New Antenna is Almost Ready!

We've been working on adding a s9v18 here.  A HUGE thank you to the XYL for helping me with running radials.  I finally received the LMR-400 feedline on Friday, right before I had to head up north for a fantastic fishing weekend for a buddies bachelor party.  Today I was finally able to put that feedline into the ground/house and try out the antenna...with only 20 of the planned 32 radials into the ground, none of which headed east, I was able work Germany, Netherlands, California, Belgium, Canary Islands, and France... and the night is still really young.  My wife had to listen to me switch between the vertical and the fan dipole at least five times ( with all the relays in the LDG at-200 rattling away each time) before I was REALLY happy with the noise level on the new vertical.  As a side note it's a huge improvement on noise on 14.230/SSTV.  Now I just need to lay the last 12 radials and it should be even better.  Anyway, hoping to meet you on the air.... especially if your on digital in WY since that is the last state I need for digital WAS.... 73, de N0QBX

VHF QSO and General Propagation

Well, the VHF QSO party is over and it was a blast!  Also, you can sure tell it's summer with propagation getting better every day.

During the VHF QSO party I worked 6m from home into the dipole and made a ton of contacts.  Sunday morning was especially fun.  Honestly, during the peaks on both days I couldn't find a spot that didn't have 2-3 people on it already.  It was amazing just how many people were out, and a good test of all those fancy DSP things on the radio to try and single people out among the masses.  Thanks to everyone who was working the contest!  

Also, I'm starting to see a real noticeable uptick in DX in general.  Last night I couldn't quite get the attention of a Slovenia station on 17m but ended up moving up the dial to grab a Northern Ireland.  After that I hopped over to 20m and worked a couple Brits, along with Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and a few US stations.  I'm really hoping 10m will start going crazy like last year where it's contest DX all day long.    Glancing over at the station computer I'm seeing Spain, Italy, England, and Hungary so I think it's time to get off the internet and into the ionosphere.... until next time, 73 de N0QBX

VHF QSO Party this weekend!

Got home from work tonight and 6m JT65 was awesome!  Worked my first non-US station (VE) plus made a couple handfuls of US QSOs... All leading up to the VHF QSO party this weekend.   I'm excited, if it stays this active it's going to be a fun weekend.... better than the 10 10 psk contest last weekend (sorry, love 10m and psk31, but that was slow).  Only have the dipole up for 6 still, but I have high hopes for the contest, honestly don't know why I like 6m so much compared to hf, but the extra challenge is neat.... I could work these same stations on 20 or 40 any night of the week but on 6 it's exciting.  Anyway, enough for this go around, can't wait to see you this weekend!  73 de N0QBX sk.

6m JT65 Fun

    After discovering the fun of 6m I promptly worked at finding the jt65 frequency.  There was a bit of conflicting information on the web so I pulled up hamspots.net and watched 6m until it was clear that 50.276 looks to be the happening place for jt65.  It sounds like a lot of DX may use JT6M instead but for now I was sticking to what I knew.  Over a couple of days I've made a number of contacts including the one shown above.  As you can see, after the quick exchange with AE7KL in Utah he let me know I was his first 6m contact.  That was exciting, especially since it's my first week on 6 as well!  It's been fun so far, and the VUCC is adding another award to chase.  Now I can't wait until next weekend for the VHF QSO Party.  Wonder if I have time to build a Moxon or Hentenna to improve on the old dipole before the weekend....  Hope to catch you all on the magic band in the near future!  73 de N0QBX

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

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

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!