AmateurRadio.com

Julie was out and about snapping shots!!

For me the ARRL  DX CW contest is over, I have some blog, email and cleaning to do for the rest of the day. Over all the contest was a success for me not that I broke any records with regards to points or number of contacts. I was very pleased with how the station and antenna were working, I find that contests are a great way to see how the rig and antenna preform. With regards to the rig and software I merged N1MM logger and N4PY rig control software through LP-bridge and as an added bonus I was able to also use the Flexradio's flex control vfo knob.....now that was a mouthful!! Lets break this down shall we N1MM is the

At 40mW and below this is the reading

contest logger that I use, N4PY is the software I use to control my K3. LP-bridge is a virtual port program that allows these two programs to somewhat talk to each other. I say somewhat as there are some minor issues. (there is another virtual port program VSP manager that allows perfect integration but I did not want to install it just before a contest) Oh and the FlexRadio FlexControl works fantastic with N4PY's rig control program and through LP-Bridge also works with N1MM as well. Another software program I ended
up purchasing was MRP40 cw decoding program. Now my code is not to bad at all but during contests I have found that for some reason some stations send at the speed of sound. (not sure why as they may loose more contacts that gain as folks just move on being not able to understand the fast code) For those stations this is were MRP40 shines.

Programs running during the contest

This is as far as I am concerned one of the best decoding programs. For those who want to participate in a CW contest but your code is not up to par this program will get you in on the action.  It's not free but is well worth the money!!

That was the software success for the contest other great events were being able to keep my power down to 1 watt....except for 2 contacts were the power creeped up to 3 watts. Did I say the power was kept to 1 watt? That was for a total number of  6 contacts the rest of the DX contacts went into the log with power numbers varying from 10mW's to 900mW's!!
Here is how the power numbers broke down
Contacts          Power
2                      10mW
13                     20mW
2                       40mW
4                       50mW
14                     100mW
22                     500mW
12                     From above 500 to 900mW
6                       1 watt
2                        3 watts

77                      TOTAL
I did say there was some records broken here at VE3WDM and they are
1. 69 DX contacts with under 1 watt in a contest!
2. Miles per watt bar is set higher.....CR3A with 10mW is 344,468 miles per watt 
                                                       DL6FBL with 10mW is 400,126 miles per watt

10mW on the QRPometer

I was not concerned about QSO per hour rate as at these power levels most of the time I had to try more than several times to make a contact. My radio equipment was (for those of  you wondering) the Elecraft K3, Elecraft P3, QRPometer, LP-100 meter, Hendricks 41dB attenuator and the last but not least the monster antenna......an attic dipole the Alpha Delta DX-EE.......that's right an attic dipole!!

Last Friday we had a "situation" at work that had me working until about 3 a.m. and when I got home I was still all pumped from work and was not ready to jump into bed. The thought came to me about getting on the radio and seeing what DX pileups were out there. I had heard of folks getting on in the wee hours of the morning and catching some rare DX. With great expectations  I turned the radio on....10m dead, 15m dead, 17 and 30 same thing!! Alas on 40m my Elecraft P3 showed some faint signals, I spun the dial to the frequency only to find it was some very weak State side stations. Not that there is anything wrong with that but it's kinda a let down when one is anticipating WILD DX!!!

I did not check the propagation that morning so there could had been a storm brewing or maybe everyone but me was in bed sleeping. As I have blogged about in the past I am trying to get my ARRL Diamond Challenge award (and doing it QRP) at this point I am at 81 DXCC contacts. You only have one year to accomplish this goal and it's now almost December!!!  Having said that I am "really" at 95 DXCC's for 2012 according to Club log. The catch is the ARRL for the Diamond award is not counting ALL DXCC on the list. It is a long story but it's just how the ARRL perculates. I was hoping to bring my K2 or my newly acquired KX3 to work as I was wanting to get some operating time in before work. I am usually in around 5:30 in the morning and I have until 7 to make some contacts. With my Saturday mornings performance I am not to sure if bringing  the rig would be a waste of time.....any ideas out there???

For the first time in over a week I found time to wind up the Elecraft K3 and get on the air. In many blogs I have seen WSPR reports of great conditions on 10m, that would be great if I was retired and home during the day....but........I wanted to see how conditions were in the evening. I was very pleased I was able to hear no problem the DXpedition of 3B9SP on Rodriguez Island  This is a small island off the coast of Africa. They were armed with 3 Elecraft K3's and 2 Elecraft KPA 500 amp's. They had a very strong and clean signal here on 20m but the pileup was large. I was able with the help of my P3 to see the stations in the pileup 3B9SP was going back to but I still was not able to break the pileup for a contact.    I then turned it over to 30m which for me most evenings had been a very good band for contacts. I came across HK1MW in Columbia and again a very good signal here into VE3WDM. Columbia is not all that far from my QTH (ham radio speaking that is) and 30m has always been good to me. I gave him a go but there was nothing and the conditions were starting to change as well with lots of fading. Besides my goal for the last 1/3 of this year is to get the last 19 countries for my DXCC Jubilee award. I already have Columbia so it was time to move on. The cluster was showing A45XR out of Oman now I have not had to much luck at all with that region....no luck meaning never hearing them.
I would not advise this while driving but he did make the contact!!

