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My contest screen

Ham radio is very diverse and has something that seems to click with each radio operator. One of my "clicks" is contesting and I also add to it the flavor of QRP (another one of my clicks). I enjoy using my PC in conjunction with ham radio and when it comes to contesting a PC is almost a must have. The program I use for contesting is N1MM logger. It 's a great program and works very well, has great support and I'm not sure of any contests that it does not support. Over time I have added some programs to my contest repertoire. I found that controlling N1MM got me used to using my mouse and that is the way to go when it comes to contesting. I then came across N4PY's rig control program. It's another way to incorporate my mouse to allow me control of my K3 during contests. This program is very well supported and the times I have emailed questions and got a reply within 1/2  hour!! This program will allow you to control most if not all functions of your radio with the click of a mouse. In a contest this is great because you are not going from mouse (N1MM logger) and back to the radio. For me it's more of a smooth type of operation using the mouse.  Hold on....my contest hangup gets weirder.....I have a keyboard tray that supports my keyboard,
Begali Contour key and why not VFO control as well!!!  Now comes the Flexcontrol VFO knob. This is a USB device that allows  you to tune your rig (and more) from where you ask.....well the keyboard tray of VSP manager to the mix. This great little program (that is free to hams) allows all the programs to live happily with each other.

FlexControl knob

coarse!  N4PY's programs allows you to interface the Flexcontrol with your rig through his program. I did say the Flexcontrol did more than just tune, it has 4 memory buttons that can be programed through N4PY's program to preform often used radio functions.  Also the VFO knob can go from fine tune to three other tuning choices by just clicking the knob! To do  this the radio, Flexcontrol knob and N1MM all have to be happy coexisting with each other. To do this  I added
You all know how it is when you have had a nice dinner and there is still room for a nice desert......well my nice dinner on my keyboard tray was the Flexcontrol knob, Begali Contour key and the mouse....there is still room for one more item! I added the K1EL USBwinkey which I assembled myself.  The N1MM contest program is able to incorporate the Winkeyer in it's program, so when I program the CW messages into the winkeyer they will be used by N1MM when I mouse click on the N1MM macro button. This is great because the Winkeyer is very easy to program and you can save various keying programs into individual files. This way I will have a file for each CW contest and just a mouse click to program N1MM for each CW contest.  If all files are stored on my PC and the Winkeyer is set up via the PC and CW is set through N1MM logger then why the heck does the Winkeyer have to be on the tray!!! Well Winkeyer has a nice variable pot control that can vary the CW on the fly. This way for op's who are sending slower or faster CW you can be varied  by a simple turn of the Winkeyer knob.

Keyboard tray setup

Finally there are those out there that subscribe to the KISS theory.....Keep it simple stupid......and this is true when you introduce other factors with ham radio. As for me trying and sometime failing is well worth it when in time all comes together and works well.

This sure was a weekend were the solar activity played a huge role in contest endurance. I entered the contest QRP at 5 watts. I did not turn the rig on Friday evening as I find the start of these contests can get very very busy. I was on and off both Saturday and Sunday. I put in about 5 hours on Saturday and on Sunday it was around 3 hours. Sunday was spent getting household chores done and spare time was on the radio.

Lots of  Solar action

I had a total of 92 contacts my score was 18,800 points and 80 WPX contacts. I did have a blast when I was in the contest and for the first time ever I was contently having to repeat my call and my exchange due to solar conditions.

1. When running N1MM logging program, N4PY rig control software and the Flex Radio Flexcontrol vfo knob all together through LP-Bridge some very very strange things can happen. This resulted in some lost contacts and down time due to software issues.Going to have to get these programs to shake hands and get along.
2. Funny thing.....I have been practicing my contest CW code with Morse runner and using my laptop. Well it would seem that my fingers became very familar with the smaller keyboard on the laptop. When I contested on my home PC and regular sized keyboard I was making mistake after mistake while keyboarding calls and exchanges. I do have a smaller keyboard for the desktop PC and started to use it towards the end. Going to have to stick to the same keyboard as it seems size does matter.

