New Year’s Resolution…. maintain my blogs!

In spite of my lack of updates here, I’ve been keeping busy with Amateur Radio. I’ve been competing in a few contests, performed some maintenance on the club shack, picked up a Kenwood MC-60(a) desk mic for my Kenwood TS-440S and also use it on the club shack TS-940S radio, elected treasurer of my radio club (IRARC), and have ventured off to an occasional hamfest when I can (but haven’t bought anything worth bragging about).

One of the more recent events, the ARRL 10-meter contest held Dec. 10 and 11, 2011, turned out to be a blast. Although I haven’t been a licensed ham for very long (approximately 3 years), I rarely operated on 10 meters due to what appeared to be poor propagation conditions. Additionally, many hams, far more experienced than I, have also discussed the poor conditions on the 10-meter band over the last few years. But a few months ago it seemed to have changed; conditions seemed to greatly improve on the 10-meter band. Because of the improved conditions, I decided to compete in the 10-meter contest last month. And what a great time I had.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to fully compete in the contest (I had other commitments to tend to), I still wanted to spend a few hours operating on 10 meters. Using 100 watts, I was making contacts as far off as Saudi Arabia (from Florida), a distance of approximately 7380 miles. All told we had logged 71 contacts in about 4 hours… maybe not impressive as far as contesting in concerned but since I knew I would not be able to operate the full contest period, I was a bit ‘laxed’ on making contacts, instead concentrating on unlogged zones and an occasional attempt at breaking through a pileup. I had fun working the band, working the radio, and trying out my new (old) MC-60 mic.

In the near future my plans are to work some interesting contests. I noticed that an ARRL RTTY Roundup contest is coming up this weekend (Jan. 7 & 8)… maybe I’ll try to find some time for that.

73, and Happy New Year.

Residence for 2011 FQP

It was a wonderful weekend.  Weather was nice, a bit gusty, but temperature was good and no rain.  The first day of the FQP (Florida QSO Party) went fairly well.  I had a power issue for a bit, and the wind played havoc with my G5RV jr.  I suffered from a lot of noise on 40 meters all weekend, and a lot of QRM on both 20 and 40 meters.  Reception was fairly poor for the most part.  I received some great signal reports (true reports, not contest reports) from states as far as California and Washington, but poor to nothing from states much closer.  Of course there are several reasons for this, but overall I had hoped for better conditions all weekend.  Even so, I had a great time and am already looking forward to next year.

As mentioned earlier, I strung a G5RG jr. in some trees behind the camper that I set up for the weekend in Okeechobee county (OKE identifier for the contest).  The antenna requires a tuner to use on most bands.  My radio was a Icom IC-7000 with an LDG IT-100 tuner.  My laptop was running N1MM logger for the contest.  This was my first time using N1MM, and although I had a few stumbles with it early on I finally managed to get it figured out well enough for the FQP.  It is a very good contest logger; I’ll be assuredly using it for future contest.

A G5RV jr. strung in the trees.

However I plan on coming up with a better antenna system.  I’m planning on using a push-up pole of some sort to support some better type of antenna.  I’m kicking around the idea of constructing a hex beam for 10 through 20 meter operation, and maybe an inverted Vee for 40 meters.  I like the portability of the G5RV, but really want better performance.  Plus I enjoying tinkering with antennas, so this will be a nice project.  Hopefully I’ll have something put together before Field Day to try out, then it’ll be ready to go for the next FQP (and other interesting contests as well).

I ended up helping 210 contesters put OKE in their logs for the FQP.  I only managed about 10 of the 20 hours allotted for the contest.  My final tally was:

40m – 79 QSO’s
20m – 131 QSO’s
55 Mults
Score:  23,100

It can only get better from here!

Saturday, April 30 (12:00 noon to 9:59 pm) and Sunday, May 1 (8:00 am to 5:59 pm) is the Florida QSO Party.  There will be a lot of people operating in Florida, the majority operating mobile. I will be operating a permanent station in Okeechobee County, the only station (so far) signed up to operate the entire weekend from that location. I’ll be operating SSB only, using my Icom IC-7000 with a G5RV strung as high in the trees as possible.