  I gave it a go and there was Chris loud and clear!! He was operating split and with my dual receivers in the K3 I was able to hear both sides of the adventure. It was great the band was not at all as busy as with 3B9SP so I gave him a go...and a go......and a go......until in the wink of an eye he was gone just replaced with static. Well that was my Thursday evening of ham radio. I will say I did have a blast and did miss getting  on the radio.

I put together this somewhat short presentation on how I use the Elecraft P3 along with my K3 to help me snag contacts. As a matter of fact I believe most pan-adapters will accomplish what I am doing with the P3. Have a look see what you think and I hope it helps out with your hobby endeavors.

It was not addressed to me....this time!!!

This evening I was on the radio and 9K2MU from Kuwait was BOOMING IN...never had that happen before. It was 20m at 14.025.008 CW around 23:05 UTC. I was reading on the spots that he was "as deaf as a doornail" Well when he was booming into my QTH he was answering lots of calls and the pileup

Just not meant to be today.

was fairly large to boot. Maybe there are those out there who think if they are not heard then the DX station
is just simply deaf.  Just as fast as he came in.... he was gone and just replaced with static at 23:15!! Did I make the contact....NO.... but I gave it may best effort and  it was not my time. This is what I love about ham radio it's the surprises that help sharpen your skills but at the same you understand that you have so much more to learn.......it just never becomes boring!!!

Over the past few weeks I have been able to get on the air during  the evenings for about an hour and this has paid off with some new DXCC's.  I have been finding a spot on one of the clusters (a DXCC I am in need of) from either DX Watch or the data base in DXLabs spotcollector software. Tuning to that frequency but in the past if I heard nothing I just moved on to another spot. Now I have been sitting on the frequency listening whilst doing other things on the computer....like this post. I have found that as conditions change the static breaks and the new country comes into focus!! At times I have had to use my Audio Peak filtering (APF) which works great to bring the new contact up from just above the noise level.  There have been times when I should had acted faster, like the time Somalia broke through the static. By the time I "filtered up" it was only static and no Somalia!!! 

Ready for action

The time has come for me to open up my Elecraft K3 and preform some surgery. When I purchased the Elecraft P3 to enhance my K3 all was fine until the P3SVGA board was added to the P3. Since the power source for the P3 comes from the K3 with the addition of the P3SVGA board to much power was being  drawn. A

Diode to be removed

resettable fuse in the K3 now and then would trip out. So Elecraft (as they always do) came up with a mod for this problem.  The mod was sent out free BUT it meant opening up my 4k plus radio and removing one SMT diode, inductor and resettable fuse and replacing them with beefed up components. I didn't mind opening up the K3 and adding plug-in components....whole different story when it comes to De-soldering and soldering on the boards!!! For that reason the mod kit sat on my self for about 2 months, after all the P3 was now plugged into it's own power source so the problem was more or less solved.  This weekend in Canada is a long weekend (Canada day) and as always I get bored when I have to much time on my hands.......a little bird whispered in my ear that the board-um can be solved by doing the long over due K3 mod!!!  The board-um got the best of me along with that dam bird!!  I removed the K3 from service and I will say there sure is lots

Fans removed

KPA3 removed

of cables that go into the rig!! With the rig on the bench and beads of sweat starting to form I was off to the races and I hope with a celebration when I hit the finish line!!  As many times in the past I took the covers off and dove in. The first step was to remove the SMT diode easer said then done. This thing is very small it came out with
very little trouble. Installing the new one was another story and it did take me several attempts. When all was said and

Old F2 and RFC 48

done it was  not a pretty site at all but it's in and I hope it works. I was so nervous about screwing the SMT install up that it caused me to hesitate and be over cautious. So that resulted in the SMT not looking professional at all BUT I have fallen into this trap in the past, trying to make it look good and in the end totally screwing the install and or component up. I told myself "it may not look great but if it works thats what counts in the end" The other two component replacement required me to remove the KPA3 cooling fans and the KPA3 unit. The

Ready for new parts

instructions did say the KPA3 unit did not have to be removed if you were very very careful it could be done. Not feeling at all brave out came the KPA3 unit as well. The inductor and resettable fuse that had to be replaced were in plan view and HUGE compared to the SMT diode. I now had to DE-solder the two components and this is were the Hakko 808 was stellar. In under 30 seconds both component were

Great tool to have

out and not a drop of solder was left on each pad. The Hakko 808 is well worth the money that was spent on it, for removing components it's the cats behind!! Soldering in the new components was a breeze and it was time to put the rig back together and do the smoke test.

back home and working

New parts installed

Oliver gives the ok to power up