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2009 FD was an expedition out to the Western NC Appalachians.  N4YDU, N4PY, K4CZ and myself operated under N4PY’s call in Stone Mountain State Park. NC, not GA.  Not at all the same as Stone Mountain in Georgia, as our own ancient granite lava dome does not sport the bas relief artwork. The WX here turned [...]

The W-HQ-S Award is managed by QTC (the Polish Amateur Radio Magazine) with 10 or more contacts with different HQ stations during the IARU HF Championship being required for the award

Some deals are too good to be true.. or legal. That’s the story with some rather inexpensive HT's being sold on-line

Effective July 1, 2009, Doug Mercer, VO1DTM, has assumed the post of Radio Amateurs of Canada Vice President for Field Services (VPFS)

The NZ4O Daily LF/MF/HF/6M Frequency Radiowave Propagation Forecast #2009-22 has been published on Friday 07/03/2009

Belarus has gained access to the extended 40m band

Alberta Section has a new Section Manager in the person of Garry Jacobs, VE6CIA

The Eighth IARU Region 3 ARDF Championships, originally scheduled for 29 October to 3 November 2009 near Bangkok, Thailand, have been cancelled due to concerns for the safety and convenience of participants

Fred Johnson, ZL2AMJ, has won The New Zealand Institute of Physics Rutherford Trophy for 2008 for his work in developing the radio wave demonstration kits for schools

The Nifty E-Z Guide to D-Star Operation covers every aspect of D-Star operation, from the most basic, to the more advanced aspects of this emerging digital voice mode

Dundee Amateur Radio Club was recently awarded a grant of nearly £3,000 by the National Lottery under the Awards for all Scheme

Just thought I would make a quick entry about the special event that the 470 Amateur Radio Group has going on right now. W4H is the call for the event. We are celebrating the 4th of July. There will be several different operators in and around the Knoxville, TN area working the event. You will want to get their callsign as we all have our own QSL cards for the event. For example, if you make contact with me, you will want to send your QSL to my QTH as entered on QRZ.com for my call AJ4JD.

The event started on July 1 at 1:00pm and goes through to July 9th at 11:00pm EST. The frequencies we are operating on are as follows: 14.260, 7.260, 28.400, 3.960 mhz +/- 20khz per the ARRL instructions.

So that's all I've got for now. I hope to catch you on the bands either as W4H/AJ4JD or just as AJ4JD. Until then, 73 and Good DX to all.

Tim - AJ4JD

We were out on Ponza island this week. Amazing place. Part of the Pontine Island group. Brave Ulysses was an earlier visitor. Roman emperors used it as a summer place. It is only about 33 km from the mainland and you can get there from Anzio in about one hour by fast hydrofoil. We took a small boat over to the beautiful island of Palmarola. I did a bit of shortwave listening. More about this trip in the next SolderSmoke.

Thank you everyone that fights for basic human rights every where. WX: Well the rain is still finding a way to miss us here in Grand Bay, AL. We should see have a HOT day ahead 97F/36C, with the heat index climbing to 109F/43C. They are calling for a...

ALLEN, IF THE OLD COMPUTER IS WORKABLE, MAYBE REMOVEAL OF THE VIRUS MAY BE ALL IT NEEDS?PAUL

THANKS ALLEN, AND AS SOON AS I CAN, I WILL DROP IT OFF. WOULD YOU WANT TO LOAD IT INTO A
8 GBT SANDISC? I BELIEVE THERE ARE A LOT OF PICTURES. MAYBE 1000 OR MORE. MANY STILL IN THE
ORIGINAL 5 MEGAPIXAL FORMAT. FROM MY CAMERA.. I HAVE TO GET THE SANDI...

The burgers and hot dogs are on the grill and smelling great! Families and friends are getting together. The community pool is a hopping place. Parades are marching down Main Street in countless communities across this great land. Old Glory can be seen just about everywhere you look; and all over fireworks are screaming through the air with loud bursts, sending out their glorious reports.

Happy Birthday, America!

233 years ago, our Founding Fathers started upon a course of history, that until then was pretty much unknown and unheard of. That a colony should dissolve the bonds that held it to the stem of its parent country was certainly not the norm; or the accepted practice of the day.

But in a skiff made of parchment paper, they embarked on a perilous journey that would end years later with those 13 (more or less) united colonies recognized as a new nation - the United States of America.

Many of the ideals of those brave and courageous men and women still hold forth today. Hard work, self reliance and a belief in your neighbor and faith in the Almighty can take you just as long a way today as 233 years ago.

My best wishes that you all have a safe, wonderful and glorious 4th!

73 de Larry W2LJ

PS: Pssst! On a radio note - don't forget that tomorrow night is the Michigan QRP Club's annual July 4th CW Sprint! Here's the link.

It's 8:32 p.m. Saturday and the sun's about to disappear beyond the black cloak of tree line on the west end of Winter Springs' Central Winds Park. Nine hundred and seven miles away, 60 pounds of metal are rocketing across the dome of the Earth, northeast-bound in a hurry, just as J.D. Smith awaits a date with destiny. "Any minute now, it'll start talking," Smith says. Crouched on a park bench under an awning, Smith sits in a gray cap tracking a ghost on the horizon. Seconds later, that speeding hunk of metal wakes with a kiss from the setting sun and its haunting signal says hello once more, just as a stifled grin broadens Smith's face. Reaching for signals in the sky, Americans by the tens of thousands took to the radio airwaves in synchronous Saturday through Sunday. For 24 hours they shook hands through the air, said hello, and a quick goodbye, all in seconds at a time as they raced to connect with as many other radio operators as their dialing fingers could get their hands on. This was all just a test, but the worst kind. For guys like Bob Mahon, cooped up and transmitting for hours inside a trailer the size of a large refrigerator, the hypothetical is dead serious. A disaster has just wiped out the electrical grid. The cell phone towers are useless. That's when the hams take to the air and save the day, setting up disaster communications across the area. But on the last weekend of June every year, they go global, challenging amateur radio clubs worldwide to see who's the great communicator on the airwaves.

My Field Day adventure started on Tuesday, 23 June. I finished the final touched to the eARSIB and then through every possible item I thought I might need (minus a 25 pin to 9 pin cable for a Kantronics KPC-3+ which I will talk about later) in a total of 3 footlockers. I packed up the truck, loaded up the dog and was on the road by 10:30am. There was good APRS coverage on my route along I-80 up until western Nebraska where I encountered an almost 200 mile gap. Once I hit Cheyenne, I was back in APRS coverage. My stop for the first night was Laramie, Wyoming, which I made before sunset.

The next day I pushed on west. While in western Wyoming I was able to check into the 40M Sparkle Net (4262 kHz) and talk with Dave, KE0DL, back in Leavenworth, Kansas. I also noticed on my GPS that one of the APRS stations was moving along I-80 the same direction that I was going. I gave a short call on the 2M National Simplex frequency and got a reply. We had both started the drive in Wyoming but parted ways in Salt Lake; he headed south on I-15 to Vegas, I kept west on I-80. I enjoyed the drive through eastern Utah. Park City, Utah is a place I had spent a lot of time skiing about twenty years ago. I’d been there often in the winter, but this was the first time seeing it during the summer.

Traffic was heavy through Salt Lake City and I did my best to make my way around the city as quickly as possible. West of the Great Salt Lake, I had an interesting HF QSO with a gentleman in Southern California who was using an Elecraft K3 with an the diminutive MT-1 antenna. My initial plan was to spend the night in Winnemucca, Nevada but upon arriving discovered they had me on the second floor in a non-pet room. Instead of hauling my footlockers up a flight of stairs I decided to push on to Fernley, Nevada (just east of Reno) where I found a great hotel with a first floor room I could practically back my truck up into. The dog liked it too.

Thursday morning I worked my way up the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas, listening to a few 40M nets. I reached the Sonora Pass around noon and enjoyed the view. The dog a I hiked up to a nearby plateau and took in the view.

After traveling down the western side of the mountains I was able to raise my dad, KD6EUG, on a repeater near his cabin in Mi-Wuk Village. California Hwy 108 wound its way down from Sonora Pass. The drive was spectacular along the scenic route and traffic was sparse. I rolled down the windows and opened the sun roof to take in gorgeous day. Reaching the cabin in Mi-Wuk, both the dog and I got to strech our legs and rest up. Thursday night we assembled the gear that would become a permanent station at the cabin: an IC-706MKIIG, LDG Z-11 Pro, RIGblaster PnP, IC-208H, all powered by an Icom PS-125. In addition to the radio gear, the station would also integrate a Davis Vantage Pro2 weather station, beaconing the weather data view APRS.

