AmateurRadio.com

Argh! If my head wasn’t screwed on, I would probably forget that, too!

Rem K6BBQ wanted me to mention that he has added a SOTA category to this year’s inaugural Scorch Your Butt Off contest, coming this July. If you activate a SOTA summit, you can claim an additional 100 points to your SYBO score. Please keep in mind that this has NOTHING to do with your SOTA activation points, this is for your SYBO score only.

I had my last Pastoral Council meeting tonight, so I didn’t get the chance to put any more radials down this evening. I have served on the Parish Pastoral Council for the last four years. Two meetings a month, all year around. That may not sound like much, but there are always many peripheral duties involved, as well as peripheral events where attendance was not mandatory, but desired. The normal term of service is three years, but I was asked to, and served for four. Now that these are going to be over, I will be able to attend Amateur Radio club meetings again. I hesitated to in the past, as I always tried to keep away from being out of the house multiple nights a week. To say my attendance of club meetings was sporadic is being generous. It was, for all intent and purpose, non-existant.

This Friday evening is an Electronic Testing Society of NJ meeting. Fancy name for a repeater club meeting, eh? The group is better known as the Greenbrook repeater group, and the meetings are always the last Friday of the month. Even though this would mean being out two evenings this week, I am going to make a best effort to attend, so as to get back into the swing of things.

I also hope to attend a lot more VE sessions when license exam season starts up again in earnest this September. I have always enjoyed being a VE, going back to the days when I regularly attended and volunteered at the sessions that were offered by the Raritan Bay Radio Amateurs.

I had to go to a remote site at work today, so I didn’t get in my lunchtime QRP session, so no photos today, maybe tomorrow, weather permitting (but alas, it seems there’s a 75% chance of rain for tomorrow).

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

Again today, I headed out at lunch time to the car.  It was hot ….  90F again, but this time before I left the building, I checked into WeatherUnderground and saw that the humidity was at 77%.  It was tropical to say the least.  I had a very pleasant QSO on 20 Meters with my good friend and fellow Polar Bear Ken WA8REI.  He was at home on his Mosley, so he was a solid 599+.  Fortunately, the beam was able to rope in my signal and I got a 579 in return.

Ken was enduring the sogginess in Michigan too, and was telling me that he is going to head on up to his trailer “in the country” soon to escape the heat and humidity.  Can’t say I blame him.  When I got back to my desk, I felt a bit soggy myself.

Tomorrow, I will bring a camera along with me to snap a few quick photos of the set up in the back of the Jeep.  A few have asked, curious to see exactly how I have the Buddistick set up.

With that much humidity, you know that sooner or later, something has to give.  Around 4:00 PM, we had a prototypical summer afternoon thunderstorm and downpour.  Sad thing is, it really hasn’t changed anything, and it feels just as soggy after, as it did before.  No cool fronts will be running through for several days at least.

After dinner, I got the first two radials down.  The lawn was all soggy and while that made things a bit messier than they would be otherwise, at least the gardening pins that I am using to hold down the wires went into the soil like a warm knife through butter.

The wires are screwed down onto to the sink strainer using crimped eyelets, which have been dipped in anti-oxidant paste.  I am using De-Oxit’s paste which is the same thing as Butternut’s “Butter it’s Not” as far as I can tell.  Each is also secured with a star washer.

When all is said and done, I hope to have another 20 radials down which will put me very close to 50 total if count the original 25 I put down years ago.

Oh, I worked Crete for the first time in 13 years this evening.  I heard SV9/SV2FPU calling CQ on 30 Meters (88′ EDZ antenna) and I threw out my call. Out of all the stations calling, I was amazed to hear him come back to me!  This also makes the first time I have worked Crete via CW.  Last time, all the way back in 2000, I actually used that mikeyphoney thing.  Don’t tell anybody!

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

It’s a good thing that I have my lunchtime QRP opportunities, as lately, I seem to get more “on the air” time from work than I do from home! The weekends seem to be filled with nonstop chores and house responsibilities. Time for Ham Radio is scarce and at a premium.

But during the work week, I get that one hour break for lunch. If I’m lucky, I’ll get out to the parking lot to find the bands hopping. This afternoon, I got lucky again.

I started my lunchtime session on 17 Meters, as has become my custom. I was fortunate enough to work two DX stations, S573DX in Slovenia and F5NTV in France.

After finishing with those two, I headed on over to the QRP Watering hole on 20 Meters. Once there, I called CQ for a bit, to be answered by John KG9HV, in Lafayette, IN. We had a nice 2X QRP QSO. I was on the KX3 and Buddistick, while John was using his Kenwood TS-570S to a dipole at 5 Watts. Even though the QSO was plagued by QSB at both ends, we were able to have a very nice conversation. And in fact, when the QSB let up, at times John was actually as good as 589!

