AmateurRadio.com

Not sure I like it; or will keep it, but it IS different from what I had.  Is this template easier on the eyes?  Some folks recently and privately commented to me that they didn’t like a white typeface against a dark background.  Is this any better?

I joined my CERT group to aid South Plainfield with the running of the Holy Savior Academy 5K walk/run this morning. Luckily, I only had one obnoxious driver to deal with who couldn’t understand that the main roads were closed so that people wouldn’t be run over.  “You actually expect me to park on this side street and walk a block to my house?”, I was asked.  “Yes, sir”, I replied, “It’s for your protection as well as theirs.”  He still huffed and puffed until he started getting unreasonable and a little belligerent, so at that point, I radioed for police assistance.  They arrived and suddenly the light bulb went on over his noggin – he got the idea.

The thing that gets me is that not only is this an annual event; but it’s also very well publicized.  Notice about it appears on the local cable channel. Sacred Heart Church, which loans out its parking lot for the epicenter of the event is by far the largest church in town.  The notices for the “Family 5K Run/Walk” appears in their bulletin for weeks ahead of time. The local town paper published the details about the run/walk and the road closures the week before the event, also.  The town puts it on their Website and their Facebook page. Don’t people read?  Several of our CERT members suggested to our Director of Emergency Management that perhaps next year, on the night before the event, that we do an automated “reverse 911” call and telephone all the houses anywhere near the route that the roads will be closed. Oh, and by the way, the roads are closed for all of about an hour – 90 minutes tops!

One of my Ham buddies, Marv K2VHW, who also lives in South Plainfield was at the event with me.  He told me that his rain gauge had close to 4.5 inches (11 cm) of rain in it due to yesterday’s visit from Tropical Storm Andrea.  Yesterday was definitely a soaker, and I’m willing to bet the cicadas weren’t too thrilled with it.   I know that the tropical storm season does officially start  with the end of May.  I don’t recall us ever getting a visit by a named storm so early in the season.  I hope it’s not a portent for things to come.  Irene in 2011 and Sandy in 2012 were enough for me for a long, long time.

I worked a new DXCC entity via QRP tonight, and it was a workout.  The funny thing is, the actual distance? Not so much.  This one was a Caribbean Island. And from the East Coast, the islands of the Caribbean are usually not very hard at all.

But conditions on 17 Meters tonight were soupy.  The QSB was rolling in and out.  My quarry was 599 one second and about 569 the next.  But I finally got FJ/K5WE in the log, and worked Saint Barhtelemy for the first time, using QRP power to boot.

If you look at the map, your first reaction is probably the same as mine. No big deal, right? I mean I’ve worked just about every single island down that way, many of them lots of times over.  We’re talking just a couple of thousand miles – really no big deal even for QRP.  But the pileup was busy and the QSX frequency kept moving.  Once I was able to establish the pattern, it didn’t take long.  But because of the QSB, I couldn’t hear a lot of the stations that FJ/K5WE was working, so it made establishing that pattern just a little bit tougher.

Like I said before, once I was actually able to hear a few of the stations and was able to figure out where FJ/K5WE was listening, I just tweaked my transmit frequency a touch higher and just kept calling until he worked his way up and just kind of fell into my lap.

Conditions are probably just “meh” – definitely not the greatest.  The sunspot number is down to under 100 and the A index is up there.  Not as bad as it was a few days ago, but still not great.  The few Russian stations that I was able to hear were all warbly as if the signals were experiencing polar flutter.  CO8LY was louder than all get out as was H70ORO.  I was surprised that FJ/K5WE wasn’t stronger, considering that Eduardo CO8LY was so strong.  Could be an antenna situation, not sure what K5WE is using down there on his tropical get away.

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

It rained ALL day, for the most part.  Not really heavy, but a good soaking Spring rain.  Just what I need to get the grass growing again after I mowed it Friday night!

I started the day with a nice rag chew with Joe W2KJ. I always get a kick out of working Joe.  He’s an outstanding QRPer; and it’s always a pleasure to chat with him. But I really get kick out of the W2KJ to W2LJ thing – our calls being one letter apart.

This afternoon, I worked VQ975FOC/MM. If he was in the Chagos Islands, where the call sign is from, that would have been quite the QSO at 9,366 miles away.  But as he was signing /MM, Jim could have been just about anywhere on the face of the earth. Shortly after working him, I got a tweet from Chris KQ2RP. He was intermittently trying to work the same station in between shack cleaning chores. When Chris heard the VQ9 come back to me, he redoubled his efforts and got him in his log, also.  You know what they say, “QRPers of a feather, flock together.”  Cool, Chris, I’m glad you worked him too.

