Planet Ham (English)

Today was a strange day.  It was my last day at my current job at Goldman Sachs. I've been there just over six years, managing all the Technology Department inventory (servers and networking and storage equipment) for the offices of the NY/NJ Campus.  I was the manager of the department responsible for receiving, inventorying, warehousing, and prepping for install a multi-billion dollar cache of equipment. I was also responsible for shipping re-purposed equipment both domestically and internationally. Believe me, you haven't lived until you've been tasked with shipping millions of dollars of used equipment to places like Seoul, Sao Paolo, and Kuala Lumpur, and you were told it had to arrived undamaged (even though the original shipping containers had since long been discarded) and it had to arrive "yesterday". I can proudly attest that in the six years that I was there, my department oversaw that inventory with a shrinkage percentage (loss due to theft, damage or mis-shipping) of less than 0.001%.

Last summer, Goldman felt that they had too many vendors, so they decided to downsize the number that they have on board. Our contract was farmed out to another vendor, and while my team was RIF'ed (reduction in force) I stayed on for six months to basically teach my replacements how to do the job.  My actual employer is Pitney Bowes Management Services, and through them, I will be starting at a new, non-management (actually glad for that, for a change) position with IBM next week.

My co-workers, the other outside vendors (IPC, Scholes, EMC, CBRE) who also serve Goldman Sachs are the best.  Totally unexpected, I walked into work this morning to find this waiting for me on my desk.

Whenever looking to purchase a new radio or kit, I visit the reviews section at www.eham.net to read what others have to say about their purchases. Occasionally the review average scores are skewed by one bad experience (when the usual score is 1 out of a possible 5 maximum), but overall a good impression can be gathered. For example, the Rockmite scores 4.9 out of 5 with 76 reviews, which is impressive.

Reviews of QRP radios can be found at http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/22 .

http://www.inqua2011.ch/

Today, our Swiss rail holiday continued with a visit to the capital Bern, about 1 hour north of our current location at Kandersteg. We woke up this more to yet more snow on the ground, and this is MAY!

Yet again we were struck by the cost of things in Switzerland: postcards around 1-2 francs, 2 francs to use the station toilet (ouch!), a coffee around 4.20 francs and 8.50 francs for a bowl of goulash soup. The exchange rate is currently around 1.46 Swiss francs to the UK pound but the tourist rate is somewhat poorer.  Luckily the Great Rail Journeys holiday includes almost everything apart from lunches and a couple of dinners. I can recommend them.

For the first time, a couple of HF beams were spotted on the way to Bern: one was a 4 element HF beam with a 2m crossed yagi above (useful in this rugged, mountainous landscape) and the other a 4 element HF quad.

Tomorrow we head home via the TGV from Geneva to Paris and Eurostar to London.

Good morning from inside #hamr shackadelic as I'm preparing for the 2013 running of CQ World Wide WPX CW scheduled to begin later this afternoon. I'm operating from W6AB, Satellite Amateur Radio Club with its clubhouse about 750 feet above sea level including clear take-off angles toward all continents. Our local weather is spectacular with expected blue skies, warm temperatures peaking in the low seventies, and gusting winds.

I'm entering either high or low power, single operator all band, assisted with tri-bander, wire overlay this year. My power category depends on component availability and I'll make my determination later this morning.

Please, keep in mind, it is never too late to read the rules prior to sitting in the chair and firing up your console of wireless equipment. Likewise, use #CQWPX hash tag as CQ World Wide WPX homepage continues harvesting our tweets, for world wide social interaction. I emphasis the rules especially if you decide to tweet your status while following additional commentary.

Sending best result vibes to all participants this year! Let's have fun.

Contest on.

WM7D's Solar Resource Page click here.
SunSpotWatch click here.
NOAA / Space Weather Prediction Center click here.
Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) Radio User's Page click here.
NOAA Ovation Aurora (Test Product) click here.
HAARP Spectrum Monitor 1-30 MHz click here.

