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Nice to see this type of action on 10m.

Once again, the CQ WW CW contest has come to an end. Although the conditions were not as favorable as last year, it was still a fantastic event. Some highlights included contacting fellow blogger Bas, who was using his new contest call PA6G on 20m, as well as reaching ZD7VJ on St. Helena Island and VP8NO on the Falkland Islands. 

I was pleasantly surprised to connect with many South American stations on 10m on Sunday afternoon. I’m pleased to report there were no station issues at all—everything ran very smoothly.

Nice to see this type of action on 10m.

Once again, the CQ WW CW contest has come to an end. Although the conditions were not as favorable as last year, it was still a fantastic event. Some highlights included contacting fellow blogger Bas, who was using his new contest call PA6G on 20m, as well as reaching ZD7VJ on St. Helena Island and VP8NO on the Falkland Islands. 

I was pleasantly surprised to connect with many South American stations on 10m on Sunday afternoon. I’m pleased to report there were no station issues at all—everything ran very smoothly.

Fuzzy stickers on F keys

Over the years, I have learned that with touch typing, it is very important to use the same finger for the same key. Changing up which finger you use only confuses the learning curve, and touch typing will not happen. 
Let's get back to the F keys and my "method" I use, but before that, my preferred keyboard is the XT keyboard. This is a full-sized keyboard, with mechanical keys and the F keys have spaces between the escape key and F1key, space between F4-F5 and between F8-F9. Let me explain why these spaces help me out with touch typing. Without looking at the keyboard, my left hand ring finger moves up to the F key area and finds the space between the escape key and F1, the CQ macro key. When I do that, I move my ring finger on top of the F1 CQ key. 

If I want the F2 exchange key again, my ring finger moves up to the space, then onto the F1 key. My middle finger is now over the F2 key and will drop on top of the F2 exchange key. For the F4, my call macro key, again, my left hand moves up and my pointer finger finds the space between the F4 and F5 key. This finger moves to the left to the F4 key. 

It's the right hand's turn to get an F key workout.  This is where the warm fuzzies come into play. In the heat of the contest battle, there are times I need to send a partial call due to fading or multiple callers coming back to my CQ CONTEST call. This is the job of the F5 key and a key I am still learning its position regarding my pointer finger on my right hand. What I do is, on the F5 key, I put a nice fuzzy furniture sticker there. Without looking, I can place my pointer finger close to the F5 key and move it along, and when I feel the fuzzy sticker, I am there. I do the same for the F10 log key as well. By always using the same finger over time, I can remove the fuzzy sticker and hit the desired key each time. I used this method to learn the F1, F2 and F4 keys. 

There is then the lonely pause key that swaps between VFOA and B for SO2V operation. It also has a fuzzy on it, and the key is at the end of a row with a large space on the right. I feel for the space and then move my hand to the left and find the fuzzy. 

In conclusion, it takes some time for your brain and fingers to figure out the F key adventure. If you want to learn this, it's very important to stick with the same finger, understand that you're going to mess up and as with everything, practice.  
 

 This weekend was the North American QSO CW party, and the on time is 12 hours, and I put in about 1/4 of that. The issue was that it was a great day outside, and the sunshine and great weather was calling my name. The exchange in this contest is your name and state or province. This not being a big international contest, the CW speed varied from a slow 25 to a nice 36 wpm. I had no issues with the radio....well, having said that, now and then I have N1MM+ contest software hang after sending CW. It can get very frustrating, and I have finally narrowed it down to the Silicon Labs software needed for the Icom to communicate with the PC. It has been documented that even milliwatts of power can cause N1MM+ to hang. When you're calling CQ contest at 34-38 wpm, a hiccup like this can get very frustrating. I have good quality ferrite chokes in place, great grounding, but one issue is that my antenna is a bit close to the shack. The stray RF is hit and miss, and then when the ground outside is wet from a heavy rain, there is never an issue. (antenna is the Hustler 4BTV vertical). Now, having said that, during the NAQP I had some hang issues, but then for no reason it all of a sudden just stopped and never happened again during the contest. Anyway, I digress.....during my run, my best QSO per hour was 97 and I love that as it is GREAT for the keyboarding skill, ICR (instant character recognition) and brain training. What I really like is one op comes back to you at 25 wpm, and then the next is 36 wpm. It's great to have this shift, and it really improves your CW contest skill. The other thing is that during these times, the page up and page down keys get lots of exercise. These keys increase and decrease the CW speed. If someone comes back to my CQ at 25 or less, I hit the page down to match the speed. This op may have seen me spotted on a cluster, so my call is known, but the exchange may not populate at his end. It's polite and also less repeats, and in no way do I want to come off as a high-speed op who, if you can't match me, then I move on. Above is the final score for a very part-time effort........BUT anytime in front of the radio is a great time. 
 

