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There was life on the CW portion of the bands from 19:00-20:00 UTC!
2 February 2022 | by  | ||||
| 20m at 19:10 during the CWops 1 hour contest |
With the increase in sunspots and rising flux comes some solar flares and the Kp-index will have it's ups and downs. This afternoon the Kp index up was up to 5 and 6 and that does not my Mike the ham a happy person. Now having said that right in the middle of the high Kp index the bands at 19:00 UTC came alive! It was the weekly running of the CWops test, a one hour contest. Before the contest 20m was dead and at 1900 UTC life was brought to the band. Stations from Canada, U.S and Europe warmed up 20 meters to a nice glow. It's great mini contests like these happen as it shows some action on the bands.
Another great CW contest is the K1USN SST CW contest this contest happens on Fridays at 20:00-21:00 UTC and Monday 00:00-01:00 ( which for most of us is still Sunday evening) This contest is not one of speed but slower. You will find operators sending from 10 wpm to 20 wpm and if you are not sending at 10 wpm then speed is slowed to match your speed. These are nice contests that only asks for 1 hour a week and it can get your feet wet with contesting.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
LHS Episode #451: VSCode Deep Dive
Hello and welcome to the 451st installment of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts discuss the care and feeding of VSCode. VSCode is a developer environment and testing platform for almost any language and is cross platform, leveraging all the beast parts of your operating system and programming tools. We touch on everything from installing to configuring to using the platform for development, debugging and version control. We hope you find this discussion entertaining and informative. We also hope you have a great week.
73 de The LHS Crew
Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].
How one click can change the day
We all have read about backing up your PC in the event your beloved hard drive will just stop spinning out the information you have become accustomed to. I am sure most of us have added a few gray hairs when all our info vanished with the greetings of the blue screen of death (in the case of Windows) At that point in time the little voice in our subconscious whispers "just resort to the backup.....oh that's right there is NONE!!
Well, I am here to say that I did not have a hard drive failure and if I did I have a dedicated drive with clone backups of my main hard drive and another separate drive with image backups. These backups are done on a regular basis and in fact, I have had to go down the restore road twice now and it has worked amazingly.
My click of the mouse was during my just being bored and "clicking" around my logging program N3FJP logger. I still am not sure what I did but somehow I deleted my whole log...yup 16,000 contacts GONE! Well, not a big deal I thought as I also upload my contacts to LOTW, Club log, QRZ.COM and Eqsl. Soooo Eqsl I just could not figure out how you can even export contacts so that option was out. QRZ.COM you can export your log but first, you have to be a paid member and I am not. The free version only allows you to upload and I have no issue with that at all. I was then off to club log and for the life of me I searched everywhere and I could not find any link to download the complete log............having said that I know there is going to be a comment posted that explains it and I missed it. Well next is LOTW and again I could not find anything there.
Now I did post a question on N3JFP's contest logger IO groups site and Scott (The developer of the software) got back to me right away. Before I go on yes Scott is the developer but not just him it's his wife Kimberly and his son Chris who work as a team it just happened to be Scott that got back to me. He gave me a suggestion that also got me to think. Long story short I did find out that within the N3FJP logger program you can request LOTW to download a complete copy into N3FJP. Excellent my issue has been resolved.........not so fast!
It did download a complete copy of the log BUT the number in which the contacts were entered was reversed......so my first contact was numbered 16001 and my most recent was 1 ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!.
It was time for tea and some relaxation as really in the big picture it's a hobby and not the code for a missile launch. The next day I was reading the email again that Scott had sent me and at the bottom of the email there was a link. It was a bot in which you entered your question and the bot did the search. Low and behold the bot gave me info on how N3FJP automatically stored a backup of the log. I found the backup and was thrilled. So I deleted the complete log again (on purpose this time) and restored my log using this back up and I was back in biz!!
The lesson of the day is yes you may have a backup for your PC and I do BUT being a ham a log backup is also very important just in case like me you end up clicking your mouse one too many times and well.....you read the possible results.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
How one click can change the day
We all have read about backing up your PC in the event your beloved hard drive will just stop spinning out the information you have become accustomed to. I am sure most of us have added a few gray hairs when all our info vanished with the greetings of the blue screen of death (in the case of Windows) At that point in time the little voice in our subconscious whispers "just resort to the backup.....oh that's right there is NONE!!