Latest SWPC 3-day Space Weather Forecast: Joint USAF/NOAA Solar Geophysical Activity Report and Forecast SDF Number 143 Issued at 2200Z on 23 May 2013

IA. Analysis of Solar Active Regions and Activity from 22/2100Z to 23/2100Z: Solar activity has been at low levels for the past 24 hours. The largest solar event of the period was a C3 event observed at 23/1450Z from Region 1756 (S20E27). There are currently 7 numbered sunspot regions on the disk.

IB. Solar Activity Forecast: Solar activity is expected to be low with a chance for M-class flares and a slight chance for an X-class flare on days one, two, and three (24 May, 25 May, 26 May).

IIA. Geophysical Activity Summary 22/2100Z to 23/2100Z: The geomagnetic field has been at quiet to unsettled levels for the past 24 hours. Solar wind speed, as measured by the ACE spacecraft, reached a peak speed of 475 km/s at 23/1933Z, however ACE/SWEPAM data became suspect due to proton contamination from the 22 May M5 flare. Total IMF reached 8 nT at 23/1656Z. The maximum southward component of Bz reached -4 nT at 23/0949Z. Protons greater than 10 MeV at geosynchronous orbit reached a peak level of 1660 pfu at 23/0650Z. Protons greater than 100 MeV at geosynchronous orbit reached a peak level of 2 pfu at 22/2105Z and the event ended at 23/0745Z. Electrons greater than 2 MeV at geosynchronous orbit were also suspect due to proton contamination.

IIB. Geophysical Activity Forecast: The geomagnetic field is expected to be at quiet to minor storm levels on day one (24 May), quiet to active levels on day two (25 May) and quiet to unsettled levels on day three (26 May). Protons are expected to remain above threshold on day one (24 May), are likely to cross threshold on day two (25 May) and have a chance of crossing threshold on day three (26 May).

Some time on the afternoon of 21 May WebProp stopped updating. The first person to notice it (actually the only person to notice it) was Mirek, OK1DUB, who sent me an email.

This is a screenshot not a live instance of the program

I SFTP'd into the web server to check and sure enough the files containing the propagation information extracted from the WWV 3-hourly bulletins had not been updated. They were updated when I ran the script manually so my script was OK. The likely explanation was that cron, the Linux job scheduler, had stopped running. I filed a ticket with Hawk Host's support department.

They claimed that cron was still running, though the evidence of my own eyes showed that it wasn't. It took me a while to convince them that there really was a problem but we got there in the end. This morning when I logged on to my computer the latest propagation information was being displayed again. Hopefully my cron jobs will now stay running.

When I started this blog almost 4 years ago, I was getting a (very small) handful of page views every day and had no idea that anyone would find it at all interesting or useful. In fact, I don’t think anyone did at first. Then I started building a few things and found that some […]

This is the weekend for the CQ WPX CW Contest. For those that operate CW this is a great contest for getting new DX contacts! Read the rules.

CW: May 25-26, 2013

Starts: 0000 UTC Saturday
Ends: 2359 UTC Sunday

The post CQ WPX Contest – CW appeared first on Milford Amateur Radio Club.

Hi Folks,

I have will be posting the blog in two separate parts because of the overall size.  Part one will cover a short section on the setup of the Wray Scarecrow festival/GB4RN station along with the Vintage Vehicles on display and Part two will cover the station in more detail along with a host of other information about the event

Please note: Unless otherwise stated all images used in this blog were taken by me and may be used freely for non-profit making ventures with the exception of the Wray Festival Committee who may use them as they see fit to promote future events.


This review is a little late but I thought you might like to see what the group has been up to prior to some group members flying off to the Island of Samos.  We were invited for a return visit to the Wray Scarecrow Festival.  The village puts this festival on each year during April leading up to the big Mayday bank holiday weekend.

The Festival usually has a theme and this year it was on the written word "Read Me" Residents of Wray Village who run the event each year create scarecrows that can be found in various places around the village, anywhere from outside the houses up, lamp posts, in the grounds of the village schools.

