AmateurRadio.com

This weekend the LZ dx contest was up and running, I have never taken part in this contest and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of activity. It's a 24-hour contest that started at 8 am out my way and it gave me a nice workout for the upcoming weekend for the CQ World Wide DX CW contest. I took part for about a total of 4 hours and made 120 contacts for a score of 13,110. 

Midway into the contest I was taken down a side road for a pleasant surprise. At some point on Saturday afternoon calling CQ contest was slowing down on 20m. I decided to make a left turn and head down the 10m side road. There were very few LZ contesters there but I did notice a commotion on the waterfall. When I went to investigate it was H44WA DXpedition in the Soloman islands calling CQ North America (CQ NA) and he was all alone. I put the Icom 7610 in split and dual mode (hearing both VFOA and VFOB) and made the mental change from CW contesting to CW DXpedition. After a few short tries, I was in the log. I was glad I made a left turn and took a side road from the contest.

As one of my regular readers of the blog, you would know I am a CW buff and the main part of CW is the CW key. For some time now I have been at odds to get the one that works for me. The first key I ever had was the Bencher BY-1 key. It is a very straightforward spring tension key that worked great for me, so what happened to it you ask? As with most of you, I got married, had kids, a job and all the activities that go along with that portfolio. Ham radio was put to the side and things got sold including the Bencher paddle. 

Fast forward to now when the kids are grown, work is no longer and retirement is here. I started to get back into radio again about 4 years before I retired as life did at that point start to slow done. It was time to start looking for a key again. I had read about Begali keys and looked online and decided on their Contour which was magnetic return and not sprin. Me and the key were not getting along very well. I thought it was a matter of adjustment, I had adjusted the contact spacing more than I can remember and I became over time more and more frustrated. I ended up selling the Contour key.

I then move to a solid-state touch key made by 9A5N. This is a very well-made key which is very solid and works as advertised. For me, I could not get the electronic touch adjustment done in a way that would work for me. Seemed it was either too sensitive to touch or not enough, now there was nothing wrong with the key it was just me. With this key, I tried adjusting and adjusting but never could get what I was looking for. I found myself sending extra dits or dahs.

It's very odd as in the past I would have thought a key is a key is a key but not so there is a feel to each of the types of keys and I just had to find a type with the correct feel for me. 

This weekend was the running of the Worked All Germany contests or WAG. This contest supports both CW and SSB within the same contest. As for me, it was strictly CW....go figure eh!. As happens now and then just before the contest there was an atmospheric burp and the K index moved to 5! The good thing about this is everyone is affected so your still kinda on the same playing field more or less. 

This is a 24-hour contest that starts at noon Saturday my time. With the poor solar conditions, there was lots of fading in and out (QSB). This resulted in lots of repeats and contacts that started at S7 and ended somewhere in the dust. I take this as an opportunity to sharpen my CW skills and learn more about the Icom 7610 filtering. This time around I took advantage of the two independent receivers the 7610 has. I had a split screen of the band I was on and the next band that could in time show some excitement. This came in very handy today when I noticed 10 meters coming to life. I swapped out 15m for 10m as it seemed to just jump to life. I had 51 contacts in just 1.5 hours and that was during so-so band conditions. I entered the contest as single operator/all band / low power (100 watts). It was a very rainy weekend here so that made it very easy to stay in the radio chair and plug along.

A new addition.....well I did have it in the past and sold it....don't ask

As you know I enjoy my CW contesting and am always looking to make things more easy. When contesting I use N1MM+ logging software which works great. During non-contesting times I use Win4icom radio control software. As a side note this software by VA2FSQ Tom is great and very well supported. He also offers radio control software for Yaesu and Elecraft as well, I have used the Elecraft radio control software (Win4k3) and it was great as well.

When contesting there are times when radio adjustments are needed such as filter settings, APF settings and digi select. To get to these adjustments you have to dig down a few menu settings to get where you want to be. Then I came up with what seemed to be an easy solution......but as they say, nothing is easy.
Using Win4icom the multi-menu changes could be done with one mouse click! With Win4icom you can use multiple 3rd party programs and N1MM+ is one of them. After setting up Win4icom and N1MM+ to speak with each other via virtual com ports I was good to go.......so I thought. 

Win4Icom software

The communication between the two programs was all good except for the N1MM+ cw macros would not key the radio and send the CW message. That is a big issue when contesting, I contacted Tom from Win4icom and he informed me that Win4icom does not support the use of DTR over virtual ports. He then informed me to overcome this issue I needed the Winkeyer from K1EL. The funny thing is I used to have a Winkeyer but sold it! 

I then ordered the Winkeyer and waited for it to come in, when it did I followed very closely the installation instructions for the Winkey. When I started both Win4icom and N1MM+ low and behold all the macros worked like a charm! But as always there is always a hiccup when dealing with computers, software and hardware. 

I had my 9A5N touch keyer connected to the Winkeyer port and then I tried to send code from the key it did not work. I have an early edition of the 9A5N key and it does not like the Winkeyer. I solved the issue by connecting the touch key directly to the Icom 7610 radio.
So now I am off to the races and can have Win4icom, N1MM+ and Winkey all happy and working together.

We have a very diverse hobby with a huge array of opportunities in many directions. You can stick with one forte and then jump in another direction. For me it keeps things interesting and challenging, our hobby has doors of interest that can be opened by old and young alike. But I just don't get it, in this great hobby we have a minority that spends most of their time, energy and blog posts on bashing. FT8, DXpeditions and contesting seem to be the flavour of the times. Some just go on and on seeking to discredit it at every corner. Why...I just don't get it! Move on and spend your time and energy doing other things and get lost in the pleasure our hobby has to offer. 

I get it I too like to work rare ones and yes I have been disappointed that some operations spend more time on certain modes than others. The solution is not to DQRM them. Get over it move on and enjoy the hobby.

 I get it PCs are getting more involved to some way too involved within ham radio While you complain and whine you at the same time miss opportunities. Get over it move on and enjoy the hobby. 

I get it contesting can be a great thing and to others a thorn. The larger contests happen now and then but they do light up the bands with energy and that is good for keeping our bandwidth from the commercial vultures Do what I do hit the WARC bands for a day if you want. Get over it and enjoy the hobby. 

The World of CW is my blog name and for me it's my passion at this time in the hobby, this is the aspect I want to explore. I have gone down SSB, digital and now CW but to bash a part of the hobby is throwing my time away. To those who get bent out of shape, I just don't get it. Get over it and enjoy the hobby.

Greetings from Atlantic Canada, seems we are in for our first major storm this summer from the unfolding hurricane season. We moved to the Maritimes almost 5 years ago and before that time I only had seen reporting on the news regarding hurricanes. Since we have lived here we have had 2 and the first one was only after 2 weeks of living here.......that should have been our sign! But we love it here, the lifestyle, the ocean, the clean air and so on. We are gearing up here for Sunday's arrival of Hurricane Lee, the winds in this area are now forecast around 100 km. That is enough for me to remove the Hustler 4BTV and store it in the shed, put away the patio furniture, take down all hanging plants and anything else that may blow around. We have a generator back up at our home so a power interruption will only be temporary. As you know I am a big CW contesting fan and thank goodness there is no major CW contest this weekend....BUT.......if there was I still have the EndFed ready to go and that would give me my contest fix!