Before the HF maritime CW bands were closed back in the ‘90s, I spent many enjoyable hours listening to ships and maritime coastal stations all over the world while they exchanged CW messages or sent position and weather reports using the old AMVER system. It was a constant delight to hear various ship Radio Officers (ROs) using their keyers, bugs and good old hand keys to demonstrate their unique fists to the world, especially when using the latter two! Fists ranged from simply superb to downright awful, making one wonder if the ship’s oiler had been enlisted to send the nightly traffic! It was particularly interesting to plot their positions, as many of the vessels eventually showed up in the Port of Vancouver, an easy drive to where I was living at the time.

At 41,000 tons and 225m, she's a big ship, earlier named the ICARUS

The AGIOS GEORGIOS S nears Kakinada, India, in the Bay of Bengal

MOL CHARISMA - 21,000 tons and 316m long

Registered in the Bahamas, the MOL CHARISMA was in the Aleutian Island chain near Dutch Harbor, Alaska, bound for Prince Rupert, BC.

 

The MAHO CORAL - 127m

The ORIENT CHALLENGE - 183m

About to enter BC's Gulf Islands enroute Vancouver

CMA CGM MAUI, a true leviathan - 154,000 tons 366m length

 

Yannis P - 81,000 tons, 274m

 

Dream location!

The 'lakers' were very reliable QSLers

Laker STEWART J CORT

Last evening we were treated to a nice light show courtesy of the active sun.  

Yours truely

In a previous post, I mentioned I had purchased a Zachtek WSPR desktop transmitter. I found a great site one can use to go over the data collected regarding your WSPR transmissions. The site is called Grafana  GUI and can be accessed at the WSPR live site. The Grafana dashboard gives you information on solar weather from 5 minutes to 1 year.   Station-specific information such as antenna radiation pattern, spot data per band and time, map of where your signal is heard and finally it can be used for receiving and transmitting signals. I use the TX  data as I do not yet have a stand-alone WSPR receiver. There is a ton of information you can gather, my advice is to visit the site and look around. I ran my WSPR transmitter for almost 24 hours and below I  have included the Kp index for that time period as well as the antenna radiation pattern of my Hustler 4BTV. 

Click on all pictures to enlarge. 

For our local 2m net, the Net Control Station asks a Question of the Night to stimulate some discussion. Recently, the question was:

Do you have any interest in CW. If yes, Do you currently operate CW or do you plan to learn? If you have no interest in CW, what other modes besides voice do you operate on or would like to?

I am not a huge CW fan, but I do use it from time to time, especially when it comes to squeezing out difficult contacts on VHF or UHF. However, this question had me thinking about the various modes I have operated, so I made a list:

SSB - quite often on HF, VHF, UHF
CW  - not nearly as often but on HF, VHF, UHF
FM/PM - lots of VHF activity here, 2m FM is the Utility Mode
AM  - a few times, just to check it out
RTTY - I used to do this often but my interest has faded
PSK31 - I used to do this often but my interest has faded
FT8 - this one has taken over my digital operating
FT4 - a faster alternative to FT8, often better to use
Q65 - I just started using this for weak-signal VHF/UHF
MSK144 - for meteor scatter, but I haven't done that for a while
AX.25 - VHF packet radio, including APRS
DMR - the most common digital mode in Colorado
D-STAR - I used D-STAR when it first came out but lost interest
C4FM - Yaesu Fusion, I've used it a few times

Each one of these modes has a story behind it…often I was just looking for something new to try. (If you find yourself getting bored with ham radio, it might be time to try a new mode.)

This list also reminds me that I need to get back to chasing grids on the 2-meter band, using CW, SSB, FT8, MSK144, and Q65. I have a new tower up that I’ve not taken full advantage of for VHF/UHF.

That’s my list of modes used, what does your list look like?

73 Bob K0NR

The post Which Modes Have You Operated? appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

The Grand Manan ferry coming in to dock

Before the winter hits we thought it would be a great idea to head off to Grand Manan Island for some rest and relaxation. The island of  Grand Manan is located right in the middle of the Bay of Fundy and at this time of year, the island is starting to slow down. The population goes from 5600 to about 2600 winter residents. The Island belongs to the province of New Brunswick but seems on a map a lot closer to the state of Maine. During the summer 2 ferries operate between Grand Manan and drop to one ferry from late fall to spring. The island has one main road from north to south and a max speed of 80km. I sold my  Elecraft KX3 (bad move on my part) or I would have something set up here for radio operations during the vacation. 

The island has a few beaches that are great for sea glass which my wife Julie loves to hunt for and we spend about 2 hours each doing while the tide is still out. There is one grocery store, a small hospital, one gas station, a volunteer fire dept, a small police detachment and tones of fishing boats as this is the main industry for the island. 

Our view from the cottage with the tide out.

The cottage is in a cove off the Bay of Fundy and surrounded by fishing boat docks. The only ocean wild life up to this point was a seal just off our shore. Here are a few pics. 

Our neighbor again with the tide out.

The forecast

This past weekend was not shaping up to be a stellar contest weekend. The sun was very active and blowing bits and bits directed toward Earth. The predictions were not looking good. On the contest groups I  follow the scuttle was "rough seas ahead" I planned to participate in the California QSO Party, last year was my first year dabbling in this contest. I was shocked at the amount of activity and I made 61 contacts the previous year. I marked it in my contest calendar as a must-do QSO party.  With the solar forecast, I was hoping to meet my previous year's score at least. 

Now that the weekend has come and gone I ended up tripling my score from last year and doubled my contacts! The poor solar weekend forecast was a flop and conditions were great. My best band was 10m  hands down followed by 15m and then 20m. The way I look at the solar forecast is just that it's a forecast and you have to wait and see.