Theres a library of pictures on the Wray website dating back to 2006 .  They are filed in year and include over 100 taken this year available on the link below

http://www.vrwray.com/wray-photos.html


With the exception of Saturday 4th May, the diary of events listed below are copied from the Wray website where you can find all sorts of information and pictures of the event.


For those of you who watched the recent prequel to the (Inspector Morse) series "Endeavour" a Mk1 Jaguar was used by the Chief Inspector

RIP my good friend.........
We will always remember you

The Matterhorn

After traveling on the Glacier Express yesterday, we went to Zermatt and up to the summit at Gornergrat, overlooking the Matterhorn. At the top of Gornergrat it was -4 deg C but felt warmer in the bright sunshine. Excellent views of the Matterhorn. I'll post some photos when I can download them from the camera - guess who forgot the micro-SD adaptor!

It was a nice night for DX.  I guess there are a lot of folks out there getting their stations ready for the CQ WPX contest this weekend.  They seem to be swinging their beams to and fro, checking out their Amps, and burning the dust off their finals.  Good times for a QRP DXer, good times!

I started off the evening with a brandy new one.  7X4AN, Mohammed in Algeria on 15 Meters  And with QRP, to boot!  So it was a deuce - new DXCC entity worked with QRP.  That was followed by another QSO on 15 Meters with KP2M down in the US Virgin Islands - and was he ever loud!  10 over 9 at least!

From there I went down to the 20 Meter QRP watering hole and called CQ. I was answered by Cliff W9ZI in Wisconsin.  Cliff and I chewed the fat for about 20 minutes until the band started changing and we cut things short before we both QSBed into oblivion.

That was followed by two quickie DX/Contest style QSOs, both on 20 Meters.  I am in the log of Zygi SP5ELA from Warsaw, Poland. Dziekuje, Zygi!  Then over to the Azores to get into CT8/OM7GJ's log.  He had to be 20 over 9 here in NJ.

Lastly, I went to 17 Meters and worked OM3SX. Mike in the Slovak Republic. Mike was about a 579 here and I received a 559 in return.

In addition to the WPX this weekend, don't forget that Saturday night, from 8:00 PM until Midnight - local time is QRP ARCI's annual Hoot Owl Sprint.  That's always a fun one.  There are bonus points given to anyone who operates portable.  I don't know if I am intrepid enough to venture out at 8:00 PM this Saturday evening.  I'll probably sit in the shack in order to just give out points, as usual.

Then come Monday evening, the MI QRP Club will be holding their annual Memorial Day Sprint from 2300 UTC to 0300 UTC..  That's always a fun event.  Two good QRP events to keep in mind this upcoming long holiday weekend.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

After I posted my picture of bicycle portable yesterday, my pal from Cheltenham, Simon, G4SGI asked if I'd seen his bicycle mobile video. I had seen it but I watched it again last night.

It's well filmed and I think inspiring! I'm sure some of you will enjoy it too. Quite apart from the well thought out mechanics of Simon's bicycle mobile station - I am very impressed about how he is able to speak clearly whilst travelling at a good speed!

Well done, Simon and thank you for the inspiration

by Joe K0NEB, editor of the monthly kitbuilding column in CQ:



72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

I have just spent what seems like several hours trying to find out why my weather station data sent by Cumulus to the APRS network vanishes without trace. I have tried using the wxnow.txt method of generating APRS weather objects in APRSISCE and that does work, but unfortunately it messes with the MYCALL setting in my Kenwood TM-D710 converse mode TNC. So I thought that I would avoid the problem by getting Cumulus to send the data to APRS-IS directly.

The data packets were being sent but they never showed up on aprs.fi. I produced debug logs for both Cumulus and APRSISCE. These showed the packets being sent. So where did they disappear to?

To cut a long story short, Cumulus was sending the data packet with a path of TCPXX*. This is listed as "deprecated" in the APRS spec but it is actually blocked by the APRS-IS network software. The CWOP (Citizens Weather Observer Program) which I believe runs on an older version of the software, is not so picky so no-one had encountered the problem before. Can you believe that I must be the first person to try sending weather data to the APRS network using the Cumulus software?

