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Today I finally had a free lunch period to get out and play radio, so last night I loaded up the antenna and radio into the car.  Drove to my normal park at lunch – with much anticipation of the possibility that 10 meters was open.

It’s been a busy month starting a new West Virginia Chapter of the NAQCC Club. I’ve not made a blog entry in almost a month but starting a new group is always time consuming and I feel the club is on it’s way now.

The following is a copy of what has been happening in October with the West Virginia Chapter of the NAQCC Club. It should appear in the next newsletter of the NAQCC club. This free newsletter is full of information about our state chapter club activities in Western Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida, West Virginia, and Europe. It’s a great read for QRP’ers specializing in Morse Code.

Hello Everyone:

First of all, let me offer a warm welcome to the following new members and those who have expressed an interest in the WV Chapter of the NAQCC club. I‘m looking forward to your participation in the club activities and thank you for your membership.

I’ve been networking this month and since the beginning of October I’ve added several friends to our e-mail and membership lists. I hope other members in West Virginia will do the same with their friends and acquaintances who enjoy Morse Code as their primary operating mode at 5 watts or less of power.

If you have WV CW QRP friends; let them know about our club.

Several things happened this month in West Virginia. I drove to Mineral Wells WV early this month on October 12th and attended the Parkersburg Hamfest. I had the intention of meeting Steven (KC4URI)  and we had a wonderful talk about the radio hobby. I look forward to many more of the same.

While at the Hamfest, I also met WA8WV and W8IW (from the Charleston area) who were checking cards for the ARRL DX and WAS award program. I might also add they both offered me the use of some really good “beam antennas” for my QRP work and  I intend to be knocking on those doors soon. Thank You!

A few days later, a small group of us had a breakfast meeting on October 16th  at a local restaurant which was attended (left to right) by myself (N8ZYA), Eric (AC8LJ), John (W8GDP) and Jim (NX8Z). I’ve been gathering information from these club members, and as a result, we had lots to talk about while we ate breakfast.

I like my new hat.

We’ve made a decision to have a weekly NAQCC WV Chapter net on Tuesday evenings at 8:00 PM (local time) on the frequency of 7060 MHz. I hope to hear more of the folks up in the Northern part of the state at that time.

I met up with Steve (KC4URI) at the Cedar Lakes Conference Center on Friday Oct 18th for our first “outing”.

I found the Cedar Lakes Conference Center to be a great place to operate QRP radio because of the low noise level and it’s inherent scenic beauty. It’s ideally situated about equal distance between Charleston and Mineral Wells and about a half hour drive from both locations.

I’ll try to do more of this with out future outings to get others involved from different parts of the state. I realize we have many members in the northern part of the state which is a bit too long of a drive to attend a gathering near Charleston. 

We operated for around three hours at Cedar Lakes, and afterwards, the log book on 40 and 20 meters looked like this:

W8ICN, K8LJG, and KG8YT in Michigan, N8IUP in Ohio, WA2JSG in New Jersey, W8GDP and AC8LJ in Charleston, W0CC in Kansas, KC5NX and NE5DL in Texas, W9UX in Wisconsin, K4RHG,K1YAN, and N1AN in Massachusetts, K1IEE in Maine, K3MD  in Pennsylvania, and W2LG in Florida.

I was amazed at the difference between a dipole antenna at 20 feet and 40 feet. I was also astounded at the difference between the noise level in the country verses the city. The noise level at Cedar Lakes was nearly “zero”. My first shot over the cedar trees left the 40 meter contacts at the mercy of some low hanging 20 foot limbs. Switching over to 20 meters, I put another line over the 40 ft crest of another section of the tree.

Although I concentrated on the agreed 40 and 20 meter frequencies, I could have easily worked DX on 20 meters with about 3 watts. I kept hearing a distinct PA3 (14.060) station in the Netherlands. There were also several IK stations on the lower CW section of the band.

My last “official duty” of the month was the “first” WV Chapter NAQCC net on October 22, 2013 which was Tuesday night at 8 pm.  As noted above, I’ve decided to do this weekly net on 7060.  (plus or minus) My location in the center of town, with the eleven story apartment building next door, leaves much to be desired for a net control operator, but I was surprised to hear seven stations. I must admit that operating from Cedar Lakes, where the noise was practically zero, spoiled me.

