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QRL!

How deep can a passionate contester sink? My last QSO was on May 31st. Currently the closest I come to the hobby is deleting tons of reflector mails every day and watch some ham related YouTube movies (like this one) during my lunch break. Even when you’re being your own boss, time is money.

No IARU. Hope to be back on the air in August…

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Low level of radioactivity measured @ ON5ZO

Two weeks ago I got a phone call from my dad telling me Rob ON4CED suddenly passed away. Rob lived about 50m away from my parents’ house and I grew up almost under his tower and antenna. Of course as a kid I didn’t know anything about ham radio and the neighbors just thought he was a CB’er. I got to know Rob after rolling into ham radio myself when I became a member of the local club where he was a regular attendee. Rob had a heart for the hobby and was active almost daily, with 20m SSB his favorite hangout. The news of his sudden SK came as a shock to all. Rest in peace OM!

A lot of dust, literally tons of concrete debris and a huge stack of sand and stones is what’s measured in stead of RF flying around here. For a split second I optimistically dreamed that I would have finished phase I of the construction project in time for the IARU contest but in stead it seems that for the second year in row (remember THIS?) I’ll have to skip IARU. Although I have done a lot of heavy work over the last weeks, there’s only so much a man can do. Yesterday I was digging trenches to bury the cables and I’m provisioning extra tubing to have some ‘escape routes’ for future projects. I think I’ll be more or less (probably less) ready to play in the Russian WRTC-like thing, just like last year (link). Maybe some contacts in IOTA? Anyway by now the ham virus rears its ugly head and makes me want to be radioactive. I badly need a shot of CW! Other than that, nothing to report.

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Xtreme Contesting: what a joke!

There you go, something we’ve all been waiting for – even more than a Cycle 24 in full swing:

This year at Dayton, the new CQWW Xtreme categories were announced. These new categories (single-operator and multi-operator) have been established to allow amateurs to participate in the CQ WW Contest while experimenting creatively with Internet-linked stations and other new technologies that currently are not permitted in any of the existing contest categories. The full rules for the new Xtreme Category, as approved by the CQ WW Contest Committee, appear in June CQ magazine and also at: http://cqww.com/CQ_WW_Xtreme_Rules.pdf

Read the full announcement here: http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/2009-06/msg00166.html if you haven’t already.

As usual this topic raised a lot of interest on the CQ-Contest reflector. Those who know me, also know what I think of most of the CQ-Contest discussions that boil down to a black and white ‘all for’ or ‘firmly against’ point of view. I wanted to add my own posting but what’s the use? So once again I use my personal soapbox here to say what I didn’t say on the reflector.

I consider "Xtreme contesting" making a two way contact with some remote DX location with my own means. I built a ridiculous antenna for 160m last year using some wires and when I think of what I worked on 160m with it last winter, I’m smiling again. I could maybe use non-ham means (Internet, VPN, VoIP etc) to log in to some remote RX or operate a remote station and work a few more, but it would NOT satisfy me. I’m all for technological progress but to me "ham radio" is all about the MAGIC and unexpectedness of radio propagation (or the lack thereof) and achieving it with my own means. Like (too) MANY topics discussed here, you’re either in favor or against and both sides will defend their point of view and the discussion will go on ad nauseam until it fades away and like sunspots it will return every other month or year. The class is created in the CQ WW rules and will not be revoked I guess.

That said, I wonder who or what has pushed CQ Magazine to create this "Xtreme" class. I am only aware of a handful of people and stations that can do this already. Maybe the number can be counted even on a clumsy carpenter’s hand? Does their arm stretch so far into CQ WW’s office? When I look at the callsigns in the Contest Committee ( http://www.cqww.com/contact.htm ) I see many, many calls that I consider to be "straightforward contesters" (i.e. old-fashioned antennas and transmitters) whom I don’t see entering the Xtreme Class. Not that they need to do so to create and approve the new category.