Recipe: Buy a box of TYT TH-F8′s Buy some stickers in China Order some carton boxes with the Icom brand name on them Sell them to unsuspecting customers Congratulations! You did it! More unbelievable scams here (scroll down the topic)

If you’re new to ham radio in the Mendocino area, there are several weekly VHF amateur radio networks that are worthwhile. Most (but not all) of the nets are held each Wednesday evening. There are local city-area nets followed by a county-wide linked-repeater net at 7:30PM. That’s followed by a county-wide simplex net, Walking Repeaters, […]

EI9KC (2nd from left) and Anthony

Very rare during the week do I have time to get on the radio once all the things around the house are done I am beat... BUT this evening was an off night were I was able to power up the K3. It was 30m were things seemed to be happening for me. I was able to "hear" lots but contact few, there was lots of South American stations calling CQ but my 5 watts just did not seem to make it down that way. I had a look at the P3 to see what stations were showing up and I came across a very weak signal. I was not able to make out the call but then as 30m does the call came in at S5 just right for me decipher the call. It was EI9KC from Ireland now for some reason I do have a very hard time with getting Ireland in the log. I took a chance and threw my 5 watts out there and EI9KC came back to me! Ark gave me a 559 report and considering the band conditions, my attic dipole and the 5 watts I was pumping out I was thrilled! The trouble at this end was he was in and out BIG TIME! It was a very short QSO but I did email him just to make sure Ark knew I did copy him and I wanted to make sure he got my call and did copy me. He emailed me right back and did confirm the contact and low and behold he is a blogger as well. You can check out EI9KC's blog here, Ireland has a special place in my heart as both my mom and dad are from there. Funny thing and small world I did a search on Google regarding EI9KC and I found out he knows a fellow blogger Anthony EI2KC   (first ham on the left of the pic above).

OK, by the time you read this, I guess this topic will be old news. The blogosphere and the Twitterverse have been abuzz with the news that “Heathkit is back!”

Channeling my inner Captain Picard, no one would like that "to be so", more than I. I loved Heathkit and cut my Novice teeth on building their kits. In addition to a ton of Amateur Radio gear, I also constructed various clocks, scanners and other pieces. My stereo system was just about entirely high-end Heathkit. The only parts that weren’t were the speakers and the turntable. And yes, knowing what the age of the average Ham is, I don’t want to see “What’s a turntable?” comments in the comments box! By the time Heathkit was coming to an end, I had qualified for, and was a member of their Master Builder’s Club. All told, I probably built about 25 or 30 pieces of Heathkit equipment for myself and for others.

But let’s not get all excited, running around at 100 MPH with our hair on fire. There’s a lot more to resurrecting the company other than an announcement on a Website and a new survey. This rumor has come up before, with a lot of anticipation and drooling, only to have our hopes dashed on the rocky shores of wishful thinking.

However,  I was always of the opinion that if Heathkit could have just held on until the age of the Internet – well ………..wow! Heathkit e-mail reflectors, Heathkit user groups, Heathkit forums. I know that these Internet groups exist in various iterations today; but not for an active Heathkit.  It would have been tremendous! (Elecraft squared?) If Heathkit does indeed make like a Phoenix and truly rises from the ashes this time, it will be in large part due to the Internet.


On the other hand, if Heathkit hadn’t demised ……. Whither Elecraft, Sierra, Hendrick’s QRP Kits, Steve Weber, Small Wonder Labs and the myriad other fine kit companies and club kits that are or were out there? Would the “Maker Movement” be doing as well today? Was Heathkit’s demise part of the catalyst for the birth of these companies and the Maker Movement? I am guessing, that in the end, it will prove to be a symbiotic relationship. The aforementioned companies might not have come to see the light of day had Heathkit not gone out of business. On the other hand, Heathkit may owe its reincarnation due to exactly the success of those companies, whose efforts have revitalized the kit business. The “Circle of Life”, as it were.

