AmateurRadio.com

 The RAC Winter contest is in the books and my second contest where I was running and not S&P.  The propagation numbers took a big leap in the right direction before and during the contest. I did find that even with the good conditions there was steep QSB on 20 and 40m. 

I find this more of a relaxed contest compared to the international contests. Most of the time, CW speeds were a bit slower. When someone you know makes contact, there is time to say thanks and 73. Speaking of someone you know, I had the pleasure of John AE5X a blogger I follow contact me, and we had the opportunity to send pleasantries to each other. Thanks for the contact John. 

I found there was the early contest jitters, but I did settle in a bit sooner  compared to the other contest. One take away was to NEVER try drinking coffee while calling CQ! Thought I had this calling CQ thing down, I decided to have a drink of coffee as the PC was belting out RAC DE VE9KK. While in mid-sip of coffee, the radio went to receive and a nice multiplier station was coming back to me! In a rush to put the coffee down my elbow was banged, coffee all over the keyboard and multi station gone! 

Overall, a great time was had. 

As frequent readers of my blog, you know my interest in contesting, and specifically CW contesting. Just a few weeks ago, for the first time, I called CQ in a contest and was running for the entire contest. I had a great time and also a time of growing. As with all bloggers, we have different keyboarding levels. To be a blogger, you have to be somewhat of a typist. There are single finger, two-finger and home row typists. There is a saying "mom knows best" and well in grade 7 I was not so sure about that saying. You see, I had what was called in school a spare period. It was a time slot with no class, and really it was my first one ever, and I planned it as a rest time. Well, mom knows best, and she had to sign off on my spare period and well she had other plans for me. 

She looked at my school timetable and the available classes for my so-called spare period. She found a class that fit right into the spare period time slot..........TYPING.....yup that's right typing! With my mom it's not a suggestion.....it's "your taking typing, and you will end up thanking me for it one day" I went to school in the '70s, and you know how many guys were in typing class.........ME! 

In I went and well there was a positive note and that is it was a great place to meet girls anyway I digress.  The first thing I noticed was you can't look at the keyboard to find the letters as there were no letters to be found, the keyboard was blank. To make a long story short I learned about something called home row and I can still hear the teacher calling out "AAA   BBB    EEE" and so on. I have to admit that yes, mom knows best, and I took 2 semesters of typing class. It made my university years way easier for term papers and so on. 

Fast forward to now......getting a blog post together runs along very smoothly, BUT who would have thunk that my CW contest would benefit as well? I found that when I was running in a CW contest, having the ability to not look down at the keyboard was a bonus. I can hear the calls or exchange and just look at the PC screen and enter the information. 

Here is the catch........ I can type, and my speed is ok for blogging, but typing a call sign and then an exchange at 25-34 WPM takes practice. In the past I felt keyboard was a  keyboard right ?? Well, I found over time, frustration and trial and error that all keyboards for contesting anyway are not alike. 

The keyboard of choice for the longest time was the wireless Logitech k830. It was a smaller keyboard that had a mouse pad. The keys had a soft touch, meaning not much pressure was needed when typing. Also, the keys were close together therefore no ambidextrous finger moves to hit certain letters were needed. 

When practicing with this keyboard for CW contest call sign copying at slower speeds it was good but up around 25 WPM, I found myself hitting two keys at once a lot. At 25 WPM when this happens you lose track of the next letters coming at you, and it can get frustrating.  The Logitech keyboard is not going to cut it. 

I went through my PC junk box and found a keyboard called Adesso this was a small keyboard as well, but with much firmer keys that were raised a bit higher than the Logitech keyboard. I gave this one a go and yes I was not hitting two letters at once but when the CW speed increased again there were issues but again. With firmer keys, I needed to give an extra effort to press each key and at higher CW speeds it just took too much time to enter the needed info from a contact. Once you miss a letter, your concentration is removed from the CW program and  to the keyboard and hence calls and exchanges are missed. 