Well, I am here to say that I did not have a hard drive failure and if I did I have a dedicated drive with clone backups of my main hard drive and another separate drive with image backups. These backups are done on a regular basis and in fact, I have had to go down the restore road twice now and it has worked amazingly.
My click of the mouse was during my just being bored and "clicking" around my logging program N3FJP logger. I still am not sure what I did but somehow I deleted my whole log...yup 16,000 contacts GONE! Well, not a big deal I thought as I also upload my contacts to LOTW, Club log, QRZ.COM and Eqsl. Soooo Eqsl I just could not figure out how you can even export contacts so that option was out. QRZ.COM you can export your log but first, you have to be a paid member and I am not. The free version only allows you to upload and I have no issue with that at all. I was then off to club log and for the life of me I searched everywhere and I could not find any link to download the complete log............having said that I know there is going to be a comment posted that explains it and I missed it. Well next is LOTW and again I could not find anything there.
Now I did post a question on N3JFP's contest logger IO groups site and Scott (The developer of the software) got back to me right away. Before I go on yes Scott is the developer but not just him it's his wife Kimberly and his son Chris who work as a team it just happened to be Scott that got back to me. He gave me a suggestion that also got me to think. Long story short I did find out that within the N3FJP logger program you can request LOTW to download a complete copy into N3FJP. Excellent my issue has been resolved.........not so fast!
It did download a complete copy of the log BUT the number in which the contacts were entered was reversed......so my first contact was numbered 16001 and my most recent was 1 ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!.
It was time for tea and some relaxation as really in the big picture it's a hobby and not the code for a missile launch. The next day I was reading the email again that Scott had sent me and at the bottom of the email there was a link. It was a bot in which you entered your question and the bot did the search. Low and behold the bot gave me info on how N3FJP automatically stored a backup of the log. I found the backup and was thrilled. So I deleted the complete log again (on purpose this time) and restored my log using this back up and I was back in biz!!
The lesson of the day is yes you may have a backup for your PC and I do BUT being a ham a log backup is also very important just in case like me you end up clicking your mouse one too many times and well.....you read the possible results.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
ICQ Podcast Episode 369 – Amateur TV and the British Amateur TV Club
In this episode, Martin Butler (M1MRB) is joined by Edmund Spicer M0MNG, Ed Durrant DD5LP and Leslie Butterfield G0CIB to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and in the episode's feature is a discussion with Dave CRUMP G8GKQ about Amateur TV and the BATC.
We would like to thank Wes Nairne and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate
- Two Radio Amateurs Appointed to the FCC Technological Advisory Council
- US Airlines Warn of Impending 5G Flight Disruption
- ARES Activates as Fire Destroys 1,000 Colorado Homes
- German North Pole DXpedition
- Researchers Build World's Smallest Antenna Using DNA
- Online Classes Help Boost Ham Radio in India
- RSGB Release Board Proceedings
- Advisory Board Aims to Encourage Youth into Ham Radio
Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].
LHS Episode #450: The Weekender LXXXV
It's time once again for The Weekender. This is our bi-weekly departure into the world of amateur radio contests, open source conventions, special events, listener challenges, hedonism and just plain fun. Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us some feedback. Tell us how we're doing. We'd love to hear from you.
73 de The LHS Crew
Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].
Hunting For NDBs In CLE 276
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| ZQT-263 Thunder Bay, ON (tnx ve3gop.com) |
It's CLE fun time once again. How quickly time zooms by.
When tuning for NDBs, put your receiver in the CW mode and listen for the NDB's CW identifier, repeated every few seconds. Listen for U.S. NDB identifiers approximately 1 kHz higher or lower than the published transmitted frequency since these beacons are modulated with a 1020 Hz tone approximately.
For example, 'AA' near Fargo, ND, transmitted on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier was tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident could be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone was actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone was 1054 Hz.
Often, one sideband will be much stronger than the other so if you don't hear the first one, try listening on the other sideband.
