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My contest screen

Ham radio is very diverse and has something that seems to click with each radio operator. One of my "clicks" is contesting and I also add to it the flavor of QRP (another one of my clicks). I enjoy using my PC in conjunction with ham radio and when it comes to contesting a PC is almost a must have. The program I use for contesting is N1MM logger. It 's a great program and works very well, has great support and I'm not sure of any contests that it does not support. Over time I have added some programs to my contest repertoire. I found that controlling N1MM got me used to using my mouse and that is the way to go when it comes to contesting. I then came across N4PY's rig control program. It's another way to incorporate my mouse to allow me control of my K3 during contests. This program is very well supported and the times I have emailed questions and got a reply within 1/2  hour!! This program will allow you to control most if not all functions of your radio with the click of a mouse. In a contest this is great because you are not going from mouse (N1MM logger) and back to the radio. For me it's more of a smooth type of operation using the mouse.  Hold on....my contest hangup gets weirder.....I have a keyboard tray that supports my keyboard,
Begali Contour key and why not VFO control as well!!!  Now comes the Flexcontrol VFO knob. This is a USB device that allows  you to tune your rig (and more) from where you ask.....well the keyboard tray of VSP manager to the mix. This great little program (that is free to hams) allows all the programs to live happily with each other.

FlexControl knob

coarse!  N4PY's programs allows you to interface the Flexcontrol with your rig through his program. I did say the Flexcontrol did more than just tune, it has 4 memory buttons that can be programed through N4PY's program to preform often used radio functions.  Also the VFO knob can go from fine tune to three other tuning choices by just clicking the knob! To do  this the radio, Flexcontrol knob and N1MM all have to be happy coexisting with each other. To do this  I added
You all know how it is when you have had a nice dinner and there is still room for a nice desert......well my nice dinner on my keyboard tray was the Flexcontrol knob, Begali Contour key and the mouse....there is still room for one more item! I added the K1EL USBwinkey which I assembled myself.  The N1MM contest program is able to incorporate the Winkeyer in it's program, so when I program the CW messages into the winkeyer they will be used by N1MM when I mouse click on the N1MM macro button. This is great because the Winkeyer is very easy to program and you can save various keying programs into individual files. This way I will have a file for each CW contest and just a mouse click to program N1MM for each CW contest.  If all files are stored on my PC and the Winkeyer is set up via the PC and CW is set through N1MM logger then why the heck does the Winkeyer have to be on the tray!!! Well Winkeyer has a nice variable pot control that can vary the CW on the fly. This way for op's who are sending slower or faster CW you can be varied  by a simple turn of the Winkeyer knob.

Keyboard tray setup

Finally there are those out there that subscribe to the KISS theory.....Keep it simple stupid......and this is true when you introduce other factors with ham radio. As for me trying and sometime failing is well worth it when in time all comes together and works well.

Times R a changing with the way the sun is preforming these days. I know we have all wanted the sunspots to go up along with the flux numbers......BUT..........what is up with the solar flares!!! As a wise man once told me with the good comes the bad as well.  Sunday afternoon I fired up DXlabs and on the cluster was S573DX from Slovenia. He was booming in at around S7 to S9 and I had my K3 at around 5 watts and so began my effort to contact him. There was a pileup and as it goes with QRP you have to let the big guns get their turn and then you can fit your call in the cracks! I was waiting for my

Back to the K2 build

opportunity (mind you I still was throwing in my call along side the "big guns"...you never know) and then S573DX went from S7-S9 so S...NOTHING!! In the blink of an eye he was just above the noise level even the APF was not able to dig him out of the noise floor. So goes the conditions when the sun grumpy! There are other projects around the shack to keep me busy...such as my K2 build. There was not much time for radio this week as Julie has relivitves coming in from England next weekend. They will be staying with us for 3 weeks so it was time to get some rooms ready for them and do some needed house cleaning as well.

Most of the time during these full weekend contests I don't get on Friday evening as I find it to be a ZOO with lots of stations sending at a blinding speeds. I don't blame them as they want to get their score rolling so that on Saturday they are well in the game. I started on Saturday morning around 8 in the morning the power output is 5 watts QRP into my attic dipole. It's funny I was sending serial numbers in the teens and I am receiving serial numbers the the triple digits. Now that would be depressing if I was in the contest to make a showing...but I'm in it to have fun!! So how did the first day go......

