As expected yesterday's test didn't reveal anything wrong with the K3's CW signals.

Last night I wanted to work some W8 stations in the Ohio QSO Party. Conditions on 20m were absolutely poor. I quit with the counter stuck at 23 QSO. I tried 40m later that night but didn't hear any USA there. I couldn't get anything going on 30m because of local noise. And I didn't even try 40m for some DX. I got very bored with propagation and at 23.00 local time I called it a day.

Before closing the shack, I decided to give the K3 a firmware update. It was running the latest official release which is almost 3 months old. So I downloaded the last beta firmware and started uploading. The screen's progress bar didn't show much progression before the Elecraft software told me there was an error. I could not start the K3 anymore and could not establish communication with the PC to downgrade back to the working version. So I was completely stuck. My last resort without sending emails was the RTFM route. No go.

In a wave of blind accusations I decided to blame the USB-to-serial conversion. I use microHAM's USB routing software with virtual COM ports. Maybe a real serial port would work? I dug up some serial cables as an RS-232 extension cord to connect the K3 to a spare PC that still has native COM ports but stands on the opposite side of the shack. I installed the needed software and there you go: connected. I uploaded the official release and after checking that one I installed the B-version successfully. Then reloading the rig's settings from a file and I was good to go.

Or so I thought. The microHAM band decoder couldn't communicate with the rig. This decoder is the link between the rig and the MK2R+ / PC. I knew it was the band decoder since antenna selection didn't follow the K3's QSY. A lot of head scratching later it turned out to be the K3's baud rate that was higher after the update than the 4800 I had it set to to match the band decoder's baudrate. That parameter does not seem to get saved into the config file.

I think there is nothing wrong with the microHAM stuff and its protocol. It worked the first time when I loaded the firmware after assembling the K3. It works again now. It must have been a glitch on this particular operation. I hit the sack at 01.00. Two hours for a firmware upgrade.

I woke up this morning at 06.30. Too early after last night's adventure but since the tower is up and my 40m vertical too, I wanted to check 40/30m at sunrise. The light switch in the hallway upstairs didn't illuminate my path. Neither did the one downstairs. The fridge was dead too. I went to the power distribution panel to find all circuit breakers in the 'on' position. Except the earth leakage differential breaker. So it wasn't a short circuit but current flowing to ground. I did not need to scratch my head over that one: I cut the water boiler's circuit and activated the differential breaker. All system's go. Exit HF bands. Guess how I spent my Sunday morning (apart from working 2 Hawaiian stations on 20)?

A few weeks ago I was running EUHFC (see link) when a loud signal comes up telling me "CHECK UR TX - CHECK UR TX". I was stunned by this remark and I asked what was wrong. I got an answer telling me something was wrong with the signal (can't remember the exact words). Since no one else complained about it, I forgot this happened.

Until G4BUE mentions on the Elecraft reflector (link) that some people can ID a signal coming from a K3 as being 'hard keying'. He also says 'I was using the NR option at the time'. Then it hit me: when the guy (gal?) broke in to tell me to check my TX, I was actually playing with the NR parameters. The low bands were very noisy here and I wanted to see if the fancy K3 DSP toys could make RX better. My old TS-850 doesn't have this feature.

Following my reply on the Elecraft reflector, I got the offer from a SM station (also K3 owner) to check my keying on the air. So I arranged a sked with the SM station and invited G4BUE as well. We'll be around 7020 and 10115, sked made around 04.30 - 04.45 utc on Satuday August 23. Care to join us?

Short version pasted from ON5ZO's Contest Template 2008:

Bad weather + no propagation = no motivation >> no contest.

Long version for the records. WAE CW is my favorite contest. Only for the QTC of course. I've never missed one since I accidentally stumbled in WAE CW 2001 (follow this link to read more about that). But since 2008 is really my off year, and it's the sun's off year and the summer weather's off year I decided to skip this one completely. We had to attend an event on Friday night so I couldn't start on 40/80 anyway. Better make that: I could have done so if I wanted to.