The one bad thing about operating from the parking lot is dealing with the weather, kind of like a mini Field Day. It was hot (close to 90F – 32C), and it was the Noon hour, so the sun was at its peak. I didn’t feel like wasting gas to run the AC, though, so I just lifted the tail gate (rear door) of the Jeep and allowed it to provide some needed shade. The nice thing was that the building’s AC provided a nice refresher …… after a nice radio session.

Hamlog for Android is perfect for my portable logging needs. It’s super easy to use and has so many neat added on tools. I don’t even bother with plain paper, anymore. I recommend it highly.

As luck would have it, there’s not much to do at home tonight. While it would seem like it would be the perfect opportunity to get on the air, unfortunately there’s also a severe thunderstorm watch on until 10:00 PM.  I may get on for a bit; but I’ll have to be ready to pull “The Big Switch” at a moment’s notice.

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

The good news is that I am comfortable enough at the new job, where now I don’t mind heading out to the car to conduct lunchtime QRP sessions. You always kind of wonder at a new place …. what will they say, you know ……. about that guy that sticks the antenna on his car roof and starts doing something with a small radio ….. is he a spy?  A drug dealer?  Some kind of foreign agent?  As it turns out, the parking lot is HUGE and nobody pays me any mind.

The past few days, I was getting skunked. No contacts, and in fact I wasn’t even hearing much of anything. And silly me, the last thing I think is “dead bands” – nope, the first thing I think is “Crud!  What did I do to the rig?”  “Did I mess up the antenna?”  Stuff like that – the first thing I think is that it was me,  I screwed something up!

But today ……. today allayed all my concerns.  Today, 17 Meters during lunchtime was almost magical.  In short order I worked Milan OK1KW in Praha in the Czech Republic.  Milan was calling “CQ FISTS” and I answered and we ended up having a very pleasant QSO.  Milan was 589 in NJ and I received a 549 in return.

After ending the QSO with Milan, I heard Frank OV1CDX calling “CQ DX”.  I figured to myself, “Hey, I just worked the Czech Republic, so why not Denmark?”  I put my call out  a few times and Frank answered. He was a good strong 599 in NJ and I earned a 559 in return.  Cool – the band was hot!

So now the decision comes about ….. “I have 15 minutes left. Do I tear down and head back in, or do I try for one more?” No contest! Try for one more, as the signals were abundant.  And I did, and I made it!

This time I worked Serge R6YY.  This was the tough one of my session, as I had to send my information to Serge several times.  Thanks to his fantastic ears, we were able to complete the QSO.  Serge was only 579 here in NJ, and I was only 439 in return.  A tough one, but we did it!

I have been getting a lot of e-mails about the Flight of the Bumblebees, which is understandable, as I managed it two years ago.  However, just a reminder, I am NOT managing it this year.  FOBB belongs to the Adventure Radio Society and falls under the province of Rich Fisher KI6SN.

Rich is a VERY busy man!  He edits and is largely responsible for a lot of the content of WorldRadio and CQ VHF.  So in between running around with his hair on fire trying to meet the deadlines for two very popular publications, he also manages FOBB and the monthly Spartan Sprints. That is a lot to have on your plate!

I would ask for you all to be as patient as possible.  The new edition of QST came out, and sure enough, FOBB is listed in “The Contest Corral” as occurring on July 28th, the last one of July.  I am sure that within the next few weeks (if not sooner), Rich will be making an announcement about FOBB on QRP-L.  My advice to you all is keep your eyes peeled and your stingers sharp.

Speaking of Summer time outdoor QRP operating events – please make sure to keep two others in mind!  The first being “SYBO – Scorch Your Butt Off”, which is being sponsored by Rem K6BBQ.  This is scheduled for Saturday, July 20th.  This is a semi-inaugural event as SYBO is Rem’s current edition of the Bubba event, which went by the wayside.  For all the details, please visit Rem’s SYBO Website by clicking on the contest name in this paragraph.

The second event, of course, is the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt. The Skeeter Hunt will be held on the second Sunday of August – which is the 11th, this year.  You can sign up for a Skeeter number by sending me an e-mail at [email protected].  When you request a Skeeter number, please include your name, call and the state from which you plan to operate.  This years theme is “Bodies of Water” and you can earn bonus points by operating close to a body of water, whether that be a lake, pond, river, brook, ocean, etc.  Rules can be found at the hyperlink above.

