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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!

From the KX3 e-mail reflector:

The weather lately has been very early Springlike. Cooler than I would like, but suitable for QRP in the car without being uncomfortable. AND, the upper bands are still very active, which is nice to see. I thought I read somewhere yesterday that there was a massive solar flare headed our way. If that was the case, you wouldn’t have known it from 10 Meters this afternoon. I worked SV1CQN, LI8OM, and UY6IM all on 10 Meters.Tuning around the bands, 12 and 15 Meters seemed to be jumping too.

A couple of things for this weekend. First from my friend Greg N4GKL:

Are you ready for a exciting amateur radio challenge? Deploy as a portable station make five contacts walk one kilometer deploy again and make five contacts. Continue for the four hour period. You could do the same moving three kilometers via car, motorcycle, bicycle or other vehicle. You have entered the world of Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio aka RaDAR. You will enjoy making tradeoffs in radio, antennas, and choice of operating frequencies. The four hour period puts you under a little stress to manage all the factors in real time. Hams worldwide practice RaDAR any time they can but there is the four hour RaDAR contest the first Saturday of April and November. The next RaDAR Contest is April 5th 1400 UTC to 1800 UTC.

In addition to on foot and vehicle categories, there are also portable and at home categories. Each category has a multiplier. Power is your choice QRP and up with multipliers. All amateur bands, besides the WARC bands, are allowed including cross band contacts via amateur radio satellites. Modes – CW, SSB, AM, FM or any digital mode. QSOs via terrestrial repeaters will NOT be allowed. Call sign, Name, RS(T) Report, QTH and grid locator at least 6 characters and 10 preferred. There is a bonus for your first satellite or digital mode QSO. Also there is a bonus for your first RaDAR to RaDAR intercontinental QSO.

There are two contest managers: Eddie Leighton ZS6BNE for IARU 1 – see http://zs6bne.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/radar-the-new-contest-april-2014/ and Marcus Kessler NX5MK for RaDAR America see http://radar-america.blogspot.com/2014/02/radar-america-contest-april-2014.html You will find the contest details at those links.

RaDAR originated in South Africa headed up by Eddie ZS6BNE. It has spread to the Americas with the efforts of Marcus NX5MK. There is a growing worldwide participation with the RaDAR Community on Google+.  See https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/109283065808971118728

Here’s another link that Greg provided: http://www.n4kgl.info/2014/03/april-5th-rapid-deployment-amateur.html

And, secondly from Karel OK1CF:

Hello!

I’m the HF manager of Czech Radioclub (ČRK). Let me tell you to announced that the first OK-OM DX SSB Contest 2014 will be held second weekend in April (12-13.04.2014) http://www.crk.cz/FILES/CZECH_DX_SSB_CONTEST.pdf

http://okomdx.crk.cz/index.php?page=englis

Thank you – I look forward to hearing from you!

73,Karel OK1CF HF Manager of CRK

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

I recently purchased a Zoom H1 for outside audio recording. Ive noticed that the microphone on the
Camcorder is pretty poor when filming in slightly breezy conditions or even when i am not facing the camera.  So to address this a separate Mic / handheld recorder that allows the addition of plug in microphones and being completely separate from the camera is a bonus.

This morning, 28MHz seemed pretty quiet as I drove to the station this morning – very little on SSB. When I got to the station, I tried CW which was just as quiet. As I spun up the band to the beacon area, I noticed some PSK on 28.120.

Some months ago, I downloaded the Multimode application for my iPhone which decodes PSK and RTTY. I just fired up the app, held the phone reasonably close to the rig and saw PSK signals appear on the display. To tune the signal in, you just drag the centre of the bar to the centre of the required signal and with any luck it displays.

This morning, it was fun to see 5B4/SQ2MQM working a JA station. And this evening when I got back to the car, LW5ER was coming through nicely.

Obviously you can’t have all this going whilst you’re actually driving. That would be dangerous! So, I tuned up the band to the SSB segment and the very first signal I heard was TX6G coming through – really great signals. In a perfect world, the next sentence would be that I cracked the enormous pileup running 10W to the whip.

Sadly no! The Anytone can’t deal with split frequency operation, so it was just a case of enjoying listening to the signals coming through from the other side of the world. I did stop in a lay-by and text Justin, G4TSH, who’s there, that they had a great signal to the mobile.

For as long as I first heard about SDR i wanted to get involved. Unfortunately children and jobs got in the way of significant investment. Until now that is. I received an email from a local ham who had an Angelia board that he no longer wanted.

‘Did I want to buy it off him?’

‘Yes’ said I before even mentioning it to the domestic CFO / xyl.

Long discussion ensued and eventually I have come away with this….

Needless to say some of the domestic staff were not amused. As a consequence I have an FT817 and a VX8-GE for sale. Any takers?