Is is wise to buy your wife an appliance for Christmas.....maybe!!

I was operating in the CQ WW CW contest the other weekend and all was going well. I left my operating  post for a short time and came back to see my P3 screen shown in the above shot. I was not sure what was going on but I did know it was wiping out the entire band. In an instant the CW WW CW contest I was in was on hold. After a very short time I found out it was the mixer my wife was using to make some holiday short bread cookies. I showed my wife and once the short bread mixing was done I was back in the contest again.  I thought I would never say it but "I think it wise to buy my wife an appliance for Christmas. Truth be told I think I am buying it for myself.

DX contact out of the blue!

Good afternoon from VE3WDM, it's a Sunday afternoon and the weather is sunny with a high of +10C. It was a nice day for a walk which my wife and I did mid afternoon. Once home it was time to setup for the software for the up coming CQ WW CW contest. There were some bugs I had to workout with the software and I did without issue. Then there were some minor issues that I am just going to forget about for now. For example I have no idea why my Winkeyer USB when N1MM+ is running will allow me to only control the CW speed but for some reason I just can't seem to communicate with the Winkeyer to setup and execute macros?? I'm not going to sweat it as in the past I have found that once you start monkeying around with the different pieces of software things that did not work now work...........BUT things that did work DONT!
While setting things up I did have the K3 on and the P3 waterfall viewing the 20m band. I did notice TL8AO and the HUGE pileup that was "UP" 2 KHz on the band. Funny thing as I was listening I did find an op more often than not calling on TL8AO's calling freq and not splitting "UP" On the waterfall of the P3 I did notice a new strong CW signal appear so I pointed and clicked over to it. It was HI3Y in the Dominican calling CQ and "UP". I listened as I setup the split and he seemed to be calling without a pileup. I threw my call out there and he came back to me with a report. He was in the books just that easy...now only if my 5 watts could break the pileup with TL8AO that fast! Time to start dinner now.......Tenderloin steak on the BBQ, mini potatoes on the BBQ with butter and rosemary and finally butternut squash........yum! 

Win4K3suite added to shack.

Win4kSuite up and running

I have decided to change up my rig control software to Win4K3 suite I downloaded the trial version and was very impressed. I would had done it sooner but my PC was not up to the grade to properly run Win4K3 software and to be honest it was long over due for a PC upgrade. The PC was upgraded and if your interested that can be viewed here.  I decided to purchase the Win4k3 software (50.00) and change from my long time N4PY's Pegasus Plus rig control program. Carls Pegasus Plus program is very good and the support that Carl offers is excellent but I found the Win4k3 software was more catered to my Elecraft rigs. Once installed you have full rig control including the Elecraft P3, KPA500 amp and KAT500 tuner and the Sub receiver if you have these installed. (I did have the sub but sold it and I look back on that with regret)  I have the K3, P3 and KX3. The software installation has very good documentation and there are videos as well. Im the type of person who picks up much more from videos than written instructions. With the Win4K3 suite I was able to have PC control of all my K3 functions that some other software programs did not offer, such functions as spot, test, equalizer setup, terminal program, cw decode, Auto tuner and APF just to name a few. I also have the Elecraft P3 and with my PC upgrade I added a VGA capture board and since my P3 already had the SVGA board installed I N1MM contest software and Log40M. (More about Log40M in another post…. great software)

P3 on the monitor

was able to add point and click with my mouse to my P3 and this is great during contests. The SVGA board also allows me to view my P3 on a second monitor and mine being a 22" LCD monitor the P3 looks great on it. This software also has the availability to set up virtual ports. Now in the past just hearing "setting up virtual ports" made me nervous I really never had to much luck setting them up and getting them to work! With Win4K3 suite VA2SFQ makes it almost plug and play with both very detailed easy to follow steps and software that makes it painless…..and best of all IT WORKS!! The 3rd party software I set up to "play" with Win4K3 so far are If you have either the Elecraft k3 or KX3 (I have not setup my KX3 rig with the Win4k3 yet) and you are looking at PC controlled software then consider downloading Tom's trial version and give it a go!

My CQ WW CW contest overview.

