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Take a look at this diabolical interference on the 10m WSPR frequency.

Fortunately it doesn’t seem to affect decoding too much. The PSK31 sub band is free of it too.

I always thought “why don’t more people share their shacks” well when I was approached to create a tour of mine. Its clearly quite a nerve racking thing. Allowing people into your inner sanctum and allowing people to see how you operate and how your equipment is set up is strangely one of the more worrying things Ive done in recent weeks.

Well if you are interested you can see the video here. 1 comment from Sandy – has already requested a further video on the morse keys I have. So in the upcoming days / weeks I will be uploading a amendment video to show what I have.

It’s unusual for me to work a station in Alaska, so I’ve been very happy to make a contact with KL7QZ in Anchorage, on the 12 meter band and at a distance of 3,242 miles @ 3 watts, makes this contact even better…..

I’ve only worked a station in Alaska twice in all the years I’ve been on the radio and I had a great copy (599) on him. He was hearing me at the 339 level but we completed a QSO.

In Alaska they were experiencing a real “heat wave” with the temp being -3 (C) and going down to -10 (C) tonight.

Propagation was terrible according to all the usual forecasts, but I still worked KW7D in New Mexico and I also found HC2IMP in Ecuador (again) on the 10 meter band.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear a “nice crisp chirp” from him this time. If you remember a post from our WV Chapter outing from Hurricane WV, on the first of November, I was hearing a real “growler” at that time.

I’ve not worked a lot of long distance stations the last few months because I’m focusing my energy on the new club; so it was enjoyable to work these unusual stations although they’re not very distant.

I’ve actually enjoyed the QRP contacts even more than in the past.

They’re much more personal than the “handshakes” for DX contacts. Yesterday, after completing a QSO with a QRP station on 30 meters, I was contacted by WV4TN in Knoxville TN. Wayne had many friends living here in Charleston, so knew exactly where I lived, and asked me to say hello to Dave Ellis (WA8WV).

Dave is the guy with a “very nice beam” who offered it’s use to me for some of my QRP contacts when we met at the Parkersburg Hamfest. I was happy to talk to Dave by phone and say hello to him from his friend in Knoxville.

I’m working a lot more stations this year, since 2010, when I first started keeping track of all my contacts.

To date, I have 2,349 QSO’s in the log book. My numbers are also up from “last year” from 472 in the year 2012— to 656 in this year of 2013. (with still 2 months to go before the end of the year).

Not surprisingly, I’ve worked 413 NAQCC members now out of a total of 462 QRP QSO’s.

I might not be working as many DX stations as previously, but with 667 in the log book and 90 countries, I’m OK with those numbers. I’m liking those nice QRP QSO’s very much and they’re equal to all the handshakes I’ve made the last few years.

This afternoon I ventured on the air for the first time in several weeks. Indeed it  is the first time I’ve felt like switching on the radio since my brain tumour removal operation. It was not entirely a good experience.

I thought I’d try digimodes since I would only need to click a few buttons to complete a QSO. But I found the whole experience a bit bewildering. I made two contacts on 20m thinking I was on 10m! And a couple of times I left the other guy waiting for me to send something.

About the only way I can describe how I felt is “out of it” – the phrase sometimes used to describe a person who is so drunk that they don’t know what they are doing. Only unfortunately in this case the demon drink was not to blame.

Somehow I think it is going to take some time for things to get back to normal.

Even though I have a Butternut vertical in the antenna arsenal, this .pdf file from SteppIR, is one of THE best articles about radials that I have ever read.  It’s in “plain ol’ English” and doesn’t require you to have a Doctorate in RF Theory to understand it.  Just thought I would share!

http://www.steppir.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Radial-Systems-for-Verticals-Rev2.1.pdf

I currently have about 50 radials under my Butternut.  Looks like I could stand to add some more next Summer – although I’m currently close to the point of “no extra benefit”.  Looks like with about 25 more, I can get a bit closer to that 90% efficient point. And “next time” (if there ever is one), I will seriously consider NOT ground mounting my next vertical.

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

There’s never quite enough room in the shack, no matter how much space you are lucky to have! So it is that whatever VHF/UHF rig is in use here, tends to perch on top of the FT1000MP. To prevent scratching, a piece of junk mail had been placed between the two rigs!

However, SOTABeams have a very nice range of desk stands for various rigs, including Baofeng UV-3R, Elecraft and Yaesu FT-817. They’re very reasonably priced and rather attractively, have your callsign on the front. Handy for when you forget it!

The rstand is made of good quality plastic and was nicely finished, no rough edges. There’s some edging strip provided to use as feet and a backstop which clips into the back of the stand, to prevent the rig falling off the back.

The rig is presented at a good angle and distinctly better than propping it up on a

– pen
– case of jewellers screwdrivers
– book

Another benefit I found was that although the stand is designed for the FT817, I found that the FT8900 fitted nicely too – a little overhang, but the rig is solidly placed on it and won’t go anywhere at all.

Excellent!

It’s good to read of SOTABeams success. Started by Richard G3CWI with products aimed at lightweight portable operation (SOTA operation, of course!), they have grown and grown and have recently moved to larger premises

Visit the SOTABeams website

This afternoon I took a quick hike up Shute Hill. I had a great two-way QRP QSO with N0UR and then I worked J88HL on three bands.

I walked down the range road and turned into the woods. Farther on I came to Will Ellis’s field. I sat down near the east edge and turned on the KX3. I heard Jim N0UR in MN calling CQ on 14.060. He was booming in, and he gave me a good report too. “UR portable ANT doing FB,” he sent. I had the ten meter wire over a branch with the earchi.org 9:1 unun. He was running a K2 at 5 watts to a 3-element beam. His signal was over S9. What fun to have a 2-way QRP QSO.

After that I went up to 15 meters. A group of Polish operators was running a DXpedition from St. Vincent. J88HL was working split with a pretty large pileup. But it was orderly and his signal was strong. I had no trouble making the QSO.

When I switched to 10 meters, there was the St. Vincent station again working split. So I worked J88HL on 10 meters and moved to 17 meters. I was surprised to hear them again on another band. Once again I made the QSO. So I worked them on 3 bands in the course of 15 minutes.

With that I packed up and headed back down the hill. What a beautiful afternoon for a quick outing… sunny with temps at nearly 50F.