Posts Tagged ‘CW’
How fast is to fast?
Good afternoon blog readers I hope you are still enjoying the summer heat and are putting it into perspective as it compares to winters freezing cold?
I have a question, when it comes to CW contesting…how fast is to fast? I have asked myself this question during CW contests, when I decide to search and pounce most of the time the speed is in around 30-34 wpm. Now having said that there are some big guns that run at close to 40wpm. BUT they have been spotted and always will be thus for the most part then the caller already knows their call. It is just the exchange that has to be handled and if it is a contest that has a generic exchange (CQ zone, ITU zone so on) then the software fills in the exchange details.
For a small gun like me it’s only now and then I get spotted on the cluster and I know when this happens as I get into a pileup situation. I am not some multi operator high power station with dream antennas I am just small potatoes. I feel that if I was to knock out code at 36 wpm I think my contact rate would drop? In my humble opinion ( please correct me if I am wrong) I should stay in the 30-34 wpm range to gather fish in my net?
What say you fellow CW contesters…..in a dark place in my mind I am thinking that for me its a waste of time to practice for the 38-40 wpm goal because with my 100 watts along with a simple vertical antenna at that speed I will hear crickets when calling CQ contest? What say you…………
CQ WW WPX CW contest!
This coming weekend is a long weekend for our American friends as well as it is the yearly running of the CQ WW WPX CW contest weekend. If you are into CW contesting this is one of the big ones to get involved in. As for me, I am hoping for a nice rainy weekend as this will keep me in the operating chair longer. Last year I used my EndFed antenna for this contest as I had the Hustler 4BTV but it was not as of yet installed.
Now I am curious to see how I do with the Hustler 4BTV compared to my EndFed antenna. I try to keep my CW contesting pencil sharp by taking part in the weekly 1-hour medium speed contests which max's out at 25 wpm and the CWops weekly CWT's which plain and simply just max's out! I also have daily practice with 2 contest simulation programs G4FON and Morse Runner.
CW is my thing and contesting is my thing, so for me this coming weekend I will be doing my thing.
Begali Intrepid
The Perfect Bug?
A New Design
- The pendulum hinge is at the rear of the key rather than the middle
- The adjustments are all based on magnets rather than springs
- The dwell for the dits has a real control, rather than using various pieces of foam, string or clips to change dwell time
- The dit contact is a sprung plunger that always remains centered on the contact rather than brushing against it at various angles
- The split lever mechanism operates at the center of the key placing the DAH and DIT contacts much closer to one another than a traditional bug
- There is less mass in the pendulum itself than a Vibroplex Bug
- It has a sprung, nylon wheel damper that doesn't clatter
- It weighs a TON (well about 6 lbs) and feels welded to the desk without having to use non-slip material or using spit to semi glue them in place (yech, yes I use spit to hold my keys to my desk)
Preparing for Use
In Use
Conclusions?
International Morse Code Day (April 27)
Morse Code Day on April 27 (every year) honors one of the inventers of the Morse code, Samuel Morse, who was born on this day in 1791.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of Morse code and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.
Alfred Vail developed the dot-dash structure, and Leonard Gale along with Vail was instrumental in developing the mechanical receiving apparatus for code.
Samuel Morse gets most of the credit because of his work in promoting this code as a viable means of communication. Morse code is still used now. Amateur radio is one of the communities in which Morse code is popular and in daily use.
73 de NW7US dit dit
https://NW7US.us
..
ATNO for me!
Way back on April 20th late in the afternoon, I checked my go-to DX cluster DX heat to see what was happening on the bands. I saw VU2TMP from India spotted and I have seen this station in the past but never heard him just the pileup.
This time he was spotted on 15m and out my way in the afternoon 15m can do some very surprising things. I flipped on the Icom 7610 and spun over to 21.001 CW and low and behold there was VU2TMP at about S5! I put the radio in split and Dual receive and to my surprise there was not much action happening. I dropped my call a few times but he went back to other stations I could not hear most in Europe. I thought to myself the only time I hear him he can’t hear me, but I am only running 100 watts into a Hustler 4BTV.
I dropped my call again a few times and low and behold I hear “VE9?” now I am thinking it’s one of my fellow VE9’s also calling him. I tried again and heard “VE9K?” well know things are getting serious and to top it off he is now fading!! I sent “VE9KK…KK…KK” and his reply was “VE9KK 5NN” Well hot dog I am in the log. I sent my exchange and all was good.
Ham Radio – QRP 2023-04-25 01:28:00
TX Relay, Power and TX REQ IN
Wiring the Break Out Box and TX-REQ-IN
Partial Success
Benefits of the Yaesu XF-130CN 300 Hz Crystal Roofing Filter
Do You Need That Filter?
The Yaesu FT-DX10 comes standard with a 500 Hz crystal (xtal) roofing filter, but offers an optional 300 Hz roofing filter. Should you purchase the optional filter?
The 300 Hz roofing filter is twice the size of the 500 Hz filter so it must be twice as good right?
If you casually switch back and forth between the two filters on a noisy band, it sounds like the 300 Hz filter markedly improves selectivity and quiets the noise. But try this: Select the 500 Hz filter and narrow the bandwidth (using the bandwidth control) to 300 Hz, then switch to the 300 Hz filter.
When you digitally narrow the bandwidth of the 500 Hz filter to 300 Hz you will "hear" the same reduction in noise as you have cut out 200 Hz of higher frequency sound. Engaging the 300 Hz filter lowers the volume a bit (3-6 dB) due to insertion loss.
So what you are actually "hearing" when you switch back and forth between the filters without changing the digital bandwidth is the reduction of the higher frequency noise that can be accomplished using the bandwidth control alone with the 500 Hz filter.
So, from a selectivity standpointthe 300Hz filter doesn't gain you anything over using the digital filtering with the 500 Hz filter. The real benefit should come in the form of adjacent signal rejection. So let's look at that.
In the video below I demonstrate the signal rejection of a 40 dB over S9 adjacent signal to a weaker S3 - S5 signal.
From the video you can hear that there is a very small demonstrable difference in strong signal rejection when using the 300 Hz optional filter, but the difference is so small that I doubt many of us would find practical benefit over simply narrowing the DSP bandwidth while using the 500 Hz filter. Even when contesting. The digital filtering built into the FT-DX10 is really, really good when using the included 500 Hz roofing filter alone.
Yes, I spent the $200 for the optional filter thinking it would help, but I wished I had known what I do now. I would have $200 for some other nifty radio gadget to spend instead.
That's all for now.
Lower your power and raise your expectations
Richard AA4OO