1. The propagation was.....shall we say (because this is a family blog) crap!! 
2. I was in the contest for a grand total of 5 hours today. 
3. There was some down time as you can tell from fact number 2...software troubles, USB port trouble and K3 updates and the list can go on.  (This is normal contest OMG stuff)
4. The attic dipole once again did very well considering the conditions.
5. The evening once 20m closes down I am done as with the poor conditions for some reason 40m has not been a great band for me with the attic dipole. 

EI9KC (2nd from left) and Anthony

Very rare during the week do I have time to get on the radio once all the things around the house are done I am beat... BUT this evening was an off night were I was able to power up the K3. It was 30m were things seemed to be happening for me. I was able to "hear" lots but contact few, there was lots of South American stations calling CQ but my 5 watts just did not seem to make it down that way. I had a look at the P3 to see what stations were showing up and I came across a very weak signal. I was not able to make out the call but then as 30m does the call came in at S5 just right for me decipher the call. It was EI9KC from Ireland now for some reason I do have a very hard time with getting Ireland in the log. I took a chance and threw my 5 watts out there and EI9KC came back to me! Ark gave me a 559 report and considering the band conditions, my attic dipole and the 5 watts I was pumping out I was thrilled! The trouble at this end was he was in and out BIG TIME! It was a very short QSO but I did email him just to make sure Ark knew I did copy him and I wanted to make sure he got my call and did copy me. He emailed me right back and did confirm the contact and low and behold he is a blogger as well. You can check out EI9KC's blog here, Ireland has a special place in my heart as both my mom and dad are from there. Funny thing and small world I did a search on Google regarding EI9KC and I found out he knows a fellow blogger Anthony EI2KC   (first ham on the left of the pic above).

Setup for test. (Laptop running Ubuntu update)

The propagation conditions have not been all that great over the last couple of days so what a better time to do some on air Alexloop vs attic dipole comparisons! Here is the setup I used my Elecraft K3 putting the Alexloop in antenna 1 on the K3 and left the dipole on antenna 2 on the K3. This way I can use the internal tuner for the dipole and remove the antenna tuner for the Alexloop with just the push of a button on the K3. The power output was 5 watts, figured I would go to the top end of QRP considering the atmospheric conditions being not so hot. The Alexloop was up in my radio room facing West out the widow and East through my house walls. The Dipole is in a "Z" configuration in the attic so it kinda is facing most all directions. The Alexloop frequency was 14.061 and the dipole was 14.059 and I was using CW along side the Reverse Beacon network. The current atmosphiric conditions at the time of the test were:
A-5
K3
SFI 157
SN 173
Below is the results of the test.....not so well it would seem the Alexloop netted zero and the dipole only one. So is seems for a more acurate comparison better conditions are needed.

Last evening I had a very short time on the radio I was not expecting much as the conditions have not been stellar. I did find 20m to be very busy and not reflecting the solar conditions. On May 2nd I was able to work EA4DRV and last night I heard him on again calling CQ. I gave him a call and made the contact with only 100mW's for a miles per watt of 37,968! Shortly after my contact I heard him giving a report to fellow blogger Larry W2LJ. I was only able to hear Larry very faintly just above the noise level. I did do a little more fishing but time was tight and I had to shut things down for the evening. This evening I think I am going to throw the line out again and see how the fishing goes!

Throughout the day yesterday I was getting propagation updates on my Iphone, things were not looking to good. The decision was made to work on my Elecraft K2 build and not get frustrated with poor propagation conditions. After about 20 minutes of working on the K2 I just was not getting into. Putting the project down for the evening I flipped on the K3 just to check out the band conditions. One of my handy tools for doing that is the Elecraft P3. It's great for seeing the general condition of a particular band. It seemed that 20 meters was not doing to badly considering the conditions. The first station I ran across was H70ORO from Nicaragua. His signal was rather strong considering my attic dipole does not seem to favour Central or South America. His code speed was a comfortable 20 wpm and really not much of a pileup. I made contact with only 1 watt which gave me 2,190 miles per watt contact.
The next (and final) station I contacted was EA4DRV, being pumped from my last 1 watt contact I tried working this Spanish station with 1 watt. It didn't work out as well and the contact was made eventually with 3 watts. After this contact it was time to flip the switch once again and move on to making lunches, arranging morning work clothes and all that other fun stuff.  It goes to show you that even when the propagation is in the dumpers contacts are still there to be had!