Weekend happenings........ • AmateurRadio.com

Home

Weekend happenings……..

6 August 2012 | by Mike VE9KK | Share | | Leave a Comment (2)

During the NAQP CW contest

In Canada Monday is a civic holiday.....translation...LONG WEEKEND!!! The weather has been a mixed bag of sun, heat and thunderstorms with heavy rain storms. On Friday a package arrived for me from A&A Engineering. My Elecraft K2 is outfitted with the the internal rechargeable battery. A&A Engineering offers a great charger called a smart charger it's combo 1amp swithchable to .05amp charger. Of coarse I ordered it as a kit and I am looking forward to building it in the near future. So there will be more on the charger when the build happens this thing is great and can really extend the life of your rechargeable batteries.

On Saturday I took part in the NAQP CW contest. It was this day and mostly early evening and evening that the thunder and lightening storms came my way. This limited my on air time in the contest. I entered as QRP at 5 watts and was going to lower the power into the mW range but the conditions would not allow it. I was having a hard enough time making contacts with 5 watts.

NAQP CW results

Band QSO Points Sec

7 4 4 4

14 34 34 23

21 16 16 7

Totals 54 54 34

First time it has been blank

The total points for the contest were 1,890 not a very high score at all but I was only in the contest for about 2.5 hours do to a late start, BBQ for dinner and the lightening storms. The highlight to the contest was making contact with two Cuban station CO2JD and CO2MS who were taking part.

Another event was I did not take time to copy down call signs and exchange info on a pad of paper it was direct keyboard copy and type the info into the logging program. I have been practicing for months using PC contest practice software to get the keyboard and speed down. I was using the decoder on the K3 when the code speed was CRAZY.....but over all it was a success.

I decided to take the plunge and purchase the Elecraft KX3 my previous post talks about selling off gear for funds BUT the great news is all but two (very minor) items have been sold. I was able this afternoon to call Elecraft and place my order for the KX3. Along the radio the optioned I ordered were the KXFL3 dual-Passband Roofing Filter, KXAT3 Internal, 20-W Automatic Antenna Tuner, KXPD3 Precision Iambic Keyer Paddle and the KXBC3 Internal NiMH Charger with Real-Time Clock. The wait time for this rig is anywhere from 60 to 90 days.
So that is how the weekend more or less went here at VE3WDM!!

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Cliff Fox KU4GW:

7 August 2012 at 17:10 UTC

Congrats on the Elecraft KX3 purchase Mike! Hope to be able to afford one myself someday, but until then I’ll have to continue using my Ten-Tec R4020 for QRP ops and my Yaesu FT-1000MP Mark V as the home station. Very 73 de KU4GW!

Mike VE3WDM:

7 August 2012 at 18:21 UTC

Good evening Cliff, thanks for the kind words and I too had the same Yaesu as you did. It’s a great radio and worked for me for many many years. When I did decide to sell the rig it was to help fund the Elecraft K3. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
Mike

AmateurRadio.com