AmateurRadio.com

Yesterday and today we had a lot of rain. It's the end of an early warm spring since March. Now it's a lot cooler. Rain always affects my antenna performance. I ran WSPR today on 10 meter, but no spots at all.

I placed a new widget on my blog at the end (Footer): The QRZ Log - the latest 15 QSO's. I saw it first on John's blog (N8ZYA). I made one QSO this afternoon on 40 meter with G0RWL with PSK31.

Nice surprise at 17:16 GMT PY2RN spotted me on 10 meter with WSPR.

Since I put the 30′ EF long wire in the attic I have been playing around with digital modes – PSK31 & WSPR.

I fired up WSPR on 20 meters remotely this morning using Team Viewer and much to my surprise I was heard by WA2YUN on Wake Island.

Pretty cool to for my 3 watts to be heard on a location with such historical significance!

Courtesy of Facebook postings:

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

I walked on bare ground for the first time in four months today. It was glorious. I worked Iceland, Ukraine, Belgium and a bunch of stations in the Missouri QSO Party and a few in the QRPARCI Spring Contest.

The river is swollen with spring run-off. A couple of kayakers have just left for the three mile run through the rapids to Franklin. I hiked along the old rail trail that runs alongside the river. Parts of the trail are snowy still. It’s still squishy in many places. But it’s 52F and a perfect day for the first real spring outing.

I hiked about a mile and whistled back and forth with a chickadee as I went. I turned through a gate toward a farmer’s field. I tramped through eight inches of snow on the way to a warm spot I knew would be free of snow. The sun had melted all the snow in a warm corner of the field, and I sat down under a large pine tree. The rest of the field was still covered with six inches of white.

I had tossed a line over a pine branch and was using the KX3. I tuned a 33 foot wire with the earchi.org 9:1 unun and the internal tuner on the KX3. Rather than detailing each QSO, I’ve attached my log below:

6 Apr-14 1921 21.037 N0M CW 599 599 MO
6 Apr-14 1922 21.039 N0O CW 599 599 MO
6 Apr-14 1924 21.042 W0E CW 599 599 MO
6 Apr-14 1927 21.060 N4BP CW 599 599 FL
6 Apr-14 1932 14.006 TF3JB CW 599 599 Iceland
6 Apr-14 1940 14.025 UR9IDX CW 599 599 Ukraine
6 Apr-14 1942 14.062 AB8FJ CW 599 599 OH
6 Apr-14 1945 21.018 ON4IA CW 579 599 Belgium

I operated for about 25 minutes and had a fantastic time in the warm sun. The little thermometer attached to my backpack read 65 degrees in the sun!

As I made contacts around the world, I could see the last remnants of the long winter melting before me. Most of the snow in the open areas will be gone in 10 days or so. It will linger for several weeks in the woods. I will get out every chance I have.

Series Seven Episode Seven of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, Martin (M1MRB) and Colin (M6BOY) extenstion to the bands and Edmund Spicer (M0MNG) discusses Rallies and Martin (M1MRB) is joined by Chris Howard (M0TCH) and Martin Rothwell (M0SGL) take part in a roundtable.

• New world 24 GHz EME record
• Australian medium wave beacon heard nationwide
• UK and Irish Repeaters
• Eire's youngest radio ham receives award
• 146 MHz band extension for Thai radio hams
• VIARC welcomes new prefixes
• OZ7IGY - 23 cm beacon now on Next Generation Beacons platform

Enigma (Photo: R. Holm)

Bletchley Park, northwest of London (between Oxford and Cambridge), is one of the best known British sites from WW2. Its fame goes back to the breaking of the legendary Enigma cipher machine and its successor, the Lorenz cipher machine.

In order to perform this work a large effort in the development of early computers took place here. They include the mechanical Bombe for breaking the Enigma, and the valve-based Colossus for breaking the Lorenz.

The Bombe was reconstructed through a 13 year effort that resulted in an Engineering Heritage Award in 2009.

The Bombe machine (Photo: R. Holm)

Colossus was the world’s first electronic digital computer that was at all programmable. It was also finally reconstructed in 2007 despite most of the hardware and blueprints being destroyed after WW2.

I visited it with my oldest son who lives in Cambridge, and it was a fascinating place that made me want to learn more about the work done at Bletchley Park and in particular one of the founders of computation, the brilliant Alan Turing, who was treated so badly after the war.

From left: Henry Ehm (M0ZAE), Peter Davies (M0PJD), and Alan Goold (2E0GLD) on duty 5. April 2014

I was also impressed by the National Radio Centre run by the RSGB, callsign GB3RS, with its informative and well laid out exhibition and demonstrations.

They are able to keep it staffed for four days a week based on volunteers, and I really appreciated the hospitality and friendliness of the radio amateurs I met there.

If you ever come to London you should really try to visit this place. It is only a 36 minute train ride from London Euston station.