Ham of the Year!

I received a great honor from the Radio Society of Tucson during the annual Christmas banquet held on 12/13/08.  They awarded me the "2008 Ham of the Year"!

ARRL Southwest Division Convention 2008

Most years I attend the ARRL Southwest Division Convention, and 2008 was no different.  Attendance at these conventions has been declining and this year they only had about 530 registered, but it was fun anyway.  This year was Arizona's turn - we get it here every 3 to 4 years, and California gets it the rest.  It was held in Mesa, and I shared travel costs with my friend Larry, W7LB.  A highlight of my weekend was that my oldest brother Eric, N2IAF, happened to be in town and spent some time at the Convention with me.

I spent most of my time running the Ten-Ten International Net booth, along with 10-10 Director Bob N6OPR and his friend Gary KA6GPC, who came out from California.  I also gave a presentation at 3:00 on Saturday afternoon, a modification of my "Ten Meters is Alive & Well" talk.  I was very pleased with the attendance, which was in excess of 50 people - roughly 10% of the total registrants, and there were 3 other talks going at the same time!

See more photos at http://kr7rk.com/arrlsw2008.htm

ARRL New Mexico State Convention and Duke City Hamfest

On August 15 and 16, 2008, I attended the Duke City Hamfest and ARRL New Mexico State Convention.

With the help of Marcus, KM5EH, I ran an exhibit booth for 10-10 International Net, Inc.  I also gave my "10 Meters is Alive & Well" talk on Saturday at 1:00 p.m.  We had a good number of visitors stop by the booth, and a good turnout at the forum.

See more photos at http://kr7rk.com/dukecity2008.htm

ARRL Arizona State Convention and ARCA Hamfest 2008

The 2008 ARCA Hamfest and ARRL Arizona State Convention was held in Williams, AZ on July 18-19.

My son Brad joined me, he passed his test just a few days earlier but unfortunately did not yet have his call sign.

We set up an exhibit booth for 10-10 International.  Many hams stopped by the booth and signed our log, and we handed out about 100 copies of the latest issue of the 10-10 News.  We also received some scholarship donations, and took renewals.  The highlight of the booth was that we set up a couple of 10 meter stations and helped two hams (KE7LHY and KE7IDC, the wife and son of our own AZ Section Manager) obtain the necessary 10 contacts to allow them to apply for a new 10-10 number!

I also gave a presentation on Saturday afternoon titled "Ten Meters is Alive & Well", which was a slightly modified and expanded version of my talk that I gave earlier this year at Dayton.

See more photos at http://kr7rk.com/williams2008.htm

10-10 Board Meeting in San Antonio

The 2008 Board of Directors meeting for 10-10 International Net, Inc. was held in San Antonio, Texas on May 31, 2008.

As Treasurer of 10-10, I presented the annual financial report.  We had a busy day with a lot to discuss as always.

The following day, June 1, 2008 was the 20th Annual Hill Country Picnic held at the home of Jack K5CC.  In addition to great food and wonderful company, we enjoyed a nice opening on 10 meters prior to the "parking lot net".  I also was able to watch Allen N5AFV work several stations on the AO-27 satellite, using the 10-10 Club call sign W6OI.

See more photos at http://kr7rk.com/1010board2008.htm

SteppIR Installation

On May 25, 2008, some friends came over (again - this has been a multiple step process) to help get my new 3-element SteppIR beam installed.  We started at the inhuman hour of 5:00 a.m. to avoid the heat of the day, which turned out to be a wise choice.

We had previously added an additional 10 feet to the tower, so the beam is a bit over 40 feet up.  I would have liked to go higher, but in my present city lot, a higher height is not feasible.  Two weeks earlier, we made a failed attempt to raise the antenna.  We were close but the gin pole positioning prevented the mast plate from mounting.  In the process of that attempt we also did some minor damage to the SteppIR's motor control cable.

