Ah, that's better

As noted a couple of weeks ago, my "big" radio, the Icom 756 Pro II, has been repaired by Icom (replaced the final transistors and aligned the radio), and arrived back at home this past Thursday. All is working just great now, with power output definitely up to spec. When I got home Thursday night, I disconnected the 706MkIIG that I'd been using for the past month, and hooked up the 756 again. This takes a few minutes, since in addition to just the power and antenna, I've got a different microphone, a different Rigblaster (for digital modes), and somewhat different audio and keying methods. I think I only managed to hook one cable up (harmlessly) to the wrong place, but it was a reminder that I really need to finish labeling all the cables. (I'd started a very long time ago, getting all the antenna cables labeled, but not getting much farther.) Seems like that's something to put on my list for one of the spring or summer nights when there are storms in the area and I can't operate.

Anyway, as soon as I got hooked up on Thursday night, I spun the dial around a bit to see if I could find some DX to work, and I came upon CO6LC on 20m phone. Hardly rare DX, but a non-local ham, and I was able to easily work him. Whew, that was a relief. A few minutes later, I worked Alex, A45WD on 30m, which was a new band for me for Oman. Thanks to Alex for being so patient. The conditions weren't very good, and it took a few minutes for him to get my callsign correct, but he stuck with me and made the contact work.

As luck would have it, I had planned to work from home the following day anyway, so I had the possibility of making a few contacts here and there during the day. One of the things that I was looking forward to was to work Bruce, XW1B in Laos. I'd heard Bruce one morning maybe a month or so ago quite strong, and we started emailing back and forth and have wound up chatting on the computer fairly often. It turns out that after living and DXing from Florida for a long time, Bruce has moved to Laos and has been very actively DXing from there. He's been on most mornings (my time) at around 1200Z and then again around 12 hours late, and works mostly CW and RTTY. Judging from what he's told me, and from what I've seen on the packet clusters, he's been making a lot of folks very happy, since Laos is still relatively rare. In fact, Bruce, and his boss Larry, XW1A, are two of only 3 hams who live full-time in Laos.

On Friday morning (my time) Bruce was running US stations on RTTY, and doing a great job. We'd previously worked out arrangements so that if I could hear him OK, we'd try to make a contact. (Although I have Laos confirmed on phone, I still needed it on RTTY and CW). We'd tried a couple of times before, but without success. Fortunately for me, things worked out a whole lot better this time. Initially, I tried calling along with the rest of the pileup, but Bruce wasn't able to hear my 100 watts in the midst of the folks who were running more power and better antennas. At that point, Bruce called me, and after I responded a couple of times (and the pileup finally stood by), we were able to make a valid contact, with Bruce giving me a 559. I'm really grateful to Bruce for his patience, and frankly, it's just plain fun having a new "ham radio friend" (as my wife calls them) who is located on the other side of the world.

That contact definitely started my day off right, and although an attempt to work CW a bit later in the morning didn't work, I feel pretty confident that we'll make this work soon. It really does go to show you what's possible even during a solar minimum, with fairly poor propagation. I'm hoping that a few more of the Cycle 24 spots start popping up, along with improved propagation soon.

Not so bad news

Icom called me on Friday to tell me that they'd finished the work on my radio. It was, indeed, shorted final transistors. They've been replaced, and, as I requested, Icom also did a little work to correct a bit of error in the frequency on 6 meters. (It consistently read 200Hz low, so when the display said 50.124.80 Hz it was actually on 50.125.00 Hz). I asked the technician who called how much it was going to cost, and the total, with shipping back to me, will be around $250 or so. I had authorized them to charge significantly more to my credit card if necessary, so I'm happy that it wasn't more. They ship the radio back via ground shipment, and apparently after they finish the actual work on the radio it takes another business day or two to go through their systems to be shipped, so I was told that I should expect delivery to me early the week of May 5. While my 706 has been working just fine, I do miss my "big" radio. I'm looking forward to getting it back.

Earlier this week, I took my son Brett up to look at some colleges in Ithaca and Syracuse New York. I still haven't gotten around to permanently mounting either my VHF/UHF rig or the 706 in the car, but I figured it'd be nice to have a radio along for the drive. Fortunately, the battery in my car is located in the trunk, and it's really easy to get wiring from the trunk into the car, so I just hooked the power cables directly to the battery, mounted my Diamond K400-3/8C trunk mount on the trunk, used the separation kit for the 706 to put the radio in the back of the car and mounted the head on the dash using the windshield mount that I'd bought a couple of years ago but never used. I'd intended to listen in on the 40m County Hunters Net but although I'd gotten the Hamstick tuned before I left, I had a lot of trouble getting a decent SWR once I started driving. When I initially tuned the "stinger" (the upper, adjustable part of the antenna), the car was parked close to the house, and I think that might have thrown the tuning off. I did pull off into a rest stop shortly after leaving and try to re-tune the antenna, but after spending about 10 minutes, I decided to just give up and get going. I suspect that part of the problem was that the mount may not have been making a good enough ground connection, which I believe becomes more necessary as you go lower in frequency.

