Since getting licensed just under four years ago, I haven't really been that active. It's easy to blame the fact that I got licensed just before the bottom of the sunspot cycle, but that's really no excuse, I've just had other priorities.
Anyway, back in March 2008, my brother Laurie, VK4VCC, and I took part in the CQ WPX SSB contest. That added a hell of a lot of new countries to my log, I think we added about 97 contacts that weekend. I sent out a heap of QSL cards through the buro after that and confirmed a few through eQSL. Then last year my laptop crashed on me and I lost not only my entire log, but about 4500 photographs, 1400 of which were from our European holiday.
Just lately I've had a bit of time on my hands. I only work 5 till 8 in the mornings and my university studies don't start again till the middle of February, so I've been spending a bit of time on the radio again. With conditions improving I'm picking up at least one DX station a day, so my log is starting to grow again. I even tried Bob E32BJ on CW the other day, as I've been learning the code through the excellent Learn CW Online website.
I'm progressing pretty well with learning the code, so I thought I might try the CQ WPX CW contest in May. Then I had brain wave. What do they do with the old logs that are sent in for previous contests?
A quick e-mail to the organisers yesterday morning, and by the afternoon I had a reply from Randy K5ZD with my log attached, thanks Randy.
OK, it's not my entire log, but most of it is there. Now to transfer it all over and to make sure I always back it up.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Learning CW
I've been meaning to learn CW for ages now, but never quite got around to it. I downloaded Ray's excellent G4FON Koch trainer a while ago, but university studies got in the way and the laptop I had it on died late last year anyway.
Well I have a break between semesters at the moment, but Ray's program doesn't work on my Linux EeePC, actually not much that I've downloaded to it does work, including the stuff from the Asus website.
Well, a few people have blogged recently about Learn CW Online, so I thought I'd check it out. I'm really glad I did. The beauty of it is, you can use it anywhere, on any computer, since you don't have to download anything. And it's so easy to use, all you do is run the lesson, type in what letter you thing is playing and then analyze it to see how you went. You can check your statistics to see if you're improving, or not. Usually, if I've got a bit of time to kill or I need a break from studying, I'll play a couple of games of Solitare or Soduko on the laptop. With the graph on LCWO I can treat that as a game instead, so it makes it more interesting.
If you've been thinking of learning the code and haven't got around to it yet, check it out.
73 de VK4VSP
Well I have a break between semesters at the moment, but Ray's program doesn't work on my Linux EeePC, actually not much that I've downloaded to it does work, including the stuff from the Asus website.
Well, a few people have blogged recently about Learn CW Online, so I thought I'd check it out. I'm really glad I did. The beauty of it is, you can use it anywhere, on any computer, since you don't have to download anything. And it's so easy to use, all you do is run the lesson, type in what letter you thing is playing and then analyze it to see how you went. You can check your statistics to see if you're improving, or not. Usually, if I've got a bit of time to kill or I need a break from studying, I'll play a couple of games of Solitare or Soduko on the laptop. With the graph on LCWO I can treat that as a game instead, so it makes it more interesting.
If you've been thinking of learning the code and haven't got around to it yet, check it out.
73 de VK4VSP
Thursday, February 26, 2009
We won
Well, sort of.
My brother Laurie, VK4VCC, and I teamed up last year for the CQ WPX SSB contest. We weren't really trying all that hard, in fact we even found time to go shopping, have a barbecue and feed all the animals in between contacts. We did get quite a few new countries into my logbook though. More about that logbook in another entry to come.
Anyway, a large white envelope turned up in my mail yesterday. It was addressed to VK4VSP, so I didn't open it straight away, thinking it was my licence renewal. When I did get around to looking at it, I realised it was to do with the contest.
I joked to my wife that they way the certificate is worded makes it look like we'd won. Reading it properly it does actually mean that we've won the multi-single category for VK4, which is the state of Queensland. Now that might seem to some like quite an achievement, but I have to be honest and tell you, we were the only multi-single station in Queensland. For some reason it doesn't seem to be as popular a category as the others.
I'm not sure if I'll compete this year as I'm probably going to be too busy with work and study. If I do, I might try a more minimalist category this time, maybe QRP on one band. First I have to find a decent contest program that'll work on my little Asus EeePC running Xandros.
73 de VK4VSP
My brother Laurie, VK4VCC, and I teamed up last year for the CQ WPX SSB contest. We weren't really trying all that hard, in fact we even found time to go shopping, have a barbecue and feed all the animals in between contacts. We did get quite a few new countries into my logbook though. More about that logbook in another entry to come.
