AmateurRadio.com

A time for W2LJ to ponder and to vent.  This is stuff I’ve been thinking over the past couple of days. I can’t speak of these things to “civilians” as they would look at me like I was speaking in tongues (Ham speak?), not comprehending a word that I was saying.

The first occurred the other night as I was walking Harold, our beagle.  As usual, I take my dual band HT with me and scan the various repeaters that I have programmed in there. The HT settled on a local VHF repeater that was holding an NTS Traffic Net.  Having been a avid traffic handler in my early days as a Ham, I don’t mind listening in on these – procedures haven’t changed so much in all these years. At least I thought not.

The repeater itself was having problems. Some kind of interference or intermod was making communications difficult at best, almost impossible at worst.  Two stations were having difficulty passing a couple of messages due to the interference.  The receiving station asked the sending station to send him the messages via e-mail, and then he would deliver them.  He told the Net Control Station to consider them passed traffic.  Passed traffic?!?  Would that be proper?  Would that be considered the equivalent of going to another repeater or simplex frequency and passing them on the air?  I applaud the ingenuity of the two stations, but ultimately passing traffic via a means that was not “radio” has me wondering if those could rightfully be counted as passed traffic.  I may be a bit behind the current standards, so – anyone out there know if this would be considered Kosher?

When you get right down to it, I would think (IMHO) that  traffic nets are supposed to be the resource available when everything else has turned to deep doo-doo.  In that event, there will be no Internet to fall back on.  IMHO, the two stations should have exhausted every RF means possible before resorting to e-mail and the Internet. But again, I may be just an old curmudgeon who’s behind the times and isn’t up to current standards. Can anyone shed a little light on this?

Secondly, the next scenario has to do with the QRP Fox Hunts.  No calls will be used to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent.  We have been very fortunate to get some new blood showing up in the hunts. New-to-Fox-Hunting Hams have been showing up to participate both as Hounds, as well as Foxes. This is a very good thing, because if there’s no influx of new people, then sooner or later, the “sport” is going to die out.  That would be a bad thing, as these are so much fun.

Anyway, a week ago we had a Ham perform his first ever shot at being Fox.  I’ve been there, so I know what he faced.  Believe me, for an experienced Fox it can be daunting, let alone your maiden voyage.  The Hunt begins and close to, if not more than, a hundred Hounds are calling you all at the same time. A wall of barking, and they’re all barking at you. No amount of “Here’s what to expect” from an experienced Fox can really prepare you.  It’s truly a “deer in the headlights” moment  for most newbies (myself included).

Here’s the rub – it was an 80 Meter hunt, and according to Da Rulez, “The 80M Foxes will operate within +/- 10Khz of 3.560 MHz”.  Well, the newbie Fox got distracted, excited, or maybe just a bit overwhelmed and planted himself just a hair above 3.570 MHz – less than 600 Hz away from the boundary.  As it was, 42 Hounds found the Fox and snared his pelt. So it’s not like we’re talking that he was so far out of bounds that everyone was left mouth agape, wondering “Huh?”.

When he posted his log, he apologized for his error, and basically stated that this would not be repeated next time.  Needless to say, that’s not good enough for some. Let’s just say that some of the responses were not exactly friendly, kind, understanding, encouraging or constructive. Here we get a volunteer to subject himself to a pileup of QRPers for 90 minutes and because you didn’t think to look outside the box, you let the poor guy have it!  Nice ….. really nice!

Did he break the rules? Yes.  Did he realize his error and apologize? Yes.  Is this a cause for making someone feel like a schmuck? Definitely NO!

It’s not like we’re talking of a deliberate act, like interference or jamming, or being a willful idiot.  The guy made a one time mistake, apologized for it and intends to do better the next time.  I’ll be the first to admit, that in the past, I too may have been hot headed at times and may have been more than willing to jump on the pile with harshness. But due to some of my reader’s comments to me on some of my own blog postings (when I’ve been harsh), I feel that I have learned and have come to realize that this is not the right thing to do. Constructive criticism is the best way to go, and  we need to cut the poor guy a break. Otherwise, we’re going to scare off volunteers and you’re going to find yourself hunting a Fox that’s literally not there (never mind just a little off frequency!)

