ON5ZO ~ OQ5M

Yes a spark-gap transmitter. No not some outrageous homebrew project. Not even a piece of equipment stolen from some museum. But a spark-gap transmitter it is. I was talking to my neighbor last weekend and he told me that the weekend before (during RDXC), he saw sparks glowing to the rhythm of Morse code. You should know that my neighbor lives about 100m away from my antennas. So I imagine it must have been some fireworks. The place he describes points to my 80/160m antenna. Oh no, not that #{|@#{@{@# again! I have a clue where the problem lies, although I don’t see any signs of burned material. I have yet to scrutinize the wire and all connections but I didn’t notice such a thing when I cleaned up the antenna mess after RDXC. I didn’t know about the sparks yet so I didn’t pay attention.

Talking about RDXC. I have reflected upon my score comparing to the other figures posted on 3830. I can’t compete with stacked monobander guys or yagis and 4 Squares on  the low bands so I compared to comparable stations. I think the problem is twofold. There’s the not-so-great performance of my current 80m antenna. But I made a huge tactical mistake I believe. My tactic was to run 20m to USA as long as possible for 5 point QSO. I thought that I could work the Oblasts on 40/80/160 later on and that 20m to USA would not return the next day. I have a feeling that’s a big mistake, because on 80m and 160m I have a very low Oblast score. Still I had good fun and that’s what counts. I could never win a major DX contest from my home QTH here.

That has become a modest obsession: win a real wooden plaque or some other trophy in a DX contest. I have a big stack of papers in a folder telling me I was “1st ON” or “Country Winner” or “Zone Winner” or whatever paper I can get. That’s only normal, there are not too many Belgian contesters and for some reason we all end up in a different category so we can all be country winners. It’s just impossible to win a DX contest from here so last year I took another approach. I discovered that some US state QSO Parties have plaques for DX entries. And that there are only a handful of DX stations that send in a log. Last week the results for the PA QSO Party 2008 were published. So I open the PDF but it’s a 54 page file. So I CTRL+F for “ON5ZO” and here’s what I see:

So I freak out seeing my call on top of the DX box. I re-read the rules and yes there truly is a plaque for DX stations! But wait… Something’s fishy here. Only 2 DX stations? And a plaque for only 9 contacts? Yeah conditions were not bright that evening so I gave up. I look a little further down the many pages of the PDF and behold:

That makes more sense.  One day I will succeed. I keep telling myself. The pursuit of this plaque is fun. It gets me on the air when I otherwise wouldn’t. And working those State QSO Parties actually is quite some fun too but of course, just like everything else in this hobby, it will be a lot more fun if The Sun would show some freckles!

Finally something completely different. Last week I was contacted by a lady who works for a TV production company. I searched Google and her credentials seem OK. She says they’re working on a new TV show (no details given) about people’s hobbies and how they spend their free time. Apparently she did some surfing and ended up on my website (that I don’t update anymore BTW). She wanted me to answer some questions like how long I’ve been involved with ham radio, how much time I spend on it, what to do if the hobby would become impossible for me (fade away into the abyss?), if there are other people in my family into ham radio etc. The answer to the last question is a ‘no’ but yesterday I got another quite painful question: do I know of or know hams personally whose wives are utterly against the hobby and spoil the fun for their OM? I don’t feel addressed by this because my XYL is 100% supportive but the answer is ‘yes I might know some OM whose XYL is not really happy with the hobby’ to put it mildly. But I can’t introduce these guys in such a way and furthermore: who will be willing to admit that openly? And to take it yet another step further: whenever the media spend 5 minutes to expose ham radio to the audience, they succeed in picturing the hobby in such a way that we all look like aliens and freaks talking gibberish. So that’s what I’m about to answer.