To simplify the APRS setup in the cabin, I decided to use a special add-on piece of equipment from Davis specifically designed to be used for APRS - the WeatherLink APRS streaming data logger. The data logger, once configured, streams weather data directly to a TNC, eliminating the need for a computer (or UI-View32). With this setup, it was not necessary to leave a computer running to keep the weather station pushing data to the TNC and VHF radio. The weather data is formated by the data logger to be ready for transmission into APRS. The station also has a laptop which I installed the WeatherLink software that would allow me to configure the APRS data logger. Configuring the data logger was pretty straight forward. Setting the parameters in the TNC to grab the data loggers APRS weather info proved a bit more challenging. The challenge was further compounded by my forgetting to pack the 25 pin to 9 pin cable that connects the laptop to the Kantronics KPC-3+ TNC.

The real work started Friday. The first task was completing the installation of a Davis Vantage Pro2 weather station on the cabin roof. That was done without much trouble.

The next step would be to get the weather data out via APRS using the IC-208H paired with the Kantronics KPC-3+ TNC and the Davis APRS streaming data logger. With the lack of a good cable to use between the laptop and TNC as well as not knowing exactly what parameters were need in the TNC we decided that task would have to wait until after Field Day.

Now it was time to string some antennas. The first was a 132′ dipole which ran N/S. I’d packed my CVS19 Pneumatic Antenna Launcher (aka tennis ball launcher) which helped us position the antenna up about 40′.

Next we strung a G5RV going E/W. This is the same G5RV I bought from a fellow ham when I lived back in Virginia. He had never used it and I had used the antenna only once while running a special event station at Fort Monroe.

It quickly became apparent that we could not both operate using both antennas due to their proximity to each other and surrounding powerlines prevented us from placing the antennas end to end in order to minimize interference. The solution: my dad’s Force 12 Sigma 5. The problem: the antenna was back in San Jose. So Friday night consisted of my dad traveling back to the Bay Area to retrieve the vertical antenna while I continued to configure the laptop (N3FJP Field Day networked logging software, Digipan for PSK-31, and the Davis Weatherlink program) in addition to setting up my operating position on the back deck of the cabin.

My operating position setup consisted of a 10′x10′ pop-up shelter (with mosquito net) and a large table with comfortable folding chair. Inside the shelter I placed a large table with the eARSIB and my station’s laptop.

I verified that the laptops at either operating position (the one inside the cabin and mine outside on the deck) could communicate via WiFi using the N3FJP software: it worked like a charm. The software allows two (or more) operating positions to share one log. Each operator gets to see the combined log and is notified of potential dupes.

Saturday morning my dad arrived back from the Bay Area and we setup the Sigma 5.

My operating position on the deck had the antenna connections for both the G5RV and the Sigma 5, my dad’s position had the 132′ ladderline-fed dipole. Interference between the two positions was sometimes a problem. I could use the Sigma 5 vertical on 20M, 15M, and 10M as long as my dad stayed on 80M or 40M (as long as I wasn’t on 15M). While this slowed down operations a bit, it gave us time to take plenty of breaks. My dad started Field Day by working PSK-31 on 20M. I worked phone contacts on 15M and 10M. Later my dad switched to phone, which he really started to enjoy.

10M and 15M were really incredible. I was able to work all the way to the East Coast and up and down the West Coast. For dinner, I BBQ’d some brauts. By midnight we were both exhausted and decided to get some rest.

I enjoyed using my eARSIB. This is the first time I used a foot pedal for my PTT - paired with a Heil headset. That worked great, allowing me to use both hands on the keyboard. I had been unable to configure the West Mountain RIGtalk to work on my laptop - not sure why. But it wasn’t too hard to just flip the band in the logging software. I had not used my Logikey CMOS4 Keyer in some time. I paired it with my Vibroplex paddle and the two worked well together. I enjoyed a few QRS CW QSOs - thank you for those who took the time to slow down for me. I had picked up a marine battery to use with my PWRgate and that worked well.

Sunday I got up after four hours of sleep and started working 80M using the G5RV.

The G5RV worked nicely and I contacted stations from Western Canada down to Southern California and Arizona. I moved up to 40M and expierenced similar results - but was also able to work a station in Japan. My dad was up soon and started to work on 80M and 40M with the 132′ dipole while I switched to the vertical and worked stations on 20M. By about 11:30am we were both pretty much spent. Overall we made about 250 contacts, mostly phone but also a few PSK-31 and CW…. and we had a great time!

KD6EUG Brags About The Number of QSOs He Made

We slept well Sunday night and Monday morning had me back working on the Kantronics KPC-3+/Davis weather station. The biggest problem I was having was figuring out what value to use for the GPSHEAD parameter. Without the correct value, the KPC-3+ was not grabbing the weather data. GPSHEAD would pull in the data a place it in LT (a buffer). LPT setup the APRS path. BLT setup the amount of time in between the TNC initiating a beacon transmission containing weather data.

After a few calls to the Davis headquarters, I was able to figure out that “@” was the magic value for GPSHEAD. Now the weather station is up and operational.

It was then back on the road, up and over the Sonora Pass. I was able to talk to my dad, operating from the Mi-Wuk cabin station, on 80M from the top of the pass. I spent the night in Carson City, Nevada and the next day headed east on I-80. I had made the decision to take I-70 back to Kansas in order to try something different as well as seeing a part of Colorado I had never seen before. It was a long haul to Grand Junction, Colorado - I arrived around midnight. After a few hours of sleep, I was on the road again heading east through some of the most beautiful scenery of the trip. Aspen and Veil were beautiful cities - I hope I get a chance to go back there someday. But while the drive was scenic, the going was slowed and progress was not nearly as quick as I had experienced before while moving through Wyoming and Nebraska.

I finally emerged from the Rockies and headed into Denver, stopping at the Ham Radio Outlet located there. Terry, KC0VFO, and I talked about our Field Day experiences - he operated mobile. His call sign looked familiar and sure enough, I had worked Terry on 15M during Field Day.

Moving east through Denver I was back on the open road, moving rapidly along I-70. I heard a call coming over the 2M National Simplex frequency. It was a gentleman operating from the Mt. Evans Observatory - we had an enjoyable QSO and he went on to work others. The Canada Day contest was also underway and I started to hand out contacts from the mobile. I had planned to make it all the way back to Leavenworth, Kansas but realized I was too tired and needed to spend the night somewhere. I crossed the Colorado/Kansas border and arrived in Goodland, Kansas were I found a hotel room and promptly fell fast asleep.

My final day on the road was pretty easy driving. When you think about Kansas, it is usually what you see in western Kansas along I-70. Flat terrain, lots of farms, not much else. For some reason, the speed limit max in Kansas drops to 70mph (Nebraska, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado all have a max of 75mph). I listened to some of the morning HF nets on 80M and 40M, then made contact with K2L, a special events station in Charleston, South Carolina. I was also able to check into the Sparkle Net on 40M and then later worked two stations on 17M, both located in and around the western border area between North and South Carolina. Soon I was back home, arriving before 3pm.

jakdjaklsjdkalsjdklajskdlj

Looking at different ham radio blogs, I came upon a cool concept by KE9V, Jeff  about using the cloud for ham radio logging.

Looking at his proposal initially, I scoffed, as an IT person, “cloud computing” is the current “buzzword” in IT.

But keeping an open mind, I began to consider his thoughts carefully, especially in light of some of the comments that were made in reference to his post…..

As Jeff points out, at one time logging was a legal requirement for hams, and many of us have our paper logbooks (ARRL and Radioshack comes to mind) to fall back on. I know I have quite a few paper logbooks.

Then I transitioned them to computer. Oh man, I remember what a pain that was……it tooks me weeks and weeks of data entry to get everything into myelectronic logbook. The good thing is, that it forced me to review my logs and send out some old QSLs that had been forgotten by the wayside.

Unfortunately in one case, 9N1MM, the QSL manager for him had died and his XYL had just destroyed the logs…so it was too late for that QSL…..

but I have faithfully kept up my logs in electronic format, making multiple backups to ensure I never have to go through that horrendous exercise again.