For the trip back down (we spent the first night in Ithaca, did the tour there, then headed up to Syracuse, toured there the next day and returned from there), I used a 20m hamstick which tuned up very well. Although I didn't work anything terribly unusual, I did work about 10 stations during the ride, include a few stations from Italy, a few from Germany, one from Slovenia, and a few others. I got surprisingly good signal reports, and it helped to pass the time. Brett was working on schoolwork part of the time that I was on the radio, but helped log the stations (yes, on paper) which I entered into my main logger when I returned home. This was really the first long (relatively speaking) trip I'd made in a while, and I really did enjoy having the radio to keep my company while Brett was otherwise occupied.

Finally, I got a nice surprise this week from the nice folks at the Northern California Contest Club, who run the California QSO Party. I got a certificate for placing 3rd in New Jersey for the 2007 CQP. I was very pleased to have placed decently, and it was nice of the folks from the NCCC to send out a certificate. I think that the CQP is an excellent example of a well-run QSO Party contest, and doing little things like sending out certificates will definitely act as an incentive to keep me coming back.

Totally off topic

Ok, this posting has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with ham radio.

I just had to point folks to the story that I just got posted on The Consumerist. Here's there article which has all the details, but the short version is that it's a posting about how silly it was for Dell to package a small USB thumb drive in a fairly large box. By the way, the reason I bought a thumb drive from Dell was because they happened to have a really good deal on it; normally Amazon, Egghead, or scores of other places have better prices.

Good News, Bad News

Last week, I worked VK6DXI, located in western Australia, on 40m CW. This was a nice contact for a couple of reasons. First, it meant that I'd worked a new country on 40m for DXCC purposes. That's always nice. But more important to me is that I'd finally worked a "real" zone 29 station.

By way of explanation, CQ Magazine offers an award to amateur stations that have contacted other stations in each of 40 global zones. As you can see from the map, some zones will be more difficult to contact than others, depending on where you are located. I'm located in CQ Zone 5, which covers the eastern seaboard of North America and the Caribbean. Some zones are pretty easy to contact (like Zones 14 and 15, covering much of Europe), but others are a lot harder. From my location, I'd have to say that Zone 29 was just about the hardest, although there's one catch that makes it a bit easier: All the most southern zones actually converge at the South Pole. Because of this, any station worked located at the actual South Pole (not just on Antartica), counts for any of the zones that converge there, including Zone 29.

By using that rule, I'd actually worked all 40 zones a while ago which would qualify me for the Worked All Zones (WAZ) award previously mentioned. I'd never gotten around to submitting the required cards for the award, kind of thinking that I'd like to finally work that 40th zone "for real". In fact, just a couple of days before working VK6DXI, I'd commented to a friend at a club meeting about how that zone was still something that I was trying to contact. So when I heard the station on the air, with surprisingly good conditions, I called him and finally was able to make a contact with him. I sent for his QSL card the next day.

Here's the bad news: Instead of using my Icom 756 Pro II to make the contact, I had to use my Icom 706 MkIIG, sending CW without computer assistance (I freely admit that my CW "fist" is terrible) and struggling a bit to hear the VK6 station without the benefit of the terrific DSP filtering on the 756. Why, you may ask? Gee, thanks for asking ...

A day or so before that contact, I'd come home after work and was tuning around trying to find some interesting DX to work. There was YO22NATO on 40m CW, so I figured I'd give him a call. As soon as the first dit was sent, the fan on the 756 came on at high speed, and stayed on. I'd rarely heard the fan at high speed (if I heard it at all, it was after operating RTTY for a relatively extended period), but certainly never after having the radio sitting in receive all day. (The radio had been on since the morning; I'll sometimes turn it on before work and I just don't bother to turn it off.)

