, so before I pick a date to operate, I monitor the bands at the same time that I plan to operate. The Absorption Index is also a key factor, I never operate when the “A” Index is above 6. I also use the NCDXF beacons see: <http://www.ncdxf.org/beacon/beaconschedule.html>

Trenton Military (15034 kHz) or CHU (14670 kHz) for 20 Meter propagation checks. Coastal stations might use WWV/WWVH on 10, 15 20 and 25 Mhz.

20 Meters is best for day time country wide propagation. 40 and 80 Meters are good for night time operation. I always try to avoid contests and other busy periods. Checking the QST Contest Calendar helps to insure the band is going to be clear. Check your desired frequency in advance, you don’t want to pick a frequency that is used for nets, traffic handling or RTTY.

2. Weather Conditions.
The weather forecasting is really good, so this is easy.
Try <http://www.wunderground.com/>
I look for warm temperatures and no wind. If it is going to rain don’t get too far away from a shelter.
Check your local web cam.

3. Honey Doo Items.
Always check the XYL’s honey doo list and make sure you have a valid Pass for the day.

4. Location and Road Conditions.
Try a your local National Park <http://www.nps.gov/findapark/index.htm>, If you are an Old Timer you can get a lifetime Pass. Always check the road and site conditions before going out in the field. You don’t want to drive hundreds of miles to find out that the Capulin Volcano road is closed by snow. Canyon roads can have snow or land slides, Pick an open space operating site, canyons are not good for QRP operating. If you are going to operate Pedestrian Mobile with a whip you will want to find trails that don’t have a lot of over hanging, antenna eating branches.

5. Equipment Readiness.
You need to check out your equipment right before you head out to your operating site. This prevents leaving behind some critical item. Needless to say, you should have your antenna all pre-tuned before you leave. My radio is always mounted to a backpack and is always ready to go. The LiIon battery is always charged but I always take a spare. I just need to put the back pack into the car, with the antenna and counterpoise. The accessories should also be checked: microphone, earphones, key, SWR meter, pen, log, watch, hat, gloves, coat, etc.

Make an equipment checklist.

It is good to charge or have a spare accessory batteries for your computer, keyer, SCAF, HT’s, etc.,
and a spare radio, clip leads and duct tape for contingencies.

6. Vittles.
I take water, lunch (GORP) and my VHF HT in a fanny pack.

7. Operating Announcements:
I try to post my operations on the reflectors a day before the operation. When you post too far in advance, people forget and when you post right before the operation, some people don’t get get the notice until after your are finished. I always try to be on my exact posted frequency (or alternate) at the exact time so people don’t get stood up. Posting your operating times gives you more Q’s. It is no fun running your battery down calling CQ with no responses. QRPspots, HFnow, GORC, QRP-L, SOTA Summits are good places to list your operation, as appropriate.

Post your schedule in GMT (Universal Time/Zulu time) as well as your local time.

Also post details about your operating location, links to pictures, trail maps, QSL Information, will be helpful, etc.

8. Prep Your Vehicle.
Put gas in your tank !

9. Initial set up.
When I arrive at my operating site, I set up my rig , attach the antenna, and check power and my operating frequency. When operating Pedestrian Mobile, I tune my whip and dragwire, put on my backpack and I am ready for the trail.

10. Safety.
Always be prepared for adverse conditions. You might need rain gear, snake proof boots, a map, GPS, etc. Always give someone your travel plans. Take your cell phone or an HT that will hit a repeater.
Be safe !
————

For more detailed information on Portable and Pedestrian Mobile operation get WA3WSJ’s Amateur Radio Pedestrian Mobile Handbook. He has made his First Edition Handbook free at: http://w3bqc.homestead.com/W3BQC-Library-Contents.html

That’s it, the Top Ten Steps for QRP portable operating. If you are addicted, you can consider this your 10 Step Program.

Paul w0rw

Thanks for sharing your wisdom and knowledge, Paul!

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

I worked JT1AA/3 in Mongolia again tonight. This time it was different, though – it was on 15 Meters instead of 17 Meters for a new band, and 5 Watts did the trick this time. It took a couple of repeats, even with another station trying to send right over me, but Gan’s terrific ears pulled my signal out of the aether.

Mongolia on 5 Watts – covering a distance of about 6,320 miles. Very cool beans!

In addition, thanks to some helpful direction from Terry G4POP and Daniele IW3HMH, I was able to solve a slight problem with Log4OM that was baffling me.  When I would mouse click on a station in the DX Cluster, the KX3 would go right to the proper frequency – but the radio would change modes and go into CW REV.  It didn’t matter if I was changing frequencies between bands or within a band.  Whenever I clicked, I would jump to the right frequency – but the mode would always change from CW to CW REV.

So on Terry and Daniele’s suggestion, I went into the configuration files for the K3 in OmniRig (the CAT program that Log4OM uses). There I saw the commands for CW and CW REV. The command for CW-U was MD7 and the command for CW-L was MD3. So I flipped them, saved the file, restarted everything and now it works fine. Geez, at this rate, I might become a software problem solver in about a hundred years or so!

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