My First QRP Contact

The video in my previous post inspired me to try again with my FT-817. I've had the radio for a few months but had not made any contacts on it. I had a few free minutes after dinner tonight, so I attached the Miracle Whip to it and carried it outside. I called CQ a little bit on 28.385 but got nothing. I tuned up a little to 28.430 and heard someone calling CQ, but could only make out the end of their call, 4MAX. I figured I was hearing someone on the east coast, so I responded with my call, not expecting much. To my surprise, I got a response. He said I was weak, but barely readable. He blamed the problem on some local rain and then identified that he was VK4MAX in Queensland. No wonder I was weak! 8,300 miles on 5w! With a tiny antenna!

Needless to say, I am pleased. I was starting to think that I just wasn't cut out for QRP, so this came at a good time. Even better, it was my first Australian contact. A QSL card is going out for sure.

A Transatlantic Contact on Only Half of a Watt!

Wow! It's amazing what low power can do under the right circumstances.

World's Best Hobby

I found World's Best Hobby buried in a forum posting about something else. This is an in-progress on line book about ham radio by Dave Bell, W6AQ. Dave Bell is a longtime ham who used to make documentaries.

SWOT

When I got my HF radio, I specifically looked for one that would also do 2m SSB because I had heard about the Side Winders on Two radio club and thought that sounded like fun. I still haven't gotten a suitable antenna, but at last Monday's DCARA meeting, Bob Landrum, W5FKN, suggested I should use my 2m vertical and check in anyway. Last night I did so and I successfully checked into my first SWOT net. In case you don't already know, running a vertically polarized signal against a horizontally polarized one results in approximately a 20db(!) reduction in signal.

The exciting part is that not only could I hear Bob, who is 30 miles from me, I could hear, to varying degrees, several of the other stations, some of which were over 200 miles out. In some cases, I could only tell that someone was there and couldn't really make them out, but, I was receiving a 2m signal from over 200 miles away! Considering this is when using an incorrectly polarized antenna located in a poor position on my house, I'm quite pleased. I could hear Bob no matter which way his beam was pointed and he was making contacts all the way up into Missouri and down to Galveston, TX. I need to redouble my efforts to get an appropriate antenna for 2m SSB.

How Not to Work a Pileup

A few nights ago the solar report seemed favorable for 20m, so I dragged out the Buddistick and the FT-857 and got on the air. I could hear little more than noise and a few weak rag chews. I had been hoping to make a few random contacts. DX is always good, but I would have been happy with a few domestic contacts. I finally did make a contact with a friendly operator in Tennessee and then moved on looking for something else. At about 20:00 CDT, I heard a station near San Francisco finishing up a QSO with someone who he was obviously acquainted with. I listened and waited for the other station to sign off and got ready to call to the SFO station.

It turns out I wasn't the only one with such plans. As soon as his first contact was done, several stations called him. He stated his surprise that so many stations were interested in working a California station, but he observed that the bands were dead, so obviously people were working what they could. He started working through the pileup. I sat back and listened, trying to figure out the best way to call.

As I listened to him, it became evident to me that some things work better than others when working a pileup. First, if you want to work your way through the pileup, you can't spend much time on each station. Exchange call signs and signal reports, maybe make a quick comment about your equipment, then move on. In this station's defense, he did not get on the air looking for a pileup. Still, he did decide to work it and I remained hopeful for another logbook entry for a bit, but eventually gave up.

The biggest problem with his style was that he was allowing the calling station to make the final transmission in the QSO. Since I could not hear the other side of most of the QSOs, I could never figure out when to call. I listened for a while, hoping that I would eventually get an opportunity, but as long as he was allowing the calling stations to make the final, he was never really in control and eventually I decided that getting some sleep was more important than another bay area contact.

I have only had my general license for a couple of months now, so I am certainly no expert or authority on working HF, but I have already noticed that some operators can plow through a huge pileup in a short amount of time, while others seem to struggle. A while back I came across the DX Code of Conduct, but that seems to be from the point of view of the calling stations. Perhaps there is something similar for the operator working the pileup. The basic rules for making contacts are pretty similar to the basic rules of almost anything else. If you condense it down to the basics, it's simply be clear, concise and polite. If you're the station in the middle of the pile up, I'll add stay in control.

Amateur Radio Logging Software for Linux

I use Linux almost exclusively, so I was interested in finding some logging software that works on Linux. I have found CQRLOG and I think I'm going to stick with it. In addition to logging, it supports XML integration with QRZ.com, shows the current contact's location on a world map and can control your rig, in addition to other features.

The developer behind CQRLOG doesn't agree with the subscription rules recently put in place on QRZ.com, so he has made his own similar site called HamQTH.com. Presumably CQRLOG will work with this site as well.

State QSO Parties

I'm still new enough into HF that I haven't yet learned when various HF events are happening. This year, Field Day happened a month after I got my license, but I was aware that it was coming up. Since I started out June without an HF radio, I wasn't expecting to work Field Day, but I managed to get myself a Yaesu FT-857 and Buddistick antenna in time, so I was able to make 40 Field Day contacts. Since I started out having no clue what I was doing and only worked a few, sporadic hours, I was pleased to have made that many contacts. Next year I'll be much better prepared for Field Day.

In the meantime, I just discovered this list of state QSO parties: http://qsoparty.eqth.net/

There are quite a few opportunities to try to work specific states scattered throughout most of the year.

Back Into Radio Bigger Than Before

When I initially got my amateur radio license, I did so because two of my friends were already licensed. KB5DOA and KC5ISS wanted me to use some of the local repeaters with them. I got my technician license in 1996 and have been continuously licensed since. Life got busy a few years ago and I got a new vehicle and never put the mobile radio into it. Finally, in 2010 I realized that I was never going to not be busy again, so I decided to simply make the time to get the radio back into the truck. That led to a resurgence in my interest in amateur radio and I've now upgraded to general class and even participated in Field Day this year for the first time. My time is still limited, so I plan on making blog entries about how I'm operating with modest rigs in spare time.