Whatever happens, if Heathkit does come back as a force, don’t expect that “what was” will necessarily "be".  Heathkit has a lot of credibility and good will in its name, but that only goes so far. Hams are a peculiar breed with outrageous expectations, at times. However Heathkit comes back (if it does at all), it will find the marketplace to be a totally different landscape from when they first left us. They will have to compete and will have to have a good business model. Relying solely on their name alone is not an option.

The good news, is that from the questions on the survey (which I completed yesterday), I think they realize that, to some degree.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Yesterday Olga and I set up a new weather station in the garden. It is a Nevada WH3080 SOLAR. It took a while for me to figure out how to put it together but I got there in the end with a bit of help from Olga (who took the radical step of reading the instructions!)

The sky is always blue in Cumbria!

We had a bit of trouble mounting the weather station in the garden. The manufacturer supplies two large hose clips (you can see them in the picture) which are not the ideal hardware for attaching a pole to another pole. But they did the job, if not very elegantly.

There were no problems receiving the weather station on the control panel sitting on the shack PC 10m away. This Nevada weather station transmits on 868MHz so no interference from or to 70cm amateur transmissions. No problems with the software either, not with EasyWeather nor with Cumulus which is what I will be using.

The software setup went so easily that I couldn't see how it was working. When I plugged the display console into a USB port the PC went "ding dong" to acknowledge a new USB device had been connected but I couldn't find the new device anywhere. I expected it would appear as a serial port in Device Manager but no new ports were added. I didn't have to specify a COM port in either program either. How the console talks to the weather software is a mystery. I'm not planning to write my own software to process the weather data but I'm still curious as to how the software gets the data.

Using the example web pages provided with Cumulus I set up a Cockermouth Weather page very easily. Cumulus creates a wxnow.txt file which APRSIS32 uses to generate an APRS weather object. However I have just noticed that Cumulus can send updates to the APRS network directly. That would be a simpler way of doing it, but that way the weather object would not get transmitted to the local APRS network. I've since discovered an issue when using APRSIS32 to generate a weather object via a converse mode TNC, but hopefully Lynn KJ4ERJ the author of APRSIS32 will come up with a fix for it.

A new batch of QSLs arrived from the bureau today. This is a selection of the most colourful ones.

I made it to the Dayton Hamvention this year, after a multi-year absence. Due to that four-letter word known as work, I was not able to arrive until really late Friday night. That left all day Saturday and the half day on Sunday to partake of the event.

I’ll start with the obligatory dig at Hara Arena, repeating my tweet:

Hara Arena continues to be everything that I wish it wasn’t.

Check out the posts by Jeff KE9V and Steve K9ZW about their impressions of Hamvention.

I spent some time helping out at the HamRadioSchool.com booth in the north hall. Wow, what a positive response we got from that effort. Stu W0STU’s Technician and General Class books have really hit their mark, finding a good balance between covering the material to pass the FCC exams while also helping students to really get it. We heard quite a few instructors stop by and say “This is what I have been looking for!” If you are teaching a ham radio licensing class, you need to check out the HamRadioSchool.com books….and the companion web site and iOS apps.

One of the high points of the weekend was discovering the poster-size front cover of Summer 2013 CQ VHF with my mountaintop photo on it.  Joyce K0JJW took a great shot of me operating from Mt Sneffels last August (Colorado 14er Event and SOTA), so it was an excellent complement to my article: “A Little Mountaintop Operation”.

So I leave Dayton, thinking about the highs and lows for the weekend. There was not much new that really caught my attention. (Disclaimer: I am sure I didn’t see everything there.) I am still looking for an FT-950 with 2 Meters, an Android HT and a D-STAR radio from Kenwood, Yaesu or even Alinco. Also, there is a real trend of vaporware instead of products. I’ve gotten really jaded about this. If a company can’t quote price and delivery, then it doesn’t exist in my world.

As K9ZW pointed out, much of the fun of Dayton is being with great people: some old friends (like my bud Denny KB9DPF) and some new ones, too.

How was your Hamvention?

