CQWW SSB

Well … that certainly was a sucky weekend, propagation-wise. I didn’t have a chance to get on Sunday, but I certainly had no luck on Saturday. Not one of the better efforts on my part.

Sunday, the XYL and I went over to the eastern Shore of Virginia (about an hour and a half drive via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel) to attend a choral concert. The daughter had a solo … WOW! Can that girl sing! Very proud parents. She’s a member of the choral group at Virginia Wesleyan College, where she’s a Junior.

I’ve gotten on the past couple of evenings to work some JT QSOs, and have had some interesting contacts, but even there, activity is a bit light. All I can do is keep on trying … that’s all any of us can do. Even the CW pickings have been slim.

Well, so much for my musings. I’ve got a radio club meeting tonight, and may get a bit of operating in before that, but I’ll have to see how that goes.

73 de Dick N4BC

New Callsign!

Well, I decided to try for a shorter callsign and it was actually granted. There were 62 applications submitted, and I was the one that got the luck of the draw. N4BC … good! My first choice was N4DC, but I missed that one. I’m satisfied, though.

I think if I’d realized how much work it was to change everything over to the new callsign, though, I’d have thought twice. Email addresses, LOTW account, all the labels on all my equipment, the website, the memberships in various amateur radio organizations, a new callsign hat and badge, etc. I’m gettin’ there, though.

73 de Dick N4BC

In a Real Rut

I seem to have settled into a rut lately. I get home from work, turn on the rig, and work a few JT-9 contacts, and then shut down. I think I need a bit more spice in my life :-). I hereby resolve to try and inject more variety into my ham radio practices. This weekend, I think I’ll do a bit of PSK and a bit of CW, and MAYBE even a little SSB. If it wasn’t so darned hot and humid (106 deg. heat index), I might even venture a little antenna work and generator servicing.

I’m at work right now waiting for the HVAC guy to show up and service the failed A/C unit at one of our radio sites. I don’t like to see high-temp alarms at my sites!

I just finished up a week long class today on Motorola Networking Essentials. I learned a lot and am looking forward to more classes this summer. These classes are a result of us updating our analog trunking system with a new P25 digital trunking system. It’s all IP-based, so networking is an integral part of the infrastructure.

73 de Dick K4FTW

Zero!

Wow! The sun is naked. The sunspot number has been at ZERO for several days now, and the propagation shows it. I was working a station in New Jersey last night on JT-9, and he had a strong signal  … +00. I watched his trace on the waterfall slowly fade away to nothing. He was not copyable, and JT-9 can usually pull out the data when you can barely see a trace. Really DEEP QSB.

That said, I have been working stations all over North and South America and Europe these past few days. Signals are not great, but they’re readable. When you figure that I’m only running 10 to 20 watts to a vertical on the digital modes, it’s nothing short of amazing.

So the moral of the story is … get on and call CQ. Make some noise! You’ll be surprised at what’s out there. I haven’t heard a lot on SSB, but there’s plenty of action on the digital modes … CW, JT, PSK, Olivia, etc.). Too many people just fire up the rig, tune across the bands and sigh … “Darn! It’s dead tonight!”. If everybody just tunes, there’s nothing to hear.

73 de Dick K4FTW

DIgital and Low Power Stuff

I finally got around to setting up WSJT-X and JT Alert on the new laptop, and found quite a bit of action. I worked 18 stations (mostly Europe and the US) in a couple of hours on 20 Meters. I seemed to have a lot more luck on JT-9 than on JT-65. Sort of like watching paint dry, but I did fill in a few missing digital Grid squares, prefixes, etc in the meantime.

QCWA Chapter 119 activated Fort Monroe National Monument recently, and although I couldn’t lend a hand with the operation due to a prior commitment, I did manage to work them on CW. I haven’t heard how they did number wise, but it was a beautiful day to be operating portable.

We’ve found a site for W4MT, our 146.73 repeater. We lost our previous site and had been searching for a new location for quite a few months. In the interim, we’ve been having our Tuesday evening club net on the WN4HRT repeater.

Overall, the bands have not been the greatest, but the digital modes offer an opportunity to make contacts with lower power. I made those 18 contacts this evening using 10 watts to a vertical tied to the clothesline pole. Nothing sophisticated about that, folks! Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Don’t forget, CW was the original digital mode.

73 de Dick K4FTW