I felt around toward the rear of the radio to see if it felt hot, and indeed it did. Normally, after sitting in receive, the radio might be a little warm, but not hot. However, this time it was hot. I actually did make the contact with the YO22 station to see if the meters on the radio indicated if it was putting out full power. The meters did indicate that, but later, after looking at the schematic [PDF] and with some help from a 756 theory of operation manual [PDF], I realized that the power meter was basically feeding off the drive circuit, not the power amplifier. That meant that without an external power meter, I couldn't really tell if the radio was putting out 100w or whatever the drive power is, which would be quite a bit less.

Then things got really weird. I turned off the radio, but not the power supply, and realized that the radio, while turned off, was drawing around 4.5 amps from the power supply. That is most definitely not normal. I tried disconnecting the fan on the theory that maybe somehow the problem was there, but that didn't have any effect.

I posted a question to the 756 Pro users reflector, and most comments seemed to indicate that it was likely to be something wrong with the power transistors. The suggestion was to send the radio to Icom for repair. I sent a note to Icom explaining the symptoms, and the technician who responded said he thought that most likely it was a shorted final power transistor, which would explain the heat and the power draw when powered off, and recommended that I send the radio in for repair.

So I've got the radio all packed up, double-boxed as instructed, and it'll go off to Icom tomorrow. Here's hoping that the repairs don't cost as much as the radio.

One final unrelated note: Next month is the annual Dayton Hamvention®. I still haven't had a chance to go, but I've read plenty about it, given that it's arguable the largest hamfest in the world. If you find you have a chance to go, Scot, K9JY has posted a "Preparing for Dayton" entry to his blog that has a bunch of great tips. If you haven't seen it already, be sure to check it out, even if you aren't going.

Cayman (ZF) license renewal

Those of you who followed along with my blog entries on my trip to the Cayman Islands last year may recall that one of my suggestions to anyone going there in the future was to make sure to start the licensing process early.

Late last week, I received a letter form the ICTA, who are the Cayman Islands licensing authority, informing me that my ZF2DK license was due to expire next month. The letter said that to renew my license, I needed to submit a form from their website along with payment authorization. The problem was that the link in the email didn't work, so I sent a note to the licensing folks at the ICTA asking what to do.

Unlike the previous several week delay between emails, I got a response back the very next day from David Archbold, who is the managing director of the ICTA. David apologized for the confusion, explaining that they are in the process of revising their amateur radio rules and the form had been pulled off their website. He instructed me to send a copy of my current license along with a payment authorization form (attached to his email) back to the licensing folks, and that I'd be all set.

I emailed the required information over the weekend, and yesterday afternoon I received an image of my new license from the licensing folks, along with a note explaining that hard copy would follow.

Kudos to the ICTA for improving their process!

Recent activity

I haven't posted in about 10 days, so here's a little update about what's been going on in the radio world for me.

A few weeks ago, I spent a while working in the Virginia QSO Party. Like my entry last year, this wasn't meant to be an all-out assault, but it was something to do to pass the time. (Fortunately, unlike last year, my back seems to be in decent shape, so I wasn't forced to be in the chair.) I wound up doing better than I did last year, with 195 contacts and 76 multipliers (see last years blog entry for an explanation), for a score of around 23,500 points. I was quite happy with that, and had a really good time participating. It'd be nice to win for NJ again, but I guess I'll find that out when they've finished scoring.

Last weekend, I spent a couple of hours in the BARTG RTTY contest. This is one of the big RTTY contests every year, and while I have made a few contacts in the past, this year I had so much fun that I wound up spending a few hours and made 152 contacts. I picked up 8 new countries on RTTY, but again, I had fun. Initially, I wasn't going to participate at all, but I fired up the RTTY decoder on my radio and saw my friend (and fairly well-known RTTY contester) NO2T so I figured I'd get on and give him a point. I then figured that as long as I had everything all set for RTTY, that I might as well just keep going until it wasn't fun anymore, so that's what I did. I think I've mentioned this before, but the automation in the N1MM contest logger is just terrific for digital mode contests. It takes a little work to set up, but once you get everything configured, you click on a callsign that you see on the on-screen RTTY decoder, it fills that into the callsign field of the log, click once to call that station, click on his information to populate it into the fields in the log (this particular contest uses a serial number and the time of the contact), another click to send your info back, and you're done. It's even easier than it sounds, and it really is a lot of fun to operate that way.

On the DX front, I did manage to work TX5C several times on different bands and modes, despite the "help" from the DX Cops that I wrote about recently. That was a new DXCC entity for me (#286), and I've already sent for the QSL cards.

