Radio W4KAZ Thanks for stopping by the virtual KazShack. Feel free to comment - I often approve them.
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By w4kaz, created on 2012.01.16 at 06:19:50 | last changed on 2012.01.16 at 08:50:53 | Did not expect to be able to put the time in for this one, but enough things shifted around at the end of the week that it worked out. Murphy showed his face in the form of a broken headphone jack on the homebrew SO2R headphone audio jack, which I broke at 1805z as I plugged the headphone cable in.  Not off to a smooth start. The jack is actually intack, it just became separated from the cover of the home-brew SO2R box.
Better to log Q’s than pull the box from the patch cord rats’ nest, so that fix has to wait. So no S&P2R. 🙁
Conditions here seemed good. 10m and 15m had decent signals, even if I couldn’t get a run going. After about 3:00pm local, 20m started to go short without losing the long, and seemed to be open to everywhere in North America at once. Worked TX, CA, NY, SK and SC almost back to back right before I took a dinner break at 4:45pm local.
No runs on 10m or 15m. 20m run was decent, and the unusual mixed bag of stations from everywhere kept me there when I should have migrated to 40m. Should have started the contest on 20m and migrated to 40m much earlier. 40m was long by the time I got there, so I moved down to 80m after short 40m pass. 80m was pretty good, nice and quiet here in the KazShack, and lots of solid signals. Nice 80m run. 160m was also nice and quiet, with good signals. The K9AY was hearing better down on 160 than the xmit antenna, even with low QRN. Too bad 160m condx were not as good as that for Stew Perry.
The 80m S&P was a blast. Keeping a 50/hr rate was easy. Not having the SO2R was a bit of a downer. With the good conditions on all bands, S&P2R would have really been a lot of fun. The 40m totals would have been bolstered with the second radio. I think I’d have been able to hit that goal of a 60Q hour of all SS&P if the SO2R box had been on-line.
Didn’t really set any goals other than to have some fun. DONE!
But still only half as many Q’s as the Top Gunz……and it is certain THAT ain’t because of Murphy.
The Good:
- Good conditions on all bands – compared to recent years.
- Lots of Fun
- 5:00pm Hamburger break…yummy
- 416 Q’s and only one TEBOW
- Good to see some interest in fielding PVRC teams
The Bad:
- SO2R not available. Fun value not gathered in as well as it might have been otherwise.
- CW copy needs work.
- Too lazy to do the work to improve the CW
- muffed the off times, so erred on the side of staying inside the rules. 9 hours rather than 10
The Ugly:
Oh, probably the language used when I broke that #@%%*&!! headphone jack. The jack separated from the panel. The repair might be a case of filling the hole with JB Weld and re-drilling it. It looks like the plastic panel face is reamed out.
The final “Final”:
Call: W4KAZ
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
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160: 61 23
80: 154 43
40: 61 31
20: 106 41
15: 26 9
10: 8 8
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Total: 416 155 Total Score = 64,480
3830 score link
73 es tnx fer q’s and fills de w4kaz
*
By w4kaz, created on 2012.01.14 at 15:55:26 | last changed on 2012.01.14 at 11:26:15 | YACP – Yet Another Catch-up Post.
This year’s IOTA went well, although conditions were difficult. The WX was clear, but easily the hottest of the IOTA expeditions so far. Very uncomfortable setting up. Very uncomfortable sitting in the shade. Operated from the same Cape Lookout location at the Cape Lookout Federal Park on the South Core Banks.
Radio conditions were also comparably disappointing. The mid afternoon SSB session was miserably slow. Conditions generally not as good as 2010 IOTA, and not nearly as good as most of 2011. US activity seemed down, but that may just be perception based on the slow afternoon on SSB. Abysmal.
Antenna mast raising shenanigans were also quite educational. Valuable lessons learned there.  The guy stakes were inadequate for the height and new sets of guys will also be required to move the guy anchors farther away from the mast base. Nothing that a bit of up-front preparation work cannot conquer, but difficult to overcome in the field. So the mast height was reduced from the projected.
The new base plates for implementing the falling-derrick method performed exactly as expected. The mast raising technique is solid.