Anyway, a large white envelope turned up in my mail yesterday. It was addressed to VK4VSP, so I didn't open it straight away, thinking it was my licence renewal. When I did get around to looking at it, I realised it was to do with the contest.
I joked to my wife that they way the certificate is worded makes it look like we'd won. Reading it properly it does actually mean that we've won the multi-single category for VK4, which is the state of Queensland. Now that might seem to some like quite an achievement, but I have to be honest and tell you, we were the only multi-single station in Queensland. For some reason it doesn't seem to be as popular a category as the others.
I'm not sure if I'll compete this year as I'm probably going to be too busy with work and study. If I do, I might try a more minimalist category this time, maybe QRP on one band. First I have to find a decent contest program that'll work on my little Asus EeePC running Xandros.
73 de VK4VSP
Monday, December 8, 2008
Eyeball QSO
I had an interesting eyeball QSO yesterday.
It was interesting not because of the topic, but where I was at the time. I was half way up a tree in a complete strangers front yard while they were out at a Christmas party. The QSO was with their next door neighbour.
No it wasn't anything naughty. As wildlife carers my wife Donna and I had got a call to go and pick up a baby bird. It had fallen out of the nest at the caller's house. They'd made a makeshift nest for it and put it back up in the tree, a big jacaranda, but the parents hadn't come back to feed it so it needed to go into care before it starved.
There were a lot of ants on the tree, so while Donna was getting some gloves for me and I was planning my climb I noticed a wire in the neighbour's yard going from the fence to a mast. On top of the mast was a rotator and a couple of antennas. Hmmm, thought I, the neighbour must be a felow ham. I could see him over the fence on the other side of his yard and I knew that as soon as I went up the tree, he was going to see me.
Sure enough, he wandered over to say hello, I told him what I was up to and to prove it removed the yellow ice-cream container from the other side of the tree where it was obscured from his view. I then asked if thy were Ham radio antennas I could see. From there it was an exchange of callsigns and what equipment we had. He explained that he wasn't very active as his main interest was astronomy, I explained that I wasn't very active as I'm usually too busy with the animals.
I could have sat there, up in the tree, and talked all day except for the ants and the fact we had five more birds of various species in the car and it was about 32 degrees celcius (90F) at the time.
I just wish I'd written down his name and callsign before I forgot it.
73 de VK4VSP
It was interesting not because of the topic, but where I was at the time. I was half way up a tree in a complete strangers front yard while they were out at a Christmas party. The QSO was with their next door neighbour.
No it wasn't anything naughty. As wildlife carers my wife Donna and I had got a call to go and pick up a baby bird. It had fallen out of the nest at the caller's house. They'd made a makeshift nest for it and put it back up in the tree, a big jacaranda, but the parents hadn't come back to feed it so it needed to go into care before it starved.
There were a lot of ants on the tree, so while Donna was getting some gloves for me and I was planning my climb I noticed a wire in the neighbour's yard going from the fence to a mast. On top of the mast was a rotator and a couple of antennas. Hmmm, thought I, the neighbour must be a felow ham. I could see him over the fence on the other side of his yard and I knew that as soon as I went up the tree, he was going to see me.
Sure enough, he wandered over to say hello, I told him what I was up to and to prove it removed the yellow ice-cream container from the other side of the tree where it was obscured from his view. I then asked if thy were Ham radio antennas I could see. From there it was an exchange of callsigns and what equipment we had. He explained that he wasn't very active as his main interest was astronomy, I explained that I wasn't very active as I'm usually too busy with the animals.
I could have sat there, up in the tree, and talked all day except for the ants and the fact we had five more birds of various species in the car and it was about 32 degrees celcius (90F) at the time.
I just wish I'd written down his name and callsign before I forgot it.
73 de VK4VSP
Friday, September 26, 2008
Solar powered operation
I've come to the conclusion that the Icom IC-706 MKIIG isn't a good radio for operation in the field unless you have a decent size solar panel.
I've just spent the last couple of weeks away from home in Armidale, about six hours drive south of here on the New England Tablelands. I was down there for a couple of residential schools at the University of New England where I'm doing a BSc in zoology and had about five days to kill in between chemistry and vertebrate zoology.
My brother Laurie, VK4VCC asked if I wanted to borrow his 706 to use down there. I had been thinking of taking my IC-730 down, but liked the idea of trying out the little 706.