During my morning ritual of reading the overnight emails I discovered that K5ZD has published the 2008 WPX CW results. While I clearly remember what I did in that contest and how it went, I just wasn’t sure anymore how I submitted the log. A quick search in the scores database showed I was SO HP 10M (T). Apparently I made over 600 QSO on 10m. Hard to believe when you read it but it’s true. That’s the main reason I’m writing all this: so it can help me to remember things. So I read my own story from last year’s WPX CW. I remember working that JA on 10m though – you don’t forget that. JA on 10m. That sounds unearthly now. JA on 15m would be amazing today. Anyway here’s what the scores table looks like:

This afternoon I emptied the mailbox and found two certificates for this very contest. One that says “1st Belgium – #12 World – #10 Europe” for SO HP 10m and another that says “1st place World Tribander/Wires HP 10m”. A bit confusing with all these subcategories… Still I have “First Place World” printed black on white (actually on yellow) and it’s nice even if it is in such an obscure category. Yet there is no plaque in this subcategory. Only normal, it’s virtually impossible to have plaques for all marginal subclasses in WPX. I was thinking a SB20 or SB40 in this year’s WPX CW. I doubt that 10m will support any propagation but then again that’s what I said last year too. Oh yeah, 3830 says I got kicked out of the RDXC top ten box. Which is only normal and expected. It was fun while it lasted.

One thing I forgot in my RDXC report. On 160m I got called by HI3/LY3UM. He was rather strong but somehow the contact didn’t work out. My guess was that he was calling someone else on or near my frequency so I didn’t log him. Tough choice when you need HI on 160m! But it wasn’t a successful contest QSO. A minute or two later he calls me back, a little louder now. I sent him my report and got a number back. Still amazed I want to make sure he calls me and not someone else I can’t hear and send his number back to him asking a confirmation. Sure enough he confirms. HI3 as a new one on Top Band, and it wasn’t a difficult QSO nor did it involve a pile up. I just remember this QSO after reading ES5TV’s RDXC report on 3830: “HI3/LY3UM had unbelievable signal on 160m”.

Also fun was watching OH2UA @ OH8X operate through the live webcam. It’s amazing to see how contesters everywhere have the same habits like having snacks and drinks at hand or operate standing up for a short while and suffer the same problems. At 04.00z I closed the shack’s window because it got cold and I saw OH2UA put on his jacket over his T-shirt.

By the way: who is OR2F? I’m not used to Belgian callsigns working me on several bands throughout the night and handing out big serial numbers! He gave me “almost 900” for my “just over 1000”.  I need to keep an eye on that. My ON domination is at stake here HI. I’m #9 in RDXC on 3830 for now. That won’t hold I’m sure. I maintained a top 10 spot in the 3830 claimed scores for ARRL DX CW though, SOAB HP Assisted.

I like this contest. The format is right. Everyone works everyone and it only lasts 24h. However it seems that there’s always something that keeps me from going all the way in RDXC. In 2004 I had to attend a course on Saturday. 2005 was my grandfather’s funeral service. In 2006 all went fine but my experimental 80/160m antenna wasn’t the best although it worked. In 2007 I had to take all antennas down on Sunday morning because the wind started blowing too hard during the night. And I wanted to spare myself a repeat in 2008 where the WX was stormy for weeks on end (or at least to my perception as a contester with a field day setup). So I didn’t even start last year but went to a ham fair instead.

This year the cards were dealt in favor of ON5ZO. WX forecast was dry, sunny and no wind so I could set up all the way. The only problem was a busy week before the contest and I’m very tired because I haven’t been sleeping well for over 3 weeks now due to some bruised ribs. I knew the rates were have to be pretty good at night to keep me going. I started the contest on 15m and as always I was on 20m only 3 minutes later without a single QSO. 15m was dead – period. Also ‘as usual’ 20m was packed because of the closed 15m (no need to mention 10m). For about 20 minutes I felt I was going somewhere but then someone needed to park on top of me and away went the rate together with the frequency. Soon I discovered that 20m wasn’t in great shape either. Three weeks ago I made 1000 QSO in 12h in the small UBA CW contest. Extrapolation made me hope for 2000 QSO in 24h in the big RDXC. But the rates didn’t follow my hopes.

I can be short about the contest. It is fun but it would be more so with good propagation. I hade a constant average rate of 50-60 QSO. Nothing to brag about. Being called by nice DX is always a treat. On 40m I was rewarded some mults by VU2, VK4, VR2 and VK9AA to name a few. Again it seems that I have good RX on 80m but my signal is not too loud. I need to address that. I think I have a clue about what can be improved. On 160m I got called by a few W’s with good signals. At about 04.00z I needed a break and programmed the alarm to wake me 90 minutes later. Things were just too slow to keep me going.

