AmateurRadio.com

WSPR on 20m tonight. 5 watts and my end fed wire.

Paul Stam, PC4T, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from the Netherlands. Contact him at [email protected].

Recent weeks have been extremely busy from both a professional and personal perspective. However, I seem to be getting back to a little more sane schedule that will allow me to blog a little more, which is very therapeutic for me. So some radio things that I am involved in.

I couple of weeks ago I hosted the annual IOTA Bash in Boerne, Texas. If you are into IOTA at all, it was a great gathering. Presentations from EA3NT, K6VVA, K9AJ and AB5EB. It was the 10th annual event and it's always a good time. Monitor www.islandradio.org for updates on next years BASH.

I  bought a K3. I needed to reclaim some real estate on my desk in the shack. I had an FT5000, which is a fantastic rig, but it is big. I will move it to my ranch station to upgrade my equipment there. So, far the K3 has lived up to all I've heard about it. It is a very flexible rig with a great receiver.

The SOTA powers that be have recently established more qualifying summits in Texas, some only 40 minutes from my QTH. While only 1 point summits, it is fun to activate any summit as the chasers are there and pile-ups are what we like. I plan to activate the first South Texas summit this afternoon. Maybe I will write it up after I'm done.

So, it's good to be at the keyboard again, thanks for reading this stuff.
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

I realise that I have not been very active monitoring 472khz WSPR this winter season. HF conditions seem to have been so good that I have rather ignored LF.

Noticing Roger, G3XBM blogging that 472khz WSPR was quiet, last night, I decided to run the FT847/HF6V on 472khz WSPR receive overnight. Sure enough it was quiet, but it was good to hear PA3ABK/2 and DF2JP, who I think is a new station to me.

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

For two years now I have used Norton 360 on my PC and it has served me well and not even a virus or any other problems………BUT I do have to shell out 60.00 per year to keep renewing it and having the fresh updates. There sure is a lot more I can do with that 60.00 than spending it on Norton! Then there is the other side of the coin how much will it cost me both in time and possibly PC tech help to remove a virus or what ever else there is out there from messing up my PC. In the past I have had some free virus protection programs along with trojan, malware and worms now and then it did not work. So am I getting the "wrong" free stuff, are they really not as good as rumored to be? My Norton 360 renewal message has been coming up my my PC for about a month now and as always I have been procrastinating the whole thing. Now I am down to the last day and just having to pay another 60.00 seems like a money grab to me. In the past here is the free protection I have had for the PC.
AVGfree ......this freeware say it protects against virus's, malware and spyware but to get a firewall, safe data download protection and anti spam you have to pay 60.00 per year. 
Spybot S&D is free and will protect me in the malware dept but not sure since AVGfree does that if I am just repeating a protection? I know there must be other free software out there or others that cost money but not asking you for more each year? What do you use.....how is it working for you......I'm open to suggestions as I am very fast running out of time. 


Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Agentschap Telecom – which is the Dutch version of the FCC – has decided to cancel the registration of my Dutch call sign PA2BX. And besides me also the calls of some 197 other Dutch radio amateurs who live abroad. Their reason being that since we don’t live in the Netherlands anymore we also don’t use the radio spectrum for which we need to be registered.

They already did so on March 12th, sent out letters to the operators involved on March 14 and then on March 19 informed the VERON, the Dutch Amateur Radio Society member of the IARU, that they were intending to do so. I don’t think I have to explain that I am very disgruntled with all this, and no doubt with me many others. At first sight it seems the AT doesn’t have any legal grounds to take this action and all is not lost, because I can always register again. But for now I cannot claim that I hold the call PA2BX and I cannot operate either in the Netherlands or with a guest licence in many other countries. These civil servants sure know how to waste time and money thinking of silly things like teasing us amateur radio operators.

Hans "Fong" van den Boogert, BX2ABT, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Taiwan. Contact him at [email protected].

It was quite beautiful outside at lunchtime today. Sunny and 64F (18C). Unfortunately, it’s not going to last. Tomorrow is expected to be rainy with only a high of about 45F (7C). But I got to the car and enjoyed my time away from the desk. I only worked one station – EW1TZ on 12 Meters. Serge was 599+ in New Jersey and I received a 579 in return. I didn’t mention that I was running QRP (I rarely do), so I will take that 579 to the bank.

This QSO was entered into the pot for the annual “QRP Marathon” which is sponsored by Oleg Borodin RV3GM and Club72. It’s not a contest, but a QRP statistic gathering event. Basically, you add into a database your best distanced QRP contacts for the day. Here are some of the particulars from Oleg’s website:

Date and time: April 1 (00.00 UTC) to April 30 (23.59 UTC) annually.

Only the following modes are usable: CW, SSB, DIGI (PSK, MFSK, HELL, Olivia).

All HF bands 10 to 160 Meters including the WARC bands.

There is no conventional exchange. The Marathon is not a contest. Add your Maidenhead locator (i.e FN20to, for example) and your output power in the report form. Participants are to use QRP power only from 1 to 5 watts output, the “other” station may use any power. Only 1 QSO per each HF band per each day (UTC) may be submitted. Use the QSO which gave you the best distance.

Any passive power attenuators or power dividers are forbidden. Only output RF power from an active component before antenna (transistor, valve) must be submitted.

Only QSOs covering a distance of 500 km (311 miles) or more may be submitted.

All the details can be found at http://club72.su/marathon.html. The form and webpage are pretty well explained. You should have no trouble.

As of right now, I am 5th in a field of 13. That will drastically change as more QRPers enter and more entries are received. I usually end the month somewhere in the bottom half of the pack. But it’s fun and it sure would be nice to see some other W/VE operators in there. I’m not sure as to whether or not you have to be a Club72 member to participate, but membership is free – so consider joining, if you haven’t already.

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

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].