The second time went very smoothly, and my first day's QSO's included some nice DX (Ukraine, Israel, Asiatic Russia, Uruguay), as well as some good 10 meter contacts.  We did not completely finish the job - the tower still needs some guy lines installed to secure it better.

These guys are the best - I'd never have been able to do it without them!  May there always be good propagation for the following hams:  Larry W7LB, Owen AK7AR, Eric KC0AYD, and Ed K6ESS, and my son Ryan, KR7YAN, who pitched in a little.

See more photos at http://kr7rk.com/steppir.htm

Dayton Hamvention 2008

I attended the 2008 Dayton Hamvention on Friday, May 16 to Sunday, May 18.

  I also attended Contest University the day prior to the Hamvention.

As usual I had a wonderful time.  I worked at the 10-10 booth, presented a talk at the 10-10 forum, and cruised the halls in search of unique radio goodies.

Click Here to see a PowerPoint presentation from my forum talk.

For more pictures see http://kr7rk.com/dayton2008.htm

Using the Huge Discone at Titan Missile Museum

Our local club, the Radio Society of Tucson, operated the 7th Area QSO Party from the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley on May 3, 2008.

The museum has a HUGE discone antenna, which basically allows operation on any HF band.  We had a lot of fun!

The antenna was built in the 1960's, during the cold war.  At one time it must have been totally off-limits and high-security, but now they allow hams to use it freely.

More photos are at http://kr7rk.com/7qptitan2008.htm

International DX Convention 2008

I attended the 2008 International DX Convention in Visalia, California from April 25 - 27, 2008.  My buddy Larry W7LB and I made the long drive, and were rewarded with plenty of excellent seminars on DX'ing, eyeball QSO's with famous DX'ers, a nice toy store, and lots of fun.

SteppIR was there in force and I was able to exchange a broken fiberglass pole with them after the convention.

More photos at http://kr7rk.com/dxcon2008.htm

RST Club Meeting Night

Last night was the monthly meeting of the Radio Society of Tucson. The club's booming with about 100 members out of the ~2,200 hams in the Pima County area; for a local radio club that is a pretty good percentage of the ham population.

The main speaker was Bill Hickey, AB7AA, who gave a presentation about RACES Home Units. Basically the HU program utilizes fixed stations to provide reports about localized conditions.

We also heard the "big announcement", namely that the new D-Star system will soon be installed at a site on Mt. Lemmon. Lots of other things going on in the club as well.

A Clean Sweep and a Great DXpedition

For the past few weeks, the HF bands have been full of activity with the VP6DX DXpedition to Ducie Island, a small atoll in the Pitcairn Islands which is a separate DXCC entity.

I hadn't really planned to be active with them, but I was playing with RTTY on 20 meters back on Feb. 13th and made a QSO with them. I gradually started working them on other bands and modes, and before long it became a quest. I was quite excited to snag them on Valentine's Day on 10 meters. I tuned up the screwdriver on the truck to catch them on 17 meter phone. I worked them in my truck on 80 meters at around 3:40 in the morning, during a short break while providing communications support at an all-night bike race event. I overcame my fears of fast code QSO's and started working the CW slots (it's a lot easier to work fast CW when it's not a long chatty QSO!)

I strung up an Alpha Delta Sloper to accompany my little beam and discovered that I could tune it for 17 and 12 meters, in addition to the 30, 80, and 160 meter bands. As the days went by, the quest became an obsession - I really wanted to work them on as many bands and modes as possible. This was made especially difficult by the fact that I'm presently in my busiest work time of the year (yes, it's tax season!)

