AmateurRadio.com

The roll top radio desk

The ARRL DX CW has come and gone and I took a part time approach to the contest. I was operating single op, non assisted and QRP. The setup is an Elecraft k3 and P3 along with Win4K3suite, N1MM+, MFJ 1788 loop and MRP 40 cw decoding software. I have MRP running in the background as when the CW speeds hit 33-40 it's just easier to use the software. A contest policy that I have is to NOT update any contest software before a contest. There was a new Win4k3suite and N1MM+ update and I resisted the temptation to update. I have had some very frustrating contest's when I have updated software just before the event.  I was able to get on Saturday morning and Sunday morning/afternoon. On Sunday I thought I would get at it early, so I was on the rig at 7am local time on 15m ...BUT... the band was really not all that active out this way. That's a good sign for me as during the next contest I can sleep in a bit and not really miss anything. Around 8:00 A.M local time 15m started to come alive and things were hoping right up until I had to shut things down at 9:30am due to chores. I was back on again around 1pm local and 15 was good and 20 meters had lots of Eastern Europe booming in. I soon exhausted my contacts on 15m as N1MM+ was telling  me "DUPE" for a majority signals on 15m. I was then off to 20m and it was interesting there as the signals were booming in but it seemed I was barely making it, I had to do many repeats. I was off and on until about 3:45 local time and I then decided it was time to shut down. I had a great time making 40 contacts with 33 multipliers for a score of 3960.While writing this post to clear my head head of the dit's and dah's I have Motown booming on the  Studio Beat wireless headphones! 

The contest desktop

This past weekend's CQ 160m CW Contest saw the normally quiet band bursting to life with signals stacked up, one atop the other, from 1800 -1870 kHz.


At times it was very difficult to find a clear frequency to send 'CQ' and much of the contest was spent in the 'search and pounce' (S&P) mode. When a clear frequency was found I was able to have several short runs but running for any length of time while in the low power category is not realistic. I think my best hourly rate peaked at '60' for a short time as propagation would improve momentarily ... often, ten or more CQ's would go unanswered and then the next one would have two or three responses, continuing on for several minutes until the propagation would shift. These sudden 'holes' in the D-layer absorption seem to occur when conditions are marginal and it's as if the propagation switch is suddenly thrown from 'poor' to 'really good' for a few short minutes.

Overall, conditions from western B.C. were poor on Friday night and much improved on Saturday night. Although several DX stations were heard and called on Friday night, none were worked. These same stations came right back when called, on Saturday evening.

My 160m antenna is very simple, consisting of a 'half-sloper' and about fifty in-ground radials. Since the tower and antenna are mounted right at the ocean's edge, this year I threw two extra radials into the ocean ... whether or not these made any difference is difficult to say but they certainly wouldn't make things worse.


Because of the proximity to the ocean and the half-sloper producing vertical polarization, my antenna always seems to favor stations at the ends of the single-hop F2 distance ... those along the east coast and into the Caribbean as opposed to mid-continent signals. I often find myself sending several repeats to stations in the central states while those on the far coast will reply on the first call ... even stations that I can barely copy, will often come right back, which seems puzzling.

Overall, about 10 hours were spent in the contest ... ending up with 223 contacts in 51 sections and 9 DX entities. Some of the DX stations worked were PJ2, HK1, ZF2, C6, KP2 and 4V1. Checking my 160m DXCC list after the contest, I was surprised to see that 4V1TL in Haiti was a new country for me, making the contest time well worth it. Claimed scores for this, and any contest, can be viewed on the 3830 Scores website.

As the solar cycle continues to decline, 160m conditions should only get better and better, with the next few years hopefully producing a few Europeans in the 160m log once again.

Several things:

First - The NJQRP Skeeter Hunt for 2016 is moving from the second Sunday in August to the third. So please mark Sunday, August 21st on your calendar for this year's Skeeter Hunt.  There are two reasons for this. The most important is that yours truly has an outstanding monthly commitment each 2nd Sunday of the month.  That's the Sunday I go help out at the soup kitchen in the next town over.  I kind of blew that off the past couple of Augusts, and that's not right. There are some things more important than Amateur Radio, and this is one of those.

But hey, the organizer shouldn't go AWOL, right?  (That's how I feel, anyway). So I have moved it back a weekend to the third Sunday in August, where it shall occur forever more.  Another added benefit is that this makes the spacing between Flight of the Bumblebees, the Skeeter Hunt and QRP Afield and the Peanut Power Sprint a bit more even.