I have heard it said that most times the solution is right under your nose, and you just can't see it. This was the case with the perfect keyboard. My wife was working from home during the height of the pandemic, and for some time that has not been the case. Her company PC has sat ideal at home for some time now along with a KEYBOARD! It was a full size keyboard, much different from my other go-to keyboards, but I thought I would give it a go. This keyboard is a Lenovo Pro 2 and when she requires it again I have already scoped them out online. I am thinking I will purchase one as a New Years gift for myself. 

I have been using it for about 2 weeks now, and it's amazing, the keys are the right height and key sensitivity is spot on as well. Not only that, but I am having no issues copying calls and exchanges around 33-35 wpm.  So no, a keyboard is a keyboard is not true. I found that it's a personal thing and once you get the right keyboard for you, it sure can make a differance ....in contesting anyway. 

As frequent readers of my blog, you know my interest in contesting, and specifically CW contesting. Just a few weeks ago, for the first time, I called CQ in a contest and was running for the entire contest. I had a great time and also a time of growing. As with all bloggers, we have different keyboarding levels. To be a blogger, you have to be somewhat of a typist. There are single finger, two-finger and home row typists. There is a saying "mom knows best" and well in grade 7 I was not so sure about that saying. You see, I had what was called in school a spare period. It was a time slot with no class, and really it was my first one ever, and I planned it as a rest time. Well, mom knows best, and she had to sign off on my spare period and well she had other plans for me. 

She looked at my school timetable and the available classes for my so-called spare period. She found a class that fit right into the spare period time slot..........TYPING.....yup that's right typing! With my mom it's not a suggestion.....it's "your taking typing, and you will end up thanking me for it one day" I went to school in the '70s, and you know how many guys were in typing class.........ME! 

In I went and well there was a positive note and that is it was a great place to meet girls anyway I digress.  The first thing I noticed was you can't look at the keyboard to find the letters as there were no letters to be found, the keyboard was blank. To make a long story short I learned about something called home row and I can still hear the teacher calling out "AAA   BBB    EEE" and so on. I have to admit that yes, mom knows best, and I took 2 semesters of typing class. It made my university years way easier for term papers and so on. 

Fast forward to now......getting a blog post together runs along very smoothly, BUT who would have thunk that my CW contest would benefit as well? I found that when I was running in a CW contest, having the ability to not look down at the keyboard was a bonus. I can hear the calls or exchange and just look at the PC screen and enter the information. 

Here is the catch........ I can type, and my speed is ok for blogging, but typing a call sign and then an exchange at 25-34 WPM takes practice. In the past I felt keyboard was a  keyboard right ?? Well, I found over time, frustration and trial and error that all keyboards for contesting anyway are not alike. 

The keyboard of choice for the longest time was the wireless Logitech k830. It was a smaller keyboard that had a mouse pad. The keys had a soft touch, meaning not much pressure was needed when typing. Also, the keys were close together therefore no ambidextrous finger moves to hit certain letters were needed. 

When practicing with this keyboard for CW contest call sign copying at slower speeds it was good but up around 25 WPM, I found myself hitting two keys at once a lot. At 25 WPM when this happens you lose track of the next letters coming at you, and it can get frustrating.  The Logitech keyboard is not going to cut it. 

I went through my PC junk box and found a keyboard called Adesso this was a small keyboard as well, but with much firmer keys that were raised a bit higher than the Logitech keyboard. I gave this one a go and yes I was not hitting two letters at once but when the CW speed increased again there were issues but again. With firmer keys, I needed to give an extra effort to press each key and at higher CW speeds it just took too much time to enter the needed info from a contact. Once you miss a letter, your concentration is removed from the CW program and  to the keyboard and hence calls and exchanges are missed. 

I have heard it said that most times the solution is right under your nose, and you just can't see it. This was the case with the perfect keyboard. My wife was working from home during the height of the pandemic, and for some time that has not been the case. Her company PC has sat ideal at home for some time now along with a KEYBOARD! It was a full size keyboard, much different from my other go-to keyboards, but I thought I would give it a go. This keyboard is a Lenovo Pro 2 and when she requires it again I have already scoped them out online. I am thinking I will purchase one as a New Years gift for myself. 

I have been using it for about 2 weeks now, and it's amazing, the keys are the right height and key sensitivity is spot on as well. Not only that, but I am having no issues copying calls and exchanges around 33-35 wpm.  So no, a keyboard is a keyboard is not true. I found that it's a personal thing and once you get the right keyboard for you, it sure can make a differance ....in contesting anyway. 