In the morning I tried some more 80m and bagged some Caribbean mults on 40m. Then a good hour on 20m (127 QSO) and I constantly tried 15m but no surprises there. I found a loud SK3W on 10m called CQ there myself.  RU1A called for a double mult but it wasn’t an easy QSO. If RU1A is a tough contact, that means there is NO propagation.

SO2R is not really productive when your second antenna is a simple triband trapped vertical. If you don’t hear a thing on a 3 element yagi up 21m, this whip won’t cut it either. And making a dual band 80/160m vertical sacrifices SO2R on those bands too. I made 105 QSO with the second radio, about 7%. That’s 16% or more in the contests I did SO2R seriously. On a brighter note: the 2el vertical dipole system for 40m once again proved to have a killer DX-to-simplicity ratio.

I was thinking about WPX SSB next week but given the propagation and SSB… I don’t think I will spend too much time in the shack.

Sorry stamp collectors. Too bad for the soccer guys. I have sympathy for amateur photographers. But none of those hobbies come even close to ham radio! Let me explain. I got home around noon. WX today: blue skies, sun upon us, Spring is here. I stroll to the mailbox and find an envelope with the typical colorful AIR MAIL border. So yet another QSL I think to myself. Hey, what’s this? Someone wrote a note on the envelope. “Almost PJ2” it says, pointing to the stamp. The sender’s name doesn’t ring a bell and there’s no callsign. So I guess the sender reads my blog and refers to last year’s “I might have gone to PJ2” entry (read it here). Yeah man, rub it in…

Inside I take the scissors to open up the envelope and oh my: it’s the QSL for my PJ2/N4QQ QSO on 160m a few weeks ago. I didn’t even send a QSL card because I knew N4QQ uses LotW and I quit collecting cards. Apparently N4QQ read my blog entry about that QSO (read it here). John was so nice to write a long note on the back of the card, telling me he “is sending the card because it is a new one on 160” and that he “enjoyed the description on your blog of our contact”. That really made my day. Not only do I remember the QSO so lively because I never worked a new DX so swiftly on Top Band, but now I have a memorable QSL card to treasure. This is one of the few cards that won’t end up in a shoe box in a drawer. Oh no, it will become part of the stack with special QSL cards for those special contacts!

The CQ-Contest reflector keeps on spewing out nonsense lately about spots, selfspots, cheerleading, cheating, RDXC log checking, to send or not to send logs etc. I‘ve had it with this bullshit. Especially when N1UR tells us that RDXC has a low level of activity (read it here). DUH! So I found myself thinking of something constructive to do. Like making a QSO or so. Today was a local 6m contest. I made a 6m antenna last summer (read it here) but after testing it, it has never left its box in the garage. So 6m contest versus no 6m antenna. What if one of my HF antennas were resonant on 50MHz?

I took my AEA analyzer and checked the OB11-3 HF tribander. No go. Then I tried the Fritzel trapped WARC dipole (30/17/12m coverage). SWR about 2:1. Hmm, interesting. In the shack I configured the band decoder to select the WARC antenna when the K3 is on 50MHz and sure enough I could hear some ON signals.

I tried to tune the amp and found a match but I thought it wasn’t safe to run a few hundred Watts into a totally mismatched antenna. Besides what would the efficiency be? And with the high Q I would have to retune the amp every other kHz or so. I ran the K3 barefoot at 100W into SWR = 1.9:1. There you go: my first 6m contest ever. The rules say mixed mode CW / SSB but there was very little activity which means hardly anyone to work in SSB and no one in CW. I made 32 QSO and got called by an LX station for a new DXCC on 6m.

Those were two hours well spent. Good to know that the WARC antenna ‘works’ on 6m. Maybe I can use it when the band opens up a bit later this season? Now let’s hope the weather holds for next weekend’s RDXC…

My contesting plans were seriously compromised as I got injured badly a few days ago. Probably and hopefully no permanent damage but my body is aching from head to toe. As a result of this I was not able to set up the antennas myself. The mere thought of cranking up the tower with all these bruises… Ouch! Wim ON4BHQ offered to change his work schedule to do the heavy work for me. I really appreciate that but his work is more important than my hobby. So when my parents came over to visit us, I asked my nephew to come along and crank up the tower. He also helped me to put up the wire antennas. That way ON4BHQ could focus on his work. Thanks anyway OM! And thanks nephew!