I get the impression that this "Xtreme thing" is created as a theme amusement park for some experimenters in the middle of "our" CQ WW wildlife preserve park. Like adding a lane to our highways reserved for 1% of the people driving Italian and German sports cars where 99% of us driving JA family cars can’t make it. That comparison still stands when I read that this category is created to legitimize the use of technologies considered controversial or even not allowed under the current rules.

Anyhow the cat’s out of the bag, the can of worms is open and shit will hit the fan. Imagine working a new DXCC in some remote hole in the Pacific with an over the pole path when afterwards it turns out the DX was logged in into and using a remote station in W3 or UA6… Now I’m confident that every ham with a heart for DX and contesting will reject this silly evolution.

All for now. Right now my ham radio activities are limited to reading CQ-Contest and some blogs and using MSN IM to chat with a few fellow contesters while working on the laptop. I hope to be back by August. That is, if the construction project outside goes as scheduled…

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CQ WPX CW 2009

Several options were open like SB40 or SB20. But I am not to be motivated for a full time effort. Too much going on in ‘civilian life’. Besides I didn’t want to miss too much sleep since a severe cold has taken a lot of my energy last week. And I didn’t expect 20m to produce much fun. So why not SB10 just like last year? I made 600 QSO then on 10m. That was exceptional back then and it would have been even more exceptional this year. Better slow on 10m which is expected and accepted and where each QSO is a victory than slow on 20m which is frustrating.

All my coaxes and control cables were unplugged for the announced crazy super cell thunderstorm early last week. Well, a possible T-storm was announced but no one could imagine it would have been this bad! I did not set up on Friday – that is: I set up a BBQ and prepared dinner. The first BBQ of the season…

Saturday morning I cranked up the tower one level and plugged in the cables and there I went… on 10m. There was some activity but not really loud signals. I started a run and soon I was called by 9M6XRO. That’s over 11 000 km from here! That made my day although I just started. The rate was nothing special but I wouldn’t call it slow taking into account that the propagation is slacking. I worked a steady stream of EU with some UA9. Around 1100 UTC I worked a few dozens USA which is one of the highlights of this contest. During a S&P session I stumbled across a VP9 too. Sweet! It felt as if propagation was not too shabby but the band lacked activity. We’ve almost come to abandon 28 MHz! Then 10m dropped completely dead and I tried 15m which was even deadlier. Almost nothing to be heard except the usual European suspects. USA was weak and I went back to 10m to see if there was some more EU to be worked. I decided not to go to 20m and called it a day.

On Sunday I started at 0730 UTC but 10m was still asleep. I did wanted to make some rate so what else to do then than to move to 20m? The rate meter went through the roof with a lot of EU callers, some of them very rude and impatient. After a +100 hour on 20m I killed my own pile up and asked EU to QRX and listened for DX. The rate dropped but the quality of the callers improved with KL7 and KH6. And a bunch of W6/7 which was pretty early. Normally the West Coast only comes through late in my afternoon but just like in the good ole’ days they were there after our sunrise. The comparison with the old days of Peaking Cycle 23 ends there anyway.

By 0900 UTC I went to 10m and stayed there for a couple of hours, only interrupted by a short lunch break. Those were some dull hours, working weak EU’s and some UA9. Balkan stations were always very loud. Then 10m went dead again and I tried 15m. I swung the yagi from 90° EU to 300° USA while CQ’ing. An isolated JM1 called me when the antenna was over the North Pole. Other than that I quickly tried my luck again on 20m for some rate – although I didn’t really wanted to. But it was THE band for some rate… After a good hour I went back to 10m which was slow and with the 700 QSO mark in sight, I hit 20m to get to the improvised 700 QSO target.

That’s it really. No frequency fights, only UU7J who came a bit too close but the operator was so kind to QSY a bit after I told him he was QRM’ing me. TNX OM for the ham spirit! OG8X called for a multiplier but suddenly he started a CQ, aborted midway the CQ and was gone – without giving me a serial! I found him in S&P and was glad to log him then. Multi-op (M/2?) LX7I managed to call me three times on 10m. Very funny! I got called by two different J2 stations, always a surprise. I closed the log with 705 QSO (no dupes) of which 429 on 10m, compared to 600 last year.