VP6DX (Ducie Island) has what I think is a great method for requesting QSL cards: It's all done online. I wish more dxpeditions would this. They have said that if you want a card via the bureau system, just fill out the form on their website and you'll get a card. If you want it mailed to you directly, they request that you send a donation to cover postage (via Paypal). If you choose to make a small donation beyond what is needed for postage, they list you as a "sponsor", and they even uploaded the "sponsors" contacts to the Logbook of The World first. Since I did that, I was pleased to see my 15 band/mode contacts all show up confirmed in LoTW. Although I'd worked Ducie Island before, these guys did such a terrific job that I'd have sent for a physical card anyway, even though I know they'll eventually upload all the QSOs to LoTW.

Finally, I thought I'd provide an update on the progress of the QSL card returns. When I last wrote about this in January, I had around 46% of the cards returned. That was about 4 weeks after I'd initially sent out the big batch of direct cards. As of today, about 13 weeks after I sent out the original batch, I'm up to 67% of the cards sent out that I've gotten returned. The cards are still coming in, but a lot more slowly, with perhaps one coming in a week. I'm a little disappointed, since a lot of those were domestic (US), so I'll assume that the postal delays are negligible. At some point, maybe in another month or two, I'll check to see which cards haven't been returned and maybe attempt to contact the station I worked via email. I'm curious to try to understand why someone wouldn't return a card that came with an SASE. It will be interesting to see if the trickle completely shuts off after May 12, when the US postal rates go up. That rate increase wasn't even planned when I sent out my original cards, so anyone wishing to send back a confirmation from May 12 forward will have to add postage themselves.

Ear of the beholder

I seem to be on a "soapbox" roll of late, so I might as well continue along those lines. This is somewhat in line with my recent posting about DX Cops in that it deals with those who feel that they have been "wronged" (without good reason, in my opinion) and need to take things into their own hands. (It's also my third post in a row that talks about the recent TX5C DXpedition to Clipperton. Guess I'm in a rut.)

I saw a lot of posts on the DX clusters (basically, a system where hams can announce to their fellow hams that they've contacted, or at least heard, a particular station on a particular frequency; there is also some capability to post single-line comments) that complained about the TX5C guys. Mostly, they seemed to be complaining about how they weren't working some area of the world at the right time, or about how they weren't working their favorite band, or mode, or whatever. Later, I saw complaints that the on-line logs weren't updated instantly after they left the island. (Keep in mind that to do so not only requires a satellite uplink, which they have, but also a stable platform. A small boat is not always a stable platform.)

I have never been on a DXpedtion myself (I don't really count my week as ZF2DK as a DXpedition) so my comments here are based on what I've learned from others whose opinions I respect. One thing that is pretty obvious to me is that these DXpeditions are costly, require a great deal of planning, time, personal committment, and can be quite dangerous. As an example, Bob, N6OX broke his ankle within a few hours of landing at Clipperton on the TX5C dxpedition. Others have been injured on trips, or even worse. These folks are quite literally putting their lives on the line to provide enjoyment for their fellow hams.

Others have said that "if you don't like the way they are doing things, get off your couch, cough up tens of thousands of dollars of your own money, spend a week or two in a burning hot/freezing cold/soaking wet tent, and do the operation yourself". I heartily agree.

While I will admit to being occasionally frustrated, particularly early on, when TX5C seemed to start to work Europe just as 40m got really, really strong to my location, I'd just grumble quietly to myself for about two seconds while I thought about what I wrote about above, and just move on to doing something else. I did not waste my time posting rude comments to the clusters. Many of those were apparently done using someone else's callsign, presumably because the complainers chose to hide behind the relative anonymity of the DX clusters (and the Internet) rather than be brave enough to use their real callsign.

The fact is that while those guys (and gals!) on Clipperton were doing the best job they could (why would anyone do anything else?) others were saying some pretty awful things about them. Why? To what purpose? None of the people saying those things were on Clipperton, they don't know what the conditions were like. Perhaps some of those complaining were part of the problem. Steve, K6SGH, posted a wonderful update detailing some of what went on during the operation. He said, in part:

We would have made a lot more European contacts, especially in hard paths, if European operators would be more courteous and stand by when they are told to stand by. Instead, almost universally, they continue to call on top of each other while we are attempting to working them. It's frustrating for us and deprives others of making contacts. Most operators are more respectful and stand by when told to do so. Operating styles may be diverse, but courtesy should be a universal concept. We all are, after all, members of the same hobby. I have seen on the clusters negative comments by some EU calls that we weren't working them. From my perspective, they need to consider their own behaviors before they start ranting about us.

(By the way, I highly recommend reading that entire post, there's a lot of great stuff in there.)