This year’s crew was W4KAZ, W0UCE, K2AV, and N3ND. N4YDU was off in luxury accommodations operating from the family vacation just up the coast from the N4A operation. Always fun, but missed having ‘YDU on board. Imagine being wooed by the family into basking in air-conditioned splendor with the occasional dip in the hot-tub optional.  😮
Numbers and score down from 2010, but hoping for the best, and waiting official results.
Plans for 2012 are begun. I expect the direct hit by hurricane Irene last fall will have changed the sand dune structure enough that we will find some new hurdles to overcome. The beach was rolled back, so the cabins are now somewhat closer to the ocean(natural for a barrier island), so the sand filled in the small clear area between dunes that we used for the antenna mast. I will not at all be surprised to find the area filled with sea oats and mostly too difficult to work in come summer 2012. A new challenge.
By w4kaz, created on 2011.11.04 at 15:59:00 | last changed on 2011.11.04 at 08:49:18 | 2011 N1LN Team: N1LN, N4YDU, AD4L, WW4M, W4KAZ, W4DTB, KA1ARB
Subtitle:Â “How My Perspective On Contesting Changed Again”
Well. That sure was interesting.
After several years of gutting out the poor propagation conditions for this one, the barn doors were more or less blown off by band conditions this past weekend. Yes, 10m was great. 15m was great too. And even 20m showed new facets too.
The past several weeks leading into the contest have had better band conditions than we have had in quite a long while. With sunspots hitting 200+ briefly and solar flux levels over 120 for several weeks straight, the high bands have been open on a consistent basis daily. These measures had been drifting down going into the contest, but propagation remained good through the contest.
So.  Propagation remained GOOD throughout the contest. Even the dread 2:00am to 5:00am showed more life than years past. On Sunday a few spots posted on 20m during the 3:00am(local) hour showed stateside stations were hearing EU on 20m. 80m/160m was mostly a mind numbing hiss of static, so whats to lose in checking? Turns out the band was mostly open already. Very loud signals across the band just after 4:00am local. Some already had their ears on, and were able to hear my calls even though they were mostly not pointing antennas towards the US. Instant better rate over the low band hiss. Very nice.
N4YDU had a great run on 10m Saturday afternoon. Sunday was my turn. I expect the 8:00 to 11:00 hours on Sunday to be the best of the contest. While I ran stations on 10m, N4YDU was keeping 15m hot. Easily the best rates I’ve ever worked over an extended period. 10m was stacked with signals from the bottom up past 29Mc. It was a mixed bag of mini pileups and a steady flow of callers, no need for a “cq robot”, and easily the most fun I have ever had operating a contest.
Murphy struck only an off hand shot at the team when KA1ARB had his travel plans snafu’d by the storm system in the northeast causing him to miss a flight on Saturday evening.  Pencil and paper whipped out, and N1LN came up with an interim schedule fix to cover the holes without resorting to Double Super Secret Expresso and too much lost sleep for anyone. Although N4YDU had a six hour nap window shortened, I figure he had already made up those hours when I found him napping at the knobs at the end of the Saturday graveyard shift. 😮
A second possible Murphy sighting was had by N1LN of Friday afternoon when the top 20m antenna was showing dead air, but that problem automagically disaparated and did not seem to recur during CQWW.
A member of the OCRA club, Derek, W4DTB dropped by and piloted one of the positions for a couple of hours. Â Derek posted a nice audio clips of me stumbling through some 20m Q’s on Sunday afternoon, and a clip of N1LN doing much better.
N1LN 3830 write-up.
The Good:
Great time operating over at N1LN’s, and I appreciate the opportunity. Â Always fun to clown around with N4YDU. Â Got a chance to operate N1LN’s M/2 setup, which wasn’t really a sure thing until AD4L and WW4M carved out enough time to join the team. Â 10m was great. Â 15m was great too. Â 20m was damn good. Â Good runs from Japan and Russia in addition to the normal European openings. Â Getting called by VK and ZL stations while beaming Europe. Â The It-Never-Snows-In-October storm mostly bypassed the local area. Â Some of the larger stations that operated in M/2 class in 2010 moved back up into M/M for 2011.
The Bad:
Personally, I was still stumbling at times with some of the exchanges. I need to improve callsign recognition and pulling out single calls.