Checking into our net were K8SX from Follansbee, WV (148 miles) , K9ESE– mobile from a parking lot North of Charleston , K3NLT– Broadway, Virginia (153 miles) , N4OLN– near Atlanta Georgia (351 miles) , KA8SYV– Charleston, WV, W3TTT– Baltimore, MD (274 miles) , and AC8LJ– Charleston, WV.

My congratulations to all of the stations who had the patience to work me. Propagation is a strange thing at times ……N4OLN in Atlanta Georgia was the winner with the best signal, and amazingly, the longest distance this evening.

I’m looking forward to next month but until then, this month has been a good one for us. My thanks go out to all those who encourage and support me in this new WV Chapter of the NAQCC club.

Happy Trails,

John Smithson N8ZYA
NAQCC # 2279
President – WV Chapter of the NAQCC Club

You can keep up on our local chapter activities at this link:

NAQCC WV Chapter

On the HF bands – 10 Meters was great again during lunchtime and I had no problem working Serbia, Italy, Belarus and Germany.  All the QSOs were great; but I had two in particular that were gems.

The first came at lunchtime on the 10 Meter band.  After working some DX, I decided to go to the watering hole of 28.060 MHz.  There I heard a weak CQ – DF7IS, Klaus in Kandel, Germany.  Klaus was running 5 Watts from his Icom IC-703 to a sloper.  I just love 2X QRP QSOs, especially 2X QRP DX QSOs!  We gave each other 559 signals and copy was solid, even though QSB was a little trying at times.  But the KX3 pass band tuning really helped me notch Klaus’s signal and I had great copy throughout.

The second gem came after I got home.  With dinner done and a Harold walk yet to come, I decided to hit the KX3 in my basement shack before the sun set.  10 Meters was a bit disappointing.  I heard a station from Guinea- Bissau, but the pileup was intense, and his signal was dropping like a lead balloon. 10 Meters did not seem as promising as last evening, so at that point I decided to switch over to 15 Meters.

At 21.020 MHz, I heard JA1NUT calling CQ.  I knew that this was Shin, because my bud W3BBO just worked him a few days ago, and I have heard of him many times before. Shin has the reputation for being a top notch CW operator, a sort of Amateur Radio celebrity, a Ham’s Ham.  Nobody was answering him, so I threw out my call.  Shin came back to me, and I gave him a 589.  His signal was warbly, like it was coming over the pole.  I’ve heard polar flutter before, and this sounded exactly like that.

Shin was running 500 Watts to a 4 element Yagi, and said he was trying to study the effects of the CME.  I knew immediately what he was talking about.  I learned about yesterday’s CME from Fr. Z’s blog of all places.  We exchanged other pleasantries and when it was my turn, I told him I was using an Elecraft KX3 to a vertical.

That’s when I got “KX3 THATS 5W RIGHT?”

I answered “YES 5W QRP TO A VERTICAL”

Shin came back again “AMAZING 5W UR 549 BUT SOLID CPY ALL THE WAY. ENJOY UR MIGHTY 5W LARRY”.

Wow – how cool is that?  Another walking on air moment! Amateur radio doesn’t get too much better than this.

Before I close for the night, I leave you with a video that was mentioned on the CW Ops e-mail reflector. Can you imagine having an antenna farm like this?  I have passed K3LR’s aluminum ranch several times on the way to and from Dayton. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a grand view like this!

72 de Larry W2LJ

Over the last week or two, I have been running my 472khz WSPR receiver to see what I could ‘catch’. As you may remember, this is all very simple – the unmodified FT-847 connected up to an untuned Butternut vertical! However it seems to work at least a little!

Some new stations received over the last week or so have been

DK7FC
OR7T
G3XIZ
F4DTL
F5WK
EI0CF
DG3LV

Propagation varies quite heavily from day to day. Some days I hear only a couple of G stations and other days, I hear the more distant DL stations.

If you’ve not tried, I really recommend that you have a listen!

Episode #112 Audio (Listen now!):

Topics

• Review of CrunchBang Linux
  • http://ostatic.com/blog/crunchbang-beautiful-minimalism

This evening was supposed to be a UKAC night for me but with strong winds and flooding earlier in the day I decided not to head up to Sandwidth with a 50MHz antenna, just in case it got nasty. Even though it looks quite down here in the valley (I’m not just talking about 50Mhz activity either- Only GI4SNA can be heard) the top of the hill will be muddy and potentially windy.