For myself, while I certainly would have loved to have worked them on many more bands, I did make contact on 3 bands, on both CW and SSB (no RTTY, unfortunately), I thought they did a great job. For radio, it's all in the Ear Of The Beholder.

DX Cops gotta split

This evening I was listening the TX5C working split on 40m phone.

(Warning: Educational stuff follows!)

For those of you who don't know, working split means the DX transmits on one frequency and listens on another. This is frequently done by DX stations when the pileup (stations calling) are so numerous that it's difficult, if not impossible, to get a contact completed on a single frequency. On most bands, the split might be something like 5kHz up, or if the pileup is really big, maybe a range, like 5-10 or something. Good operators will mention their split frequency every few calls (or more frequently), though it's generally pretty obvious when a station is working split: If it's rare DX and he's working stations you don't hear on his frequency, more likely than not he's working split.

If you're in the US, things get a little trickier on 75/80m and 40m. The frequency allocations are different for the US and most of the rest of the world. In particular, on 40m, most countries outside of the US can use either CW or phone pretty much anywhere in the 40m band, though typically they'll use frequcies above around 7.050mHz. When working split, they will usually listen at 7.150 or above. US amateurs can transmit there, but while most other stations can't it's legal for anyone to listen there.

What happens quite often when someone is working split is that they may accidentally transmit where the DX is transmitting instead of listening. While there are obviously some operators who really don't understand the whole concept of split, I think that others just accidentally transmit on the wrong frequency, realize it, and move. On 40m, it's a particularly bad because if the DX is transmitting in that lower portion of the 40m band and you answer on his frequency, if you're in the US, you are out of the US phone band and in violation of the FCC rules.

(Whew. Enough of the educational stuff.)

Tonight, TX5C was transmitting on 7.063mHz and listening up at around 7.174 and up from there. He wasn't giving his split frequency all that often, but it was pretty obvious that he must have been working split. It seemed that every few calls, someone with a US callsign would call on his frequency, meaning that not only were they calling where the DX wasn't listening, but they were, as I mentioned, in violation of FCC rules. However, in a lot of cases, the US caller would give his callsign once, or even partially, realize what was wrong, and move to the correct frequency.

That didn't stop the dreaded DX Cops. (Thanks for AA0MZ for creating that and other great pages). As soon as the out-of-band guy would start to call, the DX Cops would jump in with great comments like "You're Out of Band!" or "Wrong VFO!" or "Press the split button!". Now I suppose, in theory, these folks might be from some country where transmitting phone on 7.063mHz is legal, but somehow I doubt it. These self-appointed DX Cops seem to feel that the slightest transgression needs instant negative feedback. Of course, not only are these guys themselves (likely) out of band, but they are also failing to identify wherever they are from. Unlike real police, who, in the course of their duties, are empowered to bypass some laws (e.g., police will exceed the speed limit to get to an accident or crime), the DX Cops aren't given any special powers, except by themselves, so they are not only in violation of the regulations requiring specific types of transmissions in a particular part of the band and of the identification requirement, but they are intentionally interfering with another station.

Tonight, it got pretty funny, since one guy in particular would jump in and "correct" the individual almost as soon as he started transmitting. The funny part was that in at least one case that I heard, the person realized their mistake immediately after their initial call to TX5C, and called on the correct frequency. As usual, Officer DX jumps in and says "XX you're out of band!". Meanwhile, as he's saying that, TX5C has just called "XX" (who obviously had switched to the correct frequency) and worked him while Officer DX was yelling at "XX" in the wrong place.

Why do they do it? Is it because they feel that they need to "police the amateur radio service"? (I know as hams, we're supposed to be self-policing, but I don't think that's what the FCC has in mind.) Is it because, as some have speculated, that they feel that they are simply superior to everyone else and have a "right" to do this? (Left as an exercise for the reader.)

I think I've figured it out: In some jurisdictions, police are required to give out a certain number of traffic citations each month for whatever reason. Apparently, these DX Cops must be part of some magic DX jurisdiction where they have a "DX Ticket quota". If they don't hand out enough "tickets", they might loose their jobs. We wouldn't want that to happen ... would we?

Clipperton and weather

I don't normally post what I would consider "DX news" in this blog, but I thought I'd make an exception. One of the most wanted DXCC Entities is Clipperton Island, and there's a DXpedition underway this week. From what I've read, they've landed on the island, and actually were a bit ahead of schedule, but some folks were wondering why they haven't come on the air yet. I'm no expert, but it certainly looks like the weather is a big issue. Keep in mind that these guys are operating from tents , and, from what I read on their website, had not yet completed setting up their stations when heard from last.