I have always played the UBA contest with limited means. The tower only 2/3 up, and the 40m GP in stead of the vertical dipoles. Limited but still a win 4 years in a row. Last week in ARRL I noticed how these full size vertical dipoles always outshoot this GP. Since WX was calm and the switching system was still installed from last week, I went the ‘full option’ way for this one. Tribander at 21m high – I didn’t have to crank it up myself HI – and the dipoles for 40m. One to USA with respect to the tower, the other at about 60° for Russia and everything else. So I was all set to try a fifth win in a row in the ’12h HP’ class. Doing 24h is not tempting as the nighttime goes so slow you end up in bed anyway. I did some DXing on Saturday morning and was glad to hear life on 15m. I was ready to hit hard at 13.00z. My target was ‘950 QSO’. But I discovered that this was achieved in 2006 in a 24h effort. In 2007 I made 877 QSO in 12h and in 2008 only 836 QSO. I wanted to do at least as well as last year but quietly I hoped to break the 1k limit in 12h.

I started on 15m but as open as it was in the morning, as closed it was at the start of the contest. 10 QSO and 9 minutes later I parked on 20m. I went as low as 14002.8 and the band was open to USA and the antenna was aimed to the east. Soon after my first CQ’s some frustrated low life sc*mb*g came QRMing me (the b*st*rd was S9+20dB) and telling me that this frequency was for DX and I needed to QSY. If that SOB would have shut up I would have worked DX. I turned the beam to USA and his signal dropped to about S7. So the MoFo is inbound from the East… I even went a bit lower to the band’s edge but he kept following me. Pardon my French but the LID didn’t even ID when asked for. All this made for a slow start but I kept telling myself: it’s not who leaves Paris the fastest, it all about he who arrives in Roubaix first. How’s that for a sports metaphor! Too much at stake so I moved up to 14021. The rates were good and I had 500 QSO after 5 hours. On 40m VK8AV was a nice and loud surprise as well as the JA callers.

After a longer break I attacked 80m at 22.13utc. My plan was for another 100/hr but I was spotted right away and this turned out the be a curse rather than a blessing. A frantic packet pile up emerged and the callers where so undisciplined  and chaotic that I needed to repeat reports 3 to 4 times and send the call twice etc. I tried to listen up 200-300 Hz and narrowed the K3 DSP filtering but the callers didn’t follow my ‘up’. I was disgusted by the callers’ behavior and saw the rate collapsing while enough callers where there for a good and fast hour… I finished this 2 hour streak on 40 with a PY2 and a VP2M calling me. GREAT! Seven hours down, five to go and 686 QSO in the log. Almost but not quite a sustained 100/hr rate. Time for some sleep.

I got up and took my sore limbs to the operating chair. I started on 80m at 06.00z and my fear became reality. A very slow hour with little multipliers. Some USA but no ‘real DX’. I heard 2 ZL’s right after my sunrise but a) they didn’t seem to be in the contest and b) begging for a number was useless as they didn’t hear me. No ZL answered my CQ either. I worked some more 40m and started using the second radio for the first time. DX Is, Mults Are and Rate is King… I took a short break and hit 20m for some JA. The rate picked up with 3 point Russians and some new multipliers. At 08.15z I planned a raid on 15m and it worked out quite well with VU2, DS3 and a JA as well as UA and UA9 multipliers. And a ton of EU multipliers. In between I sucked 40m dry with the 2nd radio. I did a quick QSY to 10m and worked ON, a DL and an F for 3 multipliers on 10m. Then going back and forth between 15 and 20 with 40m on radio 2.

During my last run on 20m I got called by WH2D. How sweet! With still a good hour to go the #1000 mark was within reach but it wouldn’t present itself on a plate since the rate was too low to get there in that time frame. So I started using radio 2 more aggressively on 40m and mixed running with hit ‘n run S&P. With 2 minutes of my operating time left, I called OS0S on 20m for QSO #1000. Woohoo.

The image above shows the evolution of my "12 hours High Power" efforts in the UBA DX CW. I’m very happy with this year’s result. The contrast with the same contest in SSB can’t be bigger. More than double the QSO numbers with the same setup and in 12 hours. The UBA CW contest is quite popular! I hope plaque #5 is a fact now.

