AmateurRadio.com

It sure has been warm here since last Sunday.  This morning I Tweeted that you know your in for a rough day when you wake up at 6:30 AM and the air conditioner has already turned itself on …… and we keep the AC set on the kind of high side here at the W2LJ household.  We try to keep the house comfortable, but not like a meat locker.  So when the cooling turns on, it’s already pretty warm in the house.

So when the weather is like this, what does a sensible QRPer do for lunch break?  Does he stay inside the nice, cool office building, kick back and maybe read for a while while eating his sandwich?

Well, maybe that’s what a wise, sensible, pragmatic QRPer does, but none of those descriptions fit me, so I headed out to the parking lot to get the Buddistick on top of the Jeep and the KX3 on the air!  When I got out there, I set out the thermometer that I brought along from home.  I set it in a shady spot, out of the direct sun, and let it sit while I operated.  The plan was to check it and snap a photo of it, after I broke the station down, but before I headed back inside.

My first band of choice was 17 Meters as it has been really good to me over the last months of lunchtime operating. However, there must have been some kind of device turned on in the Engineering Building at work, because I had terrible electronic pulse noise from 18.068 to about 18.083 MHz.  The KX3’s noise blanker (which is the best noise blanker I have ever used) put only a slight dent in the noise.  The incoming signal would have had to have been 599+ to overcome that racket.  The funny thing is that right at 18.083 MHz, it was like someone turned off a light switch and the pulse noise quite literally vanished.  The problem is that on 17 Meters, the majority of DX stations will be found on the lower portion of the band, so I decided to QSY.

On to 15 Meters!  I didn’t hear a lot of signals on the band, so I decided (for whatever reason) to do something I hardly ever do.  I went to the QRP watering hole of 21.060 MHz and actually called “CQ QRP” for a bit. Normally, the only time I do that is during a QRP Sprint or contest, but for some reason unbeknownst to me, I decided to try it today.  And strangely enough, I got an answer.  The answer came from Reiner DL5ZP.  The QSO was a tough 2X QRP affair, as QSB was fierce, but we got in an exchange of the basics.  Afterwards, I had to wonder if I was taken in by a “slim” or a “pirate” as they are better known.  DL5ZP does not appear on QRZ.com. He does kind of halfway show up on QRZCQ and DX Summit and even Google, but by not coming up on QRZ.com, I have to wonder if this was legitimate, or what.

After the QSO with DL5ZP, I went to the 20 Meter QRP watering hole and did the same thing.  This time I was answered by W7USA in Arizona, and we had a very brief QSO.  Band conditions did not seem to be the best this early afternoon.

So after I put everything away, as far as the station goes, I went and fetched the thermometer from it’s shady spot.  Here’s what it indicated:

About 96 or 97F (36C) with just under 50% humidity.  Hot enough for me to almost burn my fingers on the magmount when I lifted it off the Jeep, but not hot enough to keep me inside.

Band conditions were much better tonight for the 20 Meter QRP Foxhunt.  I managed to grab two furs tonight by working John K4BAI in Georgia and Jay KT5E in Colorado.  But I have to admit that as soon as I bagged both pelts, I shut the station down and disconnected the antennas.  The weather service is saying that this 6 day heat wave may break tomorrow afternoon with possible severe thunderstorms anytime from tomorrow afternoon into Saturday morning.  I don’t need to be driving home tomorrow afternoon, in the middle of a bad boomer, only to be worrying that I forgot to disconnect my aerials.

By the way, it’s now 11:00 PM here. The sun has been down for about 2 1/2 hours, and it’s still 84F (29C). Those are probably going to be some pretty powerful thunderstorms to break the back of this hot spell.

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

Like my good friend Jim W1PID, I also operated portable QRP today.  Like him, I had some success working Germany, Sweden and New Mexico. Unlike him, I did not have a beautiful river and pastoral country views to soothe my eyes.

Nope, I was in the parking lot at work during my lunch break – again.  But also like Jim, I got to deal with the heat.  It was just breaking the 90F (32C) mark when I got out there.  I think the sunshine reflecting back up off the asphalt pavement might be good for another few degrees.  Tomorrow, I’ll have to bring a thermometer with me and find out.

