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But it’s been a heckuva week.  Not any Ham radio activity or blogging for W2LJ this past week as my Mom was in the hospital and that was my main focus.

She was having a lot of pain in her right side and it finally got to be too much for her to take. My sister texted me very early Tuesday morning that she was with our Mom and had called 911.  I didn’t go into work that day; and spent most of it in the Emergency Room.  First thoughts were either gall bladder or kidney stones.  All the sophisticated tests didn’t reveal too much of anything.  A thorough “old fashioned” exam by an “old school” Chinese doctor led to a hunch and another X-ray revealed a slight fracture to a rib.

Today my Mom was sprung from the hospital and is currently staying at my sister’s house and should be there for the next few weeks to a month.  She’s looking rested and more relaxed now that she knows what was causing the pain.  I think that finding out the cause of something like this is more than half the battle.  Once you can get a little peace of mind, the rest can fall into place.

I did get a chance to get back on the radio for a bit this afternoon to find not much going on. 10, 12, 15 and 17 Meters were all dead when I listened this afternoon.  I finally worked EA3DD, Manuel on 20 Meters for a brief QSO. He was very loud – 599 into NJ and I was graced with a 549 report back.  I’ll take that any day.

Oh, even though it seems that 2011/2012 will be known as the “Winter That Never Was” here in the NorthEast (I saw robins this morning and the crocusses are already popping up in the front yard), here’s K6BBQ’s homage to FYBO:

Hey, according to the KX3 reflector – the Operator’s Manual will be released on Monday at the Elecraft Website!  Getting closer!

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

is available in a new, free online e-book by Adrian Weiss, W0RSP.

It is entitled, The Five-Watt QRP Movement in the US, 1968-1981, and is available by clicking on the title. The hyperlink will take you right where you need to go.

I have already downloaded it and will send it to my Kindle, so that I can read it without being tied to the computer.  The history of QRP and how 5 Watts came to be the “definition” of QRP is intriguing to me.  My very first membership certificate explained that QRP was considered to be 100 Watts or less.  As a Novice, pushing out 75 Watts max with my Drake 2-NT was a natural fit, so I joined QRP-ARCI way back when in 1979.

I never got involved in the 100 Watt vs. 5 Watt debate; but had no problem with the final decision.  Operating with low power always fascinated me and I had lots of fun and good times with it, throughout my earlier Ham career.  Going strictly QRP back in 2003 is something I have seldom regretted.  I’d be lying if I told you there weren’t times that I wished I had 100 Watts in order to help bust through a pileup in order to snag a new DX entity. But limiting your self to lower power helps to reinforce discipline and knowing your limits and capabilities.  Good life lessons.

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

Thanks to all of you here and on AmateurRadio.com who were so kind as to express condolences and kind words upon our Sadie’s passing.

This is going to take a while to get over – but life does go on.

So …… on an Amateur Radio note, the bands did not seem to be active at all today.  For a few brief minutes this afternoon, I was able to get on and listen.  I heard and worked EI4AA on 12 Meters and was surprised by the fact.

Bernard was pretty weak hear – 569 or there abouts, maybe a little louder – 589 on QSB peaks, maybe?  As I called him, I thought to myself, “There’s no way I am going to get an answer here.”  But sure enough, I did and on my first call – and I received a 559 report for my efforts.  And I was very happy to receive that.  Then I went down to 20 Meters and worked a station in Texas who was working the SKCC Weekend Sprint.

After that, I had to QRT as my daughter Cara (holding Sadie above), who is a member of the children’s choir at Church, was part of a free concert this afternoon.  The theme was “A Night on Broadway” and the children’s choir, the adult choir, the hand bell and hand chime choirs all participated, performing various Broadway tunes. It was a very enjoyable two hour event.

Today was very windy and cold – winter has come back to New Jersey with a vengeance.  Yesterday, the forecast was for 1-3″ of snow, but that forecast was a bust.  We barely got a dusting – and please don’t misunderstand – I am in no way complaining!

As soon as it turns to 2/13 UTC, I am going to head downstairs to see if I can get a daily QSO or two in and then off to bed.

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

It has been yet another fabulous summer day here in Cumbria. I’m in good spirits and physically feeling fitter by the day. I think the balance issues and “jelly legs” are more an effect of the brain operation than a lack of fitness. Perhaps the same reason my hands often shake badly and cause frustration when trying to attempt soldering.

We decided to go for a walk over the fields to the north of Cockermouth and have a picnic lunch. I took the Taiwanese twins in the hope of making a few radio contacts whilst we were out.

The walk involved some gentle climbing up from the valley. On the way I heard Alan M1EYO/P call on 2m to activate the SOTA summit of Watch Hill G/LD-054 which is almost literally in my back yard. You can see it on the far left of the picture behind me. When I was fit I could walk to Watch Hill though I never did as there was not much attraction in walking for an hour and a half to reach the summit when I could park the car within 15 minutes walk of the top. With no car unfortunately even Watch Hill is out of bounds.