Electonic logs did a lot for me, helped me track awards, helps me send logs to contest sponsers easier and helps me keep stuff for uploading to LOTW easier.

But then Jeff comes up with this radical idea, to put a logbook app into the “cloud” where you can reach it anytime.  Good idea as long as you have internet access.  As Jeff states, think of Gmail, Yahoo, etc and you get the concept of “cloud computing.”

The intriguing part of his concept to me, was his thought, that the ARRL should adopt that as a project.

I have always supported the LOTW, but for differing reasons, the adoption rate of LOTW has been very small as compared to EQSL.cc

The main reasoning for that has been the security required by the ARRL, it is difficult for foriegn hams to get registered. I think this cloud computing concept could potentially hold the key to getting a wider adoption of LOTW.

As Jeff so aptly points out “Their servers could issue a token that matches a certificate when you log in so that your contacts auto magically matches up via their LoTW database. No more uploading a signed file that was generated by another program to get award credit, it would all be seamless to the end user.”

I agree. The technology is present now to make it easier. For instance if you have a wordpress blog, for certain plug ins you have to have a key generated by WP so that you can “turn on” certain features. Why couldn’t ARRL generate the same key for the LOTW and incorporate that into a “cloud logbook.”

Of course there will be some hams, that no matter how easy it is made, just the fact that the ARRL is part of it, will cause them to not use it.

That should not deter devlopment of this.

If the ARRL or some other party were to take this project up, I would like to see it be an open-source project, so APIs and other plugins can be devloped.

Read Ke9V’s post and some of the comments, I would love to hear some of your comments here as well.

What are your thoughts on this?

73, Jack K4SAC

Lessons learned from Field Day 2009.

NZ4O LF/MF/HF/6M Prop Forecast 2009-22:

I was trying to get something to work on the computer when the excellent DX Sherlock VHF propagation warning system alerted me to a Sporadic-E opening on 2m. Sure enough, a good opening was taking place. Many stations in southern England, Wales and southern Ireland were working down into south-eastern Europe, with the signal paths crossing in a solid block somewhere over France.

Sadly, all I could do is watch the opening develop on the map, as not so much of a peep of a signal was heard in my receiver. I don't think it was my limited situation at fault, either. The propagation just did not extend this far north. It seems I just live in the wrong place for VHF activity. 6m was quite busy, with contacts being reported from all over the UK, but once again I decided to pass that over for the chance of making some contacts on 2.

Unfortunately I didn't have any greater success in what I was trying to achieve with the computer either. But I'll leave writing about that for another time.

Apr 10-18, 2010 -- Vietnam -- 3W6C -- QSL: TBA -- Source: 425DXN (Jul 4, 2009) -- By HB9BXE + HB DL XV team fm Con Co I (AS-185); focus on low bands

These were some tests I did with a G5RV mounted as an inverted V at about 25 feet and the ends at about six feet.

I first measured the coax losses of 30ft of RG58 with an MFJ 259 analyser, which were as follows:

3.6 MHz: (0.6db)

7.1 MHz (0.7db)

14 MHz (1.3db)

21.2 MHz (1.4db)

28.5MHz (1.8db)


I then took SWR readings on five bands - below are the SWR figures as measured at the bottom of the G5RV's ladder line with an MFJ 259 analyser. The figures in brackets are the SWR readings as measured in the shack after a run of 30ft of RG58.

Using the calculator at: http://www.dxzone.com/cgi-bin/dir/jump2.cgi?ID=12232 the final figure is therefore the calculated total loss taking the measured loss and SWR loss into account.

3.5MHz: 2.0 (1.7) - 0.646dB

3.6MHz: 3.0 (2.2) – 0.724dB

3.8MHz: 4.2 (3.6) – 0.823dB

7.0MHz: 2.2(2.2) - 0.784dB

7.1MHz: 2.4 (2.3) – 0.806dB

14.150MHz: 4.5 (5.7) – 1.954dB

21MHz: 3.9 (9.6) – 2.83dB

28MHz: 3.6 (12.4) – 3.862dB

29MHz: 3.2 (9.5) – 3.397dB


As you can see the antenna was only really a good match at the bottom end of 80m and on 40m. The total loss gets worse as you go up in frequency. At 28MHz the combined loss was 3.8dB - you are losing half your power.

But the worst case scenario of 25ft+30ft of generic window line at an SWR of 12.4 on 28MHz is only 0.405dB.

So the conclusion is, a G5RV fed with RG58 coax is fine for 80m and 40m, but losses mount as you go higher in frequency. If you want to work the higher bands think about using open wire feeder all the way to the tuner. You then have a doublet with much lower losses.

With Canada Day this year falling in the middle of the week right after the Field Day weekend and my kids coming back from school for the summer right after that I decided it would be fun to take a few extra days off and go camping. Camping ham radio style, that is. We had planned to set up for Field Day at the local campground so I just stayed there until the July 1st holiday. Ever since the warm weather arrived I’ve been perfecting the mobile shack and this would be the first outing for the new configuration.

First up was a new HF antenna and mast. After a whole winter of raising and lowering the thirty foot DMX tower with the TH6DXX on it I finally concluded that just wasn’t a practical solution. On the air it was great but it was just too big and heavy to safely and conveniently set up and tear down. It took every bit of muscle from two strong men to get it all into the air and at every step of the operation there was the potential for something to go disastrously wrong. Instead, I decided to go with a MUCH smaller and lighter TH3JRS mounted on a 30ft. two-piece aluminum pole. As I have written before, I think the TH3JRS is a great design, it’s just a shame that MFJ has put their trademark stamp of cheapness on it. I used to have one of the ones built by Hy-Gain before they were bought by MFJ. The original construction was heavier and of superior manufacturing quality. The second-hand one that I had was up for years without any problems before it was taken down and sold when I went QRT in 2000. What the new ones do have going for them, though, is that they are very light. So light that they can be easily installed by one person and that is what I needed for island expeditions and for the mobile shack. A lightweight (and low cost!) TV antenna rotator completes the setup for an easy-up HF yagi installation. I also have a 4-element yagi for 6m fixed-mounted lower down the mast and pointed SE that I’ll have up during the summer E-skip season.

Next order of business was VHF/UHF antennas. I remember the first time I learned that the aurora was more than just pretty lights in the sky. I’d been happily DXing away for a few months with my new license hanging on the wall when the first spell of active geomagnetic conditions occurred. I thought my radio was broken! After hearing nothing on HF for two weeks I decided to give amateur radio satellites a try and found that was the perfect solution for getting out under all conditions. Once I got back into the hobby it didn’t take long to remember my original rational for the satellite gear. A new lightweight aluminum tower was mounted in place of the original DMX tower and I built all the workings of the az/el mechanics out of aluminum to save weight. The only compromise to the weight situation was the use of a cheap and available ex-TVRO dish actuator for the elevation drive. I built a sturdy but lightweight 10-turn helix antenna for UHF and resurrected the pair of 13-element VHF yagis from my original station. While that may sound like overkill for LEO satellites, I need the extra gain for horizon-to-horizon coverage. Most high elevation satellite passes here don’t have anyone else in the footprint! The entire apparatus folds down for service and transport and is easily tilted with a small hand-winch mounted at ground level.


Antennas all stowed, hitched up and ready to roll.

Not much more was needed to be done to the interior. All the operating positions, bunks and the mini kitchen were all completed last year and worked well over the winter. The only additions were a natural gas heater installed in January (my XYL is STILL ticked off about the $1000 power bill from running the electric heater in December!) and an exhaust fan to keep the interior comfortable when running the amplifiers. I rewired the AC power system in conduit with lots of outlets, fluorescent lighting, dimmable workstation lights for the operating positions and a 120/240V 30A electrical panel. I installed a special plug on the house and one up at our contesting site so there’s no shortage of power. It can also plug directly into the 6kW generator that I borrowed for Field Day.

I knew going into it that conditions were going to be lousy. The geomagnetic forecast was for active conditions at high latitudes so I wasn't expecting much but this is one of my favorite contests so I thought I would give it a shot. VE8DW had other commitments so this was also going to be a solo op. The fact that it was on a weekday made it challenging to find people that weren't at work or sleeping. I was constantly juggling gray line and local times to find the best places to point the beam at.