The hills are alive with the sound of music....well you get the idea.

This past weekend, as most of you may have known or seen, the bands were alive with a CW contest, all except the WARC bands. The annual running of the CQWW CW contest was in full swing for the entire weekend.  I try to take part in most of the large CW contests, and this one was not exempt. In this contest, for the first time EVER, I did not operate search and pounce. (search and pounce meaning searching out stations in the contest who are calling CQ and trying to contact them) I was for the first time ever a running station. (run, meaning you sit on a frequency and call "CQ contest" and wait for stations to contact you)  I CAN'T BELIEVE I DID IT.....

For those of you who are not into CW contesting when you are running (for me anyway) it's a big deal, and you have to  be on your CW game. You send out your call sign (for me at 26-28wpm) and wait for the grease to hit the fan and at times it did!  Below is how it feels to be a first-time CW running contester. 

Before I begin with the adventure, just a little background. They say that preparation is the key, and that I worked on. Over time, getting my code speed up to copy around 30wpm.  Every day I practiced with programs such as Morse Runner and RufzXP.  These are both free programs and  excellent tools. I also downloaded the CWops intermediate CW course and worked through that each day.  I worked on my keyboard skills, so I am now able to copy calls without looking at the keyboard. This allowed me to concentrate on the contest program. 

Well here we go......first thing that occurred to me was a contest simulator and the real deal is very different! I was not sending code to a computer program but a real person, it's a hobby and all, but I was very nervous about the whole thing.  Out the code went, "TEST VE9KK VE9KK" I did this about 3 times and then a station came back to me........it didn't turn out as planned. 

I heard the code but my N1MM+ contest software was just met with my blank stare.  I heard the call again, and this time it was a full out fumbling act between reading the call and keyboard stumbling. Eventually the op just moved on to another running station.  Well, that was a bell ringer for sure! I took a deep breath and tried again, and this time it was worse. The next station came back to me in around 35 wpm, and I was clueless. This time I did not even attempt to answer them, they gave their call a few times and moved on. 

I decided it was time to go back to search and pounce and that contest running at this stage in the game was not for me. I took a little break from the contest with a walk, and once I got back to the operating desk, I began to search and pounce. After making a few contacts it occurred to me that  this was the first time I tried running in a contest and for sure there are going to be hiccups. Heck after all I just did not grab my first bike and started riding it, I had training wheels..........wait a minute training wheels! 

I took a deep breath and set my N1MM+ contest program back to running but this time I opened up a program called MRP40  an excellent code reading program. Now just wait a minute, I am not giving up and relying on a code reader......it's my training wheels and will be used when needed.  Well off I went again......"TEST VE9KK VE9KK" 

The contest is now in the history books and I did keep running throughout the contest except when I did some search and pounce for needed multiplies for a better score.  Midway through the contest, I started to loosen up and began to get the hang of things. Sure, I had op's get frustrated when I messed up their call and when I asked for repeats, some just moved on. 

Some highlights were: 

-The obvious one being, running for basically the entire contest. 

- Being spotted in the cluster and BOOM I'm not trying to work a pileup, I am the pile up. They were not huge pileups and did not last for long but exciting nonetheless. 

- Having the time fly compared to search and pounce where the time went slowly. 

- My highest number of contacts ever in a contest of 412 and my best score as well of  113,775.

- Depending less and less on MRP40's decodes. 

Some funny moments: 

- With N1MM+ you are able to program macros to send preprogrammed messages.  It's when my fingers press the wrong key and send thanks for the contact before the was made! 

- Finding out the hard way that the code reader is not always correct.  I copied a call in my head and then glanced at the code reader, I may have messed up on a letter. So I change it and low and behold my head was correct and MRP40 was wrong. 

- This has happened more than a few time......forgetting to change N1MM+ from search and pounce to run and send out the incorrect message. 

- Finding myself answering one call after another and sounding  to others that I have really pulled this off to only then totally screw up the next few callers.....the way the contest can humble me.