I also discovered a problem with my K3. Above 21 MHz I can’t use the 2nd RX (KRX3). I never discovered that since I haven’t been playing on the higher bands. It’s a known issue with the calibration of the synthesizer (link). Note to self: the Elecraft Application Note to solve this is here. The rig is working fine and the KRX3 does its work from 21 MHz and lower. I’ll do the mod some day…

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Another 3 weeks gone by…

Three weeks after my inactivity report, still not much has happened. I visited ON4AFU who took his time to tell me about his recent operations as XU7AFU / XU7KOH. And about two weeks ago he and I went to the annual UBA meeting. I skipped that for the last two years because normally it is a very boring event with a lot of blahblah, not even always about ham radio. But this time I wanted to go. After all, I had to collect my UBA contesting trophies for the 2008 CW and SSB part.

To cut a long story short: the blahblah part seemed shorter but that’s only my impression because my clock said it lasted as long as every year. So it must have been more interesting this time? The organizing radio club did a great job providing exhibitions, lectures and information stands. Anyway no sane man goes there for the blahblah. Besides the contest plaques, which would have found their way home anyway, I wanted to meet some ‘long time no see’ people. And so I did. I agreed with Joe ON4JZ / OP4K that he’d stick to 6h and I stick to the 12h class in the UBA contests. That way we each can win 2 plaques HI HI. I had a few enjoyable conversations about contesting (what else?), poor propagation (what else?) and I got some inquiries about the K3 transceiver. The word got out that I have one – hmm: I used this channel myself to get the word out. And yes I am very happy with it and yes I would buy one again and yes maybe later this year I will trade the remaining TS-850 for a second K3.

In the afternoon I joined ON4WW to a presentation about the OT5A M/M station. A fine station with a lot of BIG antennas. You know what I think but I’ll say it again: a crying shame they only get on with CQ WW SSB and CQ WPX SSB. Two times a year, only SSB. And a couple of others like 160m and 10m contest I believe. Although they have a way of routing all antennas to a central shack to play SOAB or M/x. So I asked a question that I already asked in 2005 (for a M/S in IARU with ON4CCP): “Is the station for rent?”. Not use it for free, no: FOR RENT. In 2005 they replied that the station would be used by an ON8-guy in the IARU contest and since that ON8 was a member, he got priority. That makes sense although ON4CCP and myself were on from here 24h and never heard a trace of that ON8 dude which was to be expected. So I got kinda pissed off. Now, almost 4 years later, I asked that very question again in person to the OT5A kingpins. At first I didn’t get a clear and unambiguous answer so I replied that his reply didn’t answer my question. Their final reply was: “Yes the station is for rent, but only to serious and well trained contest operators” and on their conditions which are fair although I had the feeling at that point the guy in the front didn’t consider me serious or well trained enough. Maybe my skills looked too pale because Mark ON4WW sat next to me? BUT, read the fine print at the bottom: “club members have priority and we enter small contests for training purposes”. Those who know me will agree that I do occasionally enter a contest left and right… then how come I almost never hear OT5A? I think I would know if the station was on under a different call too. So again I have the feeling they want to keep their foot against the door.

I must admit the guy has a point when he says that you can’t expect local people and club members to invest a lot of their free time (and money?) in building and maintaining a superstation and then on the weekend of the contest tell them to go home because a “foreign” operator or team just landed and will be using the station. That’s not done. But it’s sad that this superb station is sitting idle most of the time in contests like RDXC, WAE, ARRL DX etc and almost every CW contest.

The day after, on Sunday – I had a strange feeling. I wanted to get on the air and make some QSO. See what effect the conversations had? It was CQ-M contest and I forced myself NOT to go on 20m. So I played a bit on 15m and 10m. No rates and not much DX. Best DX on both bands was the close UA9, not the remote UA9. After about 50 QSO I quit.