Canadian NDBs normally have an USB tone only, usually very close to 400 Hz. They also have a long dash (keydown) following the CW identifier.
All NDBs heard in North America will be listed in the RNA database (updated daily) while those heard in Europe may be found in the REU database. Beacons heard outside of these regions will be found in the RWW database.
From CLE organizers comes the following CLE info:
Hello all,
Here's your chance to join in this coming weekend's Coordinated Listening
Event which uses some unusual and challenging frequencies.
Any first-time CLE logs will also be very welcome, however modest.
Days: Friday 28 Jan. - Monday 31 Jan.
Times: Start and end at midday, local time at the receiver.
Target: Normal NDBs (not NAVTEX or amateur beacons)
QRG: 260.0 - 269.9 kHz
plus: 440.0 - 1740.0 kHz
Please log the NDBs you can identify that are listed in those ranges, plus
any UNIDs that you come across there.
North America has a modest number of active NDBs in both ranges.
For Europe listeners there are LOTS of targets in the HF range, but they are
mostly well to the east, many of them also competing with strong
Broadcasting Stations. Australia has a few NDBs in both ranges.
You can find all the details of the beacons in these ranges, lists and maps,
if you go to http://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm and click on the 'CLE
SEEKLIST' link.
If you are disappointed by having very few likely targets, maybe you could
listen instead via a remote receiver located nearer to the action? By doing
that many of us could have some very nice surprises, especially listening in
these extreme frequencies. See kiwisdr.com - and please also see the
important footnotes below.
Send your final CLE log to the List, preferably as a plain text email, not
in an attachment, with CLE276 and FINAL at the start of its title.
Please show on EVERY LINE of your log:
# The full Date (or Day no.) e.g. '2022-01-28' (or just '28')
and UTC (the day changes at 00:00 UTC)
# kHz (the beacon's nominal published frequency if you know it)
# The Call Ident.
Other optional details - Location, Distance, etc. - go LATER in the same
line (or in footnotes). If you can give any extra details about new UNIDs,
especially strong ones that may be near to you (maybe their approximate
direction, etc.) it will help us to discover more about them. Please make
your log useful to old and new members alike by ALWAYS including your own location and brief details of the equipment and aerial(s) that you were
using.
We will send an 'Any More Logs?' email at about 20:00 UTC on Tuesday evening so you can check that your log has been found OK.
To be included in the combined results your log must arrive at the very
latest by 09:00 UTC on Wednesday 2 Feb.
We hope to complete making the Combined Results within a day or two.
Good listening
If you are interested in some remote listening - maybe due to local
difficulties - you could use any one remote receiver for your loggings
stating its location and with the owner's permission if required.
A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver, either local
or remote, to make further loggings for the same CLE.
Joachim has put together some very helpful guidance on remote
listening using the Kiwi SDRs, WebSDRs, etc. - he'll be posting it
to NDB List before the start of the CLE.
------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Brian Keyte G3SIA ndbcle'at'gmail.com
Location: Surrey, SE England (CLE coordinator)
------------------------------------------------------------------
These listening events serve several purposes. They
• determine, worldwide, which beacons are out-of-service or have gone silent since the last CLE covering this range
• will indicate the state of propagation conditions at the various participant locations
• will give you an indication of how well your LF/MF receiving system is working
• give participants a fun yet challenging activity to keep their listening skills honed
Final details can be found at the NDB List website, and worldwide results, for every participant, will be posted there a few days after the event.
The NDB List Group is a great place to learn more about the 'Art of NDB DXing' or to meet other DXers in your region. There is a lot of good information available there and new members are always very welcome. As well, you can follow the results of other CLE participants from night to night as propagation is always an active topic of discussion.
You need not be an NDB List member to participate in the CLEs and all reports, no matter how small, are of much value to the organizers.
Remember - 'First-time' logs are always VERY welcome!
Reports may be sent to the NDB List Group or e-mailed to CLE co-ordinator, Brian Keyte (G3SIA), whose address appears above. If you are a member of the group, all final results will also be e-mailed and posted there.
Please ... give the CLE a try ... then let us know what NDB's can be heard from your location! Your report can then be added to the worldwide database to help keep it up-to-date.
Have fun and good hunting!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
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