Here’s the write-up on the event from the Florida Contest Group web site:

We’re having a party, and you’re invited! Be sure to mark your calendar and join in the fun of the next Florida QSO Party. Visit the other pages on this Web site for rules, results, records, and more information.

Since the re-introduction of the Florida QSO Party to the contest scene in 1998, the Florida QSO Party has become one of the fastest growing and most popular State QSO Parties around today. This is due, in part, to the tremendous effort by the mobile teams to activate as many counties as they can in order to allow those participating from out-of-state, to achieve a county “Sweep” (working all 67 Florida Counties). Florida stations operating from home are also valuable, since that increases the chances that stations will work all counties!

Regardless if you are a serious or casual participant … from Florida, or from outside of Florida … the Florida QSO Party was designed to be a FUN operating event. Why not give it a try?

The link to the Florida QSO Party (FQP) is http://www.floridaqsoparty.org/

Christmas is right around the corner. And while I have a Christmas ‘wish list’ of items I’d like to have… such as (and not in any particular order):

• Kenwood TS-590S
• Elecraft K3
• FlexRadio Flex-5000 or Flex-3000
• Yaesu FT-2000 (or an FT-950)
• Icom IC-9100
• TelePost LP-500

And too many antennas/amplifiers/accessories to list here.

But what I really wish is that everyone has a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and excellent QSL’s in 2011!

73’s

Ran across an email today about the Ohio QSO Party taking place this weekend.  Its this Saturday, August 28th, from 1600z Saturday until 0400z Sunday (or noon eastern time Saturday until midnight).  I’m thinking about trying to make a few SSB contacts during the contest.  I’ve been spending as much spare weekend time I can installing slate tile on my porch floor, but I’m thinking I might need a break around noon on Saturday for… say… about 12 hours?

Check it out if you’re interested.  Click Here for information.

Last weekend (Sunday, August 15th to be specific) I competed in the ARRL Rookie Roundup.  The contest ran from 2:00 pm ET to 7:59 pm ET.  I couldn’t work the entire time on the air; had some other commitments I needed to tend to during that time, but I still managed to get around 4 hours in.  Being a rookie myself (first licensed in 2009), I wanted to get in on some of the fun.  Conditions were not all that great from my home QTH, and I spent the first 2-3 hours searching and pouncing on other rookies that I heard calling CQ.  I finished with a score of 686, which appears to be just good enough for high rookie score for Florida.  But… I’m WAY off from some of the high scores I’ve been noticing on the score submission sheet.  A rookie in VA submitted a score of 11,952 and a rookie in CA has a score of 13,552.  So having a score of 686 isn’t all that much to boast about, I suppose.

But… it really doesn’t matter.  It was an opportunity for us rookies to participate in contesting, and I had a blast.  Thanks to ARRL for hosting the event.  It was a great time!

Made it to the Fort Pierce Hamfest again this year, hosted by the Fort Pierce Amateur Radio Club (FPARC).  It seemed to be much more attended this year than last.  I spent a lot of time looking over the tables, talking to fellow hams (ran into the ham that I bought my Hustler 5BTV from about a year or so ago), eating… way more than I should have, and picking up a bargain or two.  Nothing to report; bought a 40 channel CB just to have around; I haven’t owned a CB since the glory days of the 70′s and the price was real cheap, and picked up a Ethernet switch for my shack (I’ve got two computers in my shack, one running Windows and one running Linux) and the switch will make it a bit easier to split my Internet connection between the two.  So not much money spent.  A ham was selling a nice Kenwood TL-922A, but just don’t have the bucks for an amp at the moment.  So I’ll keep that on my wish list.

Here’s a picture of the room….

Fort Pierce Hamfest

A news article discusses a massive plasma bubble heading towards the Earth.  It originated from a solar flare.  It is to arrive tomorrow, August 3rd.  It will be interesting if it will, or how it will affect ham communications.  Click Here to read the article.

The results are in, and I finished up in the middle of the low-power (50 watts) pack.  I’m happy with the results since I only operated for three of the six hours the contest took place.  The 2010 40m Firecracker Sprint results can be seen by clicking here.