The QRP setup

I had a great part time effort in the CQ WW CW contest, I was not concerned with score or putting in a major amount to time in the contest chair. The key goals in this contest was to see how my CW reading by ear was doing and when on the rig to stay with it for the time I committed too. The reading code by  ear was fine up to speeds in around 25 BUT with some stations they were flying at around 35-40 wpm and that is just to fast. My code reader MRP4066 handled the high speed code no problem this software is not free but I found it to be the best! I entered the contest as single op, QRP single band (15m) and I met the requirements as a "classic" operator  I added this overlay to my submission. My total QSO count was 33 a score of 3,128 points and 10 zones. At my QTH I did not hear the usual amount of European stations I have in the past. My operating time was during the day from late morning to until late afternoon. During the late morning I head mainly Caribbean, African and some European stations but not many. As the afternoon approached more South and Central American stations came it as Europe faded.

I did have some "Murphy" moments such as…….I was not able to get my MFJ mag loop to tune at all at the start of the contest. Very quickly I found it was a very loose PL-259 connected on the rear of the loop's control box. Then for some reason N1MM+ set my CQ zone as 5 and not 4 and I did not click into this until about 10 contacts into the contest. Finally on the K3 there is a "test" setting and I use it to check macros without transmitting. Then old age had me forget to turn off the test mode, this found me thinking I was calling stations but was transmitting 0 watts….. Now that's QRP!!
Since I am operating QRP and using small MFJ loop antenna on the balcony my operating style was as follows
- I Use my VFO B to save a strong DX station that at the time has a huge pileup going. This stops me from wasting time trying to break the pile. Better to come back when the crazy pileup is gone. This worked great when I came across a Senegal station.
- Even when a station is at an S2 level but is just calling and listening my 5 watts can and did many times make it through for a contact.
- I don't use a spotting network as I found most of these stations have a huge pileup but I do have an Elecraft P3.  Using some hardware and software my P3 is seen on a 19 inch monitor and I am able to point and click on signals. My K3 then moves to that signal this allows me to see the activity on the band and Search and pounce these stations.
- When possible stay with a band such as 15m were my MFJ loop does not need to be retuned at all across the whole CW portion.
- Stick with my 250hz Inrad 8 pole CW filter so I can get between tight signals and only hear the op I want to contact.
In my post I am going to go into detail about my software I am now using and finding to be great for contesting and general QSO's It's now time to grab some eats and relax.

I'm back.................

So where have I been..........really nowhere actually I can't believe my last post on the blog was June 10 but at least I am still in the year 2015!! The blog has gone quite for almost 3  months and really so has ham radio here at VE3WDM. I have been very busy with work, here in Toronto we hosted the Pan Am games and I was directly involved with that.......to the point of around the clock standby. Before Pan Am there was the prep time and then after the post Pan Am "stuff" To be honest there was time at home but after getting home I just just to tired to turn the rig on or post on the blog. I have been reading all your posts and really enjoyed that. Now that things are slowing down a little bit of "normal" seems to be happening I'm back in the radio saddle. I did check my blog stats and readership sure has fallen to almost nothing but that makes sense seeing it's been same old same old regarding my blog content. So what is new here well most of the "new" things happen in the last few weeks as I started to slow down. First off I sold my Alexloop antenna it seemed I just was not using it  now that I moved to Toronto. I posted the sale online and it was gone within an hour! With the sale of the Alexloop I was able to purchase the P3TXMON add on to my Elecraft P3. This week I also upgraded my PC.  One of my hard drives gave up the ghost, the one with the OS on it!!. At the same time I figured it was time to move up to the next level with my PC.  So I looked at purchasing a new machine or just upgrading what I have. I decided to upgrade the PC as I have 3 fairly new hard drives in the tower, up to date video card, I just replaced the power supply and the DVD player has no issues. The decision was made to upgrade the motherboard, the processor and ram. So the new system is Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard, AMD 8320 8 core processor at 3.5 GHz, 8 Gb (2x4) of DDR3 ram at 1600 mhz. I really had not done this before so lots of reading on the internet and YouTube videos, surprisingly things went smoothly. I now have an Asus M3A76-CM motherboard, AMD Phenom IIx4 2.8GHZ fan cooled processor, 4 Gb of SDram, Zoltac GT620 64 bit graphics card, and D-Link 1GB lan card hanging around..........may put it up for sale.

My QRP signal is spotted in Europe!

