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The good news is that I am comfortable enough at the new job, where now I don’t mind heading out to the car to conduct lunchtime QRP sessions. You always kind of wonder at a new place …. what will they say, you know ……. about that guy that sticks the antenna on his car roof and starts doing something with a small radio ….. is he a spy?  A drug dealer?  Some kind of foreign agent?  As it turns out, the parking lot is HUGE and nobody pays me any mind.

The past few days, I was getting skunked. No contacts, and in fact I wasn’t even hearing much of anything. And silly me, the last thing I think is “dead bands” – nope, the first thing I think is “Crud!  What did I do to the rig?”  “Did I mess up the antenna?”  Stuff like that – the first thing I think is that it was me,  I screwed something up!

But today ……. today allayed all my concerns.  Today, 17 Meters during lunchtime was almost magical.  In short order I worked Milan OK1KW in Praha in the Czech Republic.  Milan was calling “CQ FISTS” and I answered and we ended up having a very pleasant QSO.  Milan was 589 in NJ and I received a 549 in return.

After ending the QSO with Milan, I heard Frank OV1CDX calling “CQ DX”.  I figured to myself, “Hey, I just worked the Czech Republic, so why not Denmark?”  I put my call out  a few times and Frank answered. He was a good strong 599 in NJ and I earned a 559 in return.  Cool – the band was hot!

So now the decision comes about ….. “I have 15 minutes left. Do I tear down and head back in, or do I try for one more?” No contest! Try for one more, as the signals were abundant.  And I did, and I made it!

This time I worked Serge R6YY.  This was the tough one of my session, as I had to send my information to Serge several times.  Thanks to his fantastic ears, we were able to complete the QSO.  Serge was only 579 here in NJ, and I was only 439 in return.  A tough one, but we did it!

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

It’s always been a dream of mine to put on glasses that allow you to see only waves of RF emitting, reflecting and illuminating the world around you…this would make my job so much easier too!

Well, there just so happens to be such a thing that allows you to see RF…it only requries about 3 acres and 250 antenna elements, a supercomputer and a fast internet connection.

The LWA near the VLA

The Long Wavelength Array is a seemingly random assortment of crossed dipole pairs with a frequency response of 10-88 MHz. Every antenna is separetly fed into a giant computer that correlates and beamforms the array into a giant RF eye looking at the sky.

LWA Dipole Detail with the VLA in the background

And by eye I really mean it sees the RF world above it in real time:

Above is a real time view of the sky above the LWA (hit F5 to refresh, I dare ya!). During the day you can see the sun and several radio sources like Cas A, Tau A, and Cyg A which are galaxies, pulsars, and other nebulae of ridiculously “loud” RF emitters. Also, at the top and top left, you can see RFI from the VLA site, which is one of the things we’re working to alleviate.

Another cool thing it can do is plot spectrum over the whole day:

This shows the intensity at all frequencies between 10 and 90 MHz over a 24 hour period starting at 17:00 PST 11 July 2012. You can watch the nighttime MUF drop between 00:00 and 06:00 PST, and surge again at sunrise. Other strange and interesting patterns exist as well — check out the index at http://lwalab.phys.unm.edu/lwatv/ovro and see what you can find.

Ckeck out their website at www.phys.unm.edu/~lwa/lwatv.html and read technical information about the LWA here, and an even more technical dissertation here.

73!

Sterling Coffey, NØSSC, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com. He is ARRL Youth Editor and an electrical engineering student at Missouri S&T. Contact him at [email protected].

Busy making contacts

The idea was floated earlier this week about going to the beach on Thursday. The weather looked great I had Thursday and Friday off so the decision was made! There is a nice spot that Julie and I go to all the time called Port Dover on lake Erie. This town is famous for it's Friday the 13th motorcycle gathering. Thousands of  bikes head to Port Dover for a massive get together.  On most weekends the beach is packed so going during the week we were not expecting huge crowds and hard to find parking. Turned out the crowds were small and I was able to park right at the beach with only a 10 pace walk to the car to get anything we needed. The wheels started to spin in my head on Wednesday evening about making this an HF/beach day. I have the Elecraft KX3 and it's all charged up this time, but I also have my extra battery I purchased. Julie thought it was a great idea as long as HF did not take over the day. So with moderation in mind I packed up the KX3 along with the extra battery. The antenna was going to be my mobile whip antenna with coax out to my rig. The Alexloop would have been nice but not knowing how crowed the beach was I left it at home.

back on the beach

I set up the rig, antenna and the lawn chair just beside Julies car....oh as a side note we had to bring both our cars as Julies relatives are in from England for a few more weeks. Our cars would not fit us and the beach gear........... I drifted a bit back to radio. The antenna was on the back of my car and with the pressing of two buttons on the KX3 the HF adventure began.
I was calling CQ at the 20m QRP watering hole and I first had N0FKC come back to me Piether was just outside Minneapolis I gave him a 559 report but once I gave it back to him the conditions had drastically changed. He was in at the noise floor and I must had been the same to him. He was in the process of sending me 73's. So that QSO did not last long at all.

