Posts Tagged ‘Contesting’

QRP ARCI Summer Homebrew Sprint

Is this coming Sunday from 20:00 to 24:00 UTC. That’s from 4:00 to 8:00 PM EDT for those of us here on the East Coast. I will have to participate as W2LJ/2 (technically), as I won’t be home. Tomorrow we’re leaving for our yearly sojourn to Lake George, NY.

Of course, the KX3, Buddistick, and PAR ENDFEDZ 40/20/10 will be accompanying me. Not sure if I’ll operate from near the cabin with the Buddistick, or perhaps from a park, or even from a nearby mountaintop with the PAR.

In any event, I am looking forward to some well deserved R&R. I anticipate a lot of reading, and a lot of radio in addition to all the fresh mountain air and cool lake breezes.

I have some good books loaded on my kindle, including James Rollins’ new one, “The Eye of God”. If this Sigma Force novel is as good as his others, I should burn through it in two or three days. For the past several years, I have been able to read two books during our time up north. In addition to Rollins’ new one, I also have several of David Baldacci’s novels loaded on the kindle.

FYI, any requests for Skeeter numbers will be processed when I return. So if you send me an e-mail, I will acknowledge it, and I may even issue you a number. However, I won’t be able to update the online roster until I return.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

VHF field day

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

You can sign up!

Rich Fisher KI6SN, has begun issuing Bee numbers for the 2013 Flight of the Bumblebees. I signed up this evening, and was awarded Number 16.

You can get your own Bee number, by going to the ARS blog. All the instructions are there. You can view the Bumblebee numbers already give out by clicking here.

Pick out three numbers you would like (that aren’t already taken) and then send an e-mail to: [email protected]

Include your name, your call, where you plan on operating from, and your three number choices.

It’s that easy!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Field Day – this the way to do it.

Field Day, as it should be. QRP, fun and good friends.  This is a wonderful example of putting out the maximum effort to get the most out “of sending the very least!”

I’ve worked these fine folks individually many times over the years. It’s so nice to be able to put faces and voices to the people “behind the code”.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP -When you care to send the very least!

Some thoughts

Argh! If my head wasn’t screwed on, I would probably forget that, too!

Rem K6BBQ wanted me to mention that he has added a SOTA category to this year’s inaugural Scorch Your Butt Off contest, coming this July. If you activate a SOTA summit, you can claim an additional 100 points to your SYBO score. Please keep in mind that this has NOTHING to do with your SOTA activation points, this is for your SYBO score only.

I had my last Pastoral Council meeting tonight, so I didn’t get the chance to put any more radials down this evening. I have served on the Parish Pastoral Council for the last four years. Two meetings a month, all year around. That may not sound like much, but there are always many peripheral duties involved, as well as peripheral events where attendance was not mandatory, but desired. The normal term of service is three years, but I was asked to, and served for four. Now that these are going to be over, I will be able to attend Amateur Radio club meetings again. I hesitated to in the past, as I always tried to keep away from being out of the house multiple nights a week. To say my attendance of club meetings was sporadic is being generous. It was, for all intent and purpose, non-existant.

This Friday evening is an Electronic Testing Society of NJ meeting. Fancy name for a repeater club meeting, eh? The group is better known as the Greenbrook repeater group, and the meetings are always the last Friday of the month. Even though this would mean being out two evenings this week, I am going to make a best effort to attend, so as to get back into the swing of things.

I also hope to attend a lot more VE sessions when license exam season starts up again in earnest this September. I have always enjoyed being a VE, going back to the days when I regularly attended and volunteered at the sessions that were offered by the Raritan Bay Radio Amateurs.

I had to go to a remote site at work today, so I didn’t get in my lunchtime QRP session, so no photos today, maybe tomorrow, weather permitting (but alas, it seems there’s a 75% chance of rain for tomorrow).

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

My first ever field day is over…………

The Saturday afternoon sky
Not sure why but I have never taken part in any field day, I can remember there have been some years were I was busy. I have often seen field day setups as I drove from here to there but as I said I have never been involved in one. Well 2013 field day was my first I was not with a group from a club but did it on my own. Not because I'm not into clubs but was not sure if this year I would be busy doing other things as Julie's
Saturdays operating position
relatives are in from England. It turned out I was able to get some time in on Saturday and Sunday and I had a blast. I was operating search and pounce and was using my KX3 on battery power only. I did bring along my spare battery but did not have to use it either day. My antenna was a mobile whip and I stayed on 20m for the contest. I was reading on twitter how 10m and 15m were dead. Funny thing too I was also reading other twitter posts of how this was a field day with very little action on the bands. I found things to be very busy and I was always able to make a contact....well hear them but maybe not make the contact. It sure was a change to not have my PC with me during a contest. I was hand writing my log and also having to run down my contact list to see if I have worked the station already. I did get a few "worked B4" but that was due to the fact I was not able to see them in my log sheets. At the start of the contest I was getting asked to repeat my category almost every contact!! That told me I was for sure messing something up, turns out I was
Sundays spot...lunch time
Sundays weather
sending B1 and not 1B as a category....sorry to all those who I threw off at the start of the contest. Once I got the exchange sorted out all was going very well. The weather on Saturday was touch and go there was very severe weather clouds moving overhead all the time. I must say for the time I was out on Saturday I did not have rain at all. On Sunday it was once again very humid and HOT HOT!! The nice thing about Sunday was the bad weather seemed to had taken a good long break. On Sunday I went to a different spot, it was a nice park just north of me. I did have some folks stop by to see what I was up too but none hung around to long. When the contest was over I was on the air for only a total of 4 hours and I made 50 contacts CW only. I was operating at 4 watts on the internal batteries of the KX3.  I had a nice time and was able to give the Elecraft KX3 a good workout. So as I said this was my first ever Field day and I will for sure be putting this contest in the calender for next year.

20m from the car….and snagged nothing!


My portable mobile by the river.
It was another great day  here and I wanted to get all the house chores done and get on to some radio stuff! I wanted to get out and about with my KX3 so today I decided to operate from the car with my 20m whip antenna. Not sure how charged up the KX3 battery was I took along with me my new external battery just in case a low battery issue came about. The All Asia contest is on so the bands could be busy with DX and I wanted to be there to make some contacts. I found a nice place in town along the river were I was able to stay in the car as the bugs are very bad at this time of year. The bands were alive with DX, the first station that was booming in was JH4UYB from Japan then came RN3F from Russia, OH2BV from Finland, LY6A from Lithuania and finally UP2L who was 17 years old by the way from Kazakhstan. All GREAT DX but none of which could hear my 5 watts from the portable setup. I then moved on to just
A view down the river
calling CQ at the 20m watering hole. I did get a response from W5ESE from Texas but conditions changed very fast and he was still trying to pull out my call form the mud. The 2 hours went by very fast without really one confirmed contact! It was now time to pack up and head for home and try to make some contacts on the Elecraft K3  this evening.
On a side note.......last night I did make contact with a new DXCC 7Z1HL from Saudi Arabia! 

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  • Matt W1MST, Managing Editor