I had some down time over the weekend and felt it was time to spin the K3's VFO and see what was out there. I started on 15m it really did not seem all that busy but I was hearing some German stations so the band was open. My Elecraft P3 is great as I was able to get a snapshot of the CW portion of 15m. This allows me to not spend time moving up and down the band blindly and maybe just missing some stations as they end their transmission. One could end up concluding the band is dead and move on when in fact they just missed a station or stations calling CQ and waiting for a reply.  I ended up calling CQ in and around the QRP watering hole at 21.060, in the past I have checked the Reverse Beacon Network (or RBN)  just to see how my QRP signal was doing. At this new QTH

P3 on 20m showing some signals

for some reason I have been only able to get spotted in Canada and the U.S. To my surprise when I checked RBN I had been spotted in Hungary, Switzerland and Germany. I was very shocked and it kept me on the band calling CQ. Unfortunately there was no answers I then moved onto 17m and was spotted in France but again no answers to my CQ! I then ventured down to my standby band of 20m and found F5GPE Pierre calling CQ. His signal was in around 559 and I gave him a call and he came back to me with a report of 539. I did send him an email thanking him for the contact, he did get back to me giving me more details about his setup.

ARRL CW Contest done QRP style

Oliver is asking……"Ahhhh dinner!!!

I took part in the ARRL CW contest this weekend in a part time way, I was not able to go full tilt as I had things around the house that needed to be done. I skipped the Friday evening as it's most of the big guns going at record setting CW speeds. I operated QRP, single band, non assisted, single transmuter and with my MFJ 1788 magnetic loop antenna. The bands were alive with CW and you would never think we were in the downswing of a solar cycle! Then conditions over all were great on 15m I was able to get on from early morning into the early evening. In the morning the bands were filled with

The rig setup

Europe and as the late afternoon rolled around the South Pacific started to boom in along with Central and south America. Some of the standout locations I heard were Bangladesh, Guam, Japan, New Zealand and South Sudan. None of which I was able to contact the pileups were HUGE!! Some of the highlights for me were contacting Hawaii, Cuba,  and grabbing a new DXCC Dominican Republic.
Score rundown is as follows
Contacts        DXCC's      Points
81                   39                9360

The equipment  used was the Elecraft K3 with 500,400 and 250 inrad filters, the Elecraft P3, Begali Contour Key and the Flex control external VFO knob and last but not least the MFJ 1788 Magnetic loop antenna. The software used were N1MM+ contest software, N4PY rig control software and MRP40 CW code reader for the chain saw speed code. I never had Murphy pay me any visits during

The contest software

the contest which really is a first time. I found 15m to be a great band very low noise floor and lots of action. I did venture up to 20m for a listen and from my location it was very noisy and I was glad I decided to stick with 15m.  Sunday seemed to be an easier day for making contacts I had far less repeats to do, Saturday I really had to work for each and every contact. Looking forward to the next CW contest!

It's time for the Kool-Aid.....:)

It's like the Borg connected to the collective!

As my readers may have clued in already I am a big Elecraft fan and the two radios I have at the moment are the Elecraft K3 and Elecraft KX3. One of the best things I like about these rigs as well as the accessories such as the P3 and PX3  Elecraft is constantly improving and adding things to the radio. These improvements for the most part are  upgradeable downloads via the internet. The other thing is the upgradable downloads are not complicated to preform, it's as simple as

New software loading

downloading and setting up the utility from Elecraft. From then on  all you do is plug your rig in via USB or serial cable to you PC and double click on the utility icon on your desktop. Your software on your rig is read and if there is any new upgrades you see them on your utility and can download them to your rig...........and that's it! There are release notes telling you what has been added or enhancements to your rig. Time for me to get off my soapbox now.

Almost QRP/QRP contact

My drive to get our snows on....just in time!

Relaxing at the radio with some tea

Have to go into work on Sunday so I wanted to spend some relaxing time at the radio this afternoon and see what was up on the bands. I started out on 17m and it did have some DX on there but it faded very fast. I then received a call from our veterinary that our cats food was in for pickup so it was off to get that. When I returned it seemed that 17m things were just not happening. I jumped down to 20m and came across KB3RUN/QRP calling CQ I came back to him and he did hear me BUT this nasty QRN came over the radio and wiped out his signal all together. It seems to be a plasma TV that is in the area somewhere and by the time I filtered it out KB3RUN/QRP was gone. I did send an email just to let him know I did not forget about him. Most times on my contacts and almost contacts I send an email to thank the op for the contact.