Now, the reason that I am bringing up the Skeeter Hunt is that I received an e-mail from someone who informed me in that correspondence that it was his third request for a Skeeter number!  I checked my spam folder and I never found the two initial Skeeter number requests, and that has me a bit concerned.  If you have requested a Skeeter number and haven’t gotten one – it’s not because I have put you on “ignore”.  It’s because I haven’t received your request.  I try my best to respond to all requests as quickly as possible – certainly within 24 hours.

So as a backup – here are three ways to request a number, in order of preference on my part.  If number 1 doesn’t work, try number 2, and then finally number 3.  I’ll get you a Skeeter number if I have to come out to your house and deliver it personally!

Number 1 – send an e-mail to [email protected]
Number 2 – send an e-mail to [email protected] (sometimes the ARRL reports funky things about that arrl.net domain thingy)
Number 3 – Leave a comment on any blog post.  Since comments are on moderation to avoid spam, I have to manually review each one – so that should be a safe “last fallback”.

Last year, we had 123 people sign up for Skeeter numbers, and as of today, number 67 was assigned.  I would like to top last year’s total if at all possible.  Last year over 50 log summaries were sent in and I would like to exceed that, also. The top five scores and the high score for each state/province got a nifty certificate last year, and that will be repeated this year.  And this year, SSB has been added as a category for those of you who prefer not to pound brass.  So there’s truly something for everyone – no reason not to come out, join us and have a blast!

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

Today was a strange day.  It was my last day at my current job at Goldman Sachs. I’ve been there just over six years, managing all the Technology Department inventory (servers and networking and storage equipment) for the offices of the NY/NJ Campus.  I was the manager of the department responsible for receiving, inventorying, warehousing, and prepping for install a multi-billion dollar cache of equipment. I was also responsible for shipping re-purposed equipment both domestically and internationally. Believe me, you haven’t lived until you’ve been tasked with shipping millions of dollars of used equipment to places like Seoul, Sao Paolo, and Kuala Lumpur, and you were told it had to arrived undamaged (even though the original shipping containers had since long been discarded) and it had to arrive “yesterday”. I can proudly attest that in the six years that I was there, my department oversaw that inventory with a shrinkage percentage (loss due to theft, damage or mis-shipping) of less than 0.001%.

Last summer, Goldman felt that they had too many vendors, so they decided to downsize the number that they have on board. Our contract was farmed out to another vendor, and while my team was RIF’ed (reduction in force) I stayed on for six months to basically teach my replacements how to do the job.  My actual employer is Pitney Bowes Management Services, and through them, I will be starting at a new, non-management (actually glad for that, for a change) position with IBM next week.

My co-workers, the other outside vendors (IPC, Scholes, EMC, CBRE) who also serve Goldman Sachs are the best.  Totally unexpected, I walked into work this morning to find this waiting for me on my desk.

Summer arrived with a vengeance in Central New Jersey. Temperatures in the 80s (29C) with the higher humidity and stickiness that accompanies it. But it made for a great opportunity to head out to the park for some QRPing during lunch break. Besides the warmth, the skies were sunny and clear, with just a few white puffy clouds floating by.

Wanting to set up the fastest today in order to get the maximum operating time, I decided to go with the Buddistick on the magmount on top of the Jeep.  From the time I put the Jeep in park and turn off the ignition, I can be on the air in well under five minutes. Today was no exception.  The Buddistick is exceptionally easy to set up when using the top of the Jeep as a ground plane.  It goes together as magmount, two 11 inch arms, coil, and whip.  The whip gets extended all the way and the one coil setting works well for both 20 and 17 Meters.  The KX3’s autotuner gets a 1:1 match without breaking a sweat.

First up was Pertti OG2W in Finland on 17 Meters.  He was by far the loudest signal on the band and was a relatively easy catch even with 5 Watts.  From there, I went on over to 20 Meters and called CQ near the 14.060 MHz QRP watering hole.  To my delight, I was answered by fellow blogger, Greg N4KGL.  Greg was also using a KX3, but had his going to an Alex Loop.  Greg lives down in Panama City, Florida and started out at 559.  There was some QSB and at times the APF function on the KX3 was a big help.  Towards the end of our QSO, Greg was approaching 579. He was on lunch break also, and had to get going just as I did.

But as we all know, QRPing in the great outdoors can really be addicting, so I hopped on back over to 17 Meters for one last, quick listen.  Before I tore the station down and headed back to work, I was able snag Bob WP2XX down in the US Virgin Islands.

Three lunchtime QSOs – two DX contacts and a rag chew really made my day.  An added bonus was watching the RC Model airplane pilots doing their thing while I operated.  These guys are really good and I was treated to barrel rolls, Immelmans and vertical climbs as I worked the world with my radio.

I think tomorrow is supposed to have more of the same weather.

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