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

Testing download speed and upload speed today. Just happy with my new Internet modem / router. Promised speed 150 Mbps by Ziggo. Almost... no complaints here. :-)

I’ve spent far too much time putting this blog back in line thanks to some dodgy code that got into my site. The site as a whole has shrunk a bit and I’m adding content back in as I go along. Its all very time consuming even though I have loads of back ups.

Having said that I’ve found a bit of time to do some planning for the new mast and feeders etc which I’ll order as soon as I get firm quotes for the building work I need to do for the extra room. There’s still a bit of a battle at home over the position of the thing which looks a bit like this one. They are fairly compact masts in as much as they are telescopic but pretty heavy too at 80+Kg.

Plans are to make up a tilt bracket and to mount it on the side of the new room (with enough space for a decent beam in the future).

With it being telescopic the feeder needs to be carefully considered so it doesn’t fracture from being raised and lowered regularly. This is part planning application and part saving antennas from strong winds and salt spray. Ideally a good quality VHF coax will be used for yep, VHF antenna’s but getting the right one is crucial to avoid expensive mistakes. Time for a chat to the DX shop I think.

I found myself in the unenviable position of having to place a small parts order from one of the larger electronics distributors. Often you find a decent price on the component, only to get hit by an outrageous shipping charge. I usually try to wait and group my items so as not to be hit too hard.

Here’s the little item I needed, a little 1mW Digi XBee for a project I’m working on (similar to this):

Here is the pricing for one, shipped to the northeastern U.S. via USPS:

• Digi-Key: $19.00 + $2.92 shipping = $21.92 *
• Mouser: $19.00 + $4.99 shipping = $23.99
• Jameco: $24.95 + $2.43 shipping = $27.38

The more expensive option (Jameco)  is almost 25% more than the cheapest (Digi-Key).  Sometimes it’s worth shopping around a little bit.

Have you found a good (and inexpensive!) source for electronics components?

* I did a little research and found that Digi-Key will give you free shipping if you mail in an order form with a check or money order:

When a check or money order accompanies your order, Digi-Key pays all shipping and insurance (our choice for method of shipping) to all addresses in the U.S. and Canada.

Amateur Radio and QRP, in particular, are like fishing.  You send your signal out into the ionosphere much like an angler casts his line into the water.  Sometimes you get a nibble or a hit, and sometimes you come home with an empty creel.  And it seems just about every serious fisherman has a story about “the one that got away”.

Today my story should read more like “the one I never had”.  Out at the Jeep during lunch, I had two quick hits on 10 Meters, D44AC on Cape Verde Island and OA4//N7CW in Peru.  With those two in the log (very decent DX for 5 Watts to a Buddistick, IMHO!), I was feeling rather confident (read that – cocky), and tuned around the rest of the band. Hearing nothing else that intrigued me, I decided to switch bands to see how conditions were on 12 Meters.  That’s when I heard them – 3DA0ET – the Swaziland DXpedtion! They weren’t the loudest, but they weren’t the weakest, either. They were louder than D44AC, who got me on the first call, so I thought I stood a chance (read that – expected to work them). I was seduced by the Dark Side.  I ended up wasting the rest of my lunch trying to get them in the log, unsuccessfully (and thereby re-learning a very valuable lesson in humility).

But thinking about it, I guess it really wasn’t “wasted” time.  It’s like that saying about the Lottery – “You have to be in it to win it”.  I don’t gamble much on lotteries, but I do like to chase DX!  Who knows?  If I had been on at just a little different time, or if band conditions were just a little different, maybe I would have been heard in Swaziland. And it goes without saying, if you don’t try, you’ll never get them in the log. That’s what makes chasing DX so much fun. First off, you have to think of the sheer distances you’re covering. It still amazes me to this day, that a radio signal of not-much-power can travel that far – over continents, over oceans and make it to the destination – audible and intelligible!. Sometimes it takes a while for my head to wrap around that, even after being in this hobby for as long as I have. It’s so easy to take this all for granted and to not marvel at it anymore. Secondly, there’s the thrill of the hunt.  You have no idea as to whether or not you will be successful.  But when you do get heard and make it into the DX log – Wow, just wow!