Making your radio time interesting is what counts!

I spent some time on 20m in the CW portion of the band and as always I wanted to make contacts with the lowest power possible. I came across 9A2G who was calling CQ and at the time he was not to busy with takers. This is a great opportunity for me to drop my call to someone who is listening. I started out at 500mW's and moved all the way up to 5 watts and nothing no contact. He did have some stations answer his CQ  and some where very weak so  he had good ears but not for VE3WDM. I then came across EG7MAL and I worked my way up to 5 watts and he came back to me with VE3?. He decided to move on as I was just not making the trip. At this point I was wondering how my low power signal was doing so I decided to call CQ at the QRP watering hole on 20m. I was checking with the Reverse Beacon Network to see how I was doing.  My 500mW signal was heard by AA4VV in North Carolina which was just over 1,000 miles per watt. I then bumped my power up to 1 watt and was very happy to see F4DXW was hearing me which meant my 1 watt of power made it 3461 miles. I did not make any contacts but I did find a way to make the radio evening a bit exciting even without making a two way contact.

Sunday radio time.

MX0CCE Bob 

Not much going on

I was able to get some time on the radio Sunday afternoon, there were some contests going on but did not seem much other than that. At the same time I was able to get my radio control program (N4PY software) to work along with my logging program (N3FJP's AClog) and I found out that there is a cluster program that is offered with the N4PY program. It also has been integrated very nicely. Back to my on air time……I did run into two very strong signals calling CQ and giving signal reports. The first was MX0AAA It's a club station that was founded in 1934 and according to the map on QRZ.COM the station is located in London England. The contact was made on 20m with 5 watts and my signal report was 559. I then saw another strong signal on my P3 again on 20m. The call was MD0CCE and Bob was located on the Isle of Man and my signal report was 579. That was it for the contacts for the weekend. I was very pleased with these two contact for QRP and the MFJ Loop antenna. 

Learning more about the Alexloop

What turning the loop can do

As times goes on and I use the Alexloop more and more I am coming to realize that this antenna may not be a bad choice for my condo antenna. The loop is small and I thought may not preform that well, stacked up against my Alpha Delta DX-EE dipole antenna yes it does not far very well. BUT for limited space, fast to assemble and take down and stealth the Alexloop is a great contender. Recently I have been only using the Alexloop indoors and either on the main floor or my second floor shack. The power has been set to 5 watts and as was said in my previous posts I was able to get into Europe with some decent reports. This weekend using the loop antenna along side my K3 (Up to this point I have only been using my KX3) they seem to get along very well. The tuning of the antenna has been made easier because of the P3 and external monitor. I am able to tune to peak noise using the band scope or otherwise known as the Elecraft P3. Peaking the noise level this way has almost netted me a perfect SWR on all bands. There was only a very minor self tune I had to do in order to get the SWR flat.

Day one of CQ WW CW contest

Most of the time during these full weekend contests I don't get on Friday evening as I find it to be a ZOO with lots of stations sending at a blinding speeds. I don't blame them as they want to get their score rolling so that on Saturday they are well in the game. I started on Saturday morning around 8 in the morning the power output is 5 watts QRP into my attic dipole. It's funny I was sending serial numbers in the teens and I am receiving serial numbers the the triple digits. Now that would be depressing if I was in the contest to make a showing...but I'm in it to have fun!! So how did the first day go......

The facts

1. The propagation was.....shall we say (because this is a family blog) crap!! 
2. I was in the contest for a grand total of 5 hours today. 
3. There was some down time as you can tell from fact number 2...software troubles, USB port trouble and K3 updates and the list can go on.  (This is normal contest OMG stuff)
4. The attic dipole once again did very well considering the conditions.
5. The evening once 20m closes down I am done as with the poor conditions for some reason 40m has not been a great band for me with the attic dipole. 