This satellite loop image won't really do much good after a few days of me writing this, but if you look at it soon after posting, you'll see what the problem is. I've included a static image here for posterity (you might want to click on it to enlarge), which isn't nearly as impressive as the loop. Click on the LatLon box, and locate 10 degrees north, and 109 degrees west. There's a big set of thunderstorms that's apparently been pounding the island. It's rainy here in NJ, but then again I'm sitting in a permanent structure with plenty of hills to break up the straight-line winds. For what it's worth here's the forecast for Clipperton, which doesn't look great either, though it does seem to get better after a few days.

As much as I'd love to work them for an all-time new entity, I sincerely hope that they are doing whatever they need to do to be safe.

And while I'm posting: I'll step up on the soapbox briefly to say that some of the comments that have shown up on the clusters are just plain rude. Essentially, people are complaining that this group of people, who are literally putting their lives on the line for the enjoyment of the DX community haven't shown up on the air exactly on time. Give 'em a break! As others have said: If you think you can do a better job, then stop complaining, spend a few hundred thousand dollars, and go there yourself.

Here's hoping that TX5C is safe.

UPDATE: Just after I posted this, an update (look for the March 8 entry) was posted on the TX5C webpage. In short, it appears that heat, not thunderstorms is the problem. In fact, it looks like the cloud cover is in fact helping, not causing problems.

Quick update

Just a couple of quick notes: Thanks to those of you who voted in my "Do you use Logbook of The World" poll. The end results were that nine of you said you used it, four said it was too complicated to use, and one said they didn't log electronically.

The other thing is that I've had a couple of people either ask me directly or post a link elsewhere about my Ham Radio Tools series that I did a while back. To make the series a little easier to find, I've put a box on the right-hand side so that you can pull up the individual posts more easily.

Like pulling teeth

This past weekend was one of the rare times when there was a major contest (ARRL International DX SSB) and I didn't have plans for much of the time, allowing me to actually plan to participate in the contest. Since Sharon was in Florida visiting her mother (and since the boys are more than self-sufficient, that is, when they're actually home), I figured that I'd spend a good portion of the weekend contesting, probably racking up a decent score (compared to prior efforts; as regular readers know, I "play" in contests for the fun of it) and hopefully catching some new band/country fills. (By way of explanation, one of the things I like to do is not only to try to contact as many countries as I can, but to contact as many countries on as many different bands as I can. Contacting a country on a new band slot is often referred to as a "fill").

I got home from work at around 7:30 PM or so (which, unfortunately, has been the norm lately), ate dinner, and headed down to the shack. I turned on the computer and the radio, re-configured the radio to use the headset instead of the boom mike, fired up the N1MM contest logger, grabbed some spots from the cluster, and ...

Ugh. Ok, I know that we're in the bottom part of the solar cycle, but this was ridiculous. By the time I started, it was a little late for 20m to really be open, but I figured that I could at least work some stations in South America pretty quickly. Hah. In about 30 minutes, I managed to slug my way through seven, count 'em, seven stations. Even for my puny station, that was just plain awful. In the past in DX contests, especially early in the contest, I've had to compete with the high-powered stations, making it difficult for me, but what I heard on Friday night were these stations just CQing over and over, with nobody answering. Well, I was answering, but they just couldn't hear me. Every station I worked was a challenge, and while I wasn't quite ready to totally throw in the towel, after about 2 hours, when I'd only worked 25 stations (moving first to 40m then 80m), I gave up for the night. Every contact was like pulling teeth, with me having to give my call repeatedly.

One thing that I did have to do over the weekend was to get up early (for me) on Saturday morning and take Brett to school for his SATs. When I got home at about 7:45AM, I figured that maybe I'd see if I could make a few contacts instead of going back to bed (as I'd originally intended). I shouldn't have wasted my time. I think it took me about 20 minutes to find one station that I could work (TI50DX, on 40m), and after that, I just couldn't work anything. I finally gave up and went back to bed.

When I came back down to the shack again at around 11AM, I wasn't expecting much, and I certainly wasn't disappointed. I spent most of the rest of the day in front of the radio (though I certainly took time out to eat and take care of a few other errands), took a break to watch some TV, then finally came back to work a handful of stations on 75m between around 1AM and 2AM (local). My "rate" for the day came out to be around 12 stations an hour, which was just horrible. I think if I'd had almost anything else to do (well, I probably had something to do, but it was even less appealing) I wouldn't have spent time in front of the radio, but I did.

