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Series Six Episode Twenty-Three of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news and Chris Howard (M0TCH) inviews Mike Gloistein GM0HCQ/MM about CW and more in Antarctic.

Strong typhoon hits Philippines

FCC fines CBer

An emergency paging system presents a safety risk

Close down of channel 1 and Amateur use of 50 to 51 MHz

Ex-commercial Marconi and naval radio equipment

Canadian special prefixes

FCC Wireless Bureau gets new acting chief

1st edition of FUNcube Handbook now available

Final spectrum plan for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games

Sri Lanka airs special callsign

Signals heard from ham radio satellite AO-27

Owners of 80 stations want DAB switch halt

Ofcom spend £1.8 million on Ham Radio

ICQ Podcast S06 E23 - CW and more from the Antarctic (17 November 2013)

Conditoins remain excellent on the 10m band. I made several contacts and even had Stateside DX stations reply to my CQs. Two of my contacts were with Elecraft K3 users – don’t often hear K3s on digital though they are the perfect rig for it.

When I’m not actively working stations I like to look at the PSK Reporter reception reports map.  It’s more interesting than WSPR as the reports are of actual PSK31 signals. It’s a pity there isn’t a beacon mode because you have got to transmit or call CQ to see reports of your own signal. At least it is motivation to actually go on the air rather than just lurk!

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!