I was still set up at the campground from Field Day but running on 'shore power' instead of the big generator so I could only run 400W from the little amplifier. With the poor conditions I decided the best strategy would be single band 20M and B-I-Triple-CQ-L or Butt In Chair, Call C Q Lots. I set up the voice keyer, loaded up on coffee and sugar and settled in for a full 24 hour stretch. If figured if I just kept at it I should be able to scrounge up a couple of hundred contacts and make sure all the deserving got the VE8 multiplier.

As it turned out, conditions weren't great but not as bad as I expected. The first hours were spent on NA and generated a surprising number of contacts. By 0230z I already had all the phone multipliers (except VY0) and that alone motivated me to keep filling the log. When the rate dropped into the single digits I swung the beam north and for several hours kept running a steady trickle of central Asia and eastern Europeans. European sunrise brought a couple of hours of big pileups and I even spent about a half hour running split trying to pick up as many stations as I could before they headed off to work for the day. I must have been the only NA station making it across as the log is filled with 59-001 contacts. Once the Eu stations started drying up things were pretty slow for the next few hours. I had the beam out to the Pacific and worked a slow trickle of VK's and JA's. I don't think the rate ever went over 20/hr but at least it kept me awake. I was anticipating a big run of JA once their work day ended but it never materialized. At one point I was sitting there in the middle of the night listening to my unanswered CQ's and suddenly had a flash that the next station to call in was going be an HL. Sure enough, 10 minutes later a weak Korean called in, the only one in the log!

At east coast sunrise I swung the beam back to NA and started the long, slow push to the finish. I don't know what the aurora was doing but other than a lone VE1 and a VE3 there was nothing heard. I was still getting the occasional JA and European calling so I just kept at it. I checked the CW part of the band and heard quite a few stations so for the rest of the contest I would tune through every hour and work 10-pointers and mults with my rudimentary CW skills. Conditions finally started picking up a little bit around noon and for the afternoon the rate hung in around 20/hr.

By mid-afternoon I was down to just needing four mults (not including VY0) on CW to have a full set. I had worked VY1RAC and VE9RAC the night before in the first hour and was kicking myself for not moving them to CW when I had the chance. I did get a lucky break when VE8NSD stopped by to say hello. I had worked him the night before on phone and now I had a second chance to ask him for a CW contact. He said he wasn't set up for CW but he'd see what he could do and get back to me. About 10 minutes later VE8RAC called in for the double 20-pointer and NT mult on CW!

In the late afternoon I was hampered by auroral-QRN coming in from the east and west. I desperately wanted to keep the beam on the east coast but signals were still weak and the noise was up to S-5 in that direction. I tried to find the best spot I could with a tolerable noise level and kept at it. As the aurora would go up and down I'd get little mini-runs of four or five stations then nothing for 10 or 15 minutes. By 5pm I was just about wiped and somewhat relieved that it was over. I turned off the radio and called VE8DW to share my results and coordinate a teardown of the station later in the day. I was looking at the computer screen while I was talking to him and realized that the contest wasn't over for another hour yet! I quickly jumped back into the fray, found a clear frequency and started calling CQ again. After a little while conditions picked up for about half an hour, the noise went away and I finally got a decent run going. I only needed VE9 on CW and surprisingly I had about a half a dozen VE9's call in during the last hour but no amount of begging and pleading would convince any of them to do a CW contact. The highlight of the last half hour was working Bob, VA3QV. He had blogged extensively about his long quest to work a VE8 station and I'd been keeping an ear out for him the entire time. He was thrilled to make the contact and I was pretty happy about it too.

Once it was (really) over I was shocked to see how well I had done. Even with the lousy conditions I managed to make 609 Q's and collect 22 mults. The breakdown was 203 VE (11 RAC) and 406 DX.
Final score was 65,120 which is not at all embarrassing given the conditions.

73 - John

From the 7/2/09 edition of the ARRL Letter:

The ARRL Annual Report for 2008, now available online and in print, reviews the major events of the year and documents the renewed growth of both the ARRL and the activities of the Amateur Radio Service. In 2008, the ARRL experienced a growth in membership, ending the year with 154,627 members, an increase of 0.7 percent from 2007. The growth was the greatest among International members and in the League’s Northwestern, Rocky Mountain and Delta Divisions.

“As ARRL began 2008, the main question facing us was whether the growth spurt that the Amateur Radio Service had enjoyed the previous year would continue,” said ARRL Chief Executive Officer David Sumner, K1ZZ. “It did, with the number of new amateur licenses issued by the FCC rising to 28,066 — a 5 percent increase over 2007. The ten-year license term makes the total number of licensees a poor indicator of current trends, but after a period of annual declines beginning in 2003 this figure also increased by 1.2 percent during the year. Thus it appears that the regulatory changes that took effect in February 2007 [[meaning the complete elimination of the code test.....Dan]] are having more than a short-term impact.”

ARRL President Joel Harrison, W5ZN, said that through the ARRL’s history, the League’s strength has come from “the fact that its leaders have always had a clear understanding of our association’s mission. Our mission has been expressed in different words by different generations, but has remained fundamentally the same. Our current strategic plan states it in just six words: To advance and advocate Amateur Radio.”

Harrison further defined this strength, recalling that in 2005, “we identified four ‘pillars’ of our association: Public Service, Advocacy, Education, and Membership. Technology supports virtually everything we do, and as time went on we realized that it deserved its own pillar. So, with a bit of fanfare we unveiled technology as the ‘fifth pillar’ at the ARRL EXPO area of the 2008 Dayton Hamvention.”

Sumner said that 2008’s “most gratifying development” was the April decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the ARRL’s appeal of the FCC’s Broadband over Power Line (BPL) rules. “The Court panel found that FCC prejudice had tainted the rulemaking process and that the Commission had violated the Administrative Procedure Act by not disclosing in full the staff studies on which the Commission relied,” he said. “The judges also found that the Commission had failed to justify its decision to apply to BPL systems an extrapolation factor that was designed for entirely different technologies and had summarily dismissed empirical data — submitted at the Commission’s invitation — that supported a different conclusion. The Court even awarded the ARRL some of our costs; this reimbursed only a small fraction of the total cost of the appeal, but it was a moral victory and underscored the fact that we had substantially prevailed in our appeal. Remarkably, at yearend the FCC still had done nothing to comply with the Court’s decision. Perhaps the change in administration will cause the FCC finally to meet its obligations.”

According to ARRL Media and Public Relations Manager Allen Pitts, W1AGP, “The Annual Report is not only useful for showing members the strength of the organization, but it is also a valuable tool in presentations to major public officials. At times they may know little about Amateur Radio, but when they see the quality of the annual report, even before they open it up, they know this is an organization to be taken very seriously. We are indeed a national association and very active.”

Intro, main News

main News, Special Events, DX, Contests

Propagation

read more

read more

This week, Surfin' looks at Digital Amateur Television again and finds the new home of WB4APR.

News for the week in Amateur Radio for the week ending 3 July, 2009 Visit Amateur Radio Newsline's only official website at http://www.arnewsline.org

It was a perfect Field Day weekend from where I stood. The weather was warm, skies clear, the space weather was calm and there was enough propagation to make a domestic contest interesting. I had no plans, so on Saturday I went to the ARRL Field Day Station Locator to find a Field Day site. The one I landed at -- W7AUX -- listed a contact number, a cell phone at the site. I inquired if they needed a CW op, was told, "We could use any operators," so I drove up to the site north of Seattle. I had a lot of fun on 20 meter CW. Sporadic-E even helped out, and the 6 meter station made a number of contacts with other Field Day stations in the Western US.

An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at Baiting Hollow Scout Camp, Calverton, NY on Friday, 3rd of July

Sky Sheppey 2009 celebrates 100 years of British Aviation and the part played by The Pioneers of Early Flying and the Armed Services over those years on the Isle of Sheppey. To co-incide with the event, the Medway Raynet Group will be operating a special event station over the weekend

It was a perfect Field Day weekend from where I stood. The weather was warm, skies clear, the space weather was calm, and there was enough propagation to make a domestic contest interesting

On Tuesday 7th July the Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society (CARS) will be holding its annual constructors competition. This year a new trophy will be awarded, the M1FDE shield. This trophy has been created in memory of Anthony Martin M1FDE who passed away last year at the age of 41

The American Radio Relay League's round-up of the forthcoming week's DX activity

Gerben, PG5M, will be activating three DXCC entities in the Pacific between September 6-27th

The WIA will be reviewing applications which focus on projects and activities to attract new amateurs. Also projects supporting emergency communications and preparedness for emergency communications

Andy, N8OFS, will once again be active as N8O 'portable caboose' from Jefferson, Ohio, between July 18-19th

Recently my old computer had received 2 back door trojan horse viruses. AVG took care of one, but not the second one. It said the computer was infected. Sure enough, 3 weeks later it was killed...
The question is, can i take the hard drive out and reco...

