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I actually had a meeting to attend this evening; but I must confess that I played hooky   My attendance was not mandatory, so I decided to stay home and play in the monthly NAQCC Sprint. I am glad I did, as I had the best time I’ve had in a while.

I must be getting back into the swing of things, as I was able to make 34 contacts in the two hours.  I am sure that puts me nowhere even close to the top. But it sure beats my efforts in the past couple of months, where I had only made 19 -20 QSOs per Sprint.

Conditions were decent on 20 Meters, where I made 8 QSOs; but the money band was 40 Meters.  With the exception of one measly QSO on 80 Meters, the balance were made on 40 Meters.  I was even able to hold a frequency and run it for a period of time, like I used to in the past. Man, that was fun!

I used the KX3 all night, but I used two different antennas. The HF9V vertical was used for 20 Meters, while the 88′ EDZ antenna was the mainstay for 40 Meters.  Activity remained pretty steady throughout the Sprint, except for the last 20 minutes or so.  By then, no one was answering my CQs and searching and pouncing landed me only a few calls that I had not worked before.

The main thing was the fun factor however, and that was very high! High marks go to the NAQCC for providing a good Sprint opportunity each and every month.

One thing I do have to sheepishly admit to, however. After all these years of either using paddles or a bug, my form with a straight key needs work. Two hours of using my Speed-X and my wrist is hurting! Nothing that won’t go away by tomorrow, though.

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

BOGO – Buy One, Get One free.  Two for the price of one.  You know what I’m getting at here, right?

Unfortunately, I am NOT announcing a cool bargain on Amateur Radio equipment. If that were the case, I’d probably be at the head of the line. But BOGO does have something to do with QRPTTF for me, this year.

QRP To The Field is just a couple of weekends away.  This year, the theme for the event is “Happy Trails”. As Paul NA5N describes it on the official QRPTTF Website, “About every community has an historic trail or two …… from the biggies like Route 66 or the Santa Fe Trail, to a local old wagon trail, mining or lumber road. About all railroad lines, active or abandoned, are old trails.”

Paul proceeded to provide a link to a list of historic trails, highways and railroads, which I clicked on. And there, right at the top of the list of Historic Highways was the Lincoln Highway.  Holy!  That’s what we now call Route 27 which runs through Edison, just the next township over from South Plainfield.  A quick trip to Wikipedia informed me that the Lincoln Highway is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.  With Wikipedia’s indulgence, I am going to paraphrase some history.

“The Lincoln Highway is one of the first transcontinental highways for automobiles across the USA. The highway turns 100 years old in 2013.  It was conceived and promoted by Indiana entrepreneur Carl Fisher. The Lincoln Highway spans the United States coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.  It passes through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California.  When originally built, it measured 3,389 miles long. After some re-alignments were done over the years, the road currently measures 3,142 miles.”

Thanks to Paul NA5N, I learned more about this road than I ever knew before (isn’t Amateur Radio a wonderful thing!?!).  I have seen some street signs along Route 27 that still call it “The Lincoln Highway”, but I had never bothered to investigate its history before.  But where does the BOGO come in you ask?  It comes in here – as Paul states: “Many old historic trails are also today’s super highways (like Route 66, the Lincoln Highway, etc); we don’t expect you to operate from an Interstate junction!  Find a nice operating spot within a couple of miles if you can to ensure your safety.”

Immediately, I thought of a real neat place to operate from that is literally just a couple of blocks away from the Lincoln Highway:

The Edison Memorial Tower, which was dedicated in 1938 and was built on the spot where Edison’s Laboratory was located. It was here that the incandescent light bulb, as well as many of Edison’s other inventions were conceived and produced.  The original buildings have since been relocated to Dearborn Michigan by Henry Ford so this tower and its accompanying museum (which has a parking lot where I can operate from) were built to memorialize the spot.  The tower and museum were just recently renovated and were reopened last year after being closed for a long time due to deterioration.

I am envisioning a special QSL card, designed for the day which will include photos of both the Edison Tower and something having to do with the Lincoln Highway.  Two “special” QRP outdoor events for the price of one – BOGO! This is going to be fun!

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

So another QRP ARCI Spring QSO Party has come and gone.  It was definitely fun.  As strictly a “Giver of Points”, I had set a personal goal to make more than 50 contacts between chores and other commitments (you can tell I’m not a big time contester, eh?)  I beat that!  I got a chance to sit in the chair for just a little bit more time today and I finished up with 62 QSOs in the log.

