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Got QSOs on four different bands tonight – they all seemed to be in decent shape.

CN8KD in Morocco on 20 Meters
UA3TCJ in European Russia on 17 Meters
UT6UD in the Ukraine on 30 Meters
EW7LO in Belarus on 40 Meters

No rag chews tonight – just quickie kind of DX contacts.  The QSOs on 17 and 20 Meters were completed through the Butternut HF9V and the QSOs on 30 and 40 Meters were made through the 88′ EDZ antenna. As per the little NA5N propagation box, conditions on all the bands I used were pretty good.

Just for the heck of it, I hooked both antennas up to my coax switch and then to the KX3.  You could actually hear the signals being attenuated by the switch.  The difference between direct hookup to the rig and going through this crummy switch was like night and day.  I’ll have to try and see if I can find a good quality coax switch at the hamfest this weekend to replace this piece of junk.

It would be nice to be able to switch real quickly.  Take the QSO with CN8KD for example.  When I first heard him, I was on the wire.  I called and called and called with no result.  I switched over to the vertical and bingo – first try resulted in a QSO.  Maybe it was coincidence, but in my mind, in this case the vertical made all the difference in the world.  The wire is a much better performer on 80 and 40 Meters.  It sure would be nice to be able to switch at the flick of a button.

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

Sometimes, the most satisfying QSOs don’t seem to relate to distance.  I had a really nice rag chew tonight with John N3WT on 40 Meters.  The band was in real good shape, with hardly any background QRN.  John is only two states away, in Maryland; but yet he gifted me with one of the nicest chats I’ve had since the one with Terry W9UX last week. He was using his K1, and I was on (of course) my KX3.  We were both pumping 599 five Watt signals into the aether.

The discussion ranged from things Elecraft to things Flex Radio, antennas and radio problems. Our conversation lasted but a half hour; but it will be one that I will remember for a while to come.  When the CW just flows from your fingers and the copy is armchair, a QSO can be a thing of beauty.

I’ve also migrated back from Ham Radio Deluxe to N3FJP’s AC log.  Since Simon Brown sold the rights, and HRD will no longer be a free offering, it’s probably just a matter of time until the free version will no longer be supported.  I paid for AC Log years back, so I may as well use what I have already paid for.  And seriously, with HRD, I was only using the logging portion anyhow, so it’s not like I’m losing a lot of features that I never used anyway.  AC Log loads faster, since it’s a much simpler program – so it’s almost ready to go as soon as I am. Good thing I never threw away the e-mail with my registration number!

I was contemplating looking at the DX Lab suite of programs for a second time, but again, I think we’re looking at more than I need for my purposes.  All those bells and whistles are extremely nice; but if I don’t plan on using them, what’s the sense?  I don’t want to say that I would never be, but right now I’m just a dial twiddlin’ kind of guy.  I don’t envision being the kind of contesting guy who truly needs the ability to click a mouse and have the radio instantly jump to a frequency that’s on a computer screen.  To borrow a line from Seinfeld – “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”.  But it’s just not my speed.

This coming Saturday is the Raritan Valley Radio Club’s annual hamfest.  Like last year, I will probably be on parking lot duty.  It will be a long day, with arrival time set at about 5:00 AM.  Watching the 10:00 PM news for the long range forecast is so far calling for a partly cloudy, but dry Saturday with highs in the mid to upper 70s.

Oh well, time to hit the sack. I have to go downstairs and pop a couple Advil first.  I am feeling some minor aches and pains from all the yard work that I did this weekend.  Don’t want to be up all night with a twitchy back.

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

Today I received the following e-mail from Bill W4ZV:

“Hi Larry, FYI on the WRO live blog Richard KI6SN just confirmed that he will be doing FOBB this year and promises results within 2 weeks. Said he would be making an announcement on QRP-L next week. Great news! 73, Bill W4ZV”

End

OK – that’s all  the news I have.  I have not received any answers to my inquiries about FOBB, so I would suggest you keep your eyes peeled on QRP-L for the next couple of weeks.  I do not know if FOBB numbers will be issued; or who will be doing the issuing.