The Ugly:
KA1ARB was scheduled to fly out of NYC on Saturday, but was stranded by the it-never-snows-in-October storm. Â Schedule re-arranging worked fairly well, but KA1ARB missed a couple of good run in addition to the inconvenience of ruined travel plans. Â And N4YDU whined so much about missing his 6 hour nap break, I let him use his double tails coin to decide who would get to bolt when KA1ARB arrived unexpected at the end of the contest. Â 😮
Readem-and-weep
Call: N1LN
Operator(s): N4YDU, W4KAZ, AD4L, WW4M, KA1ARB, W4DTB, N1LN
Station: N1LN
Class: M/2 HP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
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160: 75 12 23
80: 364 18 69
40: 508 27 97
20: 1092 39 126
15: 1104 36 131
10: 1593 37 146
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Total: 4736 169 592 Total Score = 9,560,443
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By w4kaz, created on 2011.09.26 at 07:11:47 | last changed on 2011.09.26 at 12:23:10 | Well, glad to see we didn’t get a complete solar fizzle. As the sunspot numbers for the new cycle swung up, propagation had mostly not improved tremendously.
Then like the flick of a switch – whammo. Suddenly this past week has seen improved conditions above 20m. All coinciding with the calendar shift from summer to autumn. 10m conditions have been good relative to the last six years this entire week. JA’s on 10m. EU on 10m every morning. These conditions are a very nice improvement which would be welcome to continue, but are at the mercy of the capricious nature of a three percent variable star.
Smoke ’em if ya got ’em.
By w4kaz, created on 2011.09.17 at 05:36:36 | last changed on 2011.09.16 at 13:16:34 | Drove out to the mountains to hook up with N4YDU and N4PY for another great FD. The Stone Mt. site is just plain awesome. The set up was heavy on keeping it simple. We used 40m doublets and an 80m Vee operating 1A with a 6m setup.
One of the 40m antennas showed a high noise level again, which I expect is being generated locally. Probably something in the park restroom is generating the RFI. We had the same problem when we operated from the site previously. But thats all a part of FD – working through the problems.
The 56 ft doublets were a lot less impressive on top of a mountain than at the beach for IOTA, which is not really a surprise. I expect most of their performance in 2010 IOTA was due to ocean side proximity and propagation. Left to my own devices the first choice for 40m will forevermore be resonant dipoles or loops.
The FD wx was great. Overnight temps fell into the low 60’s or 50’s, which is a really nice change after afternoon temps in the 90’s.
And as always, operating with N4YDU and N4PY was great.
The only downside was there was no time before or after to get in a couple of days of camping and hiking the park trails.
By w4kaz, created on 2011.09.01 at 05:47:31 | last changed on 2011.08.31 at 15:35:59 | Lots of stuff to log in the blog since CQ WPX, but not much interest in writing it up.
To keep the record relatively continuous there will be a raft of stuff popping up. Its always easy to write while I’m simultaneously getting my fill of college football. And the season kickoff is at hand[boooo Ducks, yea Tigers!] Lots of good matchups in the schedule this season. Probably lose time in Sweeps again for the LSU-‘Bama game. Unless its available streaming so I can get the game in the shack.
Football and contesting – yea!
By w4kaz, created on 2011.05.31 at 18:16:14 | last changed on 2011.05.31 at 13:38:23 | Murphy.
I had saved Friday afternoon for some nice relaxing antenna maintenance time. It is time to replace the K9AY wires. Both loops have suffered a lot of damage from the odd falling branch, and the loops were made from fairly thin 18ga tinned automotive wire, I normally use for other reasons. Time to put up loops made of heavier gauge wire, because the RX antenna is a keeper. The 15m/10m loop also needs some work. It needs to be adjusted for better SWR if kept, but it will more likely be replaced with simple dipoles. Also need to check out some of the support lines, etc., etc. etc.
The wx did not cooperate with this plan. A big thunderstorm moved in, and there was a mini monsoon, the likes of which I’ve not seen very often here in NC. It was more like the spring storms more common on the gulf coast. “Torrential downpour”. “Monsoon”.