I've been looking forward to Field Day for a long time. I can't even the remember the last time I participated but it was definitely more than 10 years ago. We tried hard last year but weren't able to get the trailer ready in time. This year not only were we ready but we were ready to do it in style! All the work we've done on the mobile shack was about to pay off and after practicing all winter with portable operations I was looking forward to being able to set up in sunshine and mosquitoes instead of snow and darkness.



We had everything prepared. I printed out pamphlets about ham radio to hand out. I made some signs for the operating positions so guest operators would remember our callsign and the exchange. I dug up some extra headphones and splitters so interested visitors could listen in on the action. I coordinated with the family to come out Sunday for a picnic and barbecue afterwards. Even the geomagnetic field was predicted to quiet so we'd be able to work all the weak ones running low power and dipoles strung in trees. It was going to be the start of a classic Field Day tradition.



As usual, things didn't work out the way we planned. Well, most things anyways. Saturday morning 'dawned' (the sun never goes down this time of year) cold and miserable and rainy with more of the same in the forecast for the whole weekend. Undaunted, we finished battening down the hatches and got ready to leave. The only stop we had to make on the way was at the shop to put some air in the trailer tires. We pulled out of the driveway right on schedule at 11:15 but when we got to the shop I couldn't find my key for the door. I knew I put it in my pocket before we left. Then I discovered the hole in my pocket! Back to the house we went for 10 frantic minutes of searching before I finally found the key in the lining of my jacket.



Things ran pretty smoothly after that. We made it out to the campground by 12:15 (1815z) and by 12:45 we had the generator running and the HF and the satellite antennas up. VE8DW jumped on the air to start making contacts while I put up a vertical and strung some radials. The forecast was for quiet geomagnetic conditions but instead ended up being unsettled all weekend long. We had diode propagation on all bands. Lots of stations were heard but it was difficult to get them to hear us even though we were running power. A short run on 20m RTTY in the early evening was the only bright spot. 40 meters was a total loss. Saturday night I could hear stations from all across the US and Canada but even running a full kW I couldn't even get a QRZ? out of any of them. After an hour I gave up and focused on listen for a 6m opening and working satellites. The satellites were all busy but only produced a steady trickle of contacts. The single channel FM satellites were so slammed it that took all weekend to make the allowed single contact through each one. 6m opened to northern BC and Alberta shortly after midnight but I didn't hear any stations and at about 2am we decided to call it a night and grab a few hours of sleep.



The next day started bright and early at 5am with eastern US sunrise and an International Space Station pass first things on the agenda. The aurora was even heavier Sunday morning and 20m was very slow going for the first several hours. The ISS pass was exciting and frustrating at the same time. We only had two passes during the Field Day period, one with a maximum 1.8 degrees elevation and another an hour later with 0.7 degrees. Amazingly, we heard Canadian astronaut VA3CSA calling CQ with no takers during both opportunities but he didn't reply to our calls. After the second pass I jumped on the internet (did I mention we have a wireless internet connection to the mobile shack?) and found out that the ARISS station was using the VHF/UHF repeater mode. I knew it had that capability but I didn't know they also used it for space-to-ground voice contacts. All the official information I found online before Field Day clearly stated that 144.49MHz was the only uplink frequency to use for voice contacts with the ISS. Oh well, live and learn.



Due to the inclement weather, the campground was deserted all weekend and we didn't have a single visitor, none of our invited guests showed up, and even the family barbecue was cancelled. Better luck next year, at least Wally and I had fun.



The final results were 87 contacts on HF (26 RTTY, the rest SSB) and 31 contacts on satellite.

Call: VE8EV
Operator(s): VE8EV
Station: VE8EV
Class: SOSB/20 HP
QTH: Inuvik, NWT
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs CW Mults Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
160:
80:
40:
20: 20 589 10 12
15:
10:
6:
2:
----------------------------------------
Total: 20 589 10 12 Total Score = 65,120
Club:
Comments:
203 VE (11 RAC) and 406 DX
Wasn't expecting much given the heavy electronic overcast but managed to scrapeup enough Q's to keep me awake all night.
Full write-up at http://ve8ev.blogspot.com
73, John - VE8EV

Call: VE8EV
Operator(s): VE8EV VE8DW
Station: VE8EV
Class: 2A HP
QTH: Inuvik, NWT
Operating Time (hrs): 23
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80:
40:
20: 54 26
15: 6
10:
6:
2: 31
222:
432:
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
----------------------------
Total: 0 91 26 Total Score = 143
Club:
Comments:
plus bonus points: 100% emergency power, public place, W1AW message, satellite

Typical Arctic Field Day conditions: high K-index, cold and rainy
Full write-up at http://ve8ev.blogspot.comJohn - VE8EV

The ability to make contact with the outside world, in virtually any circumstance, is one of the benefits of amateur (ham) radio. Members of the Princeton Amateur Radio Club brought that point home Saturday and Sunday, when they set up their equipment at the City-County Park to participate in American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Field Day activities. The field day included a contest element, where local clubs received points for successfully making contacts with other amateur radio stations across the country, and internationally. "I heard somebody in Denmark on there a while ago," club member Richard Blackburn said Saturday afternoon. A handful of ham operators from the area camped under tents near the park's front entrance, with fans going full-blast against a three-digit heat index. The station was set up at about noon Saturday and scheduled to be operational into Sunday morning. The goal of the event, the climax of the ARRL-sponsored Amateur Radio Week, was to showcase the versatility and portability of an amateur radio system. "The main thing to do is testing your emergency capabilities," said Mike Taylor, president of the local club. The county's ham operators proved valuable in the immediate aftermath of January's ice storm, when most other forms of communication were silenced. "If there wasn't a cell phone, as there wasn't then, if there wasn't a telephone, or any other way, there's always ham radio," Taylor said.

When I called home and spoke to my wife today, while I was at work, she informed me that I had received a "huge box from some foreign country" in the mail. I had to scratch my head on that one for a few seconds; but then I realized it was my QSL cards from Gennady UX5UO. They came after only three (not 4) weeks.!

When I got home from work, I was like a kid on Christmas morning. I opened the box and saw, without a doubt, that these are the most beautiful QSL cards that I have ever had in 30 years as a Ham. They are a touchdown ..... a home run ..... a GRAND SLAM home run!

The workmanship is EXCELLENT (capitals intentional) and the entire process was completely hassle free and satisfying. The paper stock is substantial - not "paper thin" and flimsy. The glossy finish is the perfect touch; and I am so glad that I spent the few extra bucks and went from the "economy" to the "luxury" category.

I am telling you right now, I will NEVER go anywhere else for QSL cards other than UX5UO. Fantastic quality at a more than reasonable price. How can you argue with that?

73 de Larry W2LJ

Nearest I can determine, the last time ARRL bandplans were reviewed was nearly 20 years ago for 50 MHz and above.

There is some ARRL Microwave Band Planning in it's initial stages that I welcome as it's long overdue in my opinion. So I do look forward to reading other peoples thoughts on how to tackle the problem of promoting ultra wide band data modes and somehow keeping some harmony with any existing activity on these bands.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/01/23/10585/?nc=1

Chairman and Liaison Appointments: Microwave Band Planning Committee: Tom Clark, K3IO, Chairman.

I noticed that Will Payne, N4YWK is a part of some sort of active ARRL Microwave Band Planning. He has a help wanted thread on the LinkedIn ARRL Ham Radio Operators group. He appears to be surveying conventional repeater use.

The historic growth of repeater populations on the lower bands might serve as a bellwether for future growth on the microwave bands. Historic growth graphs would also be informative for the ham community at large.

Also in the The ARRL Letter, Vol 27, No 29 (July 25, 2008), there is this interesting snippet:

* ARRL Board of Directors Plans the League's Future at Second 2008 Board Meeting

Regulatory Matters:
The Board voted to establish an ad hoc study committee to review Part 97 of the rules governing the Amateur Radio Service to ascertain what rule change(s) would be beneficial to promote wideband digital modes, while at the same time minimizing potential interference to narrowband modes.