I worked VP5/W5CW down in the Turks and Caicos on 20 Meters.  I have worked Dave several times over the years in the big DX contests. I guess he’s down in the islands getting ready for the CQ WPX Contest, which is next weekend.

I also got a new DXCC entity in the QRP log today.  By working CP4BT, I worked Bolivia with QRP for the first time.  I’ve worked that country several times over the years, but it was always QRO in the past.  This time it was with 5 Watts.  I am going to have to go through my log and see how many that brings me up to via QRP.  I think it might be somewhere close to 130 now.

I finished the day by giving out points in the monthly Run For The Bacon.  It seems pickings were sparse this month; and that might be no surprise. I am willing to wager that a lot of my fellow piggies were returning home from Dayton today and were just too tired to hunt for bacon!

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

was in the mail when I got home from work – an envelope from the ARRL.  I had recently updated my LOTW log and sent in an application for a bunch of DXCC entities that I had worked.  That application put  me over the 150 DXCC entities worked mark, so the League sent me a little “DXCC 150” sticker for my basic certificate.  I am surmising that you can get an endorsement stickers for multiples of 50 DXCC entities worked, ie 150, 200, 250, 300 and finally 320 and then Honor Roll, I guess.

This submission brought me up to 151 confirmed.  I actually have 3 or 4 more in the log with stations that do not use LOTW, so I will have to get their confirmations the old fashioned way.

In addition to those 3 or 4 I just mentioned, you can add another, as I worked SX5KL in the Dodecanese Islands for another new DXCC entity worked.  I actually worked him twice (yes, I know I’m a hog) once QRO and then about 90 minutes later QRP.  The first time, he was about a 579 here – 90 minutes later, he was blasting through at 599+ and the pileup wasn’t very fierce.  So I took the chance and got through the second time with 5 Watts and thanked him for listening to my QRP signal.

On an entirely different note, I’d like to take this opportunity to extend my best wishes for a very safe journey to all of you out there who are traveling toward FDIM and Hamvention.  I hope the weather is great for you and that you all have a great time.  I wish that I could be with you guys at FDIM, and finally meet face to face with so many of you that I have come to consider to be good friends.

To paraphrase W.C. Fields – “All things considered, I’d rather be in Dayton”.

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

The weekend was busy, with lots of stuff to do in order to get ready for Mother’s Day, as well as actually celebrate it.  Even though I did not have much radio time, I did manage to get some time in behind the K3 and some good things happened.

The first good thing to happen this weekend was a package that arrived through the mail on Saturday:

Yes – my JARC Antenna Launcher Kit arrived through the mail. Thanks you Joplin Amateur Radio Club! This is going to be a tremendous help with portable operations this summer.

Late Saturday afternoon / early evening, shortly after my weekly Echolink ragchew with W3BBO,  Bob sent me an e-mail, letting me know that 15 Meters was wide open and that he had worked Z81X in the Republic of South Sudan.  I had just finished washing the floors, so I put down mop and bucket and ran down (literally) to the shack.  Sure enough, there was Z81X on 21.030 MHz, working split and sounding louder than all get out.  The pile up was tremendous!  So following my tenet of when the pile up is fierce and it’s a new one,  to  “Work ’em first, get ’em QRP later”, I turned the K3 up to 85 Watts.  After a half hour of chasing, I landed them in my logbook.  Z81X was like one of our wiley Foxes in the QRP Fox hunts in that he kept moving his listening frequency.  Once I established the pattern, and inserted myself in his path, it just became a matter of time.  Bob worked Z81X at 23:08 UTC and I got him a mere half hour later at 23:38 UTC.  Bob checked the on-line log this morning; and yep, we’re both in there. Sweet – a new DXCC entity for both of us!

Then today, I got some time this afternoon behind the dial and got two more new DXCC entities, and these I worked at QRP power.  15 Meters was hopping and netted me UN3M in Kazakhstan, as well as RI1FJ in Franz Josef Land.  The pile ups in these two instances were very small, so I tried QRP from the get-go here and was richly rewarded in both instances.  When the competition is not so fierce, you can afford to “be a purist”.

There was another station that I worked on 15 Meters that caught my ear, as it was a long and strange call sign – LZ1876SMB.  I have worked Bulgaria many times with QRP, but this was a Special Event Station to commemorate the Bulgarian Saint Martyrs of Batak.  A little Googling revealed that these were 700 members of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church who were martyred for their faith in an uprising against Ottomans in 1876.

If you go on QRZ, you’ll find out that LZ1876SMB is just one of many stations that will be on the air commemorating the Bulgarian Saints. For us Stateside ops, if we work five of these different LZ Saints Stations, a very beautiful diploma can be earned.