After I worked Alan we carried on walking until we almost reached the Carlisle road, where we found a grassy south facing slope to have lunch. This is probably the only portable site that I can reach on foot from here, though it isn’t a very good site as it is still within the Derwent valley or “Cockermouth black hole” as I call it.

Checking 2m from time to time with a 5/8 telescopic whip on the 2m radio I heard Richard G1JTD/P activating Illgill Head G/LD-029. With a bit of help from Tony G1OAE Richard heard me and we made a contact. I had to use the monitor button to disable the fixed squelch on the H112PLUS which is set far too high. The receiver on the 5/8 telescopic seemed quite poor possibly due to intermodulation or overload. These really are terrible radios!

Alan was going to activate Binsey G/LD-041 a favourite of mine which was in fact the last summit I activated so we waited until he called on 2m and I had another contact. Alan told me he had discovered Rob G4RQJ on the other side of Binsey summit working 40m and setting up to try 4m. I pricked up my ears at the mention of four metres and about a minute later I heard Rob calling on the other H112PLUS so I was able to make my second-ever contact on 70MHz. Binsey is also line of sight from where I was so it was not a DX contact but it was still nice to make a contact on the 4m band.

After that we packed up and walked home. It was a pretty tiring day’s outing for me, definitely the furthest I have walked and the highest I have climbed since my operation. But it was quite a morale booster to get out on such a nice day and do some portable operation. There are even some trees there I could try to get some wire over for some HF operation with the FT-817 in the future, so that’s something to look forward to.

The Ukrainian government has confirmed new rules for its radio amateurs. Since 11th March 2011 Ukrainian amateurs may no longer use the following frequencies: 10100-10150kHz, 14250-14350kHz, 1240-1300MHz, 2300-2450MHz, 5670-5850MHz, 10-10,1 GHz, 10,15-10,5GHZ, 24,05-24,25GHz,76-77,5 GHz , 78-81GHz, 122.25-123.0 GHz, 134-136 GHz, 136-141GHz, 241-248GHz, 248-250GHz. Note the first two – that is all of 30m and half of the phone portion of 20m the Ukrainians can no longer use!

This is very sad for a country whose amateurs are among the most active on the HF bands. What is the point of denying the use of frequencies that will still be used throughout the world including by Ukraine’s neighbours? If it is intended to give these frequencies to other services (in defiance of ITU frequency allocations) then these services will find them unusable because of activity from elsewhere.

It is crazy. As my Ukrainian-born wife Olga would agree, surely the Ukrainian government has more important things it could be doing than meddling with amateur frequency allocations?

I’m hoping that this is just an April Fool that has got out of hand. I cannot find any information confirming this other than a few forum posts. Certainly someone in Ukraine kept enough of a sense of humour to make this little video about it in English. Hopefully some comments to this post will provide more details.

The RSGB has negotiated with Ofcom to allow UK radio amateurs to use a special call to celebrate the wedding of H.R.H. Prince William and Catherine Middleton. The call may be used during a period of 11 days from the date of the wedding, 29 April 2011, until 9 May 2011. The call will use the letter “R” after the first letter of the call, replacing the regional designator for Scotland, Ireland, Wales etc. where used. So G4AAA would become GR4AAA, 2E0ABC would become 2R0ABC, GM3ZZZ would be GR3ZZZ and so on.

UK licensed amateurs wishing to use the special call must apply for a Notice of Variation (NoV) to their license. This NoV may only be applied for online using a simple online form and the NoV will be delivered by email. Who says that the RSGB is not progressive?

Personally I will be trying as much as possible to avoid all the ballyhoo over this wedding so I shan’t be applying, but I thought that the information may be of interest.

Ten metres has been open this afternoon. I was alerted to this when someone on the Transmission1 radio forum mentioned that 27MHz was full of Russian taxis. I had a listen and sure enough their FM transmissions were clearly audible well up into the lower end of the amateur 10m band. This is one of the penalties of having CB radios that are easily modifiable for use outside their allowed band, I guess. And there’s no chance of anything being done about it in Russia, the land where the Kalashnikov and the bribe determine the rules.

I switched to SSB and quickly worked A61AM. One of the things I love about 10m is the number of times you hear a DX station, give your call and they come right back. I was not even running full power – 80w is normally all I use. True there were a couple of pileups apparently of pirates using calls that consisted of just two letters 🙂 but I avoided those. By the way, why is it that DX stations so rarely give their own call? Sometimes you have to listen for five minutes to hear it again and verify that you logged it correctly.

Propagation was obviously good into Russia but I also worked Mike, SV5BYR on Rhodes, Barney ZS6TQ, Burhan TA1BX and Norman 5B4AIF.  It’s really great to hear 10m opening up, that’s for sure!