Another DXCC entity bites the dust….

I am over the moon with working Saint Paul Island CY9M today on 10m.

I have been trying for days without any success. They were workable on 40 and 30m, especially 30m, but the wall was just too big and I had no chance of a QSO.

Today at 12:30z I was lucky enough to be one of the first to see them being spotted as being active on 10m CW. I was there in a flash. The VOCAP predictions did not show any chance of propagation between us so I was a bit negative, but I was extremely pleased to see them romping in with a S7 signal. One single call and the deed was done……

Once again I must say I have huge respect for the very capable DX expeditions. This CW operator was most capable and efficient.

This QSO should give me my DXCC on 10m with 100 confirmed entities.

73, Pierre ZS6A

IARU contest 2012 feedback

Well that was Fun!

I volunteered to operate as one of the ZS9HQ CW operators. I don’t have effective gain antennas and volunteered to help mainly on 10m knowing full well that conditions most likely would be very poor at best, thus leaving the prime bands 15, 20 and lower bands to the more capable stations.

I am pleased to report I was wrong; once again it was evident that a contest can open a band regardless of the fancy solar numbers and supposed doom and gloom of a CME wiping out all HF communications.

I used “Log Checker” to create the pretty graphic below. I am fairly pleased with my performance, all things considered. Pity the program does not have the associated file to do the statistics for this contest.

The 10m band did open nicely in the last hour and it gave me the opportunity to “run” Truth be told I still get very intimidated by this and I need much more practice and skills dealing with poor manners in pileups. I will get there……

I am looking forward to see the logs of the other ZS9HQ CW operators, but I am sure it will be much more impressive than my effort.

73

ZS6A - ZS9HQ - contest 2012

LoTW works

I am extremely pleased to see the high success rate I am achieving on getting QSOs confirmed via LoTW. Many of these are truly rare DX stations that could easily have chosen the more lucrative Dollar collecting route, but they choose to support the LoTW system.  I think it is becoming very clear who the real amateurs are as opposed to the ones with ulterior motives?

I operate a small pistol station with very basic antennas on HF, yet I am very close to obtaining a DXCC on 10m primarily using CW in about a year. I have also had good results on 6m from working mainly European stations. In many cases, I received a LoTW confirmation and a paper QSL card for the 6m QSOs.

This is almost without any effort.  This was achieved mainly due to the effectiveness of LoTW and the radio amateurs that choose to support the LoTW program.

Thank You!!

Pierre ZS6A

LoTW Jun 2012

Back to basics, minimalist QRP

I have many great memories of taking part in numerous local QRP contests and events where I normally would use my trusty self built Elecraft K2 transceiver or the tiny commercial HB-1A CW only transceiver.

The K2 is a full blooded super radio and it almost feels like cheating when I use it. The receiver rates amongst the very best of commercial receivers. The transmitter is superb on CW with it silent break-in switch over.

On the other hand using the diminutive HB-1A, powered by a few AA sized batteries, especially when used outdoors, sitting under one or other tree has a certain sense of magic about it. The entire station hardly the size of a paperback and it weighs next to nothing.

I am now thinking of taking this a step further. It might be great fun building simple crystal controlled QRP transmitter and using that instead of the K2 or HB-1A. It will almost like my early days, with separate transmitter and receivers with a manual T/R switch. We are so spoilt now with semi break-in and full blown QSK, that it is hard to imagine that we used to throw a switch to change from receive to transmit and vice versa.

It would be even more fun, if other locals did the same. It would be interesting to see how we deal with being rockbound; we have become very spoilt with our ultra stable and accurate VFO’s.

There was a time when one could call CQ on say 7020 and get a reply from some station on 7030. We actually used that big knob on the receiver. I know it is weird, but true……

 

I now must look for simple reliable circuits I can use. Something like the Tuna Tin or the NS-40

73 de Pierre ZS6A

SOTA Dilemma….

Looking at the frequencies used on SOTA activations and plotting it on a graph clearly shows the popularity of the most common frequencies being used.

Their choice of frequency to use is governed by their location and the prevailing skip. It is thus obvious why in Europe 40m and 2m are so popular. This is followed by the use of 20m and 30m band. The higher bands 15m and 10m are almost never used.

It goes without saying the regular frequencies 40m, 2m, 30m, 40m, 60m and 70 CM are not suitable frequencies we need to be using 10m, 12m or 15m if we wanted to work the International SOTA stations.

No wonder we never hear international SOTA station activity from South Africa.

IMHO if one considers all the aspects, propagation, number of F2 hops, losses, QRP and less than perfect antennas etc. we as South Africans need to use 15m, 12m or 10m to have any chance in working international SOTA stations.

This is a bit of a dilemma, I suppose the North Americans, Asians and the stations in Oceana are in the same predicament?

Click on graph for a more detailed view.

SOTA: number of activations by band

CQ-WPX-CW from the slow lane….Day 1

Just yesterday I saw the published results of the ARRL 10 completion that was held in December 2011. It reminded me how fortunate I was to be able take part in that contest. Conditions were excellent and the contest statistics reveal the same.
 

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.arrl.org%2Ffiles%2Ffile%2FContestResults%2F2011%2F2011-10M-Web-V1_4.pdf&h=ZAQHvqL_NAQGm8OeNcP67mn7bXoAlEiyy6b6c5CS46Vkncg

I was hoping that with this weekend’s CQ-WPX-CW contest would have reasonable condition prevailing, but it does not seem to be the case. I decided I wanted to use 10m only during this contest to boost my 10m log as far as possible, before, dare I say the down turn of the solar cycle commences.

Propagation seems very subdued with low levels of activity on 10m. 

One big highlight was working OM Ivor VR2ZQZ/P (once again). Have a look at QRZ.com and you will understand. This is amateur radio at its best. I admire the spirit and tenacity of these individuals in our hobby.

 73, Pierre ZS6A

VR2ZQZ /P

VR2ZQZ /P QSL card

Decoding melodious whispers on 10m

This past weekend I played with JT65-HF on 10m.

I was once again overwhelmed at how well it works. I was using slightly less than 5 watts and a rotating dipole at 8 metres AGL.

I worked a bunch of European stations with this low power setup. The two contacts that stand out were with IK4UXA, he was using 2 watts and a sloper and the other was with HG9SM, he was using 1 watt and a ground plane antenna.

This is pretty amazing; it is highly unlikely that QSOs could have been possible using CW under the circumstances.

73, Pierre ZS6A

Screen shot of 2X QRP QSO with IK4UXA