AmateurRadio.com

I was fighting a high ambient noise level tonight, while participating in the monthly NAQCC Sprint. Not as terrible as it was a few years ago, when 40 Meters was so bad that I had to abandon the 40 Meter Fox Hunts, but bad enough to be annoying.

With the goofy damp weather we have been having, I think the local QRN was due more to atmospherics, than anything else. I’ll have to see how the band conditions are over the next few days.

In any event, I racked up 22 QSOs during the during the Sprint, almost evenly divided between 40 and 20 Meters. It ended up being 10 QSOs on 20 Meters and 12 on 40 Meters. Not my best effort, by any means, but not abysmal, either.

I was happy to work Jim W1PID at the very end, but was disappointed that I was not able to get a QSO in with my two NJ buddies, Don W2JEK, or Charles W2SH. They were both sitting on frequencies, running mini pileups, and I could just not break through.

Just goes to show you ….. sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – 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].

Episode #109 Audio (Listen now!):

Introduction:

After a callsign mixup resulting in Russ calling Pete VE2XPW, the show is off to a flying start.

Mini-Topics:

• Antenna Modelers
  • gEDA (EDA = Electronic Design Automation)
  • xnec2c and xnecview

• Manjaro Linux

• Google Launches Stratospheric Internet Balloons
  • http://www.google.com/loon/

• The Linux in the Ham Shack Badger hits the Big Time!
  • http://www.badgerbalm.com/

Main Topic:

• Field Day

Announcements & Feedback:

• Contest Extended to Episode #110
  • To give time for more entries, the contest will be extended.  You can become a subscriber or leave a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (547-7469).  For voice mail entries, remember to complete the thought, “I deserve a Beaglebone Black because,” and make sure to leave contact info.  The winner will be announced on Episode #110. Entries must be received by midnight on the day of recording, July 2, 2013.

• E-mail from Gary, KN4AQ, of HamRadioNow.tv

Social Media Roundup:

• Google+
  • Terje H (Added)
  • Pierre M (Added)
  • Peter W (Added)
  • Raymund W (Added)
  • Rene, PD5RS (Posted)

• Status.net
  • To find Russ on any personal Status.net instance (pump.io, identi.ca, etc) use the email [email protected]

Subscribers and Donations:

• Doug (Yearly Subscription)
• Jonas R (Yearly Subscription)

Music:

• “Let This Monkey Go” by Heifervescent from the album Little Egg, courtesy of Jamendo.
• “Open Your Eyes” by Leslie Hunt from the album Your Hair Is on Fire, courtesy of Jamendo.

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Subtitle – It pays to know your prefixes!

My lunchtime QRP session today looked like it was going to be no big deal. 15 Meters seemed to be dead as a doornail. I heard some activity on 20 Meters, but not much to write home about.

So I popped on over to 17 Meters, where there seemed to be some activity. The first station that I heard and worked was EC7CW from Seville, Spain. After I nabbed him, I tuned around the band and heard a huge pileup.

Lots of times when you hear a pileup, the station that is the quarry is very weak. Today that was not the case. The station that everyone was chasing was JW/LY2KW, and he was very loud. A quick look at the IARU prefix list told me that JW is Norway, but something didn’t seem quite right. Such a huge pileup for Norway?

Well, since the DX was loud, and I had time to kill, I figured, “Why not?” I figured out the split rather quickly, and this time, luck and the good ears of JW/LY2KW were on my side. After about a half dozen calls or so, the DX station came back to W2LJ.

I always feel great when a DX station comes back to me, but it’s even more special when I’m using the KX3 and Buddistick at lunchtime. And it’s even better when that combination helps me bust a pileup. So I went back to work a very happy camper, knowing that I got Spain and Norway in the log.