Anyway, with half of the XYL’s landscape floating away to the accompaniment of claps of thunder, the antenna plan hit the crapper. The occasional light shower continued through the afternoon, and the wx radar kept me from plugging into the antennas(aka “lightning attractors”) until about 0400Z. It would probably have been OK to operate sooner, but there was no reason to take the risk.
So, Friday resulted in a whopping 13Q’s of disinterested S&P.
Slept late Saturday(see where this is going?). Still not much interest. More half-hearted S&P on a mostly dead 20m band. A 10 minute 20m run produced zilch. Had more fun texting N4YDU than operating. In the early evening, 40m sounded good. Worked A73A, and hope he finally copied my number. He got the call on the first transmission, but needed fills on the number. But if they could hear me in Qatar, it must be worth giving running a shot. A forty minute 40m run produced about 50 Q’s, and some skimmer spot activity. Operated “assisted, low power” to test out the packet connections. Figured on a mostly S&P weekend, and figured it would be interesting to watch the band map. Somewhere in that time the N/S 40m dipole became disfunctional[after nabbing a lot of russians while S&P]. Bailed early again.
Sunday, more Q’s were made running than S&P. 20m was a lot more fun than on Saturday. 15m stunk using the 40m dipole, although it looks like it stunk for bigg gunz too.. The N/S 40m dipole showed intermittent, so I guess that huge branch that fell in February must have given it a good wack on the way down. Another repair project. Running stations was pretty easy on both 40m and 20m, so conditions on Sunday were much improved over those on Saturday.
The station was good to go inside the shack. With the skimmer spots being fed from the Reverse Beacon Net’s server, the band map was well populated. The filters established were adequate. The only part missing there were skimmer spots from a truly LOCAL skimmer. The SO2R arrangement was also good-to-go, although the lid operator was not motivated enough for “S&P2R”. If band conditions ever really break open again, with activity from 40m though 10m, the two radio capability is going to be more useful. However SO2R was mostly a learning project – figuring out how to accomplish it was the real goal. Time to revisit those filter projects again.
The Good:
- Nice to hear 20m sound better. Saturday was like sunspot minima. Sunday-much better.
- N/S 20m and E/W 20m dipoles produced good results in the expected directions, up to three S-units difference on weaker signals. Definitely worth having both
- Ditto 40m. Before it broke, the N/S 40m dipole was hearing many fine Russian ops much better than the E/W dipole, that is normally the first choice. The N/S works well into the GA/FL/Carribean/SA direction too.
- Packet set-up will work when it is wanted
- CW skimmer is every bit the game changer I expected.
- Pulled the 40m antenna switch box to debug for possible intermittent. Replaced broken connector on unused position, all seven positions on switch re-checked, switch good to go.
The Bad:
- CW skimmer is every bit the game changer I expected[depends on mood]
- didn’t get the repairs done
- bad attitude. Just not feeling the force
- No real game plan going into the contest
The Ugly:
- Washout on Friday afternoon.
- Broken antennas:Â K9AY, N/S 40m, 15m/10m loop
- New problem on 40m switch box
The final “Final”:
Call: W4KAZ Operator(s): W4KAZ Station: W4KAZ
Class: SO(A)AB LP QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 12.5
Band QSOs
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160:
80: 10
40: 132
20: 208
15: 15
10: 1
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Total: 366 Prefixes = 260 Total Score = 215,540
By w4kaz, created on 2011.05.23 at 09:29:09 | last changed on 2011.06.03 at 11:15:42 | ***in progress, last update 2011/06/03, 09:00am local***
Just as soon as the pollen clears, it is time for another swat at Dayton Hamvention. Spending time at the house with the pressure washer is a lot less fun than going to Hamvention, but that’s the way it is again in 2011. [Those silly kids of mine BOTH want to go to college – cha-ching!]
No contest University – again. No FDIM visit. No chit-chat with the vendors. But it is possible to tour the 2011 Hamvention after the fact. On a vicarious 2011 Hamvention tour…………….
…and thanks to the astute reporting over at The Fi-Ni Report, we were certain Hamvention was still going to be taking place despite the onset of Zombie Armageddon. So if there HAD been any travel plans, there would have been no need to cancel them to instead hoard the shotgun shells needed for those hard to eradicate zombies that always pop up when the world ends.
