AmateurRadio.com

I had some spare time today  and was able to get on the radio! Over the past month or so it has been lots of work and no time to play radio. Today while on 20m CW  I was able to snag HA7GN from Hungary, IQ0PG from Italy I was given special report number of UN90ARI1.  According to their site this qualifies me for there ARI 90 years award. The last contact of the day was IO0MDC again from Italy and this call was in celebration of 20 years for the Mediterraneo DX club. I was thrilled with
these short contacts and I really was only on for about 20 min's. On a side note.........I have posted in the past that I am the proud owner of an Elecraft K-pod. This thing works great and is a great asset to the shack. It has 8 programmable push buttons, at my age I loose track of what is on what button! I came up with an idea of adding some magnetic strips with the naming of each of the buttons. Since they are magnetic I can remove them when the button macro has been changed or rearrange them if need be.

I had some spare time today  and was able to get on the radio! Over the past month or so it has been lots of work and no time to play radio. Today while on 20m CW  I was able to snag HA7GN from Hungary, IQ0PG from Italy I was given special report number of UN90ARI1.  According to their site this qualifies me for there ARI 90 years award. The last contact of the day was IO0MDC again from Italy and this call was in celebration of 20 years for the Mediterraneo DX club. I was thrilled with
these short contacts and I really was only on for about 20 min's. On a side note.........I have posted in the past that I am the proud owner of an Elecraft K-pod. This thing works great and is a great asset to the shack. It has 8 programmable push buttons, at my age I loose track of what is on what button! I came up with an idea of adding some magnetic strips with the naming of each of the buttons. Since they are magnetic I can remove them when the button macro has been changed or rearrange them if need be.

Good afternoon from VE3WDM, it's a Sunday afternoon and the weather is sunny with a high of +10C. It was a nice day for a walk which my wife and I did mid afternoon. Once home it was time to setup for the software for the up coming CQ WW CW contest. There were some bugs I had to workout with the software and I did without issue. Then there were some minor issues that I am just going to forget about for now. For example I have no idea why my Winkeyer USB when N1MM+ is running will allow me to only control the CW speed but for some reason I just can't seem to communicate with the Winkeyer to setup and execute macros?? I'm not going to sweat it as in the past I have found that once you start monkeying around with the different pieces of software things that did not work now work...........BUT things that did work DONT!
While setting things up I did have the K3 on and the P3 waterfall viewing the 20m band. I did notice TL8AO and the HUGE pileup that was "UP" 2 KHz on the band. Funny thing as I was listening I did find an op more often than not calling on TL8AO's calling freq and not splitting "UP" On the waterfall of the P3 I did notice a new strong CW signal appear so I pointed and clicked over to it. It was HI3Y in the Dominican calling CQ and "UP". I listened as I setup the split and he seemed to be calling without a pileup. I threw my call out there and he came back to me with a report. He was in the books just that easy...now only if my 5 watts could break the pileup with TL8AO that fast! Time to start dinner now.......Tenderloin steak on the BBQ, mini potatoes on the BBQ with butter and rosemary and finally butternut squash........yum! 

Good afternoon from VE3WDM, it's a Sunday afternoon and the weather is sunny with a high of +10C. It was a nice day for a walk which my wife and I did mid afternoon. Once home it was time to setup for the software for the up coming CQ WW CW contest. There were some bugs I had to workout with the software and I did without issue. Then there were some minor issues that I am just going to forget about for now. For example I have no idea why my Winkeyer USB when N1MM+ is running will allow me to only control the CW speed but for some reason I just can't seem to communicate with the Winkeyer to setup and execute macros?? I'm not going to sweat it as in the past I have found that once you start monkeying around with the different pieces of software things that did not work now work...........BUT things that did work DONT!
While setting things up I did have the K3 on and the P3 waterfall viewing the 20m band. I did notice TL8AO and the HUGE pileup that was "UP" 2 KHz on the band. Funny thing as I was listening I did find an op more often than not calling on TL8AO's calling freq and not splitting "UP" On the waterfall of the P3 I did notice a new strong CW signal appear so I pointed and clicked over to it. It was HI3Y in the Dominican calling CQ and "UP". I listened as I setup the split and he seemed to be calling without a pileup. I threw my call out there and he came back to me with a report. He was in the books just that easy...now only if my 5 watts could break the pileup with TL8AO that fast! Time to start dinner now.......Tenderloin steak on the BBQ, mini potatoes on the BBQ with butter and rosemary and finally butternut squash........yum! 

I was reading a fellow blogger Bob VA3QV post about the CQ WW CW 2015 contest and how he did in the contest. It got me thinking to head over to see how I did, I gave a rather part time effort and the conditions were not all that great...surprise surprise. Since moving into the condo I have not been giving the CW contests the effort I have in the past. I entered the contest Single op, QRP single band (15m). I read the results with shock........1st place in Canada, 10th in North America and 29th in the world. I was pleasantly surprised.

I have been using a PC program called Morse runner and going to the LCWO website to increase my contest cw receiving speed and keyboard skill. I wanted to take it up a notch to what I consider a must have contest skill. The skill I am referring to is the ability to exchange contest info with my Iambic key ( Begali Contour) and not only the keyboard. Both Morse Runner and the tools from the LCWO site have been a great help with improving my keyboard and receiving speed and moving it forward. What I'm looking for and asking my blog readers input on is......a PC program similar to Morse Runner were I can use my key to interact with the program. Morse Runner sends you a call, you enter the call in the program (it checks you have enter proper call) then a contest report comes your way you enter it and the program sends your report. If all the info checks out as correct you are able to move on the the next contact. Does anyone know of a PC program out there were I can use my key and not keyboard to brush up on my key proficiency within a contest environment.

Oh and by the way of a radio report..... I was on the rig yesterday not much going on the CW portion of 20m and 30m during the early part of the afternoon. I ventured back around 22:00 UTC and 20m was sending some DX my way. Some of the stations heard but I was unable to contact were LZ300MSP (that call is a key full), T77CS, EA3AIZ from Spain struggled to hear my QRP signal but there was just to much QSB at his end. All was not lost DL3DXX heard me in Germany and gave me a 559 report.