Finally, I want to apologize to those of you with whom I messed up your call or made your contact with me a bit painful. Then those who just gave up and moved on I hope next time things will be better.  

The hills are alive with the sound of music....well you get the idea.

This past weekend, as most of you may have known or seen, the bands were alive with a CW contest, all except the WARC bands. The annual running of the CQWW CW contest was in full swing for the entire weekend.  I try to take part in most of the large CW contests, and this one was not exempt. In this contest, for the first time EVER, I did not operate search and pounce. (search and pounce meaning searching out stations in the contest who are calling CQ and trying to contact them) I was for the first time ever a running station. (run, meaning you sit on a frequency and call "CQ contest" and wait for stations to contact you)  I CAN'T BELIEVE I DID IT.....

For those of you who are not into CW contesting when you are running (for me anyway) it's a big deal, and you have to  be on your CW game. You send out your call sign (for me at 26-28wpm) and wait for the grease to hit the fan and at times it did!  Below is how it feels to be a first-time CW running contester. 

Before I begin with the adventure, just a little background. They say that preparation is the key, and that I worked on. Over time, getting my code speed up to copy around 30wpm.  Every day I practiced with programs such as Morse Runner and RufzXP.  These are both free programs and  excellent tools. I also downloaded the CWops intermediate CW course and worked through that each day.  I worked on my keyboard skills, so I am now able to copy calls without looking at the keyboard. This allowed me to concentrate on the contest program. 

Well here we go......first thing that occurred to me was a contest simulator and the real deal is very different! I was not sending code to a computer program but a real person, it's a hobby and all, but I was very nervous about the whole thing.  Out the code went, "TEST VE9KK VE9KK" I did this about 3 times and then a station came back to me........it didn't turn out as planned. 

I heard the code but my N1MM+ contest software was just met with my blank stare.  I heard the call again, and this time it was a full out fumbling act between reading the call and keyboard stumbling. Eventually the op just moved on to another running station.  Well, that was a bell ringer for sure! I took a deep breath and tried again, and this time it was worse. The next station came back to me in around 35 wpm, and I was clueless. This time I did not even attempt to answer them, they gave their call a few times and moved on. 

I decided it was time to go back to search and pounce and that contest running at this stage in the game was not for me. I took a little break from the contest with a walk, and once I got back to the operating desk, I began to search and pounce. After making a few contacts it occurred to me that  this was the first time I tried running in a contest and for sure there are going to be hiccups. Heck after all I just did not grab my first bike and started riding it, I had training wheels..........wait a minute training wheels! 

I took a deep breath and set my N1MM+ contest program back to running but this time I opened up a program called MRP40  an excellent code reading program. Now just wait a minute, I am not giving up and relying on a code reader......it's my training wheels and will be used when needed.  Well off I went again......"TEST VE9KK VE9KK" 

The contest is now in the history books and I did keep running throughout the contest except when I did some search and pounce for needed multiplies for a better score.  Midway through the contest, I started to loosen up and began to get the hang of things. Sure, I had op's get frustrated when I messed up their call and when I asked for repeats, some just moved on. 

Some highlights were: 

-The obvious one being, running for basically the entire contest. 

- Being spotted in the cluster and BOOM I'm not trying to work a pileup, I am the pile up. They were not huge pileups and did not last for long but exciting nonetheless. 

- Having the time fly compared to search and pounce where the time went slowly. 

- My highest number of contacts ever in a contest of 412 and my best score as well of  113,775.

- Depending less and less on MRP40's decodes. 

Some funny moments: 

- With N1MM+ you are able to program macros to send preprogrammed messages.  It's when my fingers press the wrong key and send thanks for the contact before the was made! 

- Finding out the hard way that the code reader is not always correct.  I copied a call in my head and then glanced at the code reader, I may have messed up on a letter. So I change it and low and behold my head was correct and MRP40 was wrong. 

- This has happened more than a few time......forgetting to change N1MM+ from search and pounce to run and send out the incorrect message. 

- Finding myself answering one call after another and sounding  to others that I have really pulled this off to only then totally screw up the next few callers.....the way the contest can humble me.

Finally, I want to apologize to those of you with whom I messed up your call or made your contact with me a bit painful. Then those who just gave up and moved on I hope next time things will be better.  