 This weekend was the running of the ARRL Field Day event. For some they get out into the elements and set up an emergency-type station. Both individuals and clubs take part all over Canada and the U.S. There is a category for home stations on mains power....that was my preferred setup. This year the solar conditions were a bit of a challenge which involved considerable fading. I find that during ARRL Field Day when calling CQ FD I had to really listen for stations. There were many QRP stations, those using minimal antenna setup and then the good old poor solar conditions. I found many stations coming back to me just at the noise floor. I entered CW only at 100 watts from my home station and to the noise floor stations who were running who knows what I could be booming into them. I wanted to make every effort to make the contact. It was a good workout of skill. Below is the final score I did pull the plug a bit early as I found myself just calling CQ FD without any responses. 

what is your shack monitor real estate? For many of us, our hobbies and computers are intertwined, there are many programs out there that can enrich our radio experience. As we indulge in programs I find the monitor real estate becomes a bit crowed. Sure you can put things in the taskbar until needed again and I did this but then the taskbar became a bit crowded. 

As I became more involved in contesting I found I needed more programs running as well needed to see them up close and personal on not taskbar jumping. Also many modern transceivers today have a monitor-out option, which is nice and allows a larger view of the waterfall. But that is another monitor that is needed just for this option. Now a basic setup is two monitors. In my case, I have one monitor for the Icom 7610, 2 monitors for my PC and one monitor for Ham Clock running on a Pi 3. Some may think that two monitors for your PC is a bit excessive and there are some very large monitors one can easily fit everything into. I find these monitors to be pricey and I found 2 Samsung 24-inch monitors for 1/2 the price of a very large PC monitor. 

The part of the hobby I really enjoy is contesting and 2 monitors allow me to comfortably have Win4icom radio control program running, N1MM+ logger, VFO A and B waterfalls working ( as I operate SO2V) and finally an open window of Firefox as well. My second monitor looks after N1MM+ VFO B logging window and VFO B waterfall along with the open Firefox window. This monitor is on my right, I also have my external VFO B RC-28 knob on my right as well. This way everything to do with VFO B is on my right. Therefore when I look to the right it's all about VFOB.  I use Firefox to monitor live contest scoring, reverse beacon network and during slow times look up contesters I worked on QRZ.COM to learn about them. The final monitor looks after Ham Clock and I mainly use that for the solar conditions as well as which bands are open for me as Ham Clock has VOACAP on it.. For example, if I am taking part in a German, North American or Spain contest I setup the a VOACAP in the country or continent I am working and I get informed about the open and closed bands between them and my location. Elwood does a great job at updating this program and it is well worth adding it to your station's software. 

Finally, all my monitors are on swivel arms so they can be adjusted to my liking. Because I spend a lot of time in front of the screens I like to have the most commonly used ones at eye level and my left and right monitors set up so that my head does not have to move just my eyes. For me the less neck movement the better over the long-term contesting adventures. The Ham clock monitor is the only one up high and I only check that screen now and then. 
So what does your monitor real estate look like?

My "thing" in amateur radio is contesting and more specifically CW contesting. With most contesting programs the F keys on your keyboard are used for sending specific macros. Macros are stored messages and can be edited to do many things. Such as sending your call sign, sending an exchange and so on. As well as the F keys certain contesting programs also have keyboard combinations that do certain things and finally single keyboard keys that also perform a contesting function. During the heat of a contest, I have now and then hit between the keys on my keyboard and sometimes it so happens to be a key combo for my N1MM+ contesting program. All of a sudden I have no volume, switched VFO's and so on, it does not put me in my happy place. 