I thought I was finished for good a few days ago, with all possible bands and modes except for 160 meters. The AD Sloper is really not a good 160 meter antenna, and to make matters worse I put it up where it is direction to the North. But, I kept trying anyway. I was so excited on Tuesday morning when I scored a CW QSO! I had spent many hours trying, and finally got through at about 6:30 a.m., so I'm pretty certain it was a greyline propagation helping my measly little signal to make it through. They took almost all the gear down on Tuesday, so I thought I was finished for sure. On Tuesday night, they were working 160 CW again, and I worked late while keeping an eye on the cluster for a phone op. Finally in the wee hours they gave it a try...only to switch back to CW after a short while because the noise was so bad nobody was getting through. I finally called it quits and went to bed at 4:00 a.m., but got back up at 6:30 on Wednesday morning to get my son up for school. I couldn't resist turning the rig on one more time...and surprise, they were on 160m phone. So I started calling. I kept calling, my voice was almost shouting into the microphone in desperation...and finally I heard them calling back, "Radio Kilo, Radio Kilo, again?" So I kept going and going, and what a miracle, I finally heard my full call come back with a signal report! I was more awake than ever despite only having a couple of hours of sleep, the adrenaline was really pumping as I gave my signal report to them. I was so excited that I gave a CW-style RST, "599 599", instead of just the normal "59", but I guess they forgave me. That QSO was definitely one of the most difficult ones I've ever made.

So I ended up with a "clean sweep" (they never activated 6 meters, so I got all 20 possible band-slots) and I suspect I was one of the last ones to make it into the log, as they tore down the rest of the gear on Wednesday and are now on ship sailing for home. I couldn't wait to see the online log to make sure I wasn't dreaming! And sure enough, I'm in the log - the picture above is a snapshot of their online log checker. I even made it in the top 100 for CQ Zone 3 (#86) and the Western United States (#83)! Not bad for a station with very limited antennas and no amplifier. My buddy Larry also had the bug and he scored a clean sweep too, with the exception of the RTTY slots.

This DXpedition set many records with over 183,000 QSO's. It certainly got me fired up to work more DX. I've actually logged quite a few DX contacts with other countries in recent times, and I'm already in a big backlog on QSL'ing. Tomorrow night the ARRL International DX Contest starts, and while I don't plan to make it a major effort, I'll probably get on and try for a few new ones between work and family commitments. Fun stuff!

Logs, Logs, and More Logs

Over the years I have utilized many different methods of logging my amateur radio contacts. I normally use a paper log, but I also often have used computer logs. In my early days as a ham, I used a software program that ran under DOS called "Hyperlog". In those days the computer had not become a major part of most ham shacks, but Hyperlog was a simple little logging database and I enjoyed using it.

As the years went by I stopped using Hyperlog, and tried a few other logging programs. In the meantime, the "ADIF" and "Cabrillo" standardized formats were developed, and Hyperlog's programmer discontinued the product. I currently use three different logging programs - they all have their strengths - and they all can produce compatible files. One is ACLog by N3FJP, which is very simple in its design; another is the logging module included in Ham Radio Deluxe, which has some nice integration to other sections of the software; and the third is Win1010, by K4HAV, which is designed to handle the many unique logging aspects of paperchasing for 10-10 International Net.

I recently discovered a diskette containing a backup of some of my Hyperlog data, from my days as KB5UEV and a few months of KI7RK. It was a challenge just to read the 3.5" floppy disk, which has already become obsolete; when I finally did, I realized that the data was in a unique ascii separated database file and I had no idea how to convert it. So I posted a request to the 10-10 e-mail reflector, and fortunately for me, Jim Hardy K4HAV stepped in and performed the conversion for me. The log turned out to be an incomplete record from those days, but it did have about 860 QSO's, including two special ones:

- 8/25/1992, with W5VIB - I checked into the Sandoval County RACES Net, and logged it as "My first QSO ever!"

-10/17/1992, with K4PSR - Bill, "10-10 #57564 will send info". Bill sent me a complete copy of the 10-10 News, and was encouraged me to join 10-10. Sadly, Bill is now a Silent Key, but I wonder if he noticed that I became Treasurer of 10-10.

It will take a very long time for me to get all of my past logs into the computer, if I ever do. I've got enough QSO's for many, many different awards but I've never organized them to claim more than a few. It's kind of fun to post 15-year old QSO's to LOTW and eQSL and discover that the other side of the contact has already QSL'd the contact!