73, Bob K0NR

For one reason or another, I'm a bit late starting my bicycle portable trips this year. For one thing, the weather hasn't been great. I went to get my bike out a couple of days ago and found that it had a (not so slow) puncture. Amazon came to the rescue with a new inner tube!

So it was today that I set out with a rucksack on my back containing the FT817 and a 50MHz whip (thanks again Ian, MW0IAN). I had a great ride along the banks of the Thames, around 13 miles in total. I stopped a couple of times to get the rig out and have a listen. Typically, the band was flat - just the GB3RAL and GB3BAA beacons audible - which I guess wasn't bad going with a whip, down at river level.

And even if there was no propagation, I love being by the river....

The summer highlight RadioSport event is about to transform the ionosphere and test the metal of high frequency operators this weekend yet not a word at the blog nor tweet in the #hamr flow. I do not want to speculate neither state directly my thoughts however am I missing something? After all, CQ Magazine's summer signature event recently changed leadership, as Randy, K5ZD was promoted into the CQ World Wide DX chair.

I'm curious why the silence especially given past interaction either at the blog or Facebook generated tweets?

The standard of interaction was set and it created a sense of excitement especially for those of us who connected during WPX SSB weekend. Our tweets were seen world wide as we road the storm into Saturday afternoon when reports suggested rapidly changing conditions while lifting everyone's morale. We certainly enjoyed every minute thereafter until the finish clock signalled zero hour on Sunday late afternoon.

In the meantime, I'm listening to Imagine Dragon's "Radioactive" as my theme song heading into CQ Magazine's signature summer event, wondering if I'll detect any transmission from the 'new' leadership at CQ WPX?

73 from the shackadelic near the beach.

Summer arrived with a vengeance in Central New Jersey. Temperatures in the 80s (29C) with the higher humidity and stickiness that accompanies it. But it made for a great opportunity to head out to the park for some QRPing during lunch break. Besides the warmth, the skies were sunny and clear, with just a few white puffy clouds floating by.

Wanting to set up the fastest today in order to get the maximum operating time, I decided to go with the Buddistick on the magmount on top of the Jeep.  From the time I put the Jeep in park and turn off the ignition, I can be on the air in well under five minutes. Today was no exception.  The Buddistick is exceptionally easy to set up when using the top of the Jeep as a ground plane.  It goes together as magmount, two 11 inch arms, coil, and whip.  The whip gets extended all the way and the one coil setting works well for both 20 and 17 Meters.  The KX3's autotuner gets a 1:1 match without breaking a sweat.

First up was Pertti OG2W in Finland on 17 Meters.  He was by far the loudest signal on the band and was a relatively easy catch even with 5 Watts.  From there, I went on over to 20 Meters and called CQ near the 14.060 MHz QRP watering hole.  To my delight, I was answered by fellow blogger, Greg N4KGL.  Greg was also using a KX3, but had his going to an Alex Loop.  Greg lives down in Panama City, Florida and started out at 559.  There was some QSB and at times the APF function on the KX3 was a big help.  Towards the end of our QSO, Greg was approaching 579. He was on lunch break also, and had to get going just as I did.

But as we all know, QRPing in the great outdoors can really be addicting, so I hopped on back over to 17 Meters for one last, quick listen.  Before I tore the station down and headed back to work, I was able snag Bob WP2XX down in the US Virgin Islands.

Three lunchtime QSOs - two DX contacts and a rag chew really made my day.  An added bonus was watching the RC Model airplane pilots doing their thing while I operated.  These guys are really good and I was treated to barrel rolls, Immelmans and vertical climbs as I worked the world with my radio.

I think tomorrow is supposed to have more of the same weather.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

A few of us have dabbled in the UKAC series run by the RSGB this year. Andrew, G4VFL leads the pack both in terms of experience and points. But a few others have dipped their toes in what is a very relaxed evening series. So far the club is holding its own at 28th place out of a little over 90 entrants. the full tables are here and show how far we’ve come in a few short months. Most of the points come from portable operations with the Corney fell site looking like the most accessible and profitable in terms of points.

