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The bands are improving, the geomagnetic effects of the Coronal Mass Ejection seem to be fading. I was able to get on the air after dinner and work a few DX stations to add to my Club 72 QRP Marathon totals.

Many, many thanks to Peter HA5MK in Hungary on 40 Meters, Rolf SE6Y in Sweden on 30 Meters, and Vlad RW6FS in European Russia on 20 Meters.

The final totals for the 2012/2013 QRP Fox hunts were posted today. While I placed nowhere near the top finishers, I did “OK” for living in the Northeast without gain antennas. In the 40 Meter hunts, I nabbed 21 out of 40 possible pelts for a .525 batting average. I did even slightly better in the 80 Meter hunts. There I snared 26 out of 40 pelts for a batting average of .650 – good numbers if I were a slugger in the Major Leagues.

The “Major Leagues” as far as Fox hunts go, are folks like Doc K0EVZ, Dick W0NTA, Dave AB9CA, Dale WC7S, Dave N1IX, Jerry N9AW, Rick NK9G, John N2RK, Todd N9NE and many others. These guys are the heavy hitters, and I am nowhere in their league.

The “portable ops QRPer” in me really appreciated and enjoyed an article by Padraig Lysandrou KC9UUS in the May issue of QST. Read it if you get the chance. Padraig is a relatively newly licensed Ham, as well as a high school student. He and his family (Mom, Dad and two sisters are also licensed) took the opportunity to combine a vacation to Cyprus with Ham Radio. Not QRP, but very much portable. It was a good read, and Padraig is an excellent writer.

Lastly, before closing, for the night, I’d like to send prayers and thoughts to all the folks in Boston who suffered in the bombings today. May the injured heal completely and quickly. May the families of the deceased receive consolation and healing, also.

We are all Bostonians tonight – as a Nation, we gather together and become one.

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

There! That sounds like the beginning of an Alcoholics Anonymous story, doesn’t it? I’ll explain my confession about being a Lid in just a little while.

Actually, the evening started well. After dinner, I was able to get on the radio for a bit and found some activity. My first goal was to work some QRP DX. Now that I have entered the Club 72 DX Marathon, I don’t want to be the only US station entered and show up dead last. To that end, I was successful and worked PP1CZ from Brazil on 17 Meters. To my delight, I found activity on 10 Meters also, and I was fortunate enough to get 6Y5KF from Jamaica and LU1FAM from Argentina into my log. I entered the PP1CZ and LU1FAM as official QSOs for the day.

Now, onto the 80 Meter QRP Foxhunts and my liddiness issues.  The first Fox was easy. I was easily able to find Jim K4AXF. Since Jim is located in Virginia, that’s a real easy shot from New Jersey on 80 Meters. Using the KX3’s Dual Watch feature, I had Jim’s pelt within 16 minutes from the beginning of the hunt.

The second Fox was Jerry N9AW. Normally, Jerry is an easy catch for me. Most Wisconsin and Minnesota Foxes are. Sometimes I think I have a pipeline to that part of the country. But this time his signal was weak, so I waited for a while before calling. Sure as anything, Jerry’s signal started improving. Again, using Dual Watch, I was able to figure out rather easily where he was listening. I began calling, but for some reason, I just wasn’t making it.

That’s when I discovered my error! I looked down and noticed that after I had worked K4AXF, I had turned the split function off. Horror of horrors! I had forgotten to turn the split function back on and I was calling N9AW on his calling frequency!  The “Prime No-No” of Foxhunting! If I could have dug a hole, I would have jumped in and closed it up after myself. I had probably angered a whole bunch of my brother and sister Hounds. Imaginary mutterings of “Lid” stung my ears. My deepest and sincerest apologies, my fellow Foxhunters. I have violated the sacred Foxhunters Code of Conduct. I will accept the 40 lashes with a wet noodle that I am entitled to.

After rectifying my mistake, though, I got Jerry in the log in very short order. In fact, it only took one call. Amazing how well things can go when you use the equipment properly.

My fellow Fox hunters are a kind and magnanimous group, so I doubt anyone will give me grief. But that won’t be necessary, as I will give myself plenty, and will do my best to make sure I don’t make the same mistake a second time.

Being a Lid is no fun.

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

I had a meeting to attend this evening, so I wasn’t able spend too much time behind the K3. But after I got home, I did run downstairs to fire up the rig. 30 Meters seemed active, so I camped out there for a bit.

In short order, I worked 9A6C in Croatia and CN8KD in Morocco. I nabbed both these stations with QRP power levels. I threw out my call a few times for A45XR in Oman. But by that point, he had been spotted on the Cluster and the pileup was enormous. Even though I have never worked Oman before, I did not up the power and jump into the fray. I was just too tired.

A little bit up the band, OK did hear ER1OO, Wlad in Moldova. I tried him a few times, but I kept on getting “W3L?”. It was obvious that he was having difficulty hearing me. Not wishing to torture Wlad any further, I pulled the Big Switch for the night.

