AmateurRadio.com

Did you ever hear a DX station calling KQ, all stuck together like a prosign, instead of calling CQ?  I’ve heard this several times in recent years and I’ve wondered what’s up with that.  Is it too difficult to throw the extra dit in there?

But I digress….

Anthony, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com.

The attic dipole is working it's magic agian!

It's Sunday afternoon and thought I would flip the K3 to the on position. The RSGB IOTA contest is in full swing but I was only able to hear  few stations. As I spun across the band I came across G0PZA/EU11 in London area. I gave him a call at 500 mW's but it was just not going to happen. As I slowly raised my power I was able to make the contact with 1 watt for a 3594 miles per watt contact. I then moved around the band but was not able to hear all that much. I was pleased with this contact as the bands over the last couple of days have not been really all that great. Last night I heard a station calling CQ from Nova Scotia and even with full power at 5 watts I was not able to raise this station. I consider this evening to be an accomplishment with a 1 watt DX contact as compared to almost a local call and being shut out with 5 watts. It's 5 o'clock in the evening and I am very tired (considering I pulled an all nigher at work on Saturday) so it's soon time to hit the hay and looking forward to another week at work....NOT!!!
Have a good week everyone
 
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Six Episode Fifteen of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, Listener Mailbag, North American report from Frank Howell, K4FMH and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) improves your handy talkie.

• Radio hams get access to 18m EME dish
• The dangers of lithium batteries
• Special event station - PA1813A
• 70-year-old Radio Ham's epic voyage
• EMCOMMWEST 2013 cancelled
• HAARP facility shuts down
• Australian Remembrance Day Contest 2013
• Ham radio couple in Ghana
• Ham Radio satellite operation from Guernsey
• Radio Communication Exam Syllabuses

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Six Episode Fifteen of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, Listener Mailbag, North American report from Frank Howell, K4FMH and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) improves your handy talkie.

• Radio hams get access to 18m EME dish
• The dangers of lithium batteries
• Special event station - PA1813A
• 70-year-old Radio Ham's epic voyage
• EMCOMMWEST 2013 cancelled
• HAARP facility shuts down
• Australian Remembrance Day Contest 2013
• Ham radio couple in Ghana
• Ham Radio satellite operation from Guernsey
• Radio Communication Exam Syllabuses

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

While digging through the archives, I came across some previously unseen video from the 2012 Colorado 14er Event. Joyce KØJJW and I operated from Mount Sneffels (SOTA W0/UR-001) and this video shows a radio contact with Mark KTØAM on Mount Shavano.

The 2013 event will be held August 4th, see www.14er.org.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Six Episode Fifteen of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, Listener Mailbag, North American report from Frank Howell, K4FMH and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) improves your handy talkie.

• Radio hams get access to 18m EME dish
• The dangers of lithium batteries
• Special event station - PA1813A
• 70-year-old Radio Ham's epic voyage
• EMCOMMWEST 2013 cancelled
• HAARP facility shuts down
• Australian Remembrance Day Contest 2013
• Ham radio couple in Ghana
• Ham Radio satellite operation from Guernsey
• Radio Communication Exam Syllabuses

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Three weeks ago I ordered from Elecraft there XG3, it's an RF signal source device with a range from 1.5 to 200 mhz,  two programmable sweep functions, 12 programmable bands  (2m to 160m) and 4 calibrated output levels as well as a few more bells and whistles. This unit can be updated via your PC which is great when Elecraft comes up with bug fixes and new options for the unit. You can either power the device by a 9 volt battery or your DC power supply (11 to 14 volts DC). One of the reasons for me purchasing this unit was it can via software preform an Rx Sideband Null Field Calibration. This is an experimental Field Calibration program and the instructions and program were sent to me via Elecraft support. The reason I wanted to do this calibration was to stop the "woodpecker" effect I was getting on my KX3 during CW contests with stations that were very close by. The program needs run for around 20 minutes to complete and I thought this would be a great Saturday afternoon project.....not thinking that 20 minutes would turn into 2 hours with the calibration not even starting!! 

So far so good but Murphy shows up!

To do the test you first have to make sure the XG3 has the latest firmware loaded so I plugged in the supplied USB cord to update the XG3. I had the "new hardware found" info box come up and I then began the search for the USB port......well for some reason I was not able to find it. I then just plugged in my KX3 USB cable I use to update the KX3 rig with and it's com port 13. I used that cord and plugged it into the XG3 and had it look at com 13 and all was well. It seemed the firmware was up to date. For the calibration test I needed to have both the KX3 and XG3 running on USB ports of their own. So I swapped some USB cables around and I was able to see my XG3 on com 19. That was great (so I thought). I started up the RX

Not able to use available com ports

sideband null field calibration program and the first thing I was asked was to enter the com port of the KX3 and XG3. I entered the KX3 (com13) and  the program said all is well and was able to see the rig. I then went to enter com19 for the XG3 and the drop down menu in the Elecraft program only went to com port 16!!!! WHATS UP WITH THAT!!! So the calibration test came to a fast end. All this farting around took 2 hours of my time and got nothing done......I went into my device manager to see what was going on and I tried to change the XG3 to a lower com port number but I was informed that all com ports from 1 to 18 are in use, funny thing is I don't have 18 USB items to take up that many ports.....but I do have LP Bridge and VSP manager that create virtual ports and also an 8 port Edge port device that takes up virtual ports as well. My question is why does the XG3 program only go up to com port 16.....N1MM does the same thing and it's a pain!!! So I will be emailing Elecraft support to see if there is a solution to this or maybe I will go the Mac way and set this up on my wife's mac computer.


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