Hopefully as the weather gets better IO84 will get busier and the contest bug will bite as well as increasing local activity on the vhf bands outside of the contests

is a microcosm of Amateur Radio in general. There are niches within the niche. QRP means different things to different people. In my estimation, (and I’m sure I’m way off base and nowhere near complete) the major categories are:

Competitors. Just like their QRO brethren, these guys exist solely for the contests and/or DX. You see their calls in the contest score tallies of CQ, QST and even QQ. Otherwise, with a few exceptions, you never seem to work these guys for a ragchew, or ever hear from them on the QRP e-mail reflectors. Some have the big towers with the yagis and they spend every last ounce of effort and money squeezing the very last iota of capability out of their equipment and themselves. These folks are very hard core.

Organizers. Folks like Paul NA5N, Rem K6BBQ, Rich KI6SN, Marshall N1FN, Jerry N9AW, Dale WC7S, among others. These guys come up with neat and fun concepts for events that we all have fun in ….. like the ARS Spartan Sprints, the Run For the Bacon, the NAQCC Sprints, QRP To The Field, the QRP Fox Hunts, Freeze Your Butt Off, Flight Of the Bumblebees, Sweat Your Butt Off, the Zombie Shuffle, etc, etc, etc. And of course, QRP-ARCI who organizes so many fun events like the Spring and Fall QSO Parties, the Hoot Owl Sprint, and so many more.

Builders and Tinkerers. These are the true homebrewers. Designers like Steve KD1JV, Mike AA1TJ or Jason NT7S, Rev Dobbs G3RJV, Doug W1FB (SK), Hans G0UPL, who seemingly can come up with great and ingenious designs (effortlessly) while brushing their teeth in the morning; and then share with the rest of us. Some guys are like Dave AA7EE or Tony W2GUM (SK). These guys build, and while they may not necessarily build their own designs all the time, their construction projects are things of beauty. Then there are guys like Dale WC7S and Don W3FPR who seem to eternally cruise the e-mail reflectors, always on the lookout to answer the questions of befuddled troubleshooters (like me!), or to perhaps assist someone with the building or finishing of their kits.

Entrepreneurs. On a commercial level, we are so lucky to have guys like Eric WA6HHQ, Wayne N6KR, Doug KI6DS, Diz W8DIZ, Rex W1REX and Dave K1SWL, Bill N8ET (who recently had a stroke, but was at Dayton this year, from what I understand) and others who have come up with companies that keep us in a never ending supply of QRP goodies.

Antenna experts. These people spend their time designing, homebrewing, or just tinkering with …..antennas. There is probably a little bit of this category in each of us – but these guys …… well, this is their “thing”. Several call signs that I can think off the top of my head that fit into this category – Steve AA5TB, Bud W3FF, Dale W4OP, Bill WA8MEA, L.B. Cebik W4RNL (SK), Alex PY1AHD, among others.

Experimenters. These guys think out of the box, and come up with new ideas for new things, or perhaps lead the way making use of new technologies, modes, etc. or perhaps they write software for QRPers. They’re a lot like the builders and designers in one sense, yet different in another. In this group I would put people like George N2APB, Joe N2CX, Joe K1JT, Julian G4ILO and so many others.

Outdoorsmen. Steve WG0AT, Guy N7UN, Jim W1PID, Martin VA3SIE, Bud W3FF, Ed WA3WSJ, Rem K6BBQ, Dennis K1YPP and all the SOTA folks. These are the folks who exist for taking their equipment outdoors and seeing how far they push themselves and their equipment. These are the guys we sit around and ask for “just one more story”. These are the guys we love to watch on YouTube or read of their exploits on their blogs.

Teachers. These folks are great examples for all the rest of us, they are particularly concerned with passing on the hobby and its tradition to the future generations. All the folks listed above are teachers, but the guys that (in my mind) especially fit this category are the guys who like to “spread the word”. Those who come especially to mind are John K3WWP and Dan KB6NU and Rich W2VU, Joe K0NEB, Cam N6GA, among others.

