Thursday, May 31, 2012
The Start of 6m 2012
Experienced my first ever opening on 6m last night and it was pretty neat. Since getting the new rig last fall I've tuned through 6 a few times but never heard anything, then last night I started seeing spots on hamspots so tried tuning one in. Over the next 30-40 mins I was able to hear CO, a number of FL, TN, TX, and CA stations. There was pretty heavy fading but for a bit it was actually pretty packed between about 50.050 to 50.175. I heard a number of US stations working Europeans but no real DX for me yet. Now it's time to start planning to build a 6m moxon or something similar that can beat my fan dipole.... assuming the XYL would actually let me put it up.... Until next time, 73 de N0QBX
Monday, May 21, 2012
Survived the EPC EU DX PSK Contest
Survived the contest weekend. Unfortunately conditions were not on my side. I did see a number of people working DX, I just couldn't see the other station too often. Couldn't help but wonder if we scared some locals off calling CQ EU DX PSK Test... hopefully they didn't think we were calling for EU DX only. Even slow as it was, it was still fun. Worked a lot of Central and South American stations with the occasional European getting through. I think I worked more folks on JT65 since I would hop over to that for a bit after working everyone I could see on PSK63. Oh, and no mistakes this time! Usually I call myself or something at least once in a contest. Now to get the log together and submitted. Until next time ....73 de N0QBX
Friday, May 18, 2012
The state of VHF/UHF in the extreme north metro...
So recently I decided to pull out the old TNC and see what was going on locally in 2m packet. I also picked up a FT-60R dual band HT since my old Icom 24AT (and older icom 2A) need at least new batteries.
After googling around for awhile I couldn't find much about local packet activity, at least nothing from 2012 or even 2011. I tried a few old frequencies like 145.67, 145.01, and 145.05. Sadly, there was almost no activity at all. I don't think it's just a part of living way out in the sticks of North Branch.... It really looks like 2m packet is dead here. There is an emergency network on 145.67 and I was able to bounce around nodes but never saw anyone talking (that was an old keyboard to keyboard chat frequency). On .05 I saw absolutely nothing after a couple days of monitoring and on .01 I saw a few network nodes but nothing else. Sad to say I put away the TNC after about 2 weeks of watching.
For local repeaters it's been pretty mixed... There is no where near the level of activity there was 10-20 years ago when I was last active on VHF. That said, the rise of internet connected repeaters has lead to some interesting changes. After searching the internet for awhile, I was able to find an updated list of repeaters thanks to the Minnesota Repeater Council's website. After getting about 30 frequencies in the memory of the HT I hooked it up to my dual band Ringo on the roof and tuned around. It was sadly dead also... In the past drive time would have almost all the local repeaters filled with people so it was sad to hear hours with no activity. Occasionally I would here a couple locals on the North Branch 440 machine, then one day I realized it was hooked to the internet. For a weekend I listened to folks in Alaska work on their APRS setups, occasionally with a random Texas or Florida station saying "Hi". When I had moved on from the repeater scene 10 or so years ago Echolink was still somewhat new so it was interesting to not only have these stations on the local repeater but also the fact that they all knew each other. One gentleman in Texas was in the hospital and they all knew him and were wishing him well. It sounded like having that connection to people he knew really was helping him deal with the issues causing his need to stay there. While it takes away some of the mystery of working HF and being at the mercy of the ionosphere, it's fun to see that they have made friendships around the country and talk regularly with a large close knit group like that. So while a lot has changed, and it is no where near the activity level of the past, there is still a lot of good conversations to be found on the local repeaters...it just might take a little longer to find it.
One more plus side to the new handheld... As a long long time flight-sim junkie, its always fun to stick a few local airports approach frequencies, along with Minneapolis Center into the radio. Also, as a photographer who has gone trainspotting a couple times, I put the railroad frequencies in also. Having 1000 memories is a huge improvement over the 16 in my old Kenwood! Anyway, enough for now, thanks for reading. ....73 de N0QBX
After googling around for awhile I couldn't find much about local packet activity, at least nothing from 2012 or even 2011. I tried a few old frequencies like 145.67, 145.01, and 145.05. Sadly, there was almost no activity at all. I don't think it's just a part of living way out in the sticks of North Branch.... It really looks like 2m packet is dead here. There is an emergency network on 145.67 and I was able to bounce around nodes but never saw anyone talking (that was an old keyboard to keyboard chat frequency). On .05 I saw absolutely nothing after a couple days of monitoring and on .01 I saw a few network nodes but nothing else. Sad to say I put away the TNC after about 2 weeks of watching.
For local repeaters it's been pretty mixed... There is no where near the level of activity there was 10-20 years ago when I was last active on VHF. That said, the rise of internet connected repeaters has lead to some interesting changes. After searching the internet for awhile, I was able to find an updated list of repeaters thanks to the Minnesota Repeater Council's website. After getting about 30 frequencies in the memory of the HT I hooked it up to my dual band Ringo on the roof and tuned around. It was sadly dead also... In the past drive time would have almost all the local repeaters filled with people so it was sad to hear hours with no activity. Occasionally I would here a couple locals on the North Branch 440 machine, then one day I realized it was hooked to the internet. For a weekend I listened to folks in Alaska work on their APRS setups, occasionally with a random Texas or Florida station saying "Hi". When I had moved on from the repeater scene 10 or so years ago Echolink was still somewhat new so it was interesting to not only have these stations on the local repeater but also the fact that they all knew each other. One gentleman in Texas was in the hospital and they all knew him and were wishing him well. It sounded like having that connection to people he knew really was helping him deal with the issues causing his need to stay there. While it takes away some of the mystery of working HF and being at the mercy of the ionosphere, it's fun to see that they have made friendships around the country and talk regularly with a large close knit group like that. So while a lot has changed, and it is no where near the activity level of the past, there is still a lot of good conversations to be found on the local repeaters...it just might take a little longer to find it.