While WAE is big fun it isn't an easy contest. You need to get out of EU. On the higher bands that's a 'no go' because of the total lack of sunspots. On the low bands you need to have good antennas and preferably good ears. In mid summer 40 and especially 80 can be really noisy and full of summer QRN. The money band is 20m but you need the low bands for the multiplier weighting. I was looking at the online cluster on Saturday and saw a few spots EU-W and EU-JA on 15m. That looked promising. The week before in EUHFC conditions were horrible from here. I gave up on 10 and 15 for DX. And given the shape of 20m I wasn't expecting a lot. But this looked different. I decided I would crank up the tower one level on Sunday and play 'fresh meat' to gather at least some QTC for the fun of it.

And so I did. By local noon on Sunday -way too early to be considered 'fresh meat'- I got on 15m and immediately heard YE1ZAT. I could work him right away and solicited QTC. I got only 7 but the QSO/QTC ratio was 1:7 right away. Until last year I practiced copying QTC a few days in advance with a batch of MP3 files and the N1MMLogger software. Not so this year. But the copying went amazingly well, even better than before. Apart from QSB and QRN and the occasional QRM from an impatient LID.

After YE1ZAT I worked some 'local DX' on 15m like TA, RA9, D4 etc. I even worked AP2IA. Sweet. On 10m only 4L0A was worked and he was weak. So off to 20m where my goal was to run and ask for QTC on each QSO. That went fairly well. I went to work VY2MT (= KD4D as close to EU as possible) on 20 and of course got some QTC. VY2's are always loud here on all bands. Their signals on all bands are an indication of propagation. VY2MT must have thought an ON on 15m was badly needed so I was happy to QSY to 15 for him. That worked as well.

I stayed on 20m where K7SV called in. I was mislead by his signal. It was weak but on K7SV's 3830 post I read he's LP and not on the West Coast. QTC were granted but it wasn't easy. I had (have? - need to check) a terrible noise on 20m when the yagi is pointing between 320° and 220°. That is from KL7 to PY... Next up was K5KG. On 3830 K5KG tells he's HP but in FL. Sure sounded as if he was deep into Texas. QTC were a pain too - SRI OM. Maybe it was too early for good 20m propagation to USA? RZ9OZO (= RW1AC) was louder and he asked for a sked on 80m. I had to turn him down as my low band antennas are down and packed away. That might have cost him the ON multiplier.

At about 12.00 utc I moved up to 15m again. I could run some USA but a) not many heard and b) those heard were not too loud. But beggars can't be choosers so I was glad to make it across the Atlantic. Ten minutes later I worked VY2EJ on 10m. Great: DX on 28 MHz. I moved back to 15m for more USA and then up to 10m again. I worked about 20 stations from North-America on 10m. Almost 4x more than last year!

At that time I had set myself a goal: work as many stations and beg until you have 500 QTC. I figured the best thing to do was run USA on 20m. Conditions were only so-so and the truckload of loud PY/LU on 15m was absent, even quieter on 10m. I kept asking and quit the contest with 508 QTC in 182 QSO.

I've come to terms with 2008 being a serious dip in my operations. I'm still profoundly in love with ham radio and especially contesting. It took me almost 8 months to figure out that taking it easy for a while doesn't make me a lesser ham or contester. I'm pretty sure that by the time the solar conditions pick up I'll be hungry like a wolf again to enter each and every contest, be it full time or just handing out some Q's.

Two months ago I told the story of the K3's arrival (link). A few weeks later UPS called me to say I had to pay over 300 Euros. The lady explained it concerned the shipping costs. I got in a panic. I already paid such an amount! This would blow the anticipated K3 budget. I told her the vendor charged the shipping costs and I paid +300 COD to the delivery guy. She checked her records and confirmed that everything was OK and that all costs were already paid.

A few days ago I got another UPS invoice in the mail. They checked their calculations and compared those figures to what they actually paid the Belgian customs upon import. In fact I didn't pay enough. There was an open debt of... 0.01 Euro. One euro cent. Sending me the invoice in bulk mail costs them about 30 cents or more. So I transferred 0.01 Euro.

The worst part is that the invoice has a slip you have to return after the payment. A stamp to get this mailed to UPS would cost me 54 cent. I called their toll free helpdesk (luckily it's a free 0800 number) and the lady told me that this amount should not be paid. I answered I already did but sticking a stamp would be ridiculous. She told me that there was no need to send the slip and that the 1 euro cent shouldn't have been paid in the first place...