One down – four to go. I am going to keep my ears open for these stations. Bulgaria is usually (although not always) a fairly easy trip from NJ via QRP.

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

There’s a bunch of stuff I wanted to cover today.

The first is totally unrelated to Ham Radio; but I found it fascinating.  Today, the Congressional Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously to Fr. Emil Kapaun, a Catholic priest and Army Chaplain who courageously served our country in WWII and the Korean Conflict.  He died a POW at the hands of the Chinese in North Korea.  The story of how he conducted himself as a POW and as a leader of men is, to use an overused word, awesome (in the truest sense of the word). After finishing reading the eight part story, all I could think of was “Wow!”.  Follow this link for the story about the humble, brave and holy man : http://www.kansas.com/kapaun/

Secondly – this comes from the “I ordered me one” department.  The Four State QRP Group introduced a new kit today. I immediately ordered one. It’s called the “Force Link” but is spelled 4S-Link.  It is an interface between your radio and computer for the digital modes. All you need in one totally complete kit for $40.  You can’t beat that with a stick!

Two topics that I wanted to bring up today:

Number One – Don’t forget that this weekend (starting in about 45 minutes from the time that I am typing this out) is the CQWW DX Contest – CW.  The exchange on this is soooooooo simple – RST and your CQ Zone (in my case, that would be 5).

If you are thinking of starting QRP DXCC, in the middle of working on QRP DXCC, or towards the end of reaching QRP DXCC – this contest is a good way of helping to achieve your goal.

Don’t be put off by the high speed and don’t be put off with the fact that you are running 5 Watts or less.

A) There will be plenty of DX stations on the air.  You WILL find ones that you will be able to copy.  Search and pounce until you find someone that doesn’t sound like a buzzsaw to you.  Hey, I’ve been at this for over 30 years and I still run into stations where I just shake my head and say,”Huh?”  If you’re not 10000% confident in your CW copying capabilities, you will have the chance to hear that one station give out their call a jazillion times as they run stations. And if that still doesn’t work for you, and you can only copy a partial call – it’s not a mortal sin to log onto DX Summit or some other DX Cluster to see if you can find that station listed by someone else on the band/frequency that you are hearing them (as long as you are not “officially” entering the contest – then I believe the use of spotting is not allowed). But make your best effort. By the end of the contest you will be amazed at how much your CW copying ability can improve in the course of a weekend.

B)  Put out of your mind that you are QRP. I really mean that. Approach the contest just like anyone else running a 100 Watt barefoot rig.  Look, you’re not going to be able to work everyone you hear – but concentrate on the loud ones at first and don’t be afraid to throw out your call.  Contesting brings out the bionic ears on some of these guys and it’s amazing what they can pull out of the aether – ESPECIALLY towards the end of the contest when they are still hungry for points.  Serious DX contest stations that might not otherwise give you the time of day under normal circumstances WILL go out of their way to pump up their contest score.  Take advantage of that.  As the contest progresses (especially the last 24 hours) you will find that you will be able to work stations other than just the loudest ones, too.  But don’t beat your head against a wall.  If you’re trying and you’re just not being heard, move on and come back and try a little bit later.  Propagation may improve and work in your favor.

Number Two – The Android tablet has some Ham apps available that I didn’t even think of when I purchased mine – namely the Zinio and Kindle apps, which are both free by the way.

“Ham related?” you ask?  Yes, through Zinio, I can read both CQ Digital and WorldRadio Online (Note – the subscriptions for these are NOT free). And since the tablet is small and is a WiFi device, I can take it with me into “The Library” to read, if I choose to – or just about anywhere else for that matter.

The Kindle app is strange in a way.  For books, I actually prefer using my Kindle.  But for e-zines that come in a .pdf format?  It’s perfect!  I could never get the “K9YA Telegraph” to load into my Kindle properly. But with the Kindle app on the tablet, it’s better than sliced bread! Prior to this, when I wanted to read “The Telegraph”, I had to sit in front of the desktop or the netbook.  Not always the most convenient situation. I loaded the latest issue onto my tablet just to see how it would work; and I was like a kid on Christmas.  I have a whole bunch of back issues on my desktop computer that I am going to move onto the tablet via DropBox.  Now I will be able to enjoy them in a more relaxing setting.

The ARRL just recently introduced an app for idevices for QST Digital.  Hopefully, they will come out with an Android app soon and I can do all my Ham Radio magazine reading on my tablet – with the exception of QRP Quarterly, of course ……. although………… anybody from QRP-ARCI reading?  😉

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