And more recently:
http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2009/06/01/10784/

It Seems to Us: Coexistence - Radio spectrum management is a difficult business. The most useful part of the spectrum has been fully allocated for decades, yet new uses continue to be developed. Where can they go? It's a question that requires ever more imaginative answers.

With those observations pointed out. Basically I feel investigating and possibly revising the bandplans is long over due.

I feel that 900 MHz and above are the future of ham radio. On SHF frequencies outside the ham realm, wide band modes are exploding. Such hardware can be adapted to the amateur service. Doing so (as the former HSMM WG showed) is probably the easiest way to populate these bands. Our SHF allocations have the band space to accommodate such modes so this is a natural fit.

Therefore I feel wide band (OFDM) modes should be promoted as first class modes of operation on these bands. Presently they are see by many hams as secondary to "conventional modes" like FM and analog ATV. The present voluntary band plans for 900 and above seem to detour ham from experimenting with these "futuristic" modes, as they are unsure how they fit into to the existing plan if at all. The other detriment of antique band plans is when (potential) manufactures look at is for reference on what would be a marketable ham line or product.

Bandplans for 900 MHz and above, unlike for below 900 MHz, need to have a futuristic theme in mind, to provide a path to the future. This futuristic thinking is also because one must realize it will take years to substantial SHF utilization to occur anyway.

One of the purposes of a frequency coordinator is to recommend standard operating procedures. The frequency coordinator's main job is to make sure your repeater will not interfere with nearby repeaters already established.

They have the duty to not only produce bandplans that satisfy the needs of repeater owners within its area but also to protect the interests of coordinated systems in adjacent areas, weak signal modes, digital communications, AM and FM simplex, and satellite uplinks and downlinks. They define the bandplan for both coordinated and non-coordinated activities within its territory.

In the event your coordination body's band plan is behind the times; Aside from the FCC's frequency limits spelled out in Part 97, everything else is technically a voluntary band plan.

From what I have observed, the frequency coordinator's job (at state, regional
and nation levels) isn't an on-the-air practice so it seems they are totally off
the hook when it comes to holding up their duties.

Until things are formally updated, just observe Good amateur practice . Make your best effort to check for other band use. And if you determine the conventional band use doesn't offset your experimentation, then I tend to think what you are doing on our underutilized SHF bands IS in the best interest of the amateur radio service.

(You can see this has been on the ARRL’s to-do-list for at least a year or better. But we are talking about the ARRL here.)

I am experimenting with Twitter as a way to help people get behind the scenes of managing a major worldwide contest such as CQ WPX. Follow the full year journey through processing 7000+ logs, generating the results, managing the web site, and answering questions about the rules.  I may also report the occasional joy or frustration that comes with the job. Visit  http://twitter.com/cqwpx

Official announcements will continue to be made on the cqwpx.com web site and blog at http://www.cqwpx.com/blog/

The Twitter feed is just for fun and education.  If you follow along, feel free to send me comments about what you read or learn!

I was exhausted after I got home and was very busy at work all week and after I got home so it’s a bit delayed, but here’s my summary of Field Day.

I operate Field Day with the Bergen Amateur Radio Association club which operates as K2BAR.  We operate from the local county EOC center which isn’t far from where I live. We setup in the parking lots that surround the building. This year we operated as a 4F station with the following:

20m CW station with a tribander on the roof of the building
GOTA station that was using a multiband dipole
80m SSB/CW station with an 80m loop around the parking lot
40m SSB/CW station with a 40m dipole or double zepp
20m/15m/10m SSB station with a tribander on a tower
6m station with a 6m yagi on a tower

Things got started around 8am when some folks met at the EOC to get started and others met where we store our equipment. We had all the equipment loaded into multiple vehicles and on the way to the site within the hour. This year we were assembling just 1 tower for the 6m beam and the tribander was going on a tower loaned by the county police. The tower is a powered retractable and tilting tower that is on a trailer. It worked exceptionally well for the tribander.

While folks were getting the wire antennas and antennas for the tower set up, I went around the other side of the building to help with the tribander that was to be used on the 20m CW station. What transpired wore me out. They wanted to lift the assembled tribander and secure it to the EOC tower. I must have climbed up/down that tower 4 times. With trees in the way we ran into issues getting it up where we wanted, so it was disassembled and sent up in pieces. We assembled it on the roof of the facility and then tried to lift secure it to the tower. We again ran into issues with the branches as we tried to hoist it up. In the end, we left it on the roof (2+ stories above the ground) pointed due west. We’re now exhausted.

By the time we finished with the 20m CW antenna, the rest of the wire antennas and beams were up and the stations were getting setup. We had some lunch and finished up getting the stations setup for operating. The club uses CT for logging which I don’t like but it is what they are comfortable with so we have laptops at each of the stations. We spent the day operating and I spent all my time at the 40m SSB or 20/15m SSB stations with some 6m thrown in when I wanted to relax since there wasn’t much action there.

Once it started to get darker and the lights kicked on, we had a big problem! It turns out there is one large light that is having an issue staying on and when it is resetting and in the process of coming back on, we have a S9 noise level on a few of the stations.  Once the light came on, the noise stopped. Unfortunately, the cycle was 10 mins of noise and 5 mins of no noise before it started again. Once that noise kicked in, it was hard work pulling signals out and then like magic, when it stopped, it was shooting fish in a barrel.

In the evening I had the pleasure of meeting N2WKS who is a local operator but not a member of the club. Zev is an experienced contester with a great ear and it was a joy to watch him work the pileups. Zev stayed around into the wee hours of the morning. I took a nap in my car from 3am to 6am. When I woke up it was light out and the noise was gone.

I spent the rest of Sunday operating 20m and a little 6m before we shut down things to tear down. I headed back over to the other side of the building, climbed the tower, dismantled the tri-bander which was on the roof and lowered the parts down to the ground. Then I came down the tower and helped with breaking down the rest of the site. By 4pm Sunday we were done unloading all the equipment and I was heading home.

Field Day is a blast and I really enjoy but it sure is a workout, especially when you stay and operate the entire time after spending a few hours setting things up. But with it being so tiring, I absolutely can’t wait again until next year. My goal next year is to have the 20m/15m station outdo the number of QSOs the 40m station makes.  I think we could have done it this year if the noise didn’t smack us down all night on 20m while the 40m station wasn’t impacted.

Here’s the score summary:

Band	QSOs
6m SSB	77
15m SSB	86
20m CW	193
20m RTTY	16
20m SSB	619
40m CW	419
40m SSB	630
80m CW	109
80m SSB	281
GOTA SSB	111
SAT SSB	1
Alt Power CW	6
Total	2548

73,
K2DSL

I’ll get around to writing up something about last weekends Field Day in the next couple days.

Today I noticed that FY5KE in French Guiana confirmed some contacts we made last October. Since they are the only contacts I have logged with that DXCC, these QSLs on LoTW nets me another new one confirmed.

Also today in the mail I received a QSL card direct (via EB7DX) from 5B4AIF in Cyprus for a contact in early May.

73,
K2DSL

QTH: Adams County Red Cross Building
415 N. Kansas Ave.
Hastings, NE 68901
Date: July 15th, 2009
Time: 7:00pm

---

Featured Topic/Demonstration: To be determined.

Central Nebraska Radio Club
48th Annual Hamfest and Steak Fry

July 25-26, 2009

Victoria Spring State Park
(Seven miles east of Anselmo, Nebraska)

More Information http://www.ctwsoft.com/...

Pioneer Amateur Radio Club's
12th Annual Flea Market

Saturday, July 18, 2009
9am-12:30pm

St. Charles Parish Center

8th and Locust Sts. North Bend, NE

$2 donation at door
Vendor setup at 7:30am
8-foot space $5 in advance or $7 at door

[url=http:/...