Second - I have gotten blessing from Sean Kutzko KX9X to incorporate NPOTA into the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt this year.  Is that COOL or what?  I'm not exactly sure how it's going to all work out. Maybe bonus points for activating an NPOTA unit for the Hunt - or possibly some special "memento" for activating an NPOTA unit during the Hunt.  I'll have to ruminate on that one for a bit - but there's time.



Third - On a personal level, Sean announced some new NPOTA units the other day. This was a biggie for me, because in the Northeast, the Washington - Rochambeau Historical Trail was added. This is the route taken by General Rochambeau's French forces and General Washington's Continental forces as they both marched on towards the siege at Yorktown, which all but brought the American victory in the Revolutionary War.


The Washington - Rochambeau Historical Trail is within a stone's throw from my house - literally. To make this situation even better, there is the Frazee house located on the trail in Scotch Plains, NJ - the next town over. Rather than try and explain the significance of the Frazee house in my own words - allow me to post something from the official Website.


"As the legend holds, after the Battle of Short Hills, General Cornwallis and his troops passed by the house while marching toward the Watchung mountains, located a few miles to the north. Known to the locals as a prolific baker, Aunt Betty was baking bread at the time. Hungry and tired, the troops smelled the bread and Cornwallis approached her stating, "I want the first loaf of bread that next comes from that oven." Betty is said to have replied, “Sir, I give you this bread through fear, not in love.” Evidently impressed by her courage, Cornwallis is said to have stated, “Not a man in my command shall touch a single loaf.” While history offers evidence that Betty lived in the house and did, indeed, bake bread, the story of the actual conversation is not authenticated by primary source documents.  The words allegedly spoken by the principals are found in the earliest authoritative source on the subject, F.W. Ricord's History of Union County, page 513, which is one of the sources cited in the National Register of Historic Places filing that led to the Frazee House being placed on the Register."


I'll have to look onto getting permission to operate from the property that the house is on. If that's not obtainable, there are plenty of other locations that can be operated from on the Trail, right in my local area. In fact, right in front of the Ashbrook Golf Course, is a monument to The Battle of Short Hills.

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

Last night saw another running of the winter Stew Perry Topband Challenge.





This contest is unique in that the usual density of activity on the eastern side of the continent does not necessarily provide an advantage ... contest scores are determined by the distances worked and each QSO will have a different point score, depending on its distance. The exchange is a simple one ... grid locators only ... and from these, the point score for each contact is calculated. From my way of thinking, and many others that I have discussed this with, the 'SP' is one of the fairest contests there is, putting everyone, no matter where they are located, on an even footing.

Today's Sun (courtesy: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/)

Unfortunately, mother nature, in combination with ol-Sol, conspired once again to provide some serious geomagnetic disturbance and conditions were anything but memorable ... the 'K'-index jumped to a stormy '5' right at sunset. I seem to be saying this a lot of late, but the sad fact is that sun has been extremely active and punishingly geoeffective as it winds its way down from a rather unnoteworthy peak. To add more mystery to this already quirky cycle, its downslide would make any 'normal', highly-active cycle, stand proud ... the strong slide down does not seem to match the wimpy low-level peak, observed a few years ago.

From here, operating in the 100-watt category, it was a struggle to work the normally easy single-hop stations, with no signs of the central states for several hours after sunset. Several east coast stations were worked towards midnight for the nice 12-point per QSO scores, but truth be told, almost all contacts were a struggle with many stations needing several repeats just to get the call or grid.


My half-sloper antenna and radial system is located right on the edge of the ocean, looking to the east, and its already low takeoff angle is enhanced with ~ 6db of sea (horizon) gain, making it a poor antenna for anything within the first-hop region ... after that it really seems to comes to life.

At 12:15 a.m., I pulled the plug, ending up with just 97 QSO's and 555 claimed points, way down from normal. Other claimed scores can be viewed on the 3830Scores.com website.

My best DX is usually JA but this time was KH6. The SP is always fun, but better conditions would have really made it a blast ... hopefully next year!

Win4kSuite up and running

I have decided to change up my rig control software to Win4K3 suite I downloaded the trial version and was very impressed. I would had done it sooner but my PC was not up to the grade to properly run Win4K3 software and to be honest it was long over due for a PC upgrade. The PC was upgraded and if your interested that can be viewed here.  I decided to purchase the Win4k3 software (50.00) and change from my long time N4PY's Pegasus Plus rig control program. Carls Pegasus Plus program is very good and the support that Carl offers is excellent but I found the Win4k3 software was more catered to my Elecraft rigs. Once installed you have full rig control including the Elecraft P3, KPA500 amp and KAT500 tuner and the Sub receiver if you have these installed. (I did have the sub but sold it and I look back on that with regret)  I have the K3, P3 and KX3. The software installation has very good documentation and there are videos as well. Im the type of person who picks up much more from videos than written instructions. With the Win4K3 suite I was able to have PC control of all my K3 functions that some other software programs did not offer, such functions as spot, test, equalizer setup, terminal program, cw decode, Auto tuner and APF just to name a few. I also have the Elecraft P3 and with my PC upgrade I added a VGA capture board and since my P3 already had the SVGA board installed I N1MM contest software and Log40M. (More about Log40M in another post…. great software)