So what to do with the radio time. We’ll I’ve been carrying around a plastic case for some time wondering when I’ll get around to using it as a sturdy case for packing up my FT817 and taking on trips with. The case used to hold a complex vice but the parts are happier in my tool box. So i stripped out the old foam and measured up the insides. It measures just about the wrong size for the easy to use pick and pluck foam so I ordered a 5 mm base layer and 40mm deep top layer from eFoam. The job is fairly simple and needs only a very sharp long bladed knife and a bit of patience.

I laid out the rig, tuner, wall wart, battery, mic and a few odds and ends into the case and carefully marked out the positions using a steel rule and marker pen (making sure the marker pen was on the inside of the are to be cut as I didn’t want any left over pen. I suppose you could just as easily cut it and turn it all over  but that may require extra thinking.

So with holes cut out and the bottom layer done, like so (as they say on Blue Peter) there wasn’t much to do apart from fill it up with the goodies. So with a free(ish) plastic case and a few quid’s worth of foam I’ve got a budget Pelicase. Probably just as sturdy for my needs and significantly cheaper.

Just one reminder, the blade needs to be very sharp and a light sawing action seemed to cut the foam nice and smoothly. Just one last thing to do is to raid the spare elastic department (If we have one) and form a kind of retaining strap for the bits in the lid.

Who said UK activity night should be limited to on air activity?

Sorry for using the “Tony Soprano” vernacular, but that’s a question often asked by budding QRPers, or those looking to dip a toe into the pond, wondering what QRP signals sound like.

To answer the question truthfully – just about everywhere!  Anywhere we have frequency privileges given to us by the FCC, you will find QRPers.  But I know that’s not the spirit in which the question was asked. Because, yes Virginia, there are “special” frequencies where QRPers tend to congregate.  Not that there’s anything magical about them, they’re just frequencies that QRPers have come to know as “the watering holes”.  Just like animals from the African savanna meet and greet each other at the local pond, lake or stream, so QRPers tend to congregate at certain frequencies where the odds are good we will meet others of our species.

For CW, they are as follows:

160 Meters ~ 1.810 MHz
80 Meters ~ 3.560 MHz
40 Meters ~ 7.040 and 7.030 MHz
30 Meters ~ 10.106 MHz
20 Meters ~ 14.060 MHz
17 Meters ~ 18.080 MHz
15 Meters ~ 21.060 MHz
12 Meters ~ 24.906 MHz
10 Meters ~ 28.060 MHz

And for SSB:

160 Meters ~ 1.910 MHz
80 Meters ~ 3.985 MHz
40 Meters ~ 7.285 MHz
20 Meters ~ 14.285 MHz
17 Meters ~ 18.130 MHz
15 Meters ~ 21.385 MHz
12 Meters ~ 24.956 MHz
10 Meters ~ 28.885 MHz

In fact, the Long Island QRP Club has a very nice .pdf that you can print out and laminate and keep close by for easy reference. You can find it here.  You will notice their list also lists other frequencies as well, because there’s no hard and fast rule, written in stone.  And more than likely, you will hear QRPers clustering around these neighborhoods and not on these frequencies EXACTLY (although it often feels that way during a QRP contest!).

Now, when you get to those frequencies, you will undoubtedly hear some weak signals.  But if you get blasted by a 599++++ signal, don’t automatically assume that it’s a QRO station intruding.  It just may be that due to propagation and band conditions, that powerhouse signal you are hearing just might be generated by a transmitter putting out 5 Watts or less. Don’t assume that QRP always equals “weak”.  Just ain’t so!  If there’s one thing the QRP Fox hunts will teach you, is that QRP equals Low Power, not necessarily Weak Signal.  Yes, you will work your share of 339 and 559 stations, but if you get involved with QRP and hang with it long enough, you’ll hear your share of eardrum blasters, too.

Now to a different matter. I got an e-mail this morning from my good friend Bob W3BBO telling me about how good propagation was on 10 Meters Sunday afternoon.  I didn’t get the chance to get on yesterday, but you can sure as all heck guess where I went to during my lunchtime QRP session today! Yep, 10 Meters and it was hopping today, too.  I worked Denmark, Italy and Croatia with no problem at all – no repeats, practically armchair copy both ways – although QSB did rear its ugly head now and then. Oh man, I wish 10 Meters was like this everyday!  I am hoping this lasts for a couple of weeks (or months) – fingers crossed!

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