This imagery captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO; link) covers a busy period of activity in October, during which we witnessed an X1.0-class X-ray flare.

From late afternoon October 25 through mid-morning October 26, an active region on the left limb of the Sun flickered with a series of small flares and petal-like eruptions of solar material.

Meanwhile, the Sun was sporting more active regions at its lower center, directly facing Earth. On October 28, the biggest of these released a significant flare, which peaked at 15:35, 28 Oct 2021 UTC.

This X1.0 X-ray flare that erupted from Active Region 12887 (we typically drop the left-most digit when referring to an active region, so this is AR2887) is the second X-class flare of Solar Cycle 25, as of the time this video goes live.

The first X-class flare occurred on 3 July 2021 and measured X1.59. It, too, caused an HF radio blackout. These blackouts will occur more often as the cycle activity increases, because the higher sunspot activity leads to many more flares, and thus cause the geomagnetic storms as the typical CME is erupted out into space, possibly colliding with Earth’s magnetosphere.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground. When intense enough, they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. Some of these disturbances to communications are called radio blackouts. They cause the lower layers of the ionosphere to become more ionized, which results in the absorption of shortwave radio frequency signals.

This flare on October 28 was classified as X1.0 in intensity. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, and so on. Flares that are classified X10 or stronger are considered unusually intense.

This was the second X-class flare of Solar Cycle 25, which began in December 2019. A new solar cycle comes roughly every 11 years. Over the course of each cycle, the Sun transitions from relatively calm to active and stormy, and then quiet again; at its peak, known as solar maximum, the Sun’s magnetic poles flip.

Two other eruptions blew off the Sun from this active region: an eruption of solar material called a coronal mass ejection and an invisible swarm of solar energetic particles. These are high-energy charged particles accelerated by solar eruptions.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Thanks for liking and sharing!

73 de NW7US dit dit

The Worked all Germany (WAG) contest was this weekend. It's an event in which you can operate both CW and SSB. I chose the CW only option for the contest. I entered low power (100 watts and under), single op and assisted (using spotting new works) It was very well attended and during the contest I received a station from Israel calling German stations.  It was a shame I could not call him, as with this contest DX can only contact German stations. Oh well, it was nice hearing them anyway. 

The contest is 24 hours long, which is nice as it does not occupy all of your weekend. Conditions were good for me on 15m, 20m and 40m. I did try 80m on Saturday evening, but it provided no contacts for me. On Sunday I stayed on 15m as I was up early and the band was open. I wanted to stay away from 20m for as long as I could, as this was the band I mainly stayed on during Saturday. This way I would not run into Dupes on 20m.  The contest software I used was N1MM+. 

I was using my Icom 7610 radio which for contesting is a great radio, the antenna was my Ultimax DXtreme  it's 52 feet long and about 30 feet off the ground and about 6 feet at the feed end. I used my solid state CW paddle by 9A5N. The key worked very smoothly and worked without issue. 

Speaking of issues, it would not be a contest if there were not some hiccups. First off I thought (for some reason) the contest started at 1600 UTC. I sat at the radio 10 minutes (1550 UTC) before the contest started. I was shocked to see the band's full when I turned on the radio. A quick investigation on my part had me realize the contest started at 1500 and not 1600 UTC, so I was an hour down before I even started. 

At times, I found myself calling a station, and I was not being heard, don't get me wrong this does happen but not with stations that are booming in. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed N1MM+ software was showing me that my transmit XIT  (transmit increment tuning) was on! The reason the station was not hearing me was because I was transmitting way off-frequency. This for some reason happened a few times. 

The last comedy of errors was at one point on Sunday when I was on 15m the band just went dead! Hmm, maybe propagation on 15m just dropped off. I went to 20m, and it was the same, so I checked the solar conditions,  maybe I missed a huge storm forecast. Nope solar conditions were fair.....oh wait a minute it's 1500 UTC and the contest is over!! 

Contest summary 

40m  34 contacts with 18 multipliers 

20m  51 contacts with 21 multipliers  

15m  30 contacts with 17 multipliers 

Total contacts 115 

Score 19,320