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.

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…

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…

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…

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?

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.

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.

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…

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.

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! 

Got home, cranked up the tower to give it a shot. Only audible signal at this time (16.10 utc) is 20m SSB (S9+). Working by numbers? Oh boy... He's working EU #4. So I patiently wait. He starts #5 and works a handful (not more!) then disappears for three minutes and suddenly pops up without giving his call and works another 3 or 4 stations then jumps to #6. By numbers? DUH!

The 2nd RX works and I'm trying to use it. The good thing is that the obnoxiously overdriven Italian now splatters on both the DX QRG as the QSX. I'm going to try CW which is the only mode I care about. Bet they won't use the stupid number system there!

NOTE #1: Worked 'm on 17 CW 16.32 

NOTE #2: Worked 'm on 30 CW 17.40