The entire station fitted into a smallish cardboard box. There was the radio, an MP1 antenna, a VSWR meter, coax, an antenna analyser for tuning purposes and a 7.2AH battery.
So on one of my free days I set everything up in the cabin I was staying in and turned the radio on. That's my cabin at the far end.
Now the battery wasn't fully charged, but it hadn't been used much, but within about five minutes of tuning around and just listening the radio started to shut down as the battery voltage was getting too low.
I turned on my laptop and downloaded the manual for the radio and was amazed to find it pulls 1.5A on receive. I'm not sure what current my 730 draws, it doesn't say in the manual, but I'm going to find out.
I might start looking for an FT-817 for when I go away, that or a big solar panel.
I've just spent the last couple of weeks away from home in Armidale, about six hours drive south of here on the New England Tablelands. I was down there for a couple of residential schools at the University of New England where I'm doing a BSc in zoology and had about five days to kill in between chemistry and vertebrate zoology.
My brother Laurie, VK4VCC asked if I wanted to borrow his 706 to use down there. I had been thinking of taking my IC-730 down, but liked the idea of trying out the little 706.
The entire station fitted into a smallish cardboard box. There was the radio, an MP1 antenna, a VSWR meter, coax, an antenna analyser for tuning purposes and a 7.2AH battery.
So on one of my free days I set everything up in the cabin I was staying in and turned the radio on. That's my cabin at the far end.
Now the battery wasn't fully charged, but it hadn't been used much, but within about five minutes of tuning around and just listening the radio started to shut down as the battery voltage was getting too low.
I turned on my laptop and downloaded the manual for the radio and was amazed to find it pulls 1.5A on receive. I'm not sure what current my 730 draws, it doesn't say in the manual, but I'm going to find out.
I might start looking for an FT-817 for when I go away, that or a big solar panel.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
IOTA
Although we had plans for Sunday morning, I was going to put in a bit of time in the afternoon (VK4 local time) on the IOTA contest.
I like the idea of IOTA, it tends toward more unusual activations in remote areas. That's something I believe that keeps amateur radio relevant in this day and age. The IOTA contest is also a good opportunity to pick up a few new ones.
As it turned out I never even got around to turning the radio on.
We had our annual general meeting in the morning for the wildlife rescue organisation my wife, Donna, and I are involved with. During the meeting one of the members who is involved with a pelican and seabird rescue organisation got a call to a sick pelican. Needless to say, when the opportunity came up for Donna and I to assist, they didn't have to ask us twice.
So we spent that afternoon catching and assessing, not one pelican, but three. Two of them were released after being treated and the third was taken to Australia Zoo's wildlife hospital for further treatment.
Well, after that I forgot all about the IOTA contest until just before closing time.
Maybe next year.
73 de VK4VSP
I like the idea of IOTA, it tends toward more unusual activations in remote areas. That's something I believe that keeps amateur radio relevant in this day and age. The IOTA contest is also a good opportunity to pick up a few new ones.
As it turned out I never even got around to turning the radio on.
We had our annual general meeting in the morning for the wildlife rescue organisation my wife, Donna, and I are involved with. During the meeting one of the members who is involved with a pelican and seabird rescue organisation got a call to a sick pelican. Needless to say, when the opportunity came up for Donna and I to assist, they didn't have to ask us twice.
So we spent that afternoon catching and assessing, not one pelican, but three. Two of them were released after being treated and the third was taken to Australia Zoo's wildlife hospital for further treatment.
Well, after that I forgot all about the IOTA contest until just before closing time.
Maybe next year.
73 de VK4VSP
Monday, July 7, 2008
IARU contest
The IARU contest is on this coming weekend.
I was going to compete together with my brother Laurie, VK4VCC, at his new QTH. Unfortunately, his QTH isn't finished yet because the builders can't seem to get their act together.
I do have Laurie's FT-950 here that we used in the CQ WPX SSB contest back in March, but I'm doing a first aid course all weekend. If I do get on, it'll be in the evenings and I certainly won't be competing seriously.
Good luck to those of you that are competing this weekend.
73 de VK4VSP
I was going to compete together with my brother Laurie, VK4VCC, at his new QTH. Unfortunately, his QTH isn't finished yet because the builders can't seem to get their act together.
I do have Laurie's FT-950 here that we used in the CQ WPX SSB contest back in March, but I'm doing a first aid course all weekend. If I do get on, it'll be in the evenings and I certainly won't be competing seriously.
Good luck to those of you that are competing this weekend.
73 de VK4VSP
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