I received an email from an ON ham who wanted to know if there would exist a ham log software that would import his Excel spreadsheet logbook. I think none can import such a file ‘as is’ because he used obscure column headers and date format. So I did what I do best lately and fired up my VB.Net and wrote a small program that would read his log as a CSV and save it as an ADIF file. I could reuse 90% of code I wrote earlier (my ADIF Processor). I only needed to write a function that would convert the date as DMYY to YYYYMMDD. That’s only a few lines of straightforward code and a few hours later I let him know that I could process his whole XLS into ADIF but so far I guess he still uses Excel.

I’m still in the market for an accurate wattmeter with digital readout and the N8LP kit seems the way to go. Then Elecraft announces they will be releasing the Elecraft W2 wattmeter. Expected price is a lot lower than the N8LP meter but of course N8LP’s display looks a lot better than the LED bar. But then I read this in Elecraft’s datasheet: “Remote Control and Data Measurement: The W2’s built-in RS232 port allows you to use a computer to read both power and SWR with higher accuracy, as well as to set and check alarms, turn the LEDs off, and other operations. You can use the supplied PC software, or write your own remote-control applications.”. Interesting…

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What to write in a ham radio blog… anno 2009

What to write in a ham radio blog… when you don’t get to play on the radio?
That’s what I wrote last year on April 26. A clear case of History Repeating. It’s been 4 weeks now (4 weeks? yikes!) that I unplugged my antennas for the forecasted thunder storms that didn’t show up. Of course not, they only show up when I don’t unplug them! This implies that 4 weeks have already passed since I logged my last QSO. Not playing on the radio means nothing to type here. No input, no output. Still I noticed that I have a very persevering Belgian audience. On average these pages are visited by 4 to 5 Belgian readers every day. IOU: short update before you start browsing the ads to see if my station is up for sale after me going SK.

I reread last year’s “What to write” and it’s still very up to date. A lot of work for school. Being creative (or trying to) in inventing programming exercises. Grading exercises. Monitor their graduation projects. Reading the reports of their graduation projects. Some very last minute projects the school’s principal wants me to do. Prepare classes. Etc etc.

Work in the garden. Yearly maintenance of the lawn mower. Mow the lawn. Kill the weeds. Trim trees. There are a lot of trees! Cut trees. Dig out tree’s roots. Remove radials from the trees. Remove low band antenna supports. Move concrete blocks that keep antenna support in place. Break up concrete. Measure things to order construction material. There will be a lot of construction activity in the coming months.

So with the work for school and the hard labor in the garden, the motivation to be in the shack is pretty shy. Reminds me of propagation. No propagation = no fun. Yeah yeah, low band etc etc. With too much daylight and summer QRN? Exit ham radio for a while. My biggest fun in ham radio right now is practicing QTCs on LCWO. Thanks a million Fab! I was looking forward to the NOL boys activating Rockall but: “Landing on Rockall impossible – The skipper of the "Elinca" did not allow a landing on Rockall. The waves are too high; even launching a Zodiac is impossible”.

So that’s why after 4 weeks my antennas are still disconnected and my butt didn’t touch the operating chair. Maybe WPX CW will save the day?

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Not this time, thank you.

I had scheduled a busy ham radio weekend. There were four contests I had put on my agenda. Actually three and a half. There’s the JIDX where you only work Japan. There’s the Georgia (state) QSO Party and the local UBA Spring contest on 80m SSB. But yesterday my motivation was ZERO. First of all: SFI = 69, A = 8 to 10. Working JA with these figures? Only a handful but nothing more. The same for the GAQP with the smaller stations and the mobile rovers that don’t run HP into a big antenna. And now for the half contest as in “3.5”: the local 80m SSB contest on Sunday. Working SSB in such a lame contest? Not this time, thank you.