No better therapeutic session than a good CW contest. I’m good to go for a few weeks now. I had a blast! I like ARRL DX CW very much. Working tons of W/VE and knowing you can’t win anything except a #1 Belgium. Can’t win – can’t lose so this contest is always minimal stress and maximal fun. For once the WX cooperated and I could raise the tower to the full 21m. This meant that I could deploy the 2el 40m vertical dipoles (LP/SP) and that the L wire for 80/160 would have its maximal vertical component. No wind, no rain, no snow, no T-storms. Just quiet weather and not too cold. Welcome situation for a change.

I do SOAB(A) most of the time. Sometimes I wonder why because I hardly click the bandmaps and almost never spot stations myself. If you’d check my log, you can see that almost all my QSO’s are made on my running frequencies. But I like to see what happens. I’m by no means a ‘CW skimmer guy’ so I use it to see how propagation moves. And it makes for some interesting reading (NOT!). No SO2R this time. I’m glad to work W/VE on one band already as it is! Before the start, I had set myself 2 goals:

• Make 1200 QSO’s at least…
• of which 50 on 160m with 10-15 multipliers on Top Band.

I started Saturday morning around 02.00z. I hate the first hour of the contest where everyone tries to get a good start and situations sometimes get out of hand. Or at least in my perception. Doing a casual effort so why not sleep a few hours first? 48 is too long for me anyway. I started on 40m and the rate was acceptable but nothing more. After 2 hours I moved to 80m and back and forth to 40m. I was saving 160m for my Saturday sunrise. Sacrificing the 80m vertical antenna to convert it to a compromise 80/160m has a good and a bad side. The bad part is that I most certainly have something less for 80m now. I can feel that. The good part is that on 160m my DX performance is much better than with the low coil-loaded inverted V. Anyway I tamed the beast and on 80m I was not too happy. Was it the propagation? Or is it the antenna? No way to tell. I was glad to finally move to 160m where the first callers were amazingly loud. I soon worked 25 contacts of which 14 mults on 160m so my target there was almost met with still one morning to go. After sunrise things slowed down with hardly no one coming back on 80m although the band was open late and so was 40m. Around 09.00z it was time for breakfast and a nap.

Around 13.00z I was back in the shack, later than anticipated. The plan was to run 20m if possible but the bandmap showed 15m spots. I couldn’t hear anything so I ran 20m with some goods rates. I tried 15m again and made only 6 contacts. This was expected. I made 300 QSO on 15m in 2007 and only 50 in 2008. Now it would be even less. So be it. The rates were good on 20m and I tried 40m LP around 15.30z. This wasn’t a success and the LP opening was better last year. I stuck to 20m until 18.15z when I went downstairs for dinner and to watch some TV with the XYL.

It wasn’t before 22.45z that I returned to the operating chair for the second night. I stayed on 40m for almost two hours and the rates were better than the night before. At 00.45 I moved to 80m which was poor again. Antenna or propagation? I switched between 160 and 80 to return to 40m. Around sunrise (06.30 to 07.30) I climbed up to 80 contacts on 160m with 26 QSO. Compared to 30/7 the year before. You could credit propagation but I think it’s due to my new vertical antenna on 160m. Target #1 (the 160m goal) was met. I tried 80m again but only made 1 QSO and settled on 40m for a change. At 08.51 I quit for a nap and a shower. I planned to be back earlier on 20m than on Saturday.

Back at 12.15z. Checked 15m. It showed life. Well… life? The usual suspects from W1 (MA / CT / NH). I worked 4 stations followed by the mandatory QSY to 20m again. I had a good short run there and QSY’d to 15m again where I tried to run. Only a handful came back so I S&P’d the band and I noticed how signals were coming in from other places deeper inland and were getting stronger. I hoped for an opening and felt that it was possible. I settled low in the band and started CQ’ing on 15m. Soon after that the band opened up pretty decent to current propagation standards and someone threw me on the cluster. All hell broke loose but I was glad to be stirring that cauldron! I made about 120 QSO in that hour so it was a very good rate, necessary to get some score on that band.