The highlights today were:

1) Working EA4CWN on both 15 and 20 Meters.  Alfonso was operating at the 2 Watt level, so that was way cool.  He was 559 on 15 Meters; but with the same power was 599 on 20 Meters.  I tried real hard to work DL2BZG (I think that was his call) on 15 Meters, but he just wasn’t hearing me.  EA2LU, EA4CWN, HB9DAX and almost this DL2 station – I’m not used to hearing this much DX in a QRP ARCI contest!

2) Working my good bud, Bob W3BBO on 40 Meters.  I think this might have been our first KX3 to K3 QSO.  Last time I worked him with my KX3, I think Bob still had his Yaesu.

3) Working Lloyd K3ESE on 40 Meters. Lloyd has gotten away from the hobby. He used to be a steady standby in the QRP Fox hunts. I haven’t heard him in years, so it was good to hear his CW again.

Oh, and Hans W1JSB did a video of our QSO last night.  Here’s how I sounded in New Hampshire (neat radio he has there!)

Thanks for the QSO and the video, Hans!  It’s always cool to hear what you sound like from the other end. And I didn’t flub the exchange, either (whew!).

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

It was a good day to be a “Giver of Points”.

I worked 44 stations in the QRP ARCI Spring QSO Party in various little spurts of operating time today.  I also handed out a few points to Polish stations in the Polish DX Contest.  And I grabbed a few other DX QSOs in order to keep up with the Club 72 QRP Marathon.

Regarding the QRP Marathon, in a field of about 33 stations, I am currently sitting in 9th place.  How long do you think that’s going to last?  But here’s a thought – to qualify, the two stations have to be separated by 500 kM.  So, if I get back into the QRP ARCI QSO Party again tomorrow using 1 Watt or perhaps QRPp, maybe I can score some good QRP Marathon points!

The high points today – working Jorge EA2LU on both 15 and 20 Meters, working HB9DAX on 20 Meters – both of these were QRP ARCI QSOs, so they were all 2X QRP.  And this evening, I worked W1JSB on 80 Meters.  You might know W1JSB better as Hans, Jim W1PID’s hiking buddy.  Hans was running 1.5 Watts and had a killer signal.  I also worked Ann K1QO up in New Hampshire – Ann is one of my Fox hunting buddies.  She is a superb op with a great fist and a great signal – it’s always great to hear her on the air.

I also scored two QSOs on 160 Meters – the W3EDP is still doing great in that regard.  Even though it’s only April, 160M seems to be in full Summer time mode – static crashes galore!

I’m beat – going to hit the hay for now!

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

From the QRP ARCI Website:

Saturday 6 April 2013, 1200z – Sunday 7 April 2013, 2359z

This is one of the “Big Ones” !

The Spring QSO Party and the Fall QSO Party are the two most popular QRP ARCI Contests. This contest is also a very good way for you to increase your QSO totals if you are involved with the 2013 QRP ARCI operating event known as ‘The QRP Challenge’ where the goal is to work at least 100 QRP ARCI club members to qualify for The BIG 13 Award. You can also use the Spring QSO Party to increase your QRP totals for various QRP ARCI Awards.  Or you can just get on the air and have some fun whether you’re a serious competitor or a casual participant the Spring QSO Party is for you !

You can enter as an all band, single band, high band or low band station and then pick the antenna and power category that matches your personal setup and compete with similar equipped stations around the country and around the world.

Read the complete rules and get on the air for the Spring QSO Party !

Thanks to Hank N8XX for posting the reminder!

I am so glad about this!  It seems like the last few years, the Spring QSO Party has fallen on Easter weekend.  I may actually get to participate this year.

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

I’ve resumed my role in the vhf white noise listening club with this evenings UKAC 50Mhz contest. Its a bit early in the season to expect any results with 6m from here but nice to get a full 3 qso’s with my new (and more xyl friendly) 4 ele yagi, from Powabeam.

I opted for the smallest one they did as the previous long boom 5 ele was just too big and basically got in the way for much of the year. This one is shorter by quite a margin and performance isn’t far off what I would have expected from the previous one. Oddly enough it was a gift from my mother in law through the DX shop. Well done her, and by far better service than I received through other well known and innovative antenna manufacturers. The specs are largely what you would expect from a small beam but the quality of manufacture is superb. There is no need to trim or tune anything. Just bolt up and away you go. All in all less than 10 mins from start to up on the portable mast. Highly recommended.

Operating at home certainly beats sitting in a car, freezing yourself half to death, on the side of a fell road but there is not much in the way of chance that I’ll get good results from here without the aid of Es. When I could no longer hear the beacons in Northern Ireland it was time to turn the rig off though.