Posts Tagged ‘awards’
Logs and QSL cards
April 22nd, 2012 | 
Author: Since I logged my first HF QSO back in 2005 I have been using one type or another of software logging. I have also enjoyed exchanging QSL cards but never developed a good system at keeping them organized. Jumping from one logging program to the next, managing the “sent” and “received” QSL card fields have been hit or miss. A good portion of my contacts were uploaded to eQSL. Some were pushed out to LoTW. But I am not at all certain that either accurately reflects all my logged contacts. Compounding the problem has been multiple moves and military facilitated DXpeditions to Iraq and Korea. So what I am left with is a filing cabinet drawer full of QSL cards and a hard drive full of various log files.
It would be nice to get this mess sorted out.
I taking a three-step approach to establish order out of chaos.
(1) Gather all my software based log files. Use a file format compatible with fldigi and convert all the log files accordingly… with the end result of one consolidated log.
(2) Organize all QSL cards by date. I have a few boxes that QSL cards fit in nicely as well as tabbed dividers. This will allow me to fairly easily crosscheck the cards I have against the digital log.
(3) Stick with fldigi as my logging program. Update the QSL card “sent” and “receive” fields as I mail out cards or receive them. File received cards by date of contact.
(BONUS) I am pretty sure I achieved DXCC back in 2007, but have never been able to sit down and pull out the 100 cards I need. With a consolidated log and QSL cards organized by date, I will be able to easily find my 100 cards.
Saturday afternoon radio surprises
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| The view from JY5HX's beam |
Just a short time later on 20m's TM27UFT out of France had a pileup and I jumped in to see what would happen with my 2 watts. This again is another special event station out of France. It was for the Union Francaise des Telegraphistes 27th meeting. I made contact after 4 tries and because of the pileup he had it was strictly business and off to the next station in the Q.
The big event of the day for me was seeing a spot on the cluster for JY5HX out of Jordan. If I made this contact it was another DXCC for me and a first for contacting anyone in the middle East. So this was serous business I cranked the K3 up to 5 watts as my Jubilee DXCC is going to be all QRP. I double clicked on the spot and to my surprise I could hear JY5HX from just above the noise level to about an S3 at times. There have been many times when I see a spot on the cluster and head there to just hear noise so this sure was a surprise. On went the headphones and so began my what I thought to be a long round of calling into the pileup. Funny thing was there was no pileup and the next funny but great thing was he came back to me on my third call to him. Now JY5HX is in the log book and that brings my QRP DXCC count up to 68! Using 5 watts along with my attic dipole for this contact it turned out to be 1172 miles per watt.
ARRL DX CW contest done for 2012
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| Action on 20m |
- As always I operate the contest QRP at 5 watts but I also I was able at times to drop the power down to 5mW's. My longest miles per watts in this contest was 9339 miles per watt.
- I was able to collect 65 DXCC countries during the contest.
- I made it into Japan and Hawaii with 5 watts I tried lower power setting but it was not working.
- All bands (for me that's 10,15,20 and 40m) were open at one time or another and I had contacts on all these bands.
Contest downside
- This was the one and only downside I found for the whole contest.....at times when I came across rare DX and rightfully so there was a pileup. I found some stations would continue to send their call even over the DX station who was trying to answer a call. It's hard to find a hole to enter your call when (and they were very few) operators keep sending their call no matter what is going on in the pileup.
New 1000 mile per watt record………
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| The excitement had me fill in the wrong band a new one is coming for 14 MHZ (click for full size) |
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| Attic dipole (click to enlarge) |
my miles per watt all time high was 8325 miles per watt!! Now you also have to remember I am not running a huge tower loaded with eye candy beams. My radio waves into ham land are done with an attic dipole in a "Z" configuration (Alpha Delta DX-EE), so it has a nice wooden roof above an insulated ceiling below. Yes it is not the latest and greatest of antennas but I'm not doing to bad with it. During the contest I dropped the Elecraft K3's power to 500mW's to see what I could do. To my surprise ZS4TX came back to me... I made contact and exchanged contest info. After the contest I emailed ZS4TX (Bernie) and he was shocked that I was running QRPp at 500mW's. My signal according to Bernie was above average into South Africa. So my new "to beat record" is 16,737 miles per watt I more than doubled my last record!!!
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| The folded or "Z" part (click to enlarge) |
CQWW CW at 500mW’s
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| Contest time |
1. Relax and have fun contacting hams all over the world.
2. Run most if not all the contest QRPp at 500mW's.
3. As I finish a contact check out the ham on QRZ.COM and learn about them and their station as I cruz for another contact.
4. Beat my miles per watt record of 8325 miles per watt.
5. Try to beat the 300 contact wall.........never stood a chance as I was doing to much of goal number 1 and 3!!!
So how did things go???
I got a late start on Saturday around 10:30 a.m local time, yes the contest did start on Friday but that was dinner and a movie at home with Julie. I was very impressed how open the bands were like 10m and 15m's those two bands were my staple bands for the whole contest. Below is a highlight of the top contacts for the weekend all with 500mW's.contact Miles Miles per watt (.5 watts) Kilo's
1. ZS4TX 8368 16737.20 26935.91
2. EM2T 4742 9484 15263.91
3. 4O3RR 4695.2 9390.32 15112.26
4. IR8C 4568 9137.34 14705.12
5. HG1S 4415 8831.18 14212.41
6. 9A1P 4360.22 8721.85 14036.46
7. S50K 4358.0 8717.05 14028.74
8. IR8C 4290.22 8580.43 13808.86
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| Keeping track of mileage |
Over all I made 106 contacts out of that 84 contacts were made with 500mW's 21 with 5 watts and one contact on 40 meters with 50 watts. It seems that on 40m I just was not cutting it and to make a contact I had to raise the power to 50 watts. So that was the last contact on 40 meters. As for beating records I was thrilled to contact ZS4TX which got me 16737.20 miles per watt!!!!! Not only that in this contest I was able to make 30 contacts that topped my 8325 watt per mile record. Now running 500mW's did bring my QSO count down as there was lots of repeats I had to do. I just want to thank the op's out there who stuck with me and asked over and over again for my call instead of just moving on.
Earlier I did say that I was never going to win a contest but in closing I have said this before in the blog..............there should be a QRPp category. There is QRP but running 5 watts is different from pumping out Milli-watts. Well change does take time and maybe in time there will be a spot just for QRPp.
The contest ended for VE3WDM as follows
Number of QSO's Multipliers Total points
106 77 23,408
New wallpaper just arrived
These arrived the other day and came undamaged just have to get them up on the wall.