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

With  smoothed sunspot number of  282 nd a solar flux of 177 we are continuing to enjoy great conditions on the higher HF bands. I can’t remember the last time the sunspot number has been that high – though that joins a long list of other things I can’t remember either. I’m surprised that more bloggers haven’t commented on it – they were happy to spread gloom and despondency when the predictions said that this solar cycle ws going to be a dud.

I’ve spent most of my operating time on my favourite mode – PSK31. Truth is, I’ve always felt more comfortable at the keyboard than in front of the mic. But I really should try to get some time in on phone while conditions are this good. Who knows how long it will last?

WebProp– my solar weather web widget is proving to be a bit of an embarrassment with its prediction that HF band propagation will be poor. The algorithm clear places too much emphasis on the effect of high A and K index values.It would be better for users to use the condx=no option which will show only the raw ininterpreted data.

The 2013 ARRL November Sweepstakes contest is in the books for another year.  The main goal of having fun was successful from my modest basement ham shack and I believe I did pretty well considering. 

I had prepared everything earlier in the morning before a run out to the local shopping mall and lunch with my wife.  With computers and radios on, I sat down just before 21:00 UTC (2 PM local) and began scanning up and down the 20m band.  From the sounds of things, the band seemed to be in pretty good shape and many ops were beginning to stake their claim to their small chunk of the spectrum. 

Just like clockwork, I began hearing KK6L calling CQ Sweeps and quickly logged him as #1 from Eastern Pennsylvania.  I tuned up the band and quickly added Nevada, South Texas, Arkansas and Eastern Mass all within the first few minutes of the contest.  By this time I had also managed to settle into a rhythm with the long exchange.  It was time to try to run a frequency.

However, finding a frequency which wasn’t in use proved to be as elusive as stations operating in Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota and West Texas.  I would tune to a frequency, listen, listen, listen…then ask if the frequency was in use 3-4 times.  Start calling CQ….then get chased away.  After this situation played out 2-3 times and getting a bit too close to those who occupy the space around 14.313, I decided I would just hunt and pounce my way around the bands.

As you can see from the above map (courtesy of the N3FJP Contest logger) I managed to work most of the sections (and US States) and with exception of Delaware, South Carolina, Utah, South Dakota and Wyoming…would have managed WAS in less than 24 hours. 

As I stated at the beginning, band conditions were surprisingly good.  I mostly worked 20 and 40 meters on Saturday.  Then on Sunday I found success in both 10 and 15 meters.  

The final damage after about 8 hours of contesting is as follows:

Total QSO’s: 200
Total Sections Worked: 72
Sections not worked: 11
Total Contest Points: 28,800

Contacts by Band
40 meters:    18      9%
20 meters: 144    72%
15 meters:    32    16%
10 meters:      6       3%

Looking at a few other statistics.  I worked Santa Clara Valley (SCV) a total of 17 times, followed by Maryland DC with 10.   Looking at state QSO’s, California with 40 Q’s followed by Maryland with 10, Virginia 8 and New York and Texas each at 7.  Finally, 180 Q’s were USA, 16 Canada then Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Is. all one QSO each. 

I wasn’t so surprised to miss working Utah, Wyoming and South Dakota.  However, I was surprised with no contacts in Delaware and South Carolina.  I just simply never heard any stations on the air from the First State and the Palmetto State. 

I’m not sure how my score ranks with other stations running in my category (Alpha), but will submit my log and look forward to finding out.  The other possible silver lining might also come in the form of filling in a few missing states on 20m and 40m ARRL WAS Phone category.  Time will tell…

Until next time…

73 de KDØBIK (Jerry)