Sunday morning I slept in, assuming that nothing had changed on the bands (and, admittedly, because it was Sunday and I pretty much always sleep in on Sunday), and got ready to go pick Sharon up from the airport. I figured that I get on the radio for about 1/2 hour before leaving, and what a change there was in the bands. In the 25 minutes that I had until I left, I worked 23 stations, which is about as fast as I'm ever going to work stations in a major contest. Now that was fun!

Of course, by the time I got back, the opening was pretty much finished, and all that was left was some stations in western Europe and more South American and the Caribbean. It was back to the slow going again, though I did stick it out to the end.

Despite my grumbling, I did beat my score from last year, winding up at just below 80,000 points, and getting 54 multipliers on 20m. (If you're interested in the rest of the breakdown, you can find it on the 3830 reflector archive.)

For my little station, and especially at this time in the solar cycle, I guess I should be happy: I beat my score from last year, and I got to spend pretty much as much time playing radio as I wanted to. And eventually, in retrospect, I had fun.

A visit from the south

This past weekend, my friends Larry, N4VA, and Coleman, K4RZ came up from Virginia to visit. I guess Larry and I have known each other for 6 or 7 years now, and we chat (usually online while we're both at work) quite frequently. We try to have an "eyeball QSO" at least once a year or so, and while I'd planned to head down to visit last summer, all kinds of things kept that from happening, so I was happy that they were able to come up to visit me.

Although Coleman is pretty much a "newbie" to ham radio (like me), Larry's been licensed since 1960, and has done his share of operating around the world from places like Thailand, Guyana, Japan, and even Bangladesh. (I keep trying to encourage him to go back there; I need that one!) We spent most of the weekend just chatting, mostly about ham radio. We spent some time in the shack just making the occasional contact in the CW version of the ARRL International DX contest, though it was more for me to just pick up a new band fill here and there. I think that I only made around a dozen contacts in total, though I did submit my log as I've mentioned previously. In this case, with so few contacts, I'm pretty sure I won't win anything, but it does serve as a check log for the contest sponsors, and only takes a couple of minutes.

It was really fun to have someone "in-house" to just talk radio with, and it's great to get Larry's perspective on various things. For example, with all the talk about whether or not Kosovo will be a new DXCC entity, still officially unknown as of the time that I'm writing this, Larry's opinion was that based on the guys who were operating there, it seemed like a pretty good chance that it would be a "counter". We'll see if Larry's right or not, but my money is with him. For what it's worth, I worked a couple of stations last night using the YU8 prefix, one being YU8/OH2R and the other YU8BH, since, as they stay Work First, Worry Later (WFWL). If they only count for Serbia, well, it's cost me a couple of pennies of electricity to work them. If they do count for Kosovo as a new DXCC entity, I've got 'em in the log. I guess we'll see.

My turn to brag -- but not about me

If I were the "cluster crab" type, about 30 minutes ago I would have posted a spot on the packet cluster showing that I'd worked VP6DX on 80M with a comment like "Easy!" or "100w into dipole!" or even "Bingoooooo".

Fortunately, I'm not one of those. In fact, I did manage to work VP6DX on 80m CW using just 100w into a G5RV (posting that here is OK; the whole purpose of a blog is to be able to express onself), but the real bragging is about what an absolutely amazing job the guys on Ducie Island are doing.

At the time that I'm writing this, one of the recently posted news items on their web page says:

After 1,5 days of operation they have now about 28,000 QSOs in the log (about 17,000 after the first 24 hours!)

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to look at their website and try understand the difficulties about putting on a DXpedition like this, but I'm amazed that they not only seem to be on pretty much every band that I can hear (and those that I can't, judging from the spots on the cluster), but that they are working stations rapid-fire endlessly. Yesterday I worked from home due to the inclement weather, and while I didn't have time to actually transmit very much, I was able to listen to the radio now and then, and between the early morning and late evening I heard the VP6DX team on every band from 17m through 80m, usually on more than one mode, working stations like they were a big-gun contest station.

But here's the really awesome part: Tonight, when I saw them spotted on 80m, I tuned to the reported frequency and heard them working stations. (Here's what it sounds like from the K2DBK station, recorded about 10 minutes after my contact with them.) Regular readers will know that I have just a G5RV and run barefoot at 100 watts, but I figured that I'd give them a try. It took about 10 minutes of listening to who they were working, and trying to place myself in the right place within their listening range so that they could hear me, but the fact is that they did hear me amidst all the much louder stations out there. They are not just peeling off only the big gun stations, but listening for us little pistols as well.

Bravo, VP6DX!