Day one surprises 

1. So far I have not used any paper and pencils to copy call's I have been able to just use the keyboard. Now yes in the picture above in the center monitor bottom right you will see MRP40. (cw decoding program and the BEST one out there) That was up and running for the contester who for some reason send at @#@%$$# SPEEDS!! 
2. With the propagation conditions in the dumps I was very please to get my QRP signal heard in Hawaii, Australia, South America and Cuba. 
3. I have been practicing my contest code with some programs and for the first time code at 30-35wpm was clear and understandable! 

   So there  you have day one.......Sunday is another ball of wax! Good luck to all in the contest and to those not in the contest the bands will be your on Sunday evening.........just being a smart ass...:)))

Poor conditons but still worked a few..............

Throughout the day yesterday I was getting propagation updates on my Iphone, things were not looking to good. The decision was made to work on my Elecraft K2 build and not get frustrated with poor propagation conditions. After about 20 minutes of working on the K2 I just was not getting into. Putting the project down for the evening I flipped on the K3 just to check out the band conditions. One of my handy tools for doing that is the Elecraft P3. It's great for seeing the general condition of a particular band. It seemed that 20 meters was not doing to badly considering the conditions. The first station I ran across was H70ORO from Nicaragua. His signal was rather strong considering my attic dipole does not seem to favour Central or South America. His code speed was a comfortable 20 wpm and really not much of a pileup. I made contact with only 1 watt which gave me 2,190 miles per watt contact.
The next (and final) station I contacted was EA4DRV, being pumped from my last 1 watt contact I tried working this Spanish station with 1 watt. It didn't work out as well and the contact was made eventually with 3 watts. After this contact it was time to flip the switch once again and move on to making lunches, arranging morning work clothes and all that other fun stuff.  It goes to show you that even when the propagation is in the dumpers contacts are still there to be had!

CT8/PA4N

I finally had a chance to fire up the K3 on Monday afternoon, it has been a very busy weekend besides I have been reading on most blogs how poor the conditions were....even for the digi folks. It was very windy and cold up this way on Monday with the surprise of snow in the morning. We have some 230KV lines at the back of the house and when they start to blowing around some (I guessing) loose insulator cause me some QRN. The blogs were spot on and the bands were not in real good shape at all besides the power line QRN was not helping either. Later in the afternoon the winds settled and the bands had some CW spikes showing on the P3 here and there.

230KV lines out back

I was on 20m and heard CT8/PA4N who was operating from Sao Miguel island (EU-003) on the Azores.  Frank was only going to be on the island until April 3rd so I wanted to give him a shot. The band was not busy at all, they were not running split and since conditions were not that great I pumped the K3 up to 5 watts. With only one repeat of my call I made the contact. As I was entering the logging info into DxLabs there was a pileup developing so it would seem I got in at the right time.  I also noticed that fellow blogger John N8ZYA has also made contact with the team as well.

MFJ 1026 noise canceling unit...for today ham!

Things don't seem to work  when you really need them

I have been reading on many blogs of fellow hams who have had an increase in QRN due to many electrical sources and routers just to mention a few. The enjoyment of ham radio has been for many cut short due to devices blowing a hole in the spectrum!! Yes the companies are suppose to adhere to regulations regarding emissions. BUT both the adhering and the enforcement are very much lacking. We as hams are left to somehow deal with the hash that many modern items produce. I have this feeling it is not going to decrease as time goes on but increase. I have found this is were in my case the MFJ 1026 shines for me. I have a Plasma TV on the main floor and when Julie is cooking, surfing the net or relaxing the TV is on with some music playing in the background. I could go down and ask her to turn the TV off....but....I am a married man not a foolish man. Below is a YouTube video I did today showing how effective the MFJ 1026 is. It was done with my Iphone so some movement will be noticed. (note to self....get a proper recording device)

Nice openings on 10m

Signals on 10m this afternoon

Sunday afternoon has seemed to pass just a little faster with setting our clocks ahead last evening an hour. I did find some time to get on the radio (finally after about 5 days off). I tried 10m and according to the P3 screen things were fairly calm for that band. As I was starting up my PC along with the DXlab software I did notice some small and large spikes on the P3. Most of the time when the band is this dead and it was about 2 in the afternoon as well these spikes are just QRM.

