Day #73 started off with a 20m QSO with YO3FTI, Andrei in Romania before I changed to 80m and worked Chris, G4LOP near Skegness and then SP3BQC, Jurek in Poland. On day #74 I was purely on 80m for the 3 QSOs I had with DO1WRB, DD6AJ and G3RED, Wolfgang, Michael and David respectively. I […]
Category: HF
Days 70, 71 and 72 – Two more DXCCs and the SolderSmoke book
These have been three good days on the wireless, a bit of voice, a bit of data and a couple of new DXCC entities have appeared in the log. After work on day #70 I slapped the radio onto the PSK section of 40m and worked Luca, IZ3NWP near Venice before changing to 80m where […]
Days 67, 68 and 69 – Another new DXCC
Day #67 was another one of the early start, late finish days. Before heading out to work I had a QSO with WB1ABQ in Vermont on 40m and then just before midnight I had QSOs with CT2KCG and K1LPS, also both on 40m. Day #68 started early with me working YY6IEA in Venezuela on 40m […]
Days 64, 65 and 66 – Three very busy days
Day #64 dawned and with it the fact that it was a Saturday morning with contests throughout the day on both HF and 144MHz. Before I did any contest operating though I had two PSK31 QSOs on 40m with DC2QT, Heinrich in Germany and G6UWK, Jon who is in Manningtree, about ten miles away from […]
Replacing the Schottky diodes in my FT-847
Some time ago I blogged about Radio improvements and tweaking things to make them better, specifically a number of modifications that I’d had made to my Yaesu FT-847. I talked in that entry about swapping the cheap switching diodes out for low noise Schottky diodes to reduce the HF noise floor and I said I […]
Working VK for the first time – For real
A short while ago I was calling CQ using JT65-HF on 40m when I noticed a trace right at the edge of my screen – VK6BN was calling CQ. I tried to call him but he was right on the edge of my passband and started working someone else. I retuned my radio and when […]
VK land – Signal heard
On day #63 as I went to bed I put my station on the Weak Signal Propagation Reporter Network running just 5 watts on 28MHz. I’d jokingly said that I expected to be heard in Australia with a signal strength of +20dB. Well, it’s easy to confuse plus and minus isn’t it! When I got […]
Days 61, 62 and 63 – Data, data everywhere
Three days absolutely stuffed full of data contacts. Don’t worry though, I do pick up the microphone on day #64 and that will be in the next blog entry. Day #61 was another of my long days out, I left home at around half six in the morning and wasn’t expecting to be home until […]
Days 58, 59 and 60 – Lots more data
I’ve not picked up the microphone at all over the last few days and am really having a good time working the data modes, almost exclusively JT65. I explained how JT65 works in my last blog post and I’m getting more interested by the mode every time I read about it and operate using it. […]
Days 55, 56 and 57 – Data!
Over these three days I had 21 QSOs and only used the microphone once! The one time I used it I called a contest station who only wanted to work French stations so I tuned away. On the afternoon of day #55 I had a delivery from Slovakia. This parcel contained a microHAM USB Interface […]