New look, same content

For those of you who read my blog on the website (instead of via RSS or email), you'll see that I've changed the look. (If you really love it/hate it, drop me a note or leave a comment.) I can't decide if I'm going to keep it this way, but it was something to do while trying to work the TI9KK Cocos Island DXpedition.

Although they've been pretty strong here on 17m phone, I've resisted calling them there, since I've already worked Cocos island mostly during the TI9M DXpedition in 2002 on 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m, and 20m then. (In other words, I don't need them on that band and mode.) Since this is a fairly short trip, which apparently was made even shorter due to some licensing issues, I think it's only fair to allow someone else a chance. I have to wonder how many people calling them really needed Cocos Island on that band or mode, as opposed to just wanted to brag that they've worked them?

Anyway, I do need TI9 on the lower bands, and on CW, so I will try for a contact there. (As I write this, they are quite strong and building on 40m CW, but the pileup is pretty ugly, so I don't know how much of a chance I'll have.)

With all the recent talk about the start of Solar Cycle 24, band conditions in general haven't been all that good, but I was very pleased to work 9Q1EK earlier today on 12m, which was not only a new band for me for that DXCC entity, but also the first contact that I've had on 12m since December 2006!

Many happy returns

I thought that I'd do a follow-up on the QSLing post from last month. It's been just over four weeks since the big batch of cards went out, and I thought that it would be interesting to take a look at the return rate.

The cards all went out right around the 27th of December, and I sent out a total of 111 cards direct. (I'll ignore the bureau cards, since it's way too soon for any returns from them.) I was pleasantly surprised to get the first return back on January 2. (The station was in New Jersey, as am I, but that was still pretty quick). I got another card or two a day for the first week after sending, but on the 5th of January the flood started. On that day, I got 15 cards back (including one bad address), and on the following Monday (January 7), I got 11 cards back. One of the cards that came in on the 7th was TX5NK via DJ8NK, which proves, if nothing else, that the mail between the US and Germany is pretty efficient. By the end of the 2nd week after sending the cards, I'd received back 39, or around 35%.

For the next week after that, I'd get an average of around 2 per day back, but this week I got none until today, when I received one confirming UP0L (Kazahkstan), which confirmed my 277th all-time country. As of today, about 4 weeks after sending out the cards, I'm at about a 46% return rate.

Looking at the cards that came back, although I've received some of the DX cards back (those that were sent outside the US), I haven't received a significant portion, which doesn't surprise me. Despite the fast turnaround for that first card via DJ8NK, I expected that it will take a month or two for many of cards sent overseas to come back. Some of that is due to the mail, and some no doubt due to the time it takes the station on the other end to respond. As I've pointed out, although I personally make it a point to turn around any request that I get within a day, not everyone can do that, and I know that some of bigger stations and managers only do QSLing on a periodic basis.

I am a little disappointed that I haven't received more of the domestic cards back. I've gotten back 35 cards, but 29 are still outstanding. Hopefully those are from folks who just haven't gotten around to answering my card. Every one of the cards I sent out domestically was sent with a SASE, and all the non-US cards went out either with either an IRC or green stamps. (That's ham-speak for cash for return postage.) Actually, the US return rate is actually a bit worse than that: I checked to see how many of the DX cards went via a US route (usually a manager), and there are still a bunch of them outstanding. Some of those cards are going via well-known managers, and I'm positive that I will get them back, but I'm wondering what the final return rate will be?

I should say that although it sounds like I'm being impatient, I realize that for the most part, QSLing is not an instant gratification part of this hobby. Certainly it took me quite a while to get around to sending a lot of those cards, and I don't expect to see returns from the bureau cards for a year or more. I just hope that QSLing isn't on the way to becoming a lost art, especially when someone has made it so that all you need to do is to drop a card into the pre-addressed postage-paid envelope.

One final comment while on the topic of QSLing: I do like to get paper cards back, but I'm also a big fan of the ARRL's Logbook Of The World, as I have mentioned previously. For getting band or mode "fills", it's terrific, and I don't think that I'm losing anything by not having yet another piece of cardboard from a station that I've already worked on 4 other bands. As the cost of QSLing continues to rise, it's a great way to save money.

Although there are websites that give all kinds of statistics about who is using LoTW, I've posted a poll on my blog that asks if you use LoTW, and if not, why not. I listed a couple of common ones, but if you've answered "No (Other)", I'd appreciate it if you'd post a comment here telling why. Please note that if you receive this post via an RSS feed or from another website, you will need to visit my blog and scroll down a bit to see the poll on the right side.