Got some QRP time in this past Sunday.........

Lets play radio

This past Sunday I sat down and got some radio time in, it seems there is so much that can come up to pull me away from some K3 time. I wanted to make an effort to sit at the rig today, relax and call CQ on 14.060 and to see what happened. I cranked the K3 up to 5 watts and let the CQ ring out over the airwaves!! It was not long before Peter KG4GR came back to me he is located in  Iowa. I was exspiraneing some type of AC QRM most likely from the 230KV hydro lines at the back of our home. The noise blanker on the K3 seemed to take care of it but Peter was in and out and I got the impression I was the same with him. Maybe

A QSL card that was almost a quarter century in coming!!

A contact from 23 years ago

A QSL card arrived  Friday not an usual thing for me but this one was almost a quarter century in coming!! The card was in an envelope on it's own most of the time QSL cards arrive in a stack of 50 or so from the buro. The card was from Louis N8LA and on the back of the card he apologized for the delay in sending me his QSL up to this point all was normal, then he thanked me for my QSL card. WHAT a QSL card I

My YouTube debut......

The other day I received an email from the Elecraft reflector site mentioning Plasma TV's and the problems they can cause ham op's. I do have a Plasma TV and it sure does affect things here at VE3WDM so this thread interested me very much. As you know from reading my other posts I do have the MFJ 1026 noise cancelling unit and I have had good success with it. The post on the Elecraft reflector had a great link to a load of information on how the K3 and the MFJ 1026 can work together very well. Well since I have the K3 and the MFJ 1026 I investigated the link.  I found a very cool way to hook the both units together that

QST is going digital..............

This afternoon when I checked my email there was a very interesting email from the ARRL. In June of this year QST is going digital!! Well almost they are still going to offer their paper addition but ARRL members will also have access (free of charge) to the QST digital version. The digital version will have some content that is only offered in the digital layout along with videos and hyper-links. Now if you are a regular reader of this blog you may remember back in August of 2011 I posted about Monitoring Times digital addition. They were offering a digital only subscription at a cheaper price than the paper version. I went for it and well...it was the reason the alarm bells went off

PSK is up and running....for real this time!!

1st PSK QSO with K5ZG

I want to thank all those who posted comments and emailed me direct to help my PSK journey along the road to success. Today I sat down and read all the comments and considered the feedback which helped me  get a plan going so I could be on the air with PSK. So what was wrong....well the good old Elecraft K3 was for some reason not set up the way I thought it was. I went back into the manual to see what the recommended settings were. The K3 when in DATA A mode (which is the mode that is recommended for PSK) the Line out to the Tigertronics Signalink is not taken from the MIC but the rear LINE OUT on the K3. That was the first

PSK31 up and running.......

Giving PSK a go

On Wednesday I spent some time familiarizing myself with HRD's DM-780 and getting some custom macros setup. In time I am  going to try out Fldigi and see which program I like better. The only reason I started with DM-780 was the K3 is all setup with HRD so I am half way there when it comes to PSK. So how did it go...well I am operating at 5 watts and there were some stations calling CQ but I was not able to grab their attention with my replies. I setup DM-780 to send info up too PSKreporter but up to this point and including today I just don't seem to be spotted at all. I am not sure if my setup with PSKreporter is wrong or I my signal

Setting up digital modes or going to the dentist what's better.......

HRD DM-780

Another day in the shack but not really on the radio as so much as setting up the radio. I decided to take the plunge and go head first into setting up a digi mode. PSK was my weapon of choice. I did some looking over of notes last night to get my mind into it. The software I have preloaded on the PC is  Julian's Kcomm, fldigi and HRD's  DM-780.  One of the trying tests for me is to get the radio to communicate with the

Resting and radio........

CT1IUA on the beach

Good afternoon fellow bloggers, went to see the Chiropractor and Physiotherapist today regarding my back troubles. The news was...... come back and see us and in the mean time REST!!! Well for me it is very hard to sit still and Julie can attest to that. One way to make sure I sit still and rest is to softly hobble into the radio room. I started out the day on WSPR I was transmitting 1 watt on 20 meters. The big reception report for me was from FR5DN on Reunion Island. At 1 watt that made it 9463 miles per watt for my attic dipole. I also tried some CW on 30m and 17m. Now my DX-33 dipole is not resonant for either of these bands but the K3 does

Down but not out!!!!!!

Today while putting some laundry way in the bedroom I threw my back out. I  simply hung up a T-shirt in the closet and that was it. I was on my knees and down for the count, this has happened in the past and I do see a Chiropractor one a month for up keep.  Now it will be off to the Chiropractor to slowly get better. I will be off work but at this point not sure for how long. I do know there will be no lifting, house work or sudden anything with movements. Hmmm radio does not require any of that!!! So it looks like here at VE3WDM part of the healing will be radio and rest....:)

QRP ARCI Pet rock contest over.......

This was a very cool contest only lasting 3 hours on a Saturday morning giving me with some nice radio time and time to get other things done as well. The QRP ARCI Pet rock contest (please if you know why it's called the Pet Rock contest let me know) is a great way to make some nice QRP contacts. One thing I did find is you sure do put the rig's filters through the paces as you try to copy some signals that are very close to the noise floor. I was not in this one to win it or even come close but to log some contacts and look them up on QRZ.COM to learn about who I just contacted. The contest started at 10 a.m. local time, there was nothing on

Making QRP to QRP contacts.....

VE1BA's shack

Well on Tuesday it's back to work and one of my 2012 ambitions....don't like the word resolution with me it is linked to a list of "non-goals". So for 2012 the buzz word is "ambitions". Well as I was saying the new ambition is to get on the rig more. This afternoon I did just that and had some two way QRP contacts. The first was with John VE1BA down in Nova Scotia. He was running 2 watts into an FT-817. At the time I thought I was running 500mW's but the K3 was set at 5 watts. So that gave me only 153 miles per watt. We had a short but nice chat on 20 meters. I had a chance on the K3 to use the APF filtering as John's RST was 229. The APF worked great as he jumped out from the noise floor.

A year in review.......

So how was 2011 here at VE3WDM,

I have always been a QRP operator but for the first time I decided to drop my output power to less than 5 watts. By the end of 2011 the output had dropped to 500mW's or less with great success as well.

I took some time to look around the shack to notice how much "stuff" I had that was just taking up space. I then put up for sale items I was not using and made enough for some new toys.

I discovered WSPR and all that you can do with it. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR