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An off topic item, I was shopping with my daughter Anna to Zaandam, diner in Egmond and to the beach at night with the horses. See how nice it is in the dunes and the beach in the near of my QTH. I made the video. Not much time for radio. The kids are having summer holidays. Next week we are in the South of France for 3 weeks. No radio this time, just books, iPad, and hopefully nice weather.

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

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

Some of us want to get rid of the Blogger Nav Bar on the top of the blog. Now we have XML templates, but how to remove the Nav Bar from a XML template, watch this video. My Blogger site is in Dutch, but I hope you understand what to do.

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

I had another good day out at the car today during lunch time.  Both 17 and 20 Meters were active and I nabbed three QSOs during my lunch break.

“What’s that got to do with your post title, W2LJ?” you might be asking yourself.

One of the stations I worked at lunch was HF80LOT.  You hear a call sign like that and your first impression is undoubtedly, “Huh? Where’s THAT?”  If you’re like me you prescribe to the “work ’em first, worry about the location later” theory, so that’s what I did.  It turns out that HF80LOT is a special event station in Poland that is commemorating the 80th anniversary of a trans-Atlantic flight by two Lithuanian pilots.  I sure wouldn’t have known that without the aid of QRZ or HamQTH, or one of the other fine call book services out there.  From the HF prefix, Poland was probably my last or next to last guess.  In fact, I wasn’t sure at first whether I was hearing 5F80LOT – at first I was guessing Serbia or somewhere around there.  Listening for a few times confirmed that it was HF80LOT, but I still had to look it up.  Exciting!

But lately, it seems like there’s been a smattering of special event call signs that either boggle your mind or tickle your ear in an effort to copy them correctly.  For example, here are some out of the ordinary ones that I have worked recently and you may have, too:  LZ1722SN, H70ORO, 9A282EU, LZ110RF, LZ1876SMB, and the prize winner SV2013ATGM.  Wow!  That’s a lot of letters and numbers and what’s up with you Hams in Bulgaria?  It’s almost like every one of you is running a special event this year!

Speaking of special events, I worked three more Colonies tonight, bringing my total to eleven.  Connecticut, Georgia and Pennsylvania are now in the log, and I also had a QSO with the bonus station, WM3PEN in Philadelphia, PA – Chaz behind the key.  I only need two more, New Hampshire and Maryland for the sweep.  If I can’t nab those two by the time this ends, I am going to be severely disappointed!  I’ve gotten a taste of the quarry and now I’m hungry for a clean sweep.

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].

Over the past few days if not weeks I have been getting updates on my Iphone of the solar conditions and it seemed solar flares were a dime a dozen!! Here at VE3WDM it's QRP all the way and max power is 5 watts. This evening I turned on the K3 and was not expecting to hear all that much and maybe just log some "local" QSO's. I was able to hear S573DX  and he was about an S9, I tried to make the contact using 1 watt but was only met with "VE3?" I then doubled the power and that did the trick with 2 watts for a 5NN and 2,222 miles per watt contact. I then spun the dial again and came across H70ORO from Nicaragua and was able to work him with 3 watts. I have for some reason always had trouble with South and Central America from my location but was thrilled to work him with only 3 watts for 729 miles per watt. That's not bad at all considering that part of the globe on a real good day is very hard for me to hit with a contact. Finally I was able to just at one point pick out Z33Z from the noise floor but as I was writing this post and listening Z33Z from Macedonia became an S5 signal. I decided to crank the power to a full 5 watts and give him a go. I made it but with a few repeats and Z33Z is in the log. That was it for the evening with ham radio I was very happy with the contacts that were made.
YOU GOTTA LOVE QRP!!!!
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

I’ve been so busy at work.over the last 2 months that I’ve barely turned a rig on. It hasn’t stopped me sending off a rant to the rsgb rag about the lack of focus on celebrating successes that our young and newcomers achieve as well as the price of new gear. That’s another story though. Needless to say I expect a few comments.

Onto more positive things. This weekend is the VHF NFD and a bunch of us will be active on 2m and 6m from corney fell. We’ll be in the single transmitter category and expect a couple of hundred contacts at best and a few gallons of tea and a hundredweight of biscuits. Definitely my kind of contest.

Looking forward to working you all…listen out for MX0WRC

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].