The stream of callers stopped and the opening faded. When things slowed down, a spot appeared for my friend W1EBI on 20m. I wanted to call him but not waste time by retuning the amp. So I put the amp in stand by and worked him barefoot with 70W. So George, if you wonder why my ‘KW’ was so weak, that is why. Target #2 was met with 1227 QSO in the log. So back to 20m at 14.40z. The rates were pretty good to splendid and I really sucked 20m dry. I could run the band to W6/W7 pretty late. That’s only possible when the tower is cranked up to 21m. If the tower is down and the tribander low, the band closes much earlier. At 17.09z I picked a weak "3WW" out of the callers. "3WW" could be K3WW but the signal was too weak for that. So my brain told me right away it was my friend K3WWP. John is great in being small. He works QRP CW with minimal antennas. We have worked in the past but the current propagation does not allow for QRP and indoor antennas to be worked like a breeze. But it worked this time and I greeted John because he might not recognize OQ5M as being ON5ZO. It’s always a pleasure to work people you know. Like K7GK @ K7ZSD. Too bad we only crossed on 20m and 40m. Last year he brought me Oregon on 80m too but I didn’t work that far on 80m this year. The west coast mults were absent on 80m. Again: propagation or antenna? By the way I didn’t even try the 40m LP opening on Sunday because I had too much fun on the higher bands.

A funny thing happened. I was running on 20m when a persistent I6** called me. After a few times I wanted to get rid of him and sent "I6** 5NN KW". He returned "KK5M 5NN 500". So he must have logged KK5M in the state of KW…

At 20.15 the log showed 835 QSO on 20m so I moved to 40m which is pretty early but my guess was that I might work some new multipliers which would make up for the loss of rate. I stayed on 40m but it wasn’t a huge success apart from being called from Nebraska. Let that multiplier bell ring! For the last hour of the contest I tried 80m again. My mult count there was low and only 170 QSO. Biggest disappointment. At least I worked 2 extra multipliers. K1JB was handing out ME but I wasn’t the only one needing that. This brings out the worst in people. I worked him and saw a red spot for VO1MP. Another multiplier I needed and also here the situation was getting out of hand. The new KRX3 option in the K3 came in handy. I noticed he was listening slightly up to pick calls and soon after that I logged the NF mult. Back to 40m for the last 15 minutes and I was thrilled to be called by a W5 to log Arkansas as the last multiplier of the contest.

I am very happy with my score. I claim over 1 million compared to 600k last year. I made 500 QSO more. In retrospect I could have done better by sleeping less and maximize operations. Maybe I would have put down a top X score then. But then again the pressure to perform would kill the laid back approach and minimize the fun. So all in all I had a great weekend on the air. One very satisfied contest op says 73 ES QRU…

Managed to work K5D on 80 CW this morning. Got home this afternoon and checked 20m CW. K5D QRV with S5-S6 signal. But again: the audience didn’t read ‘Operating Split for Dummies’. So there’s always the odd caller who calls simplex. It can happen to everyone. And as if that isn’t bad enough, there are a dozen morons jumping on the case. Like when K5D came back to my call. I knew he was calling me but I wanted the confirmation so it took 3 times ‘OQ5M OQ5M PSE CFM?’. What a mess. These occasions sure bring out the cream of the crop lids.

The best part was the guy asking "DX IS KP5?". Obviously it wasn’t enough for the K5D op to ID after every QSO. Do these guys actually listen? Receive? Copy CW? These lids are probably the kind that need to bash contesting. And only make one CW QSO a year. While typing this, there is another specimen calling CQ close to K5D and being haunted by a pack of QRG cops. *sigh*

The thrill of working DX but *NOT* K5D which brings out the worst in the EU pigs. They’re very loud on 40 CW right now but the EU behavior is a shame so I quit. I can hear them pretty good on 80m SSB but they run ‘by numbers’. So no K5D.

Suddenly a spot for PJ2/N4QQ shows up on 1820. I go there and he’s a true S9 but quite some big guns calling him. I take a shot and send my call. Through the callers I hear him giving ‘5NN’ but no one replies and the callers in the pile up remain quiet (unlike K5D). Then he comes back again: ‘OQ5M 5NN’. Woohoo, a new one on 160m and worked first call. A good start of the day…

NOTE: Half an hour later I work JT1CO/6Y1 on 1830 for yet another new one on Top Band!