But as I was walking back in, I was wondering….. why the massive pileup? It’s not like Norway is the rarest of the rare DX, after all. So I decided a Google search was in order. Unbeknownst to me, JW is indeed issued to Norway, but for Svalbard. Holy cow, this was a brandy new DXCC entity via QRP for me! I am constantly amazed by the performance of the Buddistick on the top of my Jeep. A compromise antenna for sure, but a compromise that I can seem to live with.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – 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].

And the winner of 500 free full-color QSL cards is…

Fabio IZ8FTW
Italy

Congratulations to Fabio and thank you to everyone who entered. Keep a lookout for more great giveaways! As always, thank you to KB3IFH QSL Cards for generously sponsoring this contest. Don’t forget to check out Randy’s website the next time you need new QSL cards! Past winners of the QSL card giveaways include Stuie VK8NSB, Mel MI0MSR, Jyoti VU3BGI and more!

73 Matt W1MST

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

I had the privilege of living in Paris with my wife a few years ago. At that time, 2008/2009, the series for car license plates had just come to Q. That made it easy to find plates with many of the Q codes which are used as abbreviations in radio communications. What follows is the result of walking the streets of Paris, mostly between the 5. and the 13. arrondissement:

Here is a broadcast to all radio amateurs: 

Are you busy …

Watermarking by http://www.watermark-images.com/

Sverre Holm, LA3ZA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Norway. Contact him at [email protected].

We are celebrating the 8th Anniversary of AmateurLogic.TV with a great mobile giveaway. Come register to win an Icom IC-7100 HF/VHF/UHF/DSTAR Radio with touchscreen. You are going to need antennas with that so we’ve teamed up with GigaParts and Diamond. The winner will receive a Diamond NR770HA VHF/UHF antenna and a great Diamond SD330 HF Screwdriver Antenna. Of course you will probably want an auto tuner too so GigaParts is throwing in a Turbo Tuner II. And the winner gets to choose any two antenna mounts from MFJ Enterprises.
It’s the ultimate mobile setup and someone is going to be very happy for Christmas this year.

Visit www.amateurlogic.tv/contest for details. The contest is opened to licensed amateurs in the United States and Canada.
Visit www.amateurlogic.tv/contest for details.

NOTE: The contest is now closed.

George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].

The operating chair

The Skeeter hunt   is a great QRP contest that has really caught on with the QRPer's. It's only a 4 hour contest and offers extra points if you want to take on a challenge. Last year it was to brew up a home made key and use it in the contest. If you did this (supporting photo's needed) then you picked up huge bonus points! Well last year I was not able to come up with a homemade key so the bonus points were out the window for me. This year the challenge was to operate beside a body of water......no problem for me as there are 3 rivers within 5 minutes or less for me.

Storm clouds

I scooped up my bonus points (passed along the pic's to back it up) but I was not able to make the same amount of contacts that I did last year. There were some factors to this, conditions had changed from last year, I worked an all nighter on Saturday so I was operating on more that 24 hours without any sleep and thus I did not spend as much time in the test........well a 1/2 hour less. I used my Elecraft KX3 operating on the internal batteries. The antenna was a mono band 20m whip from my car. I was going to use the Alexloop so I could take advantage of more bands...but...the weather conditions were looking very stormy. I did not want to take a chance and have the Alexloop damaged from rain.
The weather turned out to be great it did not rain but the storm clouds over head kept it cool and the sun off me. I operated from Riverside park which is a great park about 5 minutes from my QTH. Funny thing I never had anyone come up to me wondering what I was doing! In the past this has happened and it gave me a chance to explain ham radio. Something new in the contest this year is operating SSB, I did not take advantage of this and stayed CW and just single band.

A look towards the river

Some of the highlights were contacting TF/LX1NO (who was in the WAE contest) for whom you get bonus points for! Also I brought along an extra external battery just in case the AA internal rechargeable batteries died on me. To my surprise they lasted for 3 hours with me constantly calling CQ BZZ.

Another shot of the river.

So I was able to make 18 contacts with a total score of 1396. Funny thing my last years score was 1392.....So technically I did better than last year by 4 points!!!

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].