Now I finally know what Skimmer is. It was on display in the Brussels Ikea store yesterday. Funny isn't it? Click the link and behold: SKIMMER!

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60103222

A follow up to my earlier posting on this topic (see below).

Yesterday evening after posting my previous message and this morning I started reading the 3830 postings. I'm screwed. My score definitely won't be in the top 10 box this year. I'm currently #13 claimed (see 3830). I really feel bad because I thought I made the most out of the cards that were dealt. What went wrong? Basically if you don't win a contest that means others have done better. So why did they do better? Let's not take the setup into account. Apart from the 80m antenna there was no change from the antennas used in 2007.

1. Location. Typically ON is not so good for EU centered contests like EUHFC and EU Sprint. The top 15 right now is populated by South-Eastern and some EA stations. DL3TD did good but he operated from a big station. F5IN is pretty close to me too and also seems to suffer on 10+15. He had a dozen mults more than me combined. Has better antennas too (especially on 40m). DL6FBL @ powerhouse DR1A said he couldn't run 10/15 either.
2. Would raising the yagi another 6m (15 > 21m high) have given me more score on the higher bands? My experience tells me that for EU this can be counterproductive. Can the 300-400 QSO difference really be explained by propagation? If I look at F5IN, it must be that. He says he was active for 10.5 hours. I took a few breaks (too slow to stay focused) and combined I think I lost an hour too. He has more multipliers so maybe he did more S&P?
3. Obviously I reacted wrong on the 10/15m disaster. I ran like crazy there last year and made over 300 QSO in 3 hours. Then everyone moved to 20m where we could run again for 2 hours. That gave me almost 600 QSO in 5 hours. Now I needed to spend all that time mainly on 20m because it's too early to go to 40m. But in he mean time, it seems that the top scorers were able to make more out of 10/15m.
4. That meant that when I was on 20m, I could not capitalize the two higher bands. By the time I QSY'd to 40, maybe those guys dropped to 20m where I couldn't hear them again? And what about 80m?

I should check all this when the logs are out in a few months. But by that time I probably won't care anymore. The only thing I will care about is: when will we have at least a handful of sunspots? And right now on a more decisive level: is it worth to do WAE CW next weekend when you can't even work EU on the bands?

I discovered this contest a few years ago and I like it a lot. In 2005 I did about 600 contacts low power. I made 950 QSO or so in 2006 when going QRO. I astounded myself with over 1200 QSO last year so stakes were high in 2008. I don't want to repeat myself but once more can't hurt: 2008 is really not a good year for me in this contesting business. Motivation low, propagation low and it has become a statistical certainty that contest weekends bring bad weather. Usually in the form of storm or heavy winds and during summer the WX even throws in some thunderstorms. Regulars know that I have a field day setup: all antennas down except for contests. A crank up tower under high wind load is lethal or at least unhealthy. The weakest point is my 80m vertical. It's a killer antenna for EU and DX but an elevated GP with feedpoint 4m high and a flimsy 15m high radiator do not support wind or gusts. No I can't guy it as I don't have access to the other side of the garden. Long story...

So it wasn't any different this time. One of the biggest T-storms since we moved in 5 years ago dropped on our heads Thursday night with fall out on Friday morning. No use cranking up the tower before Saturday then. And so I did. Tower up to 'EU take off level' (yagi @ 15m high, enough for EU only). The wind was present but definitely not a hazard to the tower and yagi. Then I put up the 40m GP that can stand more wind than the 80m GP. But the wind was blowing too hard for the 80m GP. It would remain up when installed, but it would be a pain getting it up in the first place. I tried that too often in the past. Must be a funny sight for sure, but not for me with the clock ticking to the start of the contest. It wasn't the first time my 80m contest operations were in danger thanks to the meteorological powers that be. For this year's UBA DX SSB in January I needed to think of and execute a 'plan B' a few hours before the contest. I made a 80m dipole since I wasn't expecting any DX in the SSB part. However I could not raise that dipole on the tower's pulley this time since the 160m dipole already took that spot. And I know from experience that 2 dipoles for 80 and 160 interact when too close to each other. 'Cross polarization' antennas do work though. With about 3 hours to go I decided to use the 80m dipole in a strange configuration. A long shot...