This is a great event, and I’m glad to see that it’s not going the way of the Dodo.

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

It rained and thunder stormed here today, on and off, in fits and starts. That prevented me from doing the yard work that I was planning to accomplish – boo hoo!  🙂

So I spent some time on the air, getting used to the new radio.  Fate would have it that band conditions would be on the less than optimal (read that as: crappy) side today.  But I did manage some QSOs both foreign and domestic.  Hungary, Italy, and England were successfully worked.  The domestic QSOs were brief QSO Party contacts for the most part.  They let me know that I was getting out and being heard; but not very satisfying.

I did have another short QSO with Terry W9UX last night on 30 Meters.  I was calling CQ and he answered me and asked, “Larry, is that your new KX3?”.  Obviously, Terry is a regular reader of this blog.  I answered him that yes, it was and he was my first “real” QSO – something other than “UR 599 TNX QRZ?”

I’ll have to send him my QSL card – the funny thing is that my QSL cards have the image of my K1 on them.  I still have a bunch, so I am not going to discard these just because of that. It’s still QRP, which is what the idea behind the card is supposed to be about.

The KX3 is really cool and I’m getting used to it rather quickly. It has really great features like the APF or Audio Peaking Filter that will really help to dig a weak CW signal buried in the noise. I like being able to decode RTTY and watch it scroll at the bottom of the LCD display.  I also like the CW Tuning Aid, where you tap a button and the KX3 automatically zero beats the person you’re trying to work.

As the radio is configured now, as a strictly QRP radio, I cannot hook up two antennas like I can on the K2,  and I use that feature a lot to switch back and forth between the Butternut and the wire. I suppose I could always go back to using a mechanical manual coax switch; but by going that route, I would be incurring some signal loss, and I would rather not do that.

There is a button on the KX3 that will allow you to switch between two antennas, but that is enabled only when  the 100 Watt autotuner is used.  As of right now, I have no plans to make this a QRO radio, so the main shack radio will be the K2, unless a K3 should come waltzing into my life for some unforeseen reason.

The other thing that I am looking forward to in the near future is making some contacts on 6 Meters, which I have never done in the 34 years that I have been a Ham.  This is the first radio that I have ever owned that is 6 Meter capable.  The other thing I want to do is hook this netbook up the the KX3, just to see how Ham Radio Deluxe interfaces with it.  I never installed the RS232 option in the K2, so I was never able to have rig control until now, either.

Lots to look forward to!

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

From May 5 until June 10 British amateur radio stations that have been granted permission to do so may use the prefix GQ, MQ and 2Q0 in place of their regular G, M or 2×0. For the duration of the 2012 Olympic Games British amateurs may use GO, MO and 2O0 instead of their normal calls.

As a sport-hating republican (and I don’t mean the American political party of the same name) G4ILO will continue to use the callsign that has declared me to be an ENGLISH amateur radio operator for the last 30-odd years. So now you know!

The weather has been phenomenal this winter, as you all know.  Due to Arctic air staying way up north, we’ve had one of the warmer Winters that we’ve had in a while.  Who would’ve thought last Halloween, when we had that early snow, that Winter was going to turn out the way it did?

The early warmth and early blooming and budding is playing havoc with my head, though.  My nose is all stopped up and my eyes are itchy and watery.  Allergies are no fun; but this too shall pass.

So when my friend Rem K6BBQ posted about another video from last year, it’s gotten me all torqued up for portable operating for this coming Spring and Summer outdoor operating season.  Shorts and T-shirt weather may not be immediately imminent; but I dare say it’s closer than father away!

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

With all the news about giant solar flares that could black out communications I was surprised to hear activity on 10 metres. I made a few contacts on SSB with my attic dipole, including A65EE in Dubai and TC2012WKD from Turkey: a special event station for World Kidney Day to raise awareness of the importance of kidneys to our health.

I like to operate on the highest frequencies I can. On the shortest wavelengths small antennas are at the least disadvantage.