Most of the time during these full weekend contests I don't get on Friday evening as I find it to be a ZOO with lots of stations sending at a blinding speeds. I don't blame them as they want to get their score rolling so that on Saturday they are well in the game. I started on Saturday morning around 8 in the morning the power output is 5 watts QRP into my attic dipole. It's funny I was sending serial numbers in the teens and I am receiving serial numbers the the triple digits. Now that would be depressing if I was in the contest to make a showing...but I'm in it to have fun!! So how did the first day go......

1. The propagation was.....shall we say (because this is a family blog) crap!! 
2. I was in the contest for a grand total of 5 hours today. 
3. There was some down time as you can tell from fact number 2...software troubles, USB port trouble and K3 updates and the list can go on.  (This is normal contest OMG stuff)
4. The attic dipole once again did very well considering the conditions.
5. The evening once 20m closes down I am done as with the poor conditions for some reason 40m has not been a great band for me with the attic dipole. 

No contacts heard or made but it's working

Good afternoon from the shack of VE3WDM, it's a long weekend up this way with Monday being a holiday! I have been seeing lots of posts about Dayton and a huge amount of tweets. It would seem that most if not all major manufactures have some new goodies they are premiering at Dayton. For those of you who read this blog and are sending use the news of Dayton.......KEEP IT UP!! So what's new around here.....well I have updated my VE3WDM K2 build blog with a new page. This is my second Elecraft K2 I have built and I wanted to blog about it. I want to highlight the build as well try to make this blog a good resource  for ham radio kit builders. This K2 build is taking longer with taking pictures and blogging about it but I am having a hoot. Today I decided to get WSPR going once again in the shack, well I must admit that at first it was to TRY to get WSPR going again. I did have WSPR installed and running with my K3 in the past and for some reason (as I have found many digi modes do) the rig would not come out of transmit. No matter what I did I could not  repair this odd event. Today I decided to remove the WSPR program from my PC and start fresh. I am happy to say that all is working well agian. A fellow blogger Bas had mentioned to me while I was comparing my attic dipole to my new Alexloop antenna that WSPR would be a very good way to compare the two. At this point this evening I am just making sure WSPR is functioning as it should and so far all looks well. My next step will be to put the attic dipole up against the Alexloop.

The IMac and KX3

For those of you who are regular readers of my blog know that I run an Elecraft K3 along with Windows XP programs. I also have the Elecraft KX3 that runs on Mac programs. My eyes were sure opened up to the software programs out there for ham's running on Mac machines. I will admit for this long time Windows user getting the swing of Mac took some time.....and I am not done learning as of yet! My wife Julie is very much into photography she has a Mac pro laptop and did have the IMac desktop PC. Some months ago she felt it

Downsizing

was time to part with the IMac. I simply walked the IMac down the hall to my shack and hooked the KX3 up and thus began the Mac adventure. Julie since then has been taking some evening College course's in photography, this has put a flame to her picture taking!  As they say " to make a long story short" the IMac has found it's former home in Julie's office down the hall. I am now a strict Windows ham again! It sure was a fun ride and maybe in time the funds will come in to get a Mac of my own.

CT8/PA4N

I finally had a chance to fire up the K3 on Monday afternoon, it has been a very busy weekend besides I have been reading on most blogs how poor the conditions were....even for the digi folks. It was very windy and cold up this way on Monday with the surprise of snow in the morning. We have some 230KV lines at the back of the house and when they start to blowing around some (I guessing) loose insulator cause me some QRN. The blogs were spot on and the bands were not in real good shape at all besides the power line QRN was not helping either. Later in the afternoon the winds settled and the bands had some CW spikes showing on the P3 here and there.

230KV lines out back

I was on 20m and heard CT8/PA4N who was operating from Sao Miguel island (EU-003) on the Azores.  Frank was only going to be on the island until April 3rd so I wanted to give him a shot. The band was not busy at all, they were not running split and since conditions were not that great I pumped the K3 up to 5 watts. With only one repeat of my call I made the contact. As I was entering the logging info into DxLabs there was a pileup developing so it would seem I got in at the right time.  I also noticed that fellow blogger John N8ZYA has also made contact with the team as well.