Hello all….been a bit since I’ve blogged. I have new pics up,check them out if ya want. Field Day for us was great! Not sure how many
contacts we made but we had a blast! I forgot to bring my cam,gut some of the others had theirs and maybe I can convince one of them to email me a few. I got there Fri night,about 5-6 pm. Just as I set my tent up,a T-storm came thru. I had to take ALL my stuff
and put it in my car! The wind was blowing SO HARD the back of my tent,which is pretty big,can sleep 6,was actually touching the i
inside of the front of my tent! I used big thick plastic stakes otherwise my tent would have taken off and God only knows where
it for have landed! lol….The shack and the rest of the upstairs has beed sheet rocked.We need to put flooring down and paint.
Maybe not in that order,but thats what we have to do. Can’t wait to get my antennas up! Catch ya soon,73….De,N2RAI,Joe

AmateurLogic.TV Episode 24 is now available for download.
Spend the day with Jackson Amateur Radio Club and see how they approached Field Day 2009 in the heat of Summer. Meanwhile it’s Winter for Peter in Australia with a very interesting demonstration of early Mechanical Television. Plus viewer email and lots of fun.

52:13

View or Download

View in web browser YouTube

First of all my apologies for not updating this thing in a while I have been quite busy
I was traveling for the last month but unfortunately didn't get to play any radio.

I also recognised that it is a year since I first started blogging on here and a year on we are still here. Happy Days :)
Okay so here's and update of some of the news from the Emerald Isle!


ComReg Consultation on the 2300 to 2400 MHz Band

ComReg has published a consultation paper on the
release of spectrum in the 2300 to 2400 MHz band. The
paper is Document 09/49 of 15 June and is available in
the Publications section of the ComReg website at
www.comreg.ie This band is an amateur secondary
allocation.

The IRTS will in due course prepare a response to this
consultation paper and we would encourage interested
individuals and radio clubs to do so as well. Licensees
who have views which they wish to have reflected in the
IRTS response should communicate by e-mail to
ei7cd /at/ gofree.indigo.ie Responses to the consultation
paper must be submitted before 5 p.m. on 29 July next.




AMSAT on Twitter!!

The Amateur Satellite organisation AMSAT is now on
Twitter.

AMSAT now has a Twitter account, and can be found at
http://twitter.com/AMSAT

To begin with, they may be mostly about AO-51 and AO-7.
All are welcome to follow us on Twitter says Drew K04MA
from the AMSAT Bulletin Board.


Thanks to the IRTS for the above information.


NEWS ELSE WHERE!

Apollo 11 - Amateur Radio Moonbounce Commemoration

The Amateur Radio mooonbounce operations last weekend as part of the commemoration of 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing in July 1969, proved to be a great success.

A report on the event can be seen at:

2009 World Moon Bounce Day has Been an Amazing Success!
http://echoesofapollo.com/

Southgate - A Ham Radio Weekend for Talking to the Moon
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/june2009/
moonbounce_weekend.htm

Radiosport fans are gearing up for the summer's biggest competition: The IARU HF World Championships. Calling the 24 hour long contest "an HF operator's delight," ARRL Contest Branch Manager Sean Kutzko, KX9X, explained that the contest will allow amateurs plenty of opportunity to work DX from all around the globe on CW and SSB, as well as make QSOs with many IARU Member-Society club stations and officials.

Jul 22-30, 2009 -- Togo -- 5V7PRF -- QSL: LotW -- Source: I1FQH (Jul 2, 2009) -- By I1FQH fm Kpalime; 80-10m; mainly CW, some SSB; 100w; Spiderbeam, vertical, dipoles

Amateur radio operators tend to be easy to spot, said Jason Foster, president of the nonprofit Montgomery Amateur Radio Club. With one or several antennas up to 100 feet tall outside their homes, or even on top of their cars, amateur radio operators, also known as "hams," are often thought to be older people who are not ready to embrace modern communications technology. Over the weekend, 25 hams participated in the Field Day at Montgomery College's Germantown campus. The event drew hams of all ages who competed against hams from around the country to try to make as many contacts with other hams as they can in 24 hours from temporary stations set up in trucks. The participants proved hams aren't outdated, though instant messaging, texting, and social networking Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter are the rage. But according to Allen Pitts, spokesman for the American Radio Relay League, the national association for amateur radio operators, the hobby is gaining popularity -- and technological advancement. About 100,000 of the 665,000 licensed hams in the U.S., received their license in the last four years and more hams are experimenting with digital technologies, Pitts said. Hams are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to use radio frequencies located above AM frequencies to broadcast for a variety of purposes, including providing back-up communication for emergency response organizations, weather reporting, participating in worldwide and national contests, and simply chatting with other hams.

Hazelwood radio operator connects to others worldwide: Helen Schlarman wasn't hamming it up when it came to broadcasting directions to James McDonnell Park from her amateur radio station, call letters WOAKI. Her voice was clear and concise. "I have to do this periodically," Schlarman said Saturday while seated under a warm pavilion crowded with other ham radio operators. The St. Louis and Suburban Radio Club was holding a two-day "Field Day" at the park - part training exercise, part showcase for ham radio - as part of Amateur Radio Week nationwide. At 88, Schlarman, of Hazelwood, is the oldest member of the club, but she says she's a novice behind the microphone.

Jupiter is a source of powerful bursts of natural radio waves that can produce exotic sounds when picked up on Earth using simple antennas and shortwave receivers. Even though human ears can't hear the radio waves directly, they make an exciting listening experience when converted to audio signals by a receiver. It's not E.T. phoning home. The shortwave radio signals from Jupiter aren't a sign of extraterrestrial intelligence. The emissions are generated naturally by plasma instabilities in Jupiter's magnetosphere. Pulsing power beam. Most space physicists say that ionized gas in the upper atmosphere above Jupiter's magnetic poles sometimes behaves like a powerful radio laser or maser. The radiation can be so intense that Jupiter frequently outshines the Sun as a source of radio energy at ham radio wavelengths.

This Week on the Radio:

On Monday, June 29, US Supreme Court Justice David Souter -- in one his last official duties on the high court -- swore in Julius Genachowski as the new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Genachowski, who clerked for Souter after finishing law school, will complete the four years remaining in the term of outgoing FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. On June 25, the US Senate confirmed both Genachowski and current FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell -- Genachowski for his initial term and McDowell for his first full term.

Radiosport fans are gearing up for the summer's biggest competition: The IARU HF World Championships. Calling the 24 hour long contest "an HF operator's delight," ARRL Contest Branch Manager Sean Kutzko, KX9X, explained that the contest will allow amateurs plenty of opportunity to work DX from all around the globe on CW and SSB, as well as make QSOs with many IARU Member-Society club stations and officials.

This feature -- including convenient Web links to useful information -- is a concise monthly update of some of the things ARRL is doing on behalf of its members. This installment covers the month of June.

It's an event that some groups take very seriously, planning all year long for. Still, others just use the date to get together, make a few contacts and enjoy each other's company.

The July 2009 issue of QST had a one page overview of some of the major pieces of equipment introduced at the Dayton Hamvention. There is no way a single person can track down everything on display that's new in the time available, but QST Technical Editor Joel Hallas, W1ZR, did find quite a bit more -- much more than can be squeezed into the available QST page.

Larry E. Price, W4RA, was honored at an evening reception following the first full day of Ham Radio 2009 convention activities in Friedrichshafen, Germany on Friday, June 26.

ARRL Continuing Education Course Registration remains open through Sunday, July 26, 2009, for these online course sessions beginning on Friday, August 7, 2009:

The ARRL Annual Report for 2008, now available online and in print, reviews the major events of the year and documents the renewed growth of both the ARRL and the activities of the Amateur Radio Service. In 2008, the ARRL experienced a growth in membership, ending the year with 154,627 members, an increase of 0.7 percent from 2007. The growth was the greatest among International members and in the League's Northwestern, Rocky Mountain and Delta Divisions.

This is the segment from the Local channel 6 Time Warner news which was broadcasted on July 1st 2009.

It's an event that some groups take very seriously, planning all year long for. Still, others just use the date to get together, make a few contacts and enjoy each other's company. No matter how you view it, ARRL Field Day is fun!

“CQ Field Day this is VA3CSA aboard the International Space Station” was the call Marty KC9JGE heard. As the “Mr Satellite” for the Mancorad W9DK Field Day effort, he had personally built the antennas & programed the equipment. When VA3CSA came back to W9DK … well read Marty’s account in his PDF write up! PDF FILE [...]

It was seventy-two years ago this very day, on July 2nd, 1937 that during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe by airplane, Amelia Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean somewhere near Howland Island.

