45,868 miles with an attic antenna......SHUT UP!!!

The K3 is ready to go at 100mW's

Well as many posts have mentioned the CQ WPX CW contest is now history for 2012. There is no total score, multiplier count or a prefix total to brag about here. This contest I was hunting DXCC's. When the hunt slowed down ( and it did for long periods of time) I then worked stations with as little power that my Elecraft K3 could muster to see if I could make contact. I was able to add 6 more DXCC's to my count (at 5 watts QRP) but I must admit at the start of the contest I was hoping to score around 15 or so. Oh well it seems that I have at this point most of the popular entities. I found conditions to Europe to be great but the South Pacific areas were dead up this way. There was more of Africa this year but the pile ups were huge at times.
To make things interesting as I was not "contesting" in the true sense I started to drop my power as I gave out contest points. I started at 1.5 watts to CR1X in Finland that worked out to 2755 miles per watt. Update....Thanks to PE4BAS my distance to CR1X who is in the Azores not Finland is 2417 miles per watt, thanks Bas for the info!  He had no  problem copying me so down went the power. I leveled out at 100mW's just for the reason this is as low as the K3 will venture.

Proof 100mW's is on it's way...no SWR showing

Below are the top 4 low power contacts all at 100mW's

1.  HA8JV            45,868  miles per watt
2.  IR9Y               44,558   "                        "
3.  9A1A              44,187   "                        "
4.  OL7C             42,496   "                        "

Until this contest my personal best Miles per watt 16,737 miles per watt when making contact with ZS4TS at 500mW's. Even at 100mW's being copied was easy and I was very surprised. I did not want to drop my power to the point were the contest station was spending his valuable time trying to make contact with me, but that never happened. I am now in the market for an attenuator do get my power output to below 100mW's and see what happens. I was looking at the Hendricks 41db attenuator. It's a kits and looks like a very nice unit.

CW WPX update..........

The action on 20m early in the evening

It's Saturday night and the bands sure are busy BUT it seems not with to many new DXCC's for me. I have picked up about 6 news ones since the contest began. I have decided to also drop my power down and try to contact the countries I already have DXCC's for. Up to this point I am at 100mW's and getting into Europe....mind you with repeats. I hope to pick up a few more DXCC's on Sunday but now it's time to relax!!

CQ WPX contest + DXCC = Jubilee.......

The CQ world-wide CW WPX contest is on this weekend. The bands will come alive with Morse code,  there will be slow speed, high speed and what the heck did they send speed!! Contests give operators an opportunity to sharpen their radio skills, work on their code speed, see how a new antenna works, fire up the amplifier or turn the power down to QRPp levels and see what happens. Here at VE3WDM I am going to set what I consider an unusual goal for this contest. This time am not concerned with points, multipliers or the quantity of contacts. My goal for this contest is to pick up as many DXCC's as I can. I have been working on my DXCC Jubilee award and what better place but a world-wide contest to add to the DXCC count. So for me it will be search and pounce needed DXCC's in this contest at a QRP power level. Now  you just can't have one goal for a contest can you...........
Other goals for the weekend adventure
1. I have been playing with the Morse runner program each day working on keyboard copying....we will see how that works in a contest situation.
2. I want to take advantage of my sub receiver in my Elecraft K3. Use it to scope out other bands or listen for pileup's to die down.

 To everyone participating in the contest all the best. May the propagation god's be smiling on us this weekend......rest up hammy's and hope to see you on my Elecraft P3!!!
Good luck all!

See if you can identify this mystery interference....

Well over here at VE3WDM I have had a type of  mystery interference that shows up now and then check out the Youtube video below and see if you can identify it. Oh and as a sideline I have searched the internet for examples of interference and anomalies  such as AC line noise, Static crashes and birdies to name a few and have not been able to find anything!! Maybe someone could put up on Youtube examples of gremlins we hams may run across. Anyway post your ideas as to what this is..............

The bands improve slow but sure.........

Found some time last night to spend at the rig most of the time during the week once things are done for the evening I'm just to tired for hobby time. Seems I found my second wind and I took advantage and flipped the K3 on. I was able to receive Turkey, Guernsey and Newfoundland.  My five watts was just not making it. To bad they all would had been new DXCC's for me to add to the count. Booming in on 10m's was HC2AC from Ecuador a country that is already on my DXCC list. I dropped my power down to 1 watts and gave him a call. He came back to me right away with a great report. With one watt it gave me a 3,151 miles per watt contact. As I look back I should have dropped the power to 500mW's or less and moved the power upward to see how little it took to make the contact. Conditions were such that as fast as he was booming in  HC2AC was down at the noise level and then gone.

Spinning my ham wheels............

The plan this weekend was to get some new DXCC's logged for the Diamond Jubilee award I am working on. As the saying goes "things did not go as planned" it's now Sunday aftern with next to no radio time in and the time I was on it seemed the bands out this way were dead. So it was off to plan "B"..... enter all the contacts I have made into a great Excel program made just for the Diamond Jubilee award. My count was 74 contacts.....so I thought anyway. You see this is my first effort at the DXCC  award and it seems I was off with my contact count. For example lets look at Jamaica and Cayman Islands.......I had Jamaica, Turks and Caicos islands then finally Cayman Islands oh to be in the Cayman's now but that is another post I counted that as 3..... NOT......It's only one (blog world tell me I'm wrong) I also had the same problem with  the West Indies, Great Britain and so on!!! So my count went from 74 to 63 confirmed DXCC's. So with that good news under my belt it was time to enter the information into the Excel spread sheet. The info needed is Call sign, band, date and time. I did have some troubles matching calls to countries as they were special event calls, they are no where close to the DXCC prefix. For example Gibraltar is a ZB2 prefix but my logged call is ZQ2FK. The call is a special call in honor of the Diamond Jubilee in England. Some other calls were special contest call signs. For example Martinique DXCC is FM8 or FM the contest call from there was TO5X....not even close. It was a frustrating event matching these calls to the DXCC country list at times. Now my plans are for late afternoon and evening' I am going to sit at the computer once again (this time with a Guinness) and log more calls into the Excel spreed sheet. 

Early release of Dayton eye candy!!

Dayton with many more surprises

My issue of QST came in yesterday and the back page made the new Kenwood rig official !!  There is a great pic there of the new TS 990S but with little to no spec's. The available spec's brag of a top RF output of 200 watts, HF and 50mhz, built in antenna tuner,built in power supply and really thats about all the info Kenwood released in the full page release. Viewing the picture one can see two USB ports which are nicely placed on the front of the rig. A very impressive color TTF display along with a band scope, not if the rig houses two independent receivers but it would seem so as there are independent controls for each receiver on the right hand side of the radio. Not sure as of yet what the optional components of the TS 990S are.  So what are your impressions of the new kid on the block??

A great day = portable op's

Portable op's QTH

VE3WDM portable in action

It was and still is a beautiful day here at VE3WDM there is a nice cool breeze, the sun is shining with a great temp of 17C. I have been itching to get the K2 operating mobile as I have been working most of the winter getting the K2, antenna and mount ready to go. I spent the morning and early afternoon spring cleaning the shack and found some