No commitments for tomorrow night, except for the 80 Meter Fox hunt, which is the very last one for the 2012/2013 Winter season. Maybe I will hear some more good DX before the hunt begins.

I’ve done pretty well this season. I am going to miss the hunts, and will eagerly await the 20 Meter Summer season.

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

I was fortunate enough to work both 40 Meter QRP-L Foxes tonight.  Jimmy WA4ILO and Jerry N9AW are superb operators, both with good ears, so that had a lot to do with it.  But I used the KX3 tonight and that made it all the easier.

The “Dual Watch” feature is something else, and makes working split a snap!  You go into the KX3’s menu until you get to “Dual RX” and you turn it from “Off” to “Auto”. What happens next is that you hear your quarry on VFO A in your right earbud.  VFO B is heard in your left earbud, so you can tune around VFO B until you hear the Hound the Fox is currently working.  Once you know where the Fox is listening, it’s just a matter of time!  The only caveat is that the Dual Watch feature will only work with splits less than 1.5 kHz.

Anyway, I nabbed Jerry N9AW at 0106 UTC, six minutes into the hunt, and Jimmy WA4ILO at 0139. For the last hour, I was just listening to the two Foxes work my friends.

The past few days, I have been getting very few e-mails.  I subscribe to quite a few QRP e-mail reflectors and I was wondering what was up.  I thought that maybe it had something to do with that Microsoft / arrl.net thing that was going on last week, as I always use my arrl.net address for e-mail.

This evening, I checked my Web-based Verizon e-mail page.  Everything was in the spam, folder!  All the spam was in there; but also a ton of good e-mails, too! For the longest time, Verizon’s e-mail spam filter was doing an excellent job and I never really had to give it a second thought.  Looks like for the next while that I am going to have to regularly check the spam folder until the e-mail client “learns” what is spam and what is not.

I got an e-mail from my good friend Bob W3BBO, telling me that he was fortunate to work the Easter Island DXpedition on both 12 and 15 Meters today.  I haven’t had much luck hearing them loud enough to work them, and when they have been loud enough – they have been calling for EU stations only.  I don’t know how much longer they are going to be there; but I do have this Friday (Good Friday) off; so maybe when I’m not in church, I just may get an opportunity.  I’ve worked Chile many times, both QRP and QRO, but I have NEVER worked Easter Island.  It would be appropriate to work them this week, wouldn’t it?

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

This post will deal with a phenomena that is occurring more and more frequently, I believe.  But it hasn’t been noticed by me alone, it was also noticed by Jim K9JV, who posted about it on QRP-L this morning.  I touched upon this  in my recent post about pile up behavior; however,  this is a very important topic, so here we go again.

Jim was trying to work both P29NO and 9M4SLL.  The pileups were big and unruly.  While it is the domain of the DX to try and control the pileups, it remains the responsibility of those trying to work the DX to do so in as “professional” a manner as possible.  Jim pointed out that several stations continued to throw out their calls, even though the quarry was clearly calling for a station whose call was in no way similar to those of the perpetrators.

This is maddening!  K9JV was furious (and justifiably so) that when  P29NO was calling “K9?V”, a KØ, a VE and a W2 kept plaguing the aether with their calls.  I had a similar experience a few years ago when I was trying to work an Iraqi station.  I was one of those competing in the pileup, and the Iraqi station suddenly began sending “W2L?”   He meant yours truly of course, yet I was obliterated by a W4 station, and no, it wasn’t a W4Lsomething (I could have accepted that) – the station didn’t even have an “L” in their call at all!  Jim was lucky as he ended up working P29NO. In my case, the Iraqi station subsequently went QRT and I never got him in the log.

What causes this kind of behavior?  Are people truly that stupid and discourteous?  I don’t know the answer to that, although I am tempted to offer an unfounded and uncharitable guess.

But I think part of the problem may lay in the way that I think DX is encountered today.  At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, in the days of old, we used to find DX by twiddling the dial and listening for it.  You spun the dial knob, up and down – back and forth, straining your ears to find that foreign amateur radio op.  If you were lucky, you were able to hear him, you worked him and you were good to go.  Or you listened for a pileup, and you located the station they were all calling, determined if you needed him, and then you joined the fray.  But in essence, YOU had to locate the DX station yourself, either by dial twiddling or by locating the goal of a pileup.

Today, things have gotten immensely easier; but at the same time, we have invoked “The Law of Unintended Consequences”.  Allow me to explain with this scenario:

A station twiddles the dial – he finds and hears (for example, we’ll use a DXpedition that just concluded) TX5K.  He works him.  Then, proud of his accomplishment, he posts TX5K to the Internet (in the days of old, the PacketCluster), wishing to share the bounty. Immediately, on the screens of Amateur Ops the world over, it appears that TX5K has appeared on 18.073 MHz (for example).

Nowadays, with the myriad of the logging programs and rig control programs available, an Amateur Op can just point and click with his mouse and “Viola!” there they are, on TX5K’s frequency.

I think the problem is, that many (but by nowhere near all) ops don’t pause to listen to hear if they can actually hear TX5K.  Or may be they can, but they hear him only marginally at best.  In fact, they hear him so marginally that if they were tuning across the band on their own, they wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was TX5K in the first place – but hey, their computers tell them that he’s there, right?  So what do they do?  They start throwing out their calls in the hopes that somehow he’ll magically get louder and that they’ll be heard in return.  Heck, in many cases they can’t even tell that he’s working split!  So they call right on the listening frequency, which then invokes the ensuing cacophony of “UP”s and “LID”s being sent.

It gets to be one, big frustrating mess.  And this doesn’t even take into account the zoo that can occur if some quack, who literally enjoys jamming DX operations, gets involved.

So what should be done about this?  Closely and completely adhere to the “DX Code of Conduct” – that’s what!

The DX Code of Conduct was formulated by Randy Johnson W6SJ.  You can read about it here.

I will listen, and listen, and then listen again before calling.
I will only call if I can copy the DX station properly.
I will not trust the DX cluster and will be sure of the DX station’s call sign before calling.
I will not interfere with the DX station nor anyone calling and will never tune up on the DX frequency or in the QSX slot.
I will wait for the DX station to end a contact before I call.
I will always send my full call sign.
I will call and then listen for a reasonable interval. I will not call continuously.
I will not transmit when the DX operator calls another call sign, not mine.
I will not transmit when the DX operator queries a call sign not like mine.
I will not transmit when the DX station requests geographic areas other than mine.
When the DX operator calls me, I will not repeat my call sign unless I think he has copied it incorrectly.
I will be thankful if and when I do make a contact.
I will respect my fellow hams and conduct myself so as to earn their respect.

Having wonderful tools at your disposal does not abrogate your responsibility to operate in an unselfish manner. You must still be courteous to your fellow Hams.

I am so taken by this credo, that I am posting the DX Code of Conduct badge on the side of this blog, to be a reminder to myself and others.

Oh, and QRP Fox hunters …… your situation is a bit different, so let’s adapt these:

I will listen, and listen, and then listen again before calling.
I will only call if I can copy the Fox station properly.
I will not interfere with the Fox station nor anyone calling and will never tune up on the Fox frequency or in the QSX slot.
I will use full break-in if at all possible.
I will wait for the Fox station to end a contact before I call.
I will always send my full call sign.
I will call and then listen for a reasonable interval. I will not call continuously.
I will not transmit when the Fox station calls another call sign, not mine.
I will not transmit when the Fox station queries a call sign not like mine.
When the Fox station calls me, I will send ONLY the required exchange of RST – S/P/C – Name – Power out
I will be thankful if and when I do make a contact.
I will resort to attempting duplicate contacts only if I am very certain that I was not heard the first time.
I will respect my fellow hams and conduct myself so as to earn their respect.

If we all do these things, life on the bands can be much more pleasant.

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

I was in the basement, cutting up some cardboard boxes for the recycling pickup tomorrow.  To dispel the quiet and to have something to listen to, I turned the radio on.

I worked K6K/MM on 17 Meters.  My friend Bob W3BBO worked them last night on 20 Meters and let me know that these folks are the DXpedition that is heading to Clipperton.  I worked Clipperton back in 2000; but that was with 75 Watts (QRO).  I will try again; but QRP this time (of course).

From there, I tuned up into the SSB portion of 20 Meters.  I figured I would listen to either some guys chewing the rag, or some guys working DX.  I ended up listening to guys try and work some DX.  To be honest with you, I don’t even know who or where the station was.  He was working simplex and the pile up was not huge; but he wasn’t calling CQ, either.  He had enough stations to handle.

Why do people insist on calling a DX station when they can’t adequately hear him?  I ask this, because there were guys throwing out their calls, while the DX station was still in QSO with the previous station!

It seems to me, that if you can’t hear the DX station well enough to know that he’s still talking and hasn’t finished …… what makes you think that you’ll hear him come back to you?  Do these folks think that propagation is going to magically improve so that a 2X contact can be made?

I’m not getting just on the SSB guys.  It’s no better on the CW side – heck, it’s no better in the QRP Fox Hunts!  I can’t tell you how many times guys just keep throwing out their call signs over, and over and over until you want to tear your hair out.  Call signs being spewed out when the Fox is in the middle of making a contact with someone else.

If you can’t hear THAT, why even bother to try to work them? Unless you can hear him well enough to respond to you, it seems to me that you’re just setting yourself up to be thought of as a Lid by your peers.

That old saying holds true – “You can’t work ’em if you can’t hear ’em.”  But maybe we should also add, “You shouldn’t try to work ’em if you can’t hear ’em!”

Just sayin’

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