EA2LU antennas

Upon investigation to my surprise the first spike was a signal from PV8ADI in Brazil. For some reason I have had troubles with South American station. Not sure if it's the position of the dipole in the attic or just one of those always hard to get spots for me. I gave the station a go with 500mW's but as I expected....nothing. He was having lots of stations (ones I could not hear) come back to him. The flavor of the contact was signal report and move on. I brought the K3 up to 5 watts and gave him a another call. He came back to me and we exchanged reports and moved on.

Seems doing nothng is doing something.....

RFI Friday night

My last post dealt with my PC monitors causing me some grief in the form of RFI to my K3. On Saturday I spent most of the day spinning my wheels trying to find a way to lesson or better yet cure the RFI problem. Below is what I had tried to in order to fix the problem.
1. I changed out the video cables and wrapped them with chokes as well.....did nothing.
2 Moved the monitors to other locations on the operating desk...that was loads of fun and it too did nothing.
3. Tried running the K3 just off battery power and.... nothing.
4. Ran the monitors from the 12 volt Astron power supply and again nothing.
5 Put snap on chokes on ALL cables coming out of PC and the ALL cables from each monitor.....NOTHING!
6. Even tried tin foil on the back of the monitor and grounding it...only made monitor look sci-fi.
7. Put 1:1 balun on the coax coming out of the K3 and still had problem.
8. Tried my Elecraft K2 (maybe just a K3 problem) found same issue with K2.

Sunday...not to bad

9. Plugged monitors into separate AC outlets on different circuits and did not fix issue.
10. Ran a ground up to each monitor and video card on the PC (PC is already grounded) and nothing.
11.Repositioned screen to see if that made any difference I thought it did but turned out not to.
 So that was how my Saturday was spent and from doing all the above I was able to find out a few things that I hope may ring a bell on how to solved the RFI isssue
1. As I move my hand closer to the monitor the RFI increases.
2. When the rig is on the dummy load the RFI is gone.....but so is everything else regarding signals.
Now it's Sunday and I have come to the understanding that I am going to just have to live with the problem. I know where it is coming from that sometimes that is half the battle! I am going to do some reading and thinking about the issue. I came into the shack to just roll the desk back up against the wall and tidy up the room. I then turned on the K3 along with the PC and for some reason the RFI is still there but not as much at all!!! Seems doing nothing is doing something!!

Monitor RFI issue.....

RFI from new monitor

This evening I was on the radio and had the Elecraft P3 up and running as always. I just happend to be looking at the P3 external monitor when my PC's monitors went into sleep mode. I noticed that some signals (now seen as RFI) dropped off the screen. I had noticed these signals before and knew it was RFI but had

Both monitors off  

 no idea it was coming from the monitors! My new AOC e2351F LED monitor seems to be the major culprit but the Acer Z233h does add just a little on it's own. If I turn the monitors off (via the monitor button) the RFI is gone or if the monitor goes into sleep mode. You can see from the picture to the right where the RFI was from the tails. So the question now is how does one go about narrowing this down? I have power supplies to each monitor...but would they be the problem if the RFI is gone when the monitors are turned off but supplies are still plugged in? Can you ground a flat screen monitor to my station ground? Could the RFI be traveling down the monitor cables? Well this is just another project to keep me busy. I am lucky that the RFI is not the same on all bands these shots are from 18mhz and it seems to be the worst of them all. Any ideas blog world??

New records set at VE3WDM!!

Julie was out and about snapping shots!!

For me the ARRL  DX CW contest is over, I have some blog, email and cleaning to do for the rest of the day. Over all the contest was a success for me not that I broke any records with regards to points or number of contacts. I was very pleased with how the station and antenna were working, I find that contests are a great way to see how the rig and antenna preform. With regards to the rig and software I merged N1MM logger and N4PY rig control software through LP-bridge and as an added bonus I was able to also use the Flexradio's flex control vfo knob.....now that was a mouthful!! Lets break this down shall we N1MM is the

At 40mW and below this is the reading

contest logger that I use, N4PY is the software I use to control my K3. LP-bridge is a virtual port program that allows these two programs to somewhat talk to each other. I say somewhat as there are some minor issues. (there is another virtual port program VSP manager that allows perfect integration but I did not want to install it just before a contest) Oh and the FlexRadio FlexControl works fantastic with N4PY's rig control program and through LP-Bridge also works with N1MM as well. Another software program I ended