Paul PC4T, Author at AmateurRadio.com • Page 6 of 15

Author Archive

10 meter today

March 5th, 2014 |

10 meter WSPR today. A lot of Es short skip from Europe as well. New DXCC was Paraguay (ZP5BAB).

Why? Because JT9 is the best weak signal mode there is. On 10 meters I worked with 5 watts JT9 CX2AQ (11.371 km) and LU8EX (11.445 km) I read at PE4BAS that KB2HSH published a nice list about the sensitivity of digi modes. Why should anybody uses RTTY for instance?

JT9 and JT65 are the most sensitive ones. I prefer JT9 because it has a very small bandwidth. Ideal for crowded band activity. At the moment activity is a bit low with JT9, so I call all radio amateurs who like to work QRP or low power and wanted to do some experiments: use JT9. Download the software from this web site of K1JT Joe Taylor.

Sun is still very active

February 24th, 2014 |

Author: Paul PC4T

WSPR on 10 meter today with 1 watt output. Not much, but 2 reports across the pond. Tomorrow new HF black outs can be expected.

WARC bands

February 15th, 2014 |

Author: Paul PC4T

The WARC bands are nice to explore. This afternoon I worked on 12 meter A92GE from Bahrain. I did heard several stations from Bahrain. Also worked TF3JB from Reykjavik, Iceland. On 15 meter I had a nice QSO with VA2PW Peter (Pierre) from Quebec, Canada.

Special call

February 12th, 2014 |

Author: Paul PC4T

What makes a special call special? For me it is only when that call is unique. When there is only one of it. Now we have the Olympic Games. Maybe fun for those who like sports. But not for me. I try to avoid my television for 2 weeks. When I put on the set I receive a lot of Russian Special Calls because my first hop is right in the middle of Russia. They are all over the bands. And huge pile ups too. Come on, guys. What in heaven makes that special? Most of them aren’t in Sochi, but in Moscow for instance. I just worked one R2014 station, and I have no intentions to work hundreds of them.

Something else: I do have the new QRZ.com logbook. It seems to be working fine, but why do I get all those confirmation messages in the mailbox? With the old logbook I didn’t get all those messages.

Lucky again

February 11th, 2014 |

Author: Paul PC4T

This photo shows the shack of YB3EDD. I worked him this afternoon on 17 meters with SSB. This is a new DXCC for me. The Republic of Indonesia. Two nice phone contacts today.

First time phone VK

February 11th, 2014 |

Author: Paul PC4T

I was searching for contacts on the CW part of 40m. But they were jamming each other in the DX part of the band. I saw coming along: QSY you pig & Idiot. Well, what should I say about it... A new kind of conduct? Anyway, I tried SSB for instance and moved up to 20m. My phone contacts are very few. But I worked RM22WG and OH4JVC. On 14.345 MHz I heard CS7/PD0HNL (50 watts) working VK2GWK (Henk) in Dutch. So I thought maybe I can give a call. I never worked VK with phone before. I was running 50 watts. Well, he did hear me! Wow, that's really great. Later on I cranked up the power to 100 watts to make it a little easier for Henk to copy me. I was not that strong 43 report, so I needed a little more power. We had a nice chat, and he lived in The Netherlands near my village. Henk was running 1 KW into a 3 el. yagi. This QSO made my day.

And a very quick confirmation with eQSL.