P3 on the monitor

was able to add point and click with my mouse to my P3 and this is great during contests. The SVGA board also allows me to view my P3 on a second monitor and mine being a 22" LCD monitor the P3 looks great on it. This software also has the availability to set up virtual ports. Now in the past just hearing "setting up virtual ports" made me nervous I really never had to much luck setting them up and getting them to work! With Win4K3 suite VA2SFQ makes it almost plug and play with both very detailed easy to follow steps and software that makes it painless…..and best of all IT WORKS!! The 3rd party software I set up to "play" with Win4K3 so far are If you have either the Elecraft k3 or KX3 (I have not setup my KX3 rig with the Win4k3 yet) and you are looking at PC controlled software then consider downloading Tom's trial version and give it a go!

courtesy: VK5TR http://www.users.on.net/~endsodds/

I spent a few hours yesterday, operating in the 'RAC Winter Contest'.






Originally, this contest began back in 1932, when QST excitedly announced a 'Canada-U.S.A. Contact Contest' to run in mid-January of that year.


The contest turned out to be extremely popular and has been run, in one form or another, ever since ... gradually becoming known as the 'VE-W Contest', sponsored by the Montreal Amateur Radio Club, and eventually by its modern name, with one version in July and a second in December.

As a teen-aged ham, the 'VE-W Contest' was always the highlight of the year as the contest format, much as it is today, made anyone with a 'VE' call as sought-after as AC4YN ... not the one in North Carolina!

Old-timers and DXers will remember the call, as it represented the rarest of all possible contacts at the time and only a very lucky few made contact with the low-powered station, high in the Himalayan mountains at the British mission encampment in Lhasa, Tibet, in the late 30's. Having an 'AC4' QSL on the wall anointed you bragging rights for life.

Another great aspect about the contest back then, as in most, was that stations exchanged real RST's and not the meaningless '599' of today's contest operation. It was always interesting to learn how my little station, nestled in the upstairs attic, was really sounding at the other end.

I decided to set up my homebrew 'Tri-Tet-Ten', 6L6 crystal oscillator, and give the contest a short try. Being unable to conveniently move around the band meant that I would be reliant on stations answering my CQs ... not something that normally happens with the little transmitter in typical contest QRM ... but the magical 'VE' factor would change all of that, I hoped.


I plugged-in the 15/20m plate coil and got out my old homebrew RF-sniffer / wavemeter. It was the first piece of gear that I built, as a new 15 year-old ham, and the poor man's spectrum analyzer has been in constant use ever since. Using the 40m crystal's third harmonic, I have found the wavemeter is the easiest way to avoid mistuning and quickly found myself with just over 5 watts of RF ready to go. A tune-up for 20m later, found the second harmonic producing about 10 watts of pile-up generating madness.


Nowadays, the rules have changed a bit, and 'VE-to-VE' contacts are worth more than 'VE-to-W' QSO's but for 'W's, the goal is still to work as many 'VE's as possible ... and call they did.

Over the period of a few hours, the Tri-tet did not disappoint, generating 206 callers, including PY, PJ and HP ... frequently generating pileups 4 and 5 deep. I didn't try 10m as by the time I got started, it was falling off and the 6L6's 4 1/2 watts of fourth harmonic output on 10m requires really good conditions to be heard very well.

Due to conflicts with other activities, this was the first RAC VE-W Party that I have operated in many years ... it's nice to see that apparently not much has changed since 1932!

The CQ WW CW contest for 2015 is now in the books and I did participate in it as non assisted, QRP and single band. I find that search and pounce is the way to go when my power is low and my antenna is the MFJ 1788 loop antenna. I figured with what is stacked up against me to add to it calling CQ contest would prove to be very frustrating contact wise. In this last contest I did hear a station who was search and pounce and QRP.......not sure about his antenna though BUT he was adding /QRP to the tail end of his call. I found this to be interesting and the times I ran into him in a pileup he seemed to get the attention of the station he was calling very fast and was able to move on to search and pounce more contacts.  I will be honest I have thought about doing this in the past but for various reasons I did not. So this is just a question to those out there......what's your feeling during a contest about a station that signs "VE3WDM/QRP??