One of the limiting factors in making optimal use of a radio is the number of human appendages that interact meaningfully with the radio, hence the importance of a big knob on the front of the radio and hands to turn it. Morse code operators have known this since the dawn of time and have [...]
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VAQP 2013 didn’t go quite the way I’d imagined it would, but it was still fun. Getting N1MM set up the night before the event, I was surprised to see fields for an exchange number. I’m pretty sure this was a new feature, and I’m not sure how popular it will be with people who [...] We’re still assembling the total number of contacts from FD 2012 because the SSB and CW stations were not networked, but here are the totals for the two CW stations. I’d say we hit our goals and then some.
The 80/20/10 station Mhz Contacts 3.5 279 7 304 21 15 Total 599 The 40/15 [...] While the emphasis is on working stations in Canada (10 points), other stations do count (2 points), and this year there was more of an “everyone works everyone” flavor to the event. I worked stations from BC to the maritimes, but also a few French, one Netherlands, and one Romanian station. I heard a [...] Ray, K2HYD at the operating position of the 80/20/10 tent. Hap, K7HAP is at the second position on the laptop, and Byron, W4SSY, supervises To make everyone’s life easier, we stuck mostly to the plan developed for last year’s event, although I made some effort to simplify the set up where possible. This year, [...] I was sent on fairly short notice to attend a meeting at Lake Tahoe, which is just south of Reno along the California/Nevada border. I had one free evening before the conference, and it just happened to fall on the date of an NAQCC Sprint. I gave serious thought to throwing a wire out the [...] A few days ago, a troublesome area of the sun rotated earthwards and belched forth a stream of plasma meant to make my weekend challenging. A second coronal mass ejection occurred shortly after, with a higher velocity stream in the direction of Earth. Both shockwaves arrived during the West Virginia QSO Party. This K-index [...] This past weekend was the ARRL’s June VHF Contest, and for the first time, I got on 6 meters. None of the HF rigs in the house handle six meters. On Sunday morning, I did try plugging the Yaesu 817nd into my attic antennas, but I wasn’t able to get any of them to tune [...] I had a great run in the March NAQCC sprint, a two hour QRP CW sprint that encourages the use of straight keys. I am surprised (but pleased) to see that I took the top position in the W4 division for simple wire antennas. I think this speaks to good conditions where I was operating, [...] It’s still barely the first week in January, so I’m going to do a little retrospective on contests entered in 2011. Some contests I just hear on the air and jump into (particularly QSO parties), others I obsessively prepare for over several months (like the Indiana QSO Party, Operation Sizzling Pork). Usually, though, I don’t [...] |
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