AmateurRadio.com

Received this e-mail today from Daniel DO7FOX of QRZCQ:

We’ve been online for two years now! The first day was 2011 Oct 10. We are about 60500 users now and still growing fast!

Some sizes and numbers:

– Calls in database: 2.536.181
– Call views: 14.333.826
– Logbook QSOs: 22.726.374
– All time QSOs processed: 172.480.731
– Monthly visits: 950.000
– DX-Cluster spots with or from our users: 58%
– Video views: 137.995
– Users with picture: 18.237
– DX-Cluster spots via web interface: 69.845
– Max users on DX-Cluster via web interface: 119
– Forum posts: 401 (not much)
– Stream posts: 1.274
– XML lookups: 309.067 (closed test)
– Database queries per second: 2.462
– DX-Cluster spots in database: 8.289.618

Some future dates:

– Date when the site becomes unreadable due to ads: never 😉
– Date when the online log should start (still coding): aprox. Jan 2014
– Date of next 3rd birthday: 10 Oct 2014

And, unfortunately, 6 users went SK (known) since the site started. May the Ether be with them.

To celebrate this birthday, 100 new registered and activated users will get premium for free. The period for 100 premium will start in few hours.

Please help us grow, use the “Invite” function in your account and please invite your Ham and Swl friends. All you need is their call and email.

Thank you very much for the faith given us everyday by using our site!

Please visit us again and take a look! If you forgot your password simply try to login with your call and last password you remember, then use the simple ‘password forgotten’ function to recover your password.

You can visit QRZCQ to sign up at http://www.qrzcq.com

Have you given QRZCQ a try? What’s your opinion of it?

Matt Thomas, W1MST, is the managing editor of AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

I am ready for the first autumn storm 'Christian' - my vertical is down, precaution. At midnight the storm will arrive in the UK, tomorrow morning The Netherlands. So I will see and wait for things to come.
Update: The storm is over. Wind gusts up to 119km/h at our location. We had no real problems here. One roof was destroyed and a tree was down, that's all.

I will no longer publish about WSPR on this blog but on a separate one: www.pc4twspr.blogspot.nl



Paul Stam, PC4T, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from the Netherlands. Contact him at [email protected].

Another Zombie Shuffle in the books and unfortunately, I missed most of it.  Operating hours were from 6:00 PM local to Midnight, local. First, I ended up working until 6:00 PM last night, instead of my normal 5:00 PM.  Then, on top of that, I had my local radio club meeting, which is always at 8:00 PM on the last Friday evening of the month.  That gave me an hour (roughly) to get home, get changed out of my work clothes, wolf down some dinner and then get to the meeting. Not good – Shuffle-wise.

I ended up getting on the air for the Shuffle at approximately 10:00 PM local.  By then you could tell that the cork had popped and the air let out of the balloon.  Activity was way down by then. 20 Meters was a lost cause on the East coast and 40 Meters was full of SSB QRM in the background.  80 Meters was a bit better than 40 Meters.

I ended up making 13 QSOs – I know, somehow that’s an appropriate number for the Zombie Shuffle, right? My score was a paltry 66,451 points.

Some visitors came by the while I was operating:

I didn’t mind the witch, the ghost or the Jack-O-Lantern so much, but that skeleton that insisted on “hanging around” my monitor made logging just a wee bit difficult!  At least I was able to lure the gremlins off my feedline by throwing some Snickers bars at them!

PS:  As of Monday morning, according to the results at:  http://www.zianet.com/qrp/ZOMBIE/zombie_006.htm, I have come in 17th in a field of 38 entries.  That’s a lot better than I thought!

72 es Boo de Larry W2LJ
BooRP – When you care to send the very least!

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

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.

Burke Jones, NØHYD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Kansas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

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

John Smithson, Jr., N8ZYA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from West Virginia, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

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

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].