Though her disappearance has been investigated as much as any other 20th century event, there has never been any undisputed evidence to indicate whatever became of Earhart, her navigator Fred Noonan or the Lockheed Electra 10E aircraft they were flying in.

This is a strange coincidence since I intend to go missing later today as well. I’ll be on vacation for the next several days and posting to the blog will be suspended.

If you’re a first time commenter, your comments may be held until the next time I’m online to approve them.

With any luck, my disappearance won’t become a 21st century mystery.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday weekend!

Hey Everyone!

Don't forget to be on the lookout for the 470 Amateur Radio Group's Fourth of July QSO Party Special Event.

Listen for W4H from July 1st until July 9th from 1700z to 0300z.

Frequencies, thereabout, will be 14.260, 7.260, 28.400, 3.960 mhz +/- 20 khz.

If you contact W4H, please QSL to the operator you contacted.

Happy Fourth of July!

I know I should have posted this earlier in the week, but it's been crazy playing catch up around here.

Field day was a success, despite the Jeep needing a new water pump and some hoses. We got her patched up enough to run us up in the field, but she's still not feeling well. Now her timing's off, and she's failing to idle correctly. *sad face* Poor little Jeep. She still needs quite a bit of work.

There was also a lot that went wrong once we got up there. We discovered first thing that someone had stolen one of our antenna ropes that we use to lift the wire in the air. We made due though, because we're hams, with a length of camo rope and a sports drink bottle, and subsequently produced quite a few laughs and "HEAD'S UP!"s.

Once that was up, we ate our quick and fancy field day supper. Yum.

After eating, we got to work on getting the radio set up and everything in order. That went pretty smooth, although we did have issues with using the Traveler headset in conjunction with an external speaker on the FT450 we had brought with us. So, we ended up just using the hand mic and having an extra person to log the contacts. That also worked more smoothly this year, but I give props to the table for that. We took a larger table this year - 6 feet in fact - and although it was heavy, awkward to load, and potentially hazardous to the health of the Jeep window while bouncing up the ridge-side, it was efficient and gave us tons of elbow room.


Matter of fact, the table wasn't the only thing new we took. This year, having learned from the past, we took two fans (totally sweet in the 90 degree heat), the new FT450 (smaller, functional, done a great job, but I missed the fish finder on our radio), the little netbook, an Air Card that allowed us to have Internet connection, a lamp that DIDN'T run on batteries (last year, our lamp died halfway through, this year we collected beetles with our 100w bulb), and the shortwave radio -- which we found good use for later in the evening.


Clover seemed to enjoy herself as well. She loves the field. We took her frisbee this time, and she played until late in the evening. This picture was taken right before she crashed out on us. haha


And I have to add that the bugs were horrendous this year. Worse than last year. I'm making a note now to take some of those bulbs that don't attract bugs for next year.


Tim worked so many Field Day stations that I can't remember how many. I had searched, and piled, and pulled all the stuff out at home. Had stuffed, piled, tucked, and shoved everything in the Jeep. Had pulled, tugged, and dropped everything out on arrival. Then set up while Tim was going back down for the rest of the family. So, to be quite honest, I was so exhausted once I was there, I only made 6 contacts and one was a dupe. I had fun regardless.


Later in the evening, Tim called in to WMRI to tell them about our Field Day. Shortly after midnight they called back and put him on the air.


After that, Ashby wanted to play radio. She did a great job, making quite a few contacts for herself.


And I guess it was shortly after 1 o'clock am that the generator finally started begging for more gas. At that point, we all decided it was time to pack up. So we did, minus the antenna, which we went after on Sunday.

In all, even though we had plenty of set backs, Field Day was fun. But now I'm exhausted again just thinking about it.

73!

Tony takes his weekly look at the 10-metre band and sees an uneven week with Thursday being very thin and the weekend not so thick and fast

Special event stations are now active on HF in each of the original 13 American colonies. 11 of the colonial states will also be active on the Amateur Radio Satellites

Greg Mossop, G0DUB, the IARU Region 1 Emergency Communications Co-Ordinator, has just sent this report on the flood situation in Poland

An excellent Field Day news report, produced by Fox 4 News in Missouri, has been uploaded to YouTube

On the afternoon of Monday, June 29, US Supreme Court Justice David Souter - in one his last official duties on the high court - swore in Julius Genachowski as the new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission

Last month's Ham Radio exhibition in Friedrichshafen attracted 17,400 visitors and 195 exhibitors during the three-day event

The world’s largest commercial communications satellite, TerreStar-1 was launched by Ariane 5 from the Kourou Spaceport on Wednesday July 1

On Wednesday, the UK regulator Ofcom published documents regarding Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) and the use of interleaved UHF spectrum by Cognitive radios

The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is conducting a Special Operations Forces (SOF) FM broadcast antenna performance enhancement study to meet the requirement for a commercial FM and military VHF transmission capability

India's proposals include an unmanned lunar landing in 2011/12 and a human orbital spacecraft launch in 2015

Look for LX0HQ to be active again from the Headquarters of the Luxembourg Amateur Radio Society (RL) during the IARU Contest (July 14-15th)

Bill Horner, VK4FW, QSL Manager for VK9LA, reports that after much haggling with the Australian Customs Department and negotiating with a customs clearance broker, he has finally received the QSL cards from the Czech Republic

That's right Ham fans, another Field Day has come and gone. How did you all do during Field Day? What do you find was the highlight of the day? Well I have to say that the highlights are our day was the opportunity to actually operate during Field Day. You see, last year on field day we were on vacation down in Florida. Needless to say, on Field Day we were on the road headed to New Orleans to see my folks and family and the only radio at my disposal was a Yaesu FT-90r. I had the radio tuned most of the time to 146.520 or 146.550. From time to time I would hear a brief QSO and then it was gone.

Of course, don't forget that we did have our own personal field day prior to going on vacation. 2 weeks before vacation we did go up to the field and set up all the stuff and made a few contacts. That was actually one of the first times I made any HF contacts.

Fast forward to Field Day 2009. This year we brought up the following for our operating situation:
- Yaesu FT-450
- LDG 200AT Pro Auto Tuner
- Power Supply
- Lenovo Net Book for computer logging with N3FJP's Field Day contest log, which we then exported seemlessly into our ACLog.
- A 1800 HP Gas Generator
- ZS6BKV Multi Band Dipole

I think that covers the equipment. Of course we brought snacks, fans, and a percolator for coffee.

Once we arrived and had some hot dogs that we picked up from a convenience store we got to looking around and found that one of the ropes we left up there for the antenna had gone missing. This rope by the way was a bit in the edge of the woods and out of site. The other rope is in plain view so we wondered why they only took the one. Well we assume it must have been hunters. Anyway, we got another rope up in a tree for the operation. This was just a temporary fix. We didn't have the sling shot or a fishing pole so we resorted to tying the rope to a bottle of Gatorade.
It wasn't much longer and we had the equipment set up and we were ready to call CQ. I spent a couple of hours calling and ended up with a total of 60 contacts. Robin (AJ4IJ) worked for just a little bit. She was pretty wore out from running around during the day getting supplies for the evening and getting things ready to go. Ashby (KJ4EGJ) towards the end of our evening finally decided to work some stations and ended up with 16 contacts. I was so proud. Mom (KF4SSI) and Dad (KU4ME) didn't work any. Dad was pretty tired from working on the Jeep all weekend as was I. That's right, we did get the Jeep in running condition. She still needs some work but at least she isn't spewing radiator fluid anymore.
As a final note, Robin had found earlier on QRZ'd that the QSO Radio Show was broadcasting on the air for Field Day and were taking calls from Field Day stations all over the world. Well it was around Midnight when Robin and Dad got the big idea about calling in and handed the phone to me. So I took the cell phone and made the call. I gave them my information and it wasn't long after that they called us back and I was on the air speaking with Ted Randall (WB8PUM) about our setup and our Ham Family. As a matter of fact on Ted Randall's site he has a streaming rebroadcast of the show.
So this year's Field Day was considered a success. We got setup in short order and in total made 82 contacts between us. As I know it, Dad worked some stations the next day but at this time I forget how many he made.

That's all I got for now. Stay tuned as I plan on posting on my contest experience and results over the first year of my Ham life and The First Annual 470 ARG 4th of July QSO Party special event. Until then, 73 and Good DX to all.

Tim - AJ4JD

P.S. You can get another view point on our Field Day adventure over at Robin's Blog.