One more plus side to the new handheld... As a long long time flight-sim junkie, its always fun to stick a few local airports approach frequencies, along with Minneapolis Center into the radio. Also, as a photographer who has gone trainspotting a couple times, I put the railroad frequencies in also. Having 1000 memories is a huge improvement over the 16 in my old Kenwood! Anyway, enough for now, thanks for reading. ....73 de N0QBX
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Stuck in a closet
Here is my simple station. It's all setup on an old dresser shoved in a closet so I'm very limited on operating space. My main radio is a refurbished Yaesu FT-450d that does everything I could ask of it. I do have an old Kenwood TM-241a that I've had for quite a few years now (20-ish?) and a Yaesu FT-60R. For random accessories there is the SignaLink USB which is a great interface since it has the built in sound card freeing your computers sound card to alert you when someone interesting is calling CQ. There is also my old KPC-3 I've been playing with again and finally the LDG AT-200PRO II that turns my 3 band fan dipole into a 8 band antenna. On HF I run 25 watts into an attic mounted antenna proving you don't need much power or huge antennas to talk around the world, especially with digital modes. For software, I run mmsstv, jt65-hf and Ham Radio Deluxe.
Contest Weekend
This could be a busy weekend if I get a chance to operate. EPC is having their EU PSK DX contest and there is also the Aegean RTTY Contest. The EPC contests are always fun and provide a chance to make a ton of psk63 contacts. The Aegean one looks to be run by a Greek group and appears to be pretty laid back which sounds fun. Assuming I can get permission from the XYL to slack off a bit, it should be a fun weekend!
Sunday, May 13, 2012
First Post
So I'm thinking of keeping track of my radio hobby. Fairly recently I was bitten by the radio bug again after a number of years off the air. When I received the renewal mail again last fall it encouraged me to think about finally upgrading to General after 20 years as a no-code Tech.
When I originally was licensed in the early 90's the no-code license was new and I was able to take the test right away since I had been studying for my Novice for awhile before that but couldn't get motivated to learn the code. My original plan when I earned the Tech ticket was to upgrade to general fairly quickly but here I was 20 yrs later so this time I was going to really do it. I was glad to see the code test was removed so it was pretty easy to grab a book from our local candy store and study for a month. When I went in and took my test I passed with 100% correct the first try. A couple weeks later was Yaesu days here so I went in to see what deals they had knowing I couldn't afford to spend a whole lot. Luckily, they had a refurbed FT-450D that became my first HF rig and opened up that part of radio I was always missing.
This was during a time when 10m was busy all day so I kind of wondered if I really needed to upgrade at all. I was working the world primarily in the novice/tech portion of 10m! But that died down and now I spend almost all my time on 15m and 20m digital. I am starting to work on code again. I love the digital modes and am pretty sure I would love CW if I could just force myself to learn it. Sadly, I can send alright (not a good fist by any means) but I feel pretty unsure of receiving even at 5wpm. I'm trying to sit down and receive off the air a few times a week to work on my skills, hopefully I can eventually get the courage up to make a contact on CW.
Anyway, probably too much of a first post but that is my story. I plan on writing on here about my first contest experience (went pretty well), my early digital experiments (both 2m packet in the 90s and HF these days). Hopefully I'll be able to add my first real award (5 states away from WAS digital, 61 countries from DXCC), and I'm grabbing parts to stick up a new antenna in the back yard this summer. So on the odd chance anyone finds this, thanks for reading! .....73 de N0QBX
When I originally was licensed in the early 90's the no-code license was new and I was able to take the test right away since I had been studying for my Novice for awhile before that but couldn't get motivated to learn the code. My original plan when I earned the Tech ticket was to upgrade to general fairly quickly but here I was 20 yrs later so this time I was going to really do it. I was glad to see the code test was removed so it was pretty easy to grab a book from our local candy store and study for a month. When I went in and took my test I passed with 100% correct the first try. A couple weeks later was Yaesu days here so I went in to see what deals they had knowing I couldn't afford to spend a whole lot. Luckily, they had a refurbed FT-450D that became my first HF rig and opened up that part of radio I was always missing.
This was during a time when 10m was busy all day so I kind of wondered if I really needed to upgrade at all. I was working the world primarily in the novice/tech portion of 10m! But that died down and now I spend almost all my time on 15m and 20m digital. I am starting to work on code again. I love the digital modes and am pretty sure I would love CW if I could just force myself to learn it. Sadly, I can send alright (not a good fist by any means) but I feel pretty unsure of receiving even at 5wpm. I'm trying to sit down and receive off the air a few times a week to work on my skills, hopefully I can eventually get the courage up to make a contact on CW.
Anyway, probably too much of a first post but that is my story. I plan on writing on here about my first contest experience (went pretty well), my early digital experiments (both 2m packet in the 90s and HF these days). Hopefully I'll be able to add my first real award (5 states away from WAS digital, 61 countries from DXCC), and I'm grabbing parts to stick up a new antenna in the back yard this summer. So on the odd chance anyone finds this, thanks for reading! .....73 de N0QBX
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)