What’s that you say? Only up to 2.5 contests? Well another contest I missed was the EU Sprint CW. I would have loved doing that because I like the Sprint concept. And I always complain that Sprint would actually be more fun with a lot more activity yet I bail out myself. This contest is also a historical landmark for ON5ZO. The Spring leg of the EU Sprint marks the start of the seventh year already from this QTH. I put up a wire in April 2003 when we didn’t even move in yet. The coax was running through an open window. There was no power outlet in the garage yet so I used an extension cord from the kitchen into the garden to feed the SGC SmartTuner. I remember the feeling though: finally my own QTH with room for a tower and real antennas. And from my 3830 post that weekend: “I had a hard time to get concentrated, I was very distracted by the fear of QRM/TVI in the new neighbourhood, but I have had no complaints about this so far”.

A lot of things have changed since then. And more changes are to come this summer with some major construction projects that have nothing to do with antennas. But there is a temporary impact on the antennas. I took down the low band 160/80m vertical and all the elevated radials. I need to cut some trees and prune all the rest and I use these to suspend the radials. The feed point post will have to move too. So I found myself without 80m antenna which I needed in Sprint and the local UBA contest on 80m.

I could have overcome that problem by putting up the 80m dipole I still have. But for that I needed to raise the tower which would have helped in JIDX and GaQ too. But I wasn’t in a tower raising mood at all yesterday. The weather forecast was talking T-storms and I’m not particularly keen on having the tower up with lightning all around. But as always the T-storms do not hover over ON5ZO when all his coaxes are unscrewed and his antennas are down. Furthermore we did some heavy work in the garden on Friday which made for very sore limbs yesterday. I know: not used to hard labor… So given the propagation, the T-storm threat and my aching muscles I wasn’t in a DX / contesting mood yesterday. I’m glad I’ve finally learned to say “thanks but no thanks” when I am not motivated to sit down and participate in a contest. In stead I cleaned the windows, washed the car, walked the dog and worked on a homebrew project. No, not a ham radio project, rather a general proof of concept but it could serve a radio purpose in the end.

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In case you wonder…

In case you wonder why some guys are so loud in contests, here’s a guy from Italy who bought a killer amp and is not afraid to admit it:

i have bought a mount ago this amplifier, test it during a contest. OH MY GOD I have never seen anything like that during my radio life. this is a spits fire watts amplifier, you can run all night and day without any problem with 3.5KW, the rating peek power is over 4 KW with 90 watts drive. buy one and you can enjoy your self     (source)

Unlike this guy, it strikes me that the UK guys are always emphasizing they don’t drive their amps over 400W output when they review their kW amps but “in a dummy load, it puts out well over 1kW”… Benefit of the doubt? I say having equals using. Anyway, I looked up some “ham radio power limits” and found them on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio. Interesting figures.

One step further: those who read CQ-Contest know that over the last two years there have been hours wasted on whining and complaining and finger pointing about cheating. Favorite topics are packet versus unassisted, single op versus M/S, open logs, making corrections after the contest, self spotting etc. But never excess power. Not a word. Although the protagonists of fair play in ham radio contesting SWEAR by the rules. Contest rules are their holy bible. The sponsor’s word is bond. I tried to touch the subject once (read here) but there seems to be some consensus about more power than the rules allow. And a ”let’s not go there”-attitude. Most contest rules clearly state that High Power is 1500W max. But that just is not important it seems. I admit: power limits are hard to check and to enforce. But sometimes you see pictures of contesters in their shacks with amplifiers that put out well over 3 kW. I say having equals using. Facts are sacred, opinion is free. I once talked to a guy who visited some Balkan contest stations. Do they have big amps? His words: “power fetish”. No wonder…

Not that I’m missing sleep over all this. When I bought my 1 kW amp I thought I was playing QRO until I found out I wasn’t. Belgian hams are allowed 1kW output and I stick to that. Maybe because my amp does not produce more RF? Otherwise I might say having equals using. But sometimes I freak out about all the crap on CQ-Contest but never a word about cheating with 2 or 3 times the power allowed. The review I just read triggered that again. Other than that: nothing to report. ON5ZO QRT.