I plopped the Buddistick on top of the Jeep and found that the air temperature was not the only thing that was hot.  17 Meters seemed to be sizzling, too.  I worked two special event stations – the first being DL50FRANCE.

This station is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Elysee.  That historic document started a period of deep friendship and cooperation between France and Germany.  Up until that point, those two countries didn’t exactly play nice together.

The other special event station I worked, and was also worked by W1PID, was SJ0SOP. This station in Sweden is on the air to promote the Sea of Peace award.

In between working these two special events, I slipped on over to 15 Meters to see if there was any activity there.  That’s where I heard Paul KW7D in New Mexico calling CQ.  He was 599 loud in New Jersey and I got a 569 in return.  We had a brief QSO and I informed Paul that 17 Meters seemed to be a lot more active than 15.  We kept our QSO short so that he could QSY on over to 17 Meters and point his Force 12 Beam antenna towards the DX that was humming on the band.

I broke down the station and headed back inside into the air conditioning. When I got back to the car to head home, it was 95F (35C).  The humidity is up there at 68%, but at least it’s not at 90% like it was last weekend.  The 90s with 90% humidity?  THAT’S miserable!

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

I was pleasantly surprised this weekend when an envelope of QSL cards arrived from the Eigth Area Call Buro. I have paper cards which I return for those who prefer them. I do however, require a self addressed stamped envelope. I make an exception when DX cards are concerned and sent through this bureau. .

I addressed my return cards yesterday as I sat at a picnic table in the nearby forest. I will get them in the mail in the next few days. My son invited me to dinner in the forest and had all the necessary items to go with grilled Salmon. There’s nothing quite as tasty like food cooked on an open grill.

The weather has been blistering hot for way too long now. We deliberately waited till sunset for the temperature to drop below the 80 degree mark. It was pleasant as the sun dropped below the horizon and the moon slowly rose above the tree line. We had the place to ourselves and exited the park just before 10 PM.

My grandson and I had a great time climbing on some rocks and romping in the playground.

I’ve not been doing much radio the last couple of weeks. I haven’t been able to raise much enthusiasm. No doubt for those of you with jobs, being able to play radio all day would be a blissful situation. But it’s not much fun being in this small, sweaty shack in this hot, sunny weather. I’d really like to be able to get out and about in the beautiful Lakeland countryside, further than I can reach on my own two feet. And my hopes of doing that took a bit of a blow yesterday.

I did continue trying to get Google Chrome to run on my shack computer. For a short time I thought I had succeeded. I spotted that Microsoft .Net 3.5 was installed twice. I uninstalled both copies and Chrome appeared to be stable after that. Then I spotted Windows Update installing Net 3.5 again, and before I could stop it Chrome immediately crashed. I tried removing Net 3.5 again after disabling automatic updates, but this time it didn’t help. I could crash Chrome every single time I opened this post from PD0AC’s blog. Usually Chrome would just vanish from the screen, but other times I got blue-screen or black-screen error messages and once Windows XP spontaneously rebooted. So I have given up.

To all my readers and friends …….

I am migrating my e-mail over to gmail.  All [email protected] e-mail will now be routed over there.  If you think you’re having problems reaching me using the ARRL alias, and wish to try and reach me directly, going forward my primary e-mail address will be [email protected].

I’m just trying to consolidate as much as possible, so I don’t have to remember so many darn user names and passwords!

Thanks in advance for your cooperation!

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

The Drone It Yourself is a kit to take ordinary objects and turn them into flying remote-controlled drones.  The concept is simple: clamp four electric motors with propellers and a control unit onto whatever object you desire, and fly it around the neighborhood.

While it may be fun to terrorize the XYL or spy on the neighbors with this, I see this possibly having some useful real life applications in amateur radio.  I’m not sure of what kind of battery life this unit has, but imagine hovering a remote controlled HT at 80 feet for an ad hoc repeater.

A guy could really get into some trouble with one of these :-)