August 2018

A Bit of Nostalgia

Good Morning, everyone!

I was just looking at my QSO confirmation rates … not too bad, actually. With the advent of electronic QSLing, the percentages are really pretty high, I think.

I track QSLing on two sites, primarily … Logbook Of TheWorld and QRZ. I also upload to EQsl and ClubLog, but seldom visit. I do that mostly for others. On LOTW my confirmation rate is a bit over 66% and on QRZ.com, it’s a whopping 76%.

Obviously, for the “biggie” awards (ARRL and CQ), the LOTW logbook is the major one, but just look at those percentages. I don’t have any numbers, but I guarantee you that I never approached that before electronic QSLing … maybe when I was rare DX, but not as a lowly US ham.

Looking back on it, as a DX station with US managers, I was pretty isolated from the confirmation part of the hobby. I really didn’t care about that aspect of hamming. I just had a blast operating. Without the burden of LOTS of cards arriving in my mailbox, I was continually on the air when I was free. That being said, I still got a LOT of QSLs sent directly to my overseas mailbox … mostly foreign hams and HUGE stacks of bureau cards. I remember getting an entire mailbag of VQ9 (Seychelles) cards one time from the Russian Bureau at Box 99, Moscow (I was the VQ9 bureau). They got answered, but it took time.

Nowadays, it’s a lot cheaper. Essentially free. Back in the “good ole days”, all QSLs went either via the bureau or direct. With the cost of postage now, it’s just not a viable method for most hams.

Times change and we just have to change to keep up. I think LOTW was a great idea, and I’ve never had any problem, either setting up an account or using it, but I DO miss all the paper QSLs. Sigh … times change for sure.

73 de Dick N4BC

NAQP CW

I was able to spend a few hours in the North American CW QSO Party on Saturday. The band gods were smiling on us. Eighty, forty, and twenty were smokin’! I did all ‘search and pounce’, and logged 130 QSOs. Lots of fun! I’ve already uploaded the log to the NCJ website, and updated MY log and LOTW as well. Done! Finished!

N1MM+ performed flawlessly, and having the large bandscope was nice. You could visually pick the BIG signals and work them, and then go back an fill in with the weaker ones. It’s not as high-resolution as the smaller one on the IC-7300, but it’s adequate. This free software is well worth exploring if you want to participate in contests.

I did attend a birthday party for an old friend’s 90th earlier in the afternoon. This afternoon we’ve got an awards banquet for the granddaughter. She had four first-place finishes in the All-City Swimming Competition! So proud!

We had a beautiful day yesterday … really too nice a day to spend inside hunched over the rig, contesting. Sigh … the sacrifices we have to make for the hobby! HA!!

Have a great day TODAY!

73 de Dick N4BC

Amazingly Quick

I just worked Ghana last night, and this morning when I updated my log, it was already confirmed in LOTW. I’ve been a DX station before … VQ9D, VQ9RB, VQ9D/D, S79D … and it was a lot different back in the “good old days.” I remember sending my logs to my manager back in the US by snail mail, which sometimes took weeks, depending on the vagaries of the various postal systems involved. It was even slower in the early days before I had a manager, with direct mail to me and back, not to mention more expensive. Eventually, with the arrival of email, it got much easier and faster to get my logs to my QSL manager. Now, with LOTW, it’s darn near instantaneous in some cases. I just love technology, don’t you?

On the air this morning, there were lots of Asian stations on FT8. I worked a JA, and tried to land some others to no avail … Hong Kong, Australia … there was even a Russian Antarctic station that was pretty strong. Other North American stations were working them, but I had no luck. I did work a couple of stations on JT65 though … first in a long time … one on 40 meters and one on 20 meters. One was in Florida and the other was Canadian, in Ontario. There’s stuff out there guys and gals … just go get it!

Later today I’m going to dive into the NAQP CW contest. I’ll be a late starter due to family commitments, but hopefully fate will smile on me and let me do my thing!

73 de Dick N4BC

Configuring the IC-7300

I was determined to get the external Spectrum Display function of the IC-7300 working with N1MM+. I’d tried before, but had issues. For the external display to work, you need to set the baud rate to 115200, and the fastest I can get WSJT-X to run with the IC-7300 is 9600. Any faster, and it loses sync with the radio.

The solution was actually simple … I can run WSJT-X just fine with the “baseline” configuration I have saved on the SD card, so I created another file with the N1MM+ settings saved. Now, when I want to do the contest thing and want to have a big spectrum display, I load that file. When I’m done and am ready to go back to “normal” operation, I load the baseline file. Hey, it works! I know I’m missing something, but … .

I also updated my Pi-Star software on my hotspot and activated the D-Star functionality as well, in anticipation of the arrival of the new ID-51A Plus 2. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about D-Star when I have a chance, and I think I’ve got a fair understanding about operating and programming now. Thank goodness for the internet!

It was a pretty sparse crowd for the DMR net last night. Only four of us showed up, but it was still OK. We talked a bit about the new mobile interface that someone has written for Pi-Star. I think it runs in a browser or maybe it’s an app, but anyway, Howard, WZ4K, is planning on trying it out this week. We should have a blow-by-blow description for the next net meeting!

The button battery in my MFJ clock died, so I was off to the drugstore to find a replacement. Of course, they had a different brand, which means a different part number. The internet on the smartphone helped me there too, but of course, they didn’t have the one I needed. I’ll try another place tomorrow.

I’ve been doing a bit of FT-8 after work and picked up a new country. I caught 9G5AR in Ghana calling CQ and pounced. I’ve got him in the log and now I just have to wait for the LOTW confirmation. I also saw a station in Bahrain, but couldn’t connect with him. This was on twenty meters, so the DX is out there. You’ve just got to be in the right place at the right time. I also worked a bunch of other stations 40,30,20,17, and 15 meters, too.

Well, the XYL just reminded me that we have a birthday party to go to tomorrow that I had completely forgotten about, so there went my weekend plans. Gotta be fast and think on your feet around this house.

See you on the bands!

73 de Dick N4BC