Radio at its best – QSO with VE7SL

Yesterday I was on 10 metres chasing some very interesting and rare DX when I noticed that someone spotted  VE7SL on the cluster with a comment “CQ with homemade rig, FB !!!”

I immediately changed frequency to see if I could copy that station. I was pleased to see that the band was open to VE. I copied VE7SL loud and clear at around RST 579. I gave one call and he replied immediately and we had a very short QSO. His signal had a distinctive almost pleasant chirp, something we very seldom hear these days. When I started in HAM radio back in the early 70’s it was quite normal to hear the chirpy CW signals. I digress; I kept the QSO very short since I thought that Steve was busy chasing DX and I did not want to hold him up. At the end of the QSO I realized that in my haste to call Steve that I was transmitting split 1.3 kHz high and was rather surprised and puzzled how he was not fazed by my mistake.

Today I received an email from Steve and was thanking me for the QSO. In the email he referred me to his web site that explains the transmitter that he was using. The transmitter is a beautifully constructed “Longfellar” two stage valve transmitter.

http://members.shaw.ca/ve7sl/longfeller.html

Steve thank you, you made my day !!

This is Amateur Radio at its very best. Thanks for the QSO and sharing. Long live QRP and homebrew.

73

QSL procedure - $$$ collectors

I note with interest that many sought after DX don’t use LoTW and only QSL via direct mail with a self addressed stamped envelope (SAE) and sufficient postage normally US Dollars. Initially this was 1 USD, but lately I see many are requesting up to 5 USD to cover the postage.

This is tantamount to extortion. I think it is time we gave a clear message to these extortionists, we should not encourage this any further by sending money in excess of 2 USD. I am pretty sure that 2 USD is sufficient in most if not all countries to cover the postage. In South Africa, postage costs around R6 i.e. slightly less than 1 USD.

Some stations even get so clever that they indicate that they do use LoTW, but on further investigating you might find something like this:

“All other logs for my operations are on paper. Once I retire :) I'll retype them and post 'em on the LoTW!”

Yea right!!

Maybe I am wrong, but I think many of these stations work DX purely to collect US Dollars and it has nothing to do with the passion of being able to help fellow radio amateurs with working new DX entities.

In this day and age I find it very difficult to understand that someone, especially stations operating from rare DX entities that make hundreds of QSOs, still use paper logs and do not use LoTW.

I should add, I don’t have a problem with a small donation to DX expeditions. They do have very high costs to cover. Giving, for example a 5 USD donation might mean expediting the process of  receiving a QSL. Preferably a paper QSL and confirmation via LoTW. If no donation is made, they normally will still upload the logs to LoTW, but only after a fairly long delay.

T32C Kiritimati DX Expedition

I had a very pleasant start to my day.

This morning I went looking for T32C and found them with a fairly weak signal on 18 MHz.

I dropped my call once and immediately they responded after the first attempt. The real RST was only 439 so the operator must have exceptional abilities IMHO. 

I would have been over the moon if it was with QRP, but alas it was with high power and a poor antenna.

The online log showed the QSO as logged within minutes of our contact. I am also pleased to see that they will be uploading to LoTW within 6 months. Based on this I think I will make a small donation to them.

Now, I am greedy and will see if I can work them on more bands. I was hoping to catch them on 15 or 10 meters, but nothing heard yet.

10M has been alive with activity all day. This is so nice to see.

73

10M The other Magic Band

I know we normally refer to 6M as the Magic band, but I think the same can be said for 10M ?

For so much of the solar cycle the 10M band is of little value to us as amateurs, but when the sun gets active and the sunspot counts improve it produces great results and surprises. Just yesterday I worked K5ZY at 07:00 UTC (9 AM local time) I recon this must have been a long path QSO via the sunlit side of the earth? IMHO: Quite unexpected propagation. The VOACAP predictions below does not show a path either. Maybe there is a lesson in that. We should remain optimistic at al times?

I don’t have decent antenna up for 10M, in fact I use my 40M dipole and tune out the gross mismatch with my internal ATU. This is worsened by using some 25 metres of high loss RG58U. So we can safely say that it is a very poor antenna system indeed.

With this poor antenna system I still hear plenty of activity and I also manage to work the odd DX. The signals are generally quite weak and I get rather poor signal reports using 100 watts. I have tried using QRP, but I have not been very successful. I think it is time to put up a half decent antenna. A simple rigid dipole i.e. a single element beam or single element Quad fed with good low loss feed line like (LMR-400) might be the easier and most practical option for now.

With a better antenna I might even get lucky and get to work some interesting DX using QRP.

I should stop procrastinating and erect an antenna this weekend. Sure would be nice to have a multi element gain antenna up high on a tower, but that is out of the question for now.

Have a great weekend.

http://www.voacap.com/areapredictions/4e9922acb40bc/ 

10M Prediction for 07:00 UTC Short Path

http://www.voacap.com/areapredictions/4e9937ad53cea/

10M Prediction for 07:00 UTC Long Path

Mystery signal on 40M band.

I often see the following strange occurrence on the spectrum display of my IC756 Pro 3.

The first telltale signs:

The normal low spiky grass display of the noise floor across the entire 40M Amateur band is replaced with a higher, almost constant value signal and its amplitude seems to vary, much like as a signal affected by QSB.

Tuning across the band one will normally observe what appears to be a normal strong signal as show below. However, tuning across the signal produces no audible signal at all, whilst using for example LSB mode.

Could this be spread spectrum signal?

The fact that the displayed noise floor is increased does it actually mask or obliterate weak signals? As weird as it may sound it does not seem to have a negative effect, but that still needs to be confirmed.

It would be great to see if the same situation is observed elsewhere in the world.

Chasing paper

The job isn’t done until the paper work is….

I set myself a goal a while back to achieve sufficient CW QSO’s so that I could qualify for a WAZS-200-CW award. This basically means that I needed 200 confirmed contacts with South African stations using CW to qualify for the award. This award has only been issued once before and that was some 10 years ago.

Initially it did not seem to be such a big deal, but considering that CW is only used by a small select group in South Africa and many of those that do operate on CW are mostly old hands and many don’t have QSL cards etc.

This left me no option, but to dig into my old logs using my previous calls and see if I could find QSOs that were yet to be confirmed by QSL card.

One of the gems I found was a QSO with Al Akers ZS2U for a QRP QSO we had in 1975 (36 years ago) I took a chance and hoped that Al still had his log and that he could confirm the QSO.  I am very pleased to say that he could confirm the QSO and the card is shown below.

How cool is that ??

Getting close now, still need about 10 QSLs then my goal will be achieved.

Fond memories - Early days of AR

The internet sure is a goldmine of information with so much interesting bits of info. It sure complements our hobby and is most useful in sharing of information.

I enjoyed playing the video clips that Larry W2LJ referred to in his blog. (Refer to the link below). It sure brought back fond memories of my early years as a pimple faced youngster whilst still was at school.

http://w2lj.blogspot.com/2011/10/k2ors.html

There was something magical about that era when we used refer to radios as wireless and in the days of condensers, coils and aerials before it became capacitors, inductors and antennas.

I wonder does the same passion for Amateur Radio still exist today ??