I think that amateur radio logs were a requirement in years gone by; an FCC inspector could show up at your house and demand to see the log, and woe to anyone who could not produce it. I'm not sure they are actually required anymore, but it's hard to imagine not documenting your QSO's somehow. Some of my logs are simply copies of contest logs, which I used to prepare and score manually; others are fancy notebooks, and some are freebies given by manufacturers. It's always fun to look back and bring back some memories from the old logs.

Signals From the Moon

I'm sitting here listening to signals from the Moon!

No, I haven't lost my marbles. There is an experiment underway by the "HF Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP)" and the "Long Wavelength Array (LWA)" in New Mexico on 6.7925 MHz. They requested that amateurs monitor the test, so I tuned in, and sure enough, there are the signals. They're sending 2 second unmodulated CW transmissions (sort of like a long Morse Code key press), followed by a 3 second wait.

I'm copying the transmissions at S9+20, and the echos are coming in at S1-S2.

Who knows why they are doing this, it's a military thing so maybe there is some secret purpose. I think we have already pretty well established the distance to the moon, but you can do a quick calculation to see why they are using the 2-second transmissions - the return signal follows them quite nicely.

Amateurs have been doing "Moon Bounce" for many years, but not on 40 meters! There has to be some serious power going into this test.

The picture above was taken in my backyard last year using a CCD camera on a 4" refractor.

A New Beam for W7FPX

This afternoon, I helped my friends Jim, W7FPX and Larry, W7LB, set up a new Cushcraft MA5B beam on Jim's roof. It's a nice compact little antenna that can work on 5 bands (10, 12, 15, 17, and 20 meters). Here is a picture taken late in the afternoon, just before I hoisted it into the rotor. It was great to see Jim again, it wasn't too long ago that he was a member of a small group of us that would take telescopes out to dark sites for observing sessions.
I had some other ham radio fun today as well, I worked my first-ever RTTY contact during the ARRL RTTY Roundup. I wasn't making a serious contest effort but I did decide to use the contest to learn how to use my DM780 software to operate RTTY. I was successful in getting it to work, although I must admit that I think PSK31 is a superior (and more efficient) mode. But it's all part of the fun to try out new operating modes. I made 10 contacts in the contest and will send in my log to help for checks against logs of the more serious contesters.
I also made one Kid's Day contact with my two younger sons. They talked to a 13-year old in New York, she is already a General class licensee.
It appears that NASA identified a sunspot a few days ago with reversed magnetic polarity from the previous cycle, indicating the start of the new cycle. This is exciting news for us hams!

Straight Key Night - Happy New Year!

The ARRL's Straight Key Night is going on right now as I type this. It started last night at 5:00 p.m. local time (which is 0000 UTC) and goes through until 2400 UTC. I've spent a few hours on it, mostly listening but I have made a few QSO's. My CW skills are not great but I can do a fair job copying up to about 15 wpm; above that, I'm not yet confident enough to jump into a QSO although I can usually pick out most of the words. Sending is always easier than receiving, but even there I tend to make mistakes after I've been operating for a while and get tired.

I've never done a lot of CW operating and one of my New Year's Resolutions is to start doing more of it. I've got both the straight key as well as an electronic keyer paddle - both of them made by Bencher. One problem with CW is that a QSO takes a longer time than on voice. A typical brief CW QSO might take 15-30 minutes, so to do CW requires a bigger time commitment. And time is something I never have enough of. It also requires a greater level of concentration. But it's really a lot of fun and I know that the faster you go, the more fun it gets.

My first SKN contact last night was with N6WK, who is one of the founders of the Straight Key Century Club (SKCC). Gordon holds SKCC #3T and I was pleased to add him to my log.

We're taking a family hike today so I'm probably finished with SKN for this year unless we get home before 5. It was a great kick-off to a fun year in ham radio!