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CQ WPX SSB 2009… and more important things

I still had to write something about that one. Given the propagation I experienced the week before in RDXC, I had no plans to play in WPX SSB. But being a contester, on Sunday it started itching. So I cranked up the tower one level so the tribander was at 16m high. The goal was to play fresh meat on 20m with the OQ5 prefix and have some good rates. Yeah right. I worked only 300 QSO SB20 in a few hours off and on but no real rates. Even the packet pile ups I had hoped for did not happen. SSB in combination with no propagation equals total boredom!

This is one of only two contests that the Belgian M/M OT5A is on the air. A crying shame that this mega-station is only active in CQ WW and CQ WPX and only in SSB, no CW. If you look at their contest pictures it seems to me that eating is more important than making contacts.

After WPX I left the tower up which makes working DX somewhat easier. I wouldn’t have worked YJ0TXF and VK9LA on 30m if the tower was down. I found that KH6 comes through each morning on 30m and 20m. Yesterday I was CQ’ing on 17m and worked JA, 9M6 and HL with fair to good signals. Only there weren’t many callers. I guess the band was open but almost no one was there.

I’ve been neglecting VK9GMW on Mellish Reef for yet another new DXCC. They were booming in yesterday afternoon with an S9 signal. Of course the usual morons were there too. I managed to work VK9M but the QRM made me doubt slightly. My DX’ers gut told me the QSO was OK because I clearly heard my call and a TU after me report. Only there was a short pause between my 5NN and their TU so I wondered if something went wrong… But the online log now shows my gut feeling was right. New DXCC!

Another game was trying to work my local friend Eddy ON4AFU who’s active as XU7AFU. I heard and worked him on 20m and I believe on 17m too (need to check that, log not on this PC). He dropped me a line to tell that propagation is really different from XU7 compared to ON. Maybe he means that from XU7 there actually IS some form of propagation? He also did an excursion to some IOTA as XU7KOH. I worked them on 20m easily. On 17m I heard him working VK/ZL/JA but I could not get through that wall from here.

Oh yeah, bad news too: the Elecraft solid state amps are not for the near future: “We will not be releasing amps at Dayton this year. In addition to our ongoing K3 work, have other fish to fry. 🙂      73, Eric  WA6HHQ” (link). Too bad because I would fancy a second amp for SO2R. I’m curious about the frying fish though…

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SFI = 512

Yeah I wish. But it was a license plate on a car: SFI-512. I was carrying some bags and when I returned empty handed I wanted to finally put my cell phone to good use and make a picture of it, but by then the car was gone. No picture.

I needed to tackle VK9LA for a new one. I managed to work them on 40 and 30 quite easily. New DXCC! Globetrotter G3TXF on Vanuatu provided another new one. I worked YJ0TXF on 17m. He was very light because there is no such thing as SFI = 512. But I worked him for another new DXCC. Later that day he was on 30m with a pretty good signal being so early for 30m. He only grew stronger but so did the pack of [^{#^@^#{^{[  EU idiots.

That’s where the K3’s KRX3 comes in handy. You can actually follow the clueless lids. There’s this OH2 with a very interesting approach. His tactic is called: “Send your call a lot”. It was so funny I started counting. He sends his call 8 times or 9 times in a row without pausing. In the mean time, YJ0TXF has worked a station and sent “TU UP”. Then OH2^^ hears nothing and sends his call again 7 times. While he keeps sending his call, the DX once again has worked a station while OH2^^ does not have a clue about what is going on.

Another popular specimen in the pile up is the ‘Morse Dyslectic’. The DX sends: “OM3 OM3?”. The pile up has a Russian ^^3MM, an EA3^^^ etc answering. All this served on a bed of tuners-on-DX-QRG with a nice sauce of simplex callers. Side dish was a family pack of Frequency Cops. I really hate this. Hat off to guys like G3TXF who manage this zoo from such a distance with such marginal signals. I didn’t manage to work YJ0 on 30m in the end, and the next day he was QRT. You can’t win ‘m all.