View from the patio

I then put my call out again and KA3LOC came back to me with a 599 signal. We were able to spend more time in a QSO. Eric was in Kansas  and also gave me a 599 report. He was running 5 watts compared to my 3 watts. We said 73's and it was time then for me to pack things in and go back to reading and relaxing. Then it was off to the local watering hole for the famous Lake Erie perch dinner on the patio that looks out over the beach.  I was nice I had about a total of 2 hours on the radio and some great beach time.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

The DX'er came up the hill with a brochure in his hand. The QRP'ers gathered around to see what new toy the DX'er was about to describe. "I just got a new car" he said, "And, I probably get twice the mileage of my old car". The QRP'ers nodded their approval as he expounded, at length, on the features of his new vehicle and when he finished he concluded, "You QRP'ers should do your part to conserve, we can't be wasteful, it's important that we are efficient with our resources". The QRP'ers were taken aback by this comment as conservation hadn't been a concern of DX'er before.

 The QRP'ers looked at each other to silently elect the leader of this counter attack. One of them pulled out a Cerficate that they had been discussing prior the DX'er's arrival on the scene. "We do our part, in fact ,look at this". The DX'er looked at the piece of paper and dismissively said, " Oh, another one of those silly QRP awards, what is so special about 1,000 miles per watt?". The QRP'ers had sly smiles on the their faces as they knew he had taken the bait. "You guys should get real radios so you can be heard, I was talking to my buddy this morning, he said I was 20 over 9". "That's interesting" said the QRP'er, "how far does your friend live from here?" This a question that QRP'ers have to ask because it's in their DNA. "I don't know maybe 1,500 miles, why do you ask?" said the DX'er. "Did you work him barefoot?' asked the QRP'er putting a little honey on the bait. " Absoulutely not" said the DX'er, " I run the full legal limit". The trap had been set and the DX'er had yet to recognize it, although he sensed that danger was just ahead. "So let me calculate that..hmmm..1 mile per watt" said one of the QRP'ers acting like he really had to think hard on the calculation. The DX'er shuffled his feet, now understanding the danger was closer than he thought. There was moment of silence as the QRP'ers moved into position. "So  your new car gets twice the mileage of your old car?"  "Yes" said the DX'er delighted at the change of topic. "Well it looks like you don't do so well with your watts out from your station" The DXer now realized his doom,"as we QRP'ers easily get 1,000 times the mileage with our watts as you do. You should really do more to conserve with your radio as well". The DX'er pondered one of the Mysteries of the Ages, "Less is more and more is less" said the QRP'er, "the less power I use the more miles per watt I get the more power I get the less my miles per watt are".

The DX'er saw no way out," I suppose that's true" he said, but silently he thought, "isn't more, more?".  "I have to get back now, I think my wife has some things for me to do" he said,  The QRP'ers knew this to be false, but acknowledged his need to escape.

"Enjoy that new car" the QRP'ers shouted as he walked back down the hill in silence and they continued to admire the 1,000 Mile Per Watt certificate.
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Attention all radio amateurs, this weekend is ARRL Field Day! Don’t forget to get on the air.

Field Day is a flexible event, so it can be anything you want it to be: camping weekend, stay at home, participate with your club, go mobile, whatever you desire. Remember to season to taste.

One more thing: Field Day is not a contest. But you can still keep score.

Oh, remember that the national simplex FM calling frequency of 146.52 MHz should not be used for making Field Day contacts. Like all contests…wait Field Day is not a contest. Whatever.

- 73, Bob K0NR

 

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

A lot, if not most of you probably have Field Day plans for the weekend. Not me.

There are several clubs in the area that have operations going on, but none really super close. Marianne is working on Saturday, and I don’t want to go anyplace farther from home, while leaving the kids home alone.

So, if everything goes according to plan, I want to spend the afternoon putting down more radials for the Butternut. The goal is to get about a dozen to twenty more radials down, after mowing the lawn. That would give me a total of 36 to 46 radials total, depending on how many I get down.

The Butternut really plays well with the current 25 radials that I already have in place. Some more can only make things better.

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].

A couple of times in the last week, I’ve heard two Italian repeaters on 50MHz from the mobile. Most regularly I have heard one on 50.500 but I have also heard one on 50.800.

Of course, I wondered where they were. IK2ANE has a good repeater list but I can’t see either frequency mentioned.

It’s possible that the repeaters are not Italian and were just being used by Italian stations! It’s also possible they weren’t amateur stations – no call signs were heard!

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].