The rest of us – The “Ham and Eggers”, if you will, or if you read the comic strips in the newspapers, perhaps the “Pluggers”. We’re the day-to-day guys on the bands, the ones who do it all, the guys who do the rag chewing, the guys who work some DX when we get the opportunity, the guys who complain and moan on the e-mail reflectors, the guys who hunt the Foxes, the guys who buy, build and sell all that QRP stuff out there. The rank and file, the great huddled masses who go about their lives, probably unrecognized for the most part, but for without whom, there would be no QRP. Hopefully, because of efforts of the people named in the above categories (and there are so many more that I haven’t included due to advanced Senior-itis) there’s a bit of each of those categories in all of us.  Perhaps you find yourself fitting into multiple categories.

A note to my readers – the names and calls mentioned above are mainly North American QRPers. This is because these are the names and calls that I am most familiar with. Personally, I know my knowledge is sadly lacking and that there is a treasure trove of QRPers out there, throughout the whole world who deserve to be added to the list of names I mentioned above. I wish I knew more about them. If you have some names that stand out in your minds, please add them to the comments section. Or even better, I’d love to hear about them and their accomplishments, and perhaps even run future blog posts about them (I sense a new series developing here ….. “Profiles in QRP”) – Polish QRPers, Russian QRPers, Thai QRPers, Italian QRPers, Aussie QRPers, Brazilian QRPers, QRPers from around the world. Send me an e-mail!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

11 years after my last qso with VK on 6m band (2002 ) yesterday morning magic band gave us the opportunity to work again VK.
Stations from Europe (mostly southern) worked the VK8 aerea in an opening from 10z to 11:30z
The signals here in my qth were weak and with a lot of qsb but the qso's done
VK8MS and VK8AW in the log !!
What a great surprise!
I wish the propagation will continue like this with more DX and new ones on 6m band for us
Best 73
de SV2DCD Leonidas

As I am currently in Switzerland on a Great Rail Journeys rail holiday (without amateur gear), posts this week will be infrequent. Having a good time though combining rail travel with excellent scenery.  Currently based in Chur for 3 nights and travelling to Arosa by train today. Later this week we travel on the Glacier Express narrow gauge line across the country towards the Zermatt area.

My blog on the holiday (adding to it each day) is at http://hb9trip.blogspot.co.uk/

I found this interesting:



And this is  from the InfoAge Webpage concerning the project:

"In late 1945, in the lull that followed the Japanese surrender, a number of scientists at Fort Monmouth's Camp Evans began working on a way to pierce the earth's ionosphere with radio waves, a feat that had been tried just before the war without success and which many thought impossible.

Project Diana, named for the goddess of the moon, was designed to prove that it could be done. Begun on an almost unofficial level by Evans radar scientists awaiting their Army discharge, the project was headed by Lt. Col. John DeWitt. Operating with only a handful of full-time researchers, the project scientists greatly modified a SCR-271 bedspring radar antenna, set it up in the northeast corner of Camp Evans, jacked up the power, and aimed it at the rising moon on the morning of January 10, 1946. A series of radar signals were broadcast, and in each case, the echo was picked up in exactly 2.5 seconds, the time it takes light to travel to the moon and back.

The importance of Project Diana cannot be overestimated. The discovery that the ionosphere could be pierced, and that communication was possible between earth and the universe beyond, opened the possibility of space exploration that previously had been only a dream in adventure films and comic books. Just as Hiroshima opened the nuclear age in 1945, Project Diana opened the space age in January of 1946. It would take another decade before the first satellites were launched into space, soon followed by manned rockets, but Diana paved the way for all those achievements.

It even initiated the tradition of naming such projects after ancient Greek and Roman gods, like Mercury and Apollo. For Fort Monmouth Project Diana was a pivotal event that built on World War II expertise, but pointed the way to the future."

Somehow, I have got to fit this location into either an upcoming QRPTTF or perhaps a cool theme for the 2014 Skeeter Hunt ...............

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very east!