Month: October 2017

CQ World Wide DX SSB Contest 2017

SkookumLogger at the end of the CQ WW SSB DX Contest 2017

Strange as it might seem, I’ve never put in a good solid single band entry into the CQ WW SSB contest.  If you look at the recent addition to this site, my contest results page then you can see that I came third (out of three) in 2013 for my 15m entry, first (out of […]

DXCC on 17m using FT8 – Fifty entities worked so far

My challenge to work DXCC on 17m using FT8 is coming along nicely – I’ve now worked fifty separate entities as follows. Although I’m not going to go out of my way to get them confirmed because Logbook of The World and the DXCC award system doesn’t differentiate between different data modes, it’s good to […]

SCC RTTY Championship 2017 – The results

Back in September I put an entry in to the SCC RTTY Championship and I’m happy to report that the results are out and can be seen in full here. I entered the single operator 15m section and I’m pleased to report that out of the fifteen entries, I was first. I logged 190 QSOs but […]

Increasing transmitter output power – What effect does it really have?

Difference in signals between 10W and 400W

Power is always an emotive subject so I thought it would be interesting to review transmitter power levels and see what difference increasing power makes to your signal. To start with we need to look at how signals strength is measured. In 1981 the IARU Technical Recommendation R.1 was that S9 on the HF bands […]

Accurate time keeping on an Apple Mac or Raspberry Pi for WSPR/JT65/JT9/FT8

If you use any of the data modes for QSOs such as JT65, JT9, or FT8 or if you operate using WSPR then you’ll know how important it is that your computer clock is accurate.  Anything more than a couple of seconds out and you won’t decode anything and nobody will decode your signal. On […]