Above is a picture of my Lenovo full-sized preferred pro 2 keyboard. This is a mechanical key system I have tried many keyboards and this type for me is the best. It's not too sensitive as to when my fingers are resting on the keys I am not accidentally typing letters in the N1MM+ call window. I have tried the small keyboards but I find I am not able to fly along at a nice speed. I like this keyboard so much that I purchased a second one just in case this one fails.  My luck it would be discontinued when I wanted to purchase another one.  

Let's have a closer look at the macro setup, shall we? The keys at the top left to right are:

STOP which does just that, if I want the rig to stop sending a macro I hit that key. Reasons for this might be when I am searching and pouncing I start to send my call and because my radio is set to full break in I may hear 4 or more other powerful stations calling as well. I just hit stop as at 100 watts I am wasting my time. Also if my exchange is asked to be sent again I may hit the "X" twice and since I am in full break in or QSK as it is called I may hear the station send "TU" after the first repeat and then hit stop. 

CQ is self-explanatory, it's my calling CQ contest macro. 

X is short for contest exchange. 

TU again simple as a good Canadian I am always saying TU.    

VE9 is my call sign and used to send when I am doing search and pounce. 

HIS this will send the station call sign I have entered in the call box of N1MM+. What I use it for is while running if I copy a partial call only this will send the partial call sign. 

MYNR with most all contests you send 599 or 5NN for CW and then there is the unique part of the exchange such as a serial number, province, age, member number and so on. This key will send the unique part of the exchange if the other station asks for a repeat. 

RUN This key is used when I am searching and pouncing and then I want to start running (calling CQ contest) I hit this key and N1MM+ goes from search and pounce mode to running mode. 

TEST this macro will just send "TEST VE9KK" generally, I do this to identify just after a pileup. There may be some op's waiting to contact me but have no idea what my call is. 

?? very straightforward forward this just sends out a question mark. 

LOG this is an interesting one. I have found in the past using ESM (Enter sends message)  when I have been operating search and pounce it can get confused. For example, I find a station calling "CQ CONTEST" I then hit the ENTER key and the first ESM message is sent (my call). If the station answers another call I then have to send my my call again. I now go to the VE9 macro key and only part of my call is recognized, again I go to the VE9 key. Next is my exchange I have hit the ENTER key for the next ESM message (my exchange). At times my call has been sent or the station gets logged which would be the 3rd ESM function. To avoid confusion I use the X key to send the exchange. Next, I use the LOG macro key to log the contact. 

R this macro simply sends the letter "R" when a confirmation is needed. 

W this macro is a wipe function, when you hit this key it removes information. It can remove a call or exchange very fast so you can start over. 

You may have noticed some of the macro keys are yellow and others white. This was intentional, the yellow keys are used for running and the white generally for search and pounce. Also, there are two green dots above and below the "MYNR" key. At times either during search and pounce or running I will need to repeat the main part of the exchange such as a number. This is done most times in the heat of the moment and the green dots call my attention to the key right away without having to look or think about it. 

The pause/break key (top right key) has a blue dot on it. This key is used when operating SO2V and this blue dot key when pressed will swap to the functioning VFO. Pressing this key will switch to the opposite VFO both transmit and receive switch. The blue dot is for fast identification. 

The numbers keys with the green and red dots are my CW speed increase and decrease keys. Green to increase speed and red to decrease speed. 

Finally the yellow dots are a key combination, when you first press the ALT + W keys you mute the sub-receiver. I have to be honest here I seldom use this key combo, using the Icom 7610 it is very simple to mute either receiver. There is a volume knob for each receiver and if you push the knob you silence that receiver. I use this as it is very fast and simple But I still have to learn to remember to unmute. I have in the past wondered why a certain receiver is so quiet and it is my error as it is still muted. I will be removing the yellow dots and the label "mutsub". 

That is my contest keyboard setup, leave a comment if you have anything to all or what your keyboard functions are.