KØNR: Radio Enthusiast

Usually I don’t focus on the ARRL 10 Meter contest, especially when the solar activity has been so low. However, band conditions have really picked up and 10 Meters is alive and kicking. We have quite a few new Technicians that are discovering the wonder of worldwide HF propagation with even a modest station.

I decided to operate from our cabin up in the mountains. I haven’t been happy with the performance of my trap dipole on 10 Meters, so I wanted to try something different. I pulled a twinlead J-pole antenna out of the basement and strung it up in a tall pine tree. This basically gave me a 1/2-wave vertical on 10 Meters and I was pleased with the performance.

I had a great time with the 10 Meter contest, operating for part of Saturday and Sunday.

You’ve got to like a contest that has:
- Only one band, so no fretting about which bands to focus on
- CW or SSB, take your pick or do both
- Lots of DX
- Work anybody anywhere
- You can sleep at night and not miss anything

I mostly searched and pounced around but did manage a few runs with my mighty wire antenna. Not being a real CW operator, I did decide that I would push myself to make 10 CW contacts. Most of those guys are going way too fast for me, but I got it done.

ARRL10M Score Summary Sheet

Start Date : 2011-12-10

    Band Mode QSOs Pts Cty
      28 CW    10   40   8
      28 USB  254  508  72
 Total        264  548  80

Score : 43,840

73, Bob K0NR

There’s lots of information spewing forth from the interwebznet. Here are a few items of interest.

The amateur radio community is buzzing with excitement from the excellent propagation on the HF bands during the CQ Worldwide DX Contest last weekend. For example, see the radio-sport.net post or my post.

One of our local Boy Scouts passed his Technician exam on the Saturday before the contest, showed up in the FCC database on Friday and was working DX on 10 Meters on Saturday. He managed to snag some good ones, including Australia.

The ARRL is reporting that Logbook of the World is having trouble keeping up with the influx of radio logs. Although it would be nice if they could put a little more compute horsepower on the system, I think it is great that LoTW is seeing this kind of volume.

The Interstate Highway Rest Area Society is making a pitch to encourage hams to monitor 146.52 MHz when mobile.  I usually try to do this and every once in a while I will stumble onto a great QSO that way. This group is also promoting ham radio activation of highway rest areas. Yes, really, it is not a hoax.

73, Bob K0NR

I had previously admitted to being an HF slacker…that is, I only really enjoy the high frequency bands when the DX is loud and plentiful on 15 and 10 Meters. For almost a half decade, I’ve listened to the True HF Enthusiasts say things like “move to the lower bands when the solar activity is weak.” Fortunately, things are starting to change.

This weekend was the CQ Worldwide DX Contest (SSB) and the propagation was outstanding on the higher bands. I heard some people say that 10 Meters was never this good before but I suspect their memories may be faulty. But make no mistake, conditions were really awesome. Here’s a report from radio-sport.net.

I was up at our cabin in the mountains, running the FT-950′s 100 watts into a trap dipole at about 30 feet. Clearly, this is not your Big Gun Station but I was able to make 177 contacts, operating most of Saturday and a few hours on Sunday. Mostly, I was just chasing DX and trying to pick up a few new countries. I have to admit that my memory had a little rust problem concerning international call sign prefixes (where is C5A anyway?) but the N1MM software helped me out.

In the end, I did contact a dozen or so new countries, ranging from Mongolia to Croatia. I sure hope these guys upload their logs to Logbook of the World. I really don’t want to be chasing down those QSL cards manually. As I said, I am an HF Slacker.

73, Bob K0NR

I had a great time working the Colorado QSO Party ham radio contest on Saturday.  This is your typical state QSO party where the rules favor working Colorado stations with an emphasis on activating Colorado counties.

I operated from our cabin located in the somewhat rare Park County, using my new FT-950. I am still getting used to the radio as it has more buttons and knobs than any other rig I have owned. I can tell that I am learning the radio as I was able to take more advantage of the contesting features.

Recently, I picked up a Heil Pro Set headset with the HC-4 mic element. I noticed that the serious contesters gravitate towards using a headset, logging computer and foot switch. This sets you up for a very focused operating setup with your hands on the keyboard and your foot pushing the transmit button. I was very pleased with how this worked out. I used N1MM software for logging and the antenna was a trap dipole in the trees.

I operated exclusively on phone as I don’t consider my CW skills up to the task of an HF contest. Maybe someday I’ll give that a try. Most of the time was spent on 20 Meters which produced contacts across North America. 40M was great for working stations around Colorado and picking up different counties.

Here’s my score:

 Band    QSOs    Pts  Sec   Mul
      7   81     162   30    1
     14  197     388   34    0
     21    8      26    2    0
    144    2       4    1    0
    420    2       4    1    0
  Total  290     584   68    1
Score: 40,296

Thanks to the Pikes Peak Radio Amateur Association for sponsoring this event.

73, Bob K0NR

My wife and I have a cabin up in the mountains that we use as a getaway as often as possible. Oddly enough, this place is a pretty good location for radio propagation. It sits at 9600 feet in elevation with low electrical noise and a decent radio horizon in most directions.

I’ve been putting up temporary antennas at the cabin for VHF contests, Field Day and the occasional HF contest. I am slowly building the ham station, with high expectations but slow progress. I wanted to get an HF rig to put in the Cabin Shack. Actually, I started out thinking I needed a DC-to-daylight rig so that I could cover all bands in one radio. I had my eye on the new ICOM IC-9100 that was announced back in 2009. I patiently waited for well over a year for this radio to become more than vaporware and they start to show up in the US in early 2011. Unfortunately, the street price turned out to be $3700, which seemed a bit too high to me.

This sent me back to rethinking the whole approach. I have to admit that I had not shopped for an HF rig since I bought my Yaesu FT-847 back in the 1990s. The 847 has been my all-time favorite transceiver based on how the controls are set up and the coverage of HF plus 6M, 2M and 70 cm. My only beef with this rig is that the receiver can get overloaded during heavy band usage (like popular HF contests and Field Day).  I started thinking about getting an HF + 6 Meter rig to complement the FT-847, which would give me two radios during contests. In particular, for VHF contests, I’d leave the new rig on 6 Meters all of the time and jump around 2 Meters and 70 cm with the FT-847. I also wanted the new HF rig to be very solid on HF and include some of the advanced features for DXing and contesting.

Soon I was looking at all of the radios that cover HF through 50 MHz. That’s when I really got sticker shock — the FT-DX9000D costs over $10k, the IC-7800 costs $12.5k, the IC-7700 is $7200, and so forth. All of these radios look like fine gear but I was unwilling to invest that much in a transceiver for the cabin. I quickly redirected my radio hunt to something below $2500, looking at the IC-7410 ($1900), FT-950 ($1350) and TS-2000 ($1575). In the end, I chose the FT-950 due to its price advantage and the ability to share accessories (microphones, mostly) with my FT-847.

I got the radio just in time for Field Day, where I gave it a good work out on 14 MHz, 21 MHz and 50 MHz. Wow, did it work great! The receiver performed very well even when the band was packed. In the heat of the battle, I pushed a wrong button or two and sent the rig off to some new and wonderful frequency. Yes, I did take the time to read the manual but I’ll have to spend some more time with it. This thing has enough features that it will take some time to master it.

-73, Bob K0NR