New Stuff and various video:
NEW STUFF IS ALWAYS FUN- The Elecraft KX3 video tease! by the QRPARCI group. Actual KX3 data sheet.  Fun facts being teased out on the Elecraft mail list. Actual genuine Elecraft KX3 webpage.  O’course, the ubiquitous yahoo group for the kx3 is formed.
Another KX3 video by WB8CXO
Other takes and other New Stuff#1, LazydogSDR [new to me anyway]. This KE9V photo caught my eye…..A speaker/mike with a display. Really? LOL. Really? Thanks to Jeff for catching that one.
Video of ring-rotor that incorporates a motorized adaptation of a PVRC mount.
New Alinco DJ-G29T 220/900 Mhz HT Announced at Dayton 2011
Who shows up at Hamvention? ARRL video of chat by KF5BOC.
Contest University Webinars[warehoused by PVRC]:
K3LR’s vault of 2011 Antenna forum programs:
- #1 goes here
- #2 goes here
- #3 goes here
- #4 goes here
You never know what you will find in the flea market#1, fleamarket experience#2, fleamarket experience#3, fleamarket experience#4, fleamarket experience #5 [willing to wager this was NOT KF5BOC] {in hindsight, maybe useful around the sewerage spill}
RadioGuy was busy with the video camera: MFJ on the main floor, Yaesu, ICOM, Steppir, and more on RadioGuy76’s youtube channel.
Shaky Fleamarket tour part#1 and tour part#2 by KA1SUN
Video montage by TofuHasenpfeffer
Video Montage by joehusker.
Hamcity MONEYGRAB! video by ArkAngelz. Fun for kids of any age! Way cool.
VE7HHS video demo by Flex radio, VE7HHS finds what happened to the Geiger counters, and the inner workings of a Steppir.
And o’course, FD is not a contest. Although that’s a state of mind issue, aina?
The local “professional” coverage, and WHIOTV.
W5KUB Vendor Setup Tour [choppy stream??] .
Hamvention-too much fun to sleep! recap on Contest University, hara flyby, and “holy crap cow !” recaps by “sterwing’s”
Old School Morse – REALLY old school
What does one do at Dayton? a Hamtwits hamvention meetup.
There really is all sorts of “stuff” in the hamvention fleamarket! Yowza! O’course, you always need to watch your step in a fleamarket area anyway…..but….Yowza!
Bloggers Do Dayton:Â Missed a chance for a meetup with some of these folks.
- ARRL-May20, ARRL-May21, ARRL-May22
- K9ZW-1, K9ZW-2, K9ZW-3, K9ZW-4, K9ZW-5, K9ZW-6, K9ZW-Hamvention Revisited
- KE9V-1, KE9V-2, KE9V-3, KE9V-4, KE9V-5, KE9V-6
- First trip for KA3DRR, KA3DRR#2. Hope you had fun Scot!
- Also first trip for K2DSL, K2DSL-day1, K2DSL-Day2, K2DSL-Day3, K2DSL-Follow-up
- QRPer.com, QRPer#2.
- N3QO.
- K3TN.
- M1ACB’s vicarious hamvention, [a kindred spirit!]
- Even other NaySayers and ScoffVentions like me blog Hamvention…. K2DBK
- For all the other Naysayers who think one Dayton hamvention is just like any other, the 2010 hamvention links are still available too. O’course, why would a Hamvention Naysayer need the links anyway?
Some 2011 Hamvention photo albums, in no particular order:
Despite a larger number of Twits Tweeting the Hamvention in 2011, the ephemeral nature of the stream-of-consciousness twitter style is too much like mental cotton candy for my own tastes, and thus twittishness of all sorts shall hereby be firmly relegated to remain forevermore in the bit bucket. [Except maybe a few photos].
By w4kaz, created on 2011.05.06 at 17:53:56 | last changed on 2011.05.06 at 17:56:01 | A UK developer has hacked up a $25 computer. I hope its real. If it is, its quite an achievement.
Even if its $25EU……Whats that these days about $40USD?
By w4kaz, created on 2011.04.26 at 05:57:03 | last changed on 2011.04.25 at 15:01:47 |
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