I raised one leg on the tower's opposite side pulley. I grabbed the feed point and stretched it as far as the garden's edge. With a piece of rope in a spruce tree I suspended the feed point about 1.5m above the ground. From there I took the other leg and used it as a single elevated radial also 1.5m high, going back to the tower. All this was done making sure the 80m experiment would make an angle as close to 90° to the 160m dipole's plane as possible. I needed to avoid interacting and coupling between both bands. It took a little pruning and adding some wire to the radial formerly known as Dipole's Leg but it got resonant. Only the dip was too sharp reducing my 2:1 bandwidth too much. This was measured right at the feed point so I figured about 50m of coax into the shack would broaden this due to the losses. I ran to the shack and hooray - we had achieved "broadbandness". I could span 80m CW with SWR low enough (less than 1.5) not to trip amps or fold back power. No coupling on 160m. The Top Band dipole was still resonant where needed and everything else seemed to be working. ON5ZO, I dub thee the McGyver of antennas. A wire and a rope and he makes a resonant antenna. If only this stuff actually radiates and picks up RF!

You see, it's all this stuff that has attenuated my contesting fun. A turnkey setup would be easy: sit down, flip switch, fire CQ at will on all HF bands. In stead all my contest efforts turn into a one-man field day show over and over again. Setup up, play radio, break down, store till next weekend. Repeat sequence. But it's like that and it will remain like that. Moreover faint heart never won fair lady (or a contest for that matter) so by this time I still had one hour to go and I was ready. Boy was I ready! The XYL cooked la lovely lunch (I really liked that sauce honey!), I took a shower and with 10 minutes to go I hit the chair.

I proceeded to checked 10m. Uh oh... Empty! I ran there prior to the contest last year to reserve my seat and made an 120/hr on 28 MHz to start the contest. Let's do this on 15m then this year? Same story. At 12.00utc I tried to run 10m, dropped to 15m and made QSO #1 after 4 minutes... on 20m! Oh boy, nasty. That 20m QSO was to make sure the RX was working. Back to 15m. I made 2 QSO there for a total of 3 and already 9 minutes were gone. I figured this situation was the same for everyone so let's all end up on 20m gain shall we? I ran 20m, moved to 15m and 10m to do some S&P then ran 15m and tried running 10m again. This was absolutely a propagation nightmare and a night and day difference with last year.

The rest of the contest I kept staring at last year's rates I printed and realized that if my 80m antenna turned out to be crap, it would be even more of a mess. The rates were low, and apart from no propagation it seemed that there was not too much of a crowd on CW. When I finally got to 40m the band let me down too. I've seen it better for EU only rates. The facts for the rest of the contest:

• The K3 is really a great rig. I need to tweak some parameters a little further and explore some of the possibilities. It was the first time on the low bands and I'm very happy with it. I don't feel it is inferior to or more complex to operate than the TS-850 which is my personal benchmark. I don't care about figures HI.
• The 80m antenna worked great for EU. I can't tell what it would do for DX after this one. The band was noisy and I tried several settings on the K3 to make this better. Sometimes successful, sometimes it would mess up. I need to RTFM on the noise blanker.
• I made more QSO on top Band than last year. I achieved almost the same number of the 15m mults in just over half the QSO's there. Go figure.
• G4PIQ calls in on 160m. He asks for a QSY to 15m. It's 22.19 utc. Skeptically I grant him the favor and ask to QRX while I turn the yagi around. He agrees to call me on 21005 in a minute. After some more contacts I QSY and call a few times with 100W as I don't want to retune the amp. In vain of course as 15m has been dead all day. No answer and I don't hear anything anymore around 21005. Back to 160m. In a lull I return to 21005 a few minutes later where G4PIQ calls me. Coincidence as it's already 4 minutes after the initial QSO. We exchange reports and I go back to 160m. This kind of successful action is the salt and pepper on my contesting!
• I spent the last 20 minutes on 160. I reasoned that I had sucked 40m almost empty, and that I have 60 more QSO on 80. That means more chances for people to work me on 160. I get called by 4 more mults in the last 5 minutes. Great!

I haven't checked 3830 for the comments and scores so I hope everyone suffered from the bad propagation and that my score will be in the top 10 again. It was fun but not as much fun as it would be with some propagation. Fingers crossed for 2009!