WQ6X does WAQP Salmon Run Portable in Alameda

This last weekend found me setting up a portable station at the Monterey Center (my office) in Alameda California. The setup consisted of the ICOM-7000 into an MFJ apartment antenna attached to the rain gutter 2.5mh with a 40-meter hamstick replacing the MFJ whip.


I managed 36 QSOs in the Salmon Run (the WA QSO Party); 34 on 20-m and 2 on 40-m. Signals on 15 & 10 meters were non-existent. I was amazed at who could hear me and who couldn't. By the time it was over I managed to work 17 counties in Washington state; not bad for a puny antenna. 
 At 00:28z SJ2W drifted in at S-2 running the Scandinavian contest. 
 A little persistent effort on my part got me into SJ2W's log as #001 in their contest.

Monday morning found me checking into the Adventist Amateur Radio Net (@17:00z) on 14.328. Net control Bob VE7DSE was S-7 here and I managed a whopping S-2 into his Prince George BC QTH.
At 18:00z they switch to 21.405 (altho I had no copy) and sometimes 28.328 after that. 
From N6GEO's QTH I've managed to check in on both 20-m & 15-m, but have yet to copy them on 10-m.
 Possibly this fall we will have a shot at 10-meters again; unless the sunspot cycle really is on its final trip down to the bottom. 

Did you work the Salmon Run this weekend? If so, how many counties did you snag? 
Did you work the bonus station W7DX? I did. 

Necessity turns WQ6X Multi-OP into Single-OP for 2013 All Asian SSB Contest

This last weekend's All Asian contest was full of surprises.  My original plan to join the NX6T crew in Fallbrook was preempted in favor of a multi-OP entry from N6GEO's cabin in Twain Hart as I did last year.  Unfortunately, the Yosemite fires threatened that area so the next plan was to multi-OP from N6GEO's QTH in Brentwood (near SF).


I setup the ICOM 7000 on a card table in George's shack on Thursday evening and we went to
great lengths to network the computers.  Friday afternoon I started operations a few minutes
after 00:00z.  Later when George showed up we discovered his Flex-1000 would not properly transmit, so in the end I ended up as a single op.

During the 48 hours of the A-A contest I managed to eek out 135 QSOs & 77 multipliers.
160 & 80 meter condx. were all but non-existent from Brentwood.  40 meters ended up
producing a whopping 4 QSOs thanks to the house blocking the West direction of the 6-BTV vertical and the woodpecker radar.  10-meters produced all of 5 QSOs; more than they managed at NX6T.

It was 20 & 15 meters that produced most of the QSOs (30 & 96 respectively).
When it was all over I decided to submit a single-band log (even though I sent in all 135 Q's).
I almost submitted the log as an LP 40-meter entry which would have beat the Arizona Outlaws (N7TEW) 3 QSO entry for 40.  Instead, I submitted the log as an LP 20-meter entry.

Again the turnout for All Asian was for me quite a disappointment.  This weekend was largely a JA fest with a few UA9's and UA0's thrown in.  During greyline on Saturday I heard a 4X4 station loud and clear but unfortunately he was not working All Asian - go figure.

As in recent years past, the median age for All Asian was well over 50.  I heard one station in their 20's, two in their 30's and only 2 YL's.  The number of 60+, 70+ & 80+ operators was quite staggering - we need some young blood in All Asian.


Did you operate All Asian this year?  If so, how did it turn out?

WQ6X makes another HQP/OHQP bare-minimum appearance

The last full-weekend in August brings us a number of state QSO parties; most notably the Hawaiian QSO Party (HQP), The Ohio QSO party (OHQP) & and the Kansas QSO party (KSQP), as well as the YO Dx contest and Slovenia's SCC RTTY contest.  For that weekend I had work obligations that prevented me from setting up a full operation, as I did from Mt. Diablo for the 2011 HQP.

This operation became an interesting challenge as the only way I had of making the MFJ apartment antenna work was to mount it on the window ledge pointing due west.  That of course all but eliminated radio contest activity with the Northeast.  It also made reception from Europe all but impossible, so my only QSO in the YO Dx contest not surprisingly was from Oceania - ZL1BYZ.  
Hearing no RTTY signals calling CQ SCC, I chose not to go to the effort of setting up the RigBlaster cables for RTTY.
What little op time I had I focused on the Hawaiian QSO party; looking to see how many bands I could work KH6/KH7.  In doing so I doubled the number of QSOs  from last year, from 2 QSO's to 4, while 4x'ing the number of multipliers by working Lahaina, Honolulu, Hilo & Molokai for a whopping score of 32 points versus 12 points from last year.  Maybe I will take 2nd place for W6-land on Cw versus 3rd place last year.
I was quite disappointed to hear no KH6 action from my location on 80/40.  Because 10 meters was sound asleep, 3 QSOs on 20-meters and one on 15 meters was all I could manage.  Waiting for KH6 signals was quite exciting as you can see.

All Asian SSB is only a week away.  In the past I have voiced my displeasure at the lack of Asian turnout for their own contest.  Let's hope that this year is different.  Thus far the solar flux isn't helping much.  Maybe we really HAVE long ago reached the sunspot peak and are now in the final downturn of Cycle 24.  Being an eternal optimist, I want to believe otherwise.
For 2013 A-A, the original idea was to operate again from Twain Hart (similar to last year's K6A effort) however the Yosemite fires may make that not possible.  
My backup plan is to join the team @ NX6T and help them win another medallion like last year.  There is a rumor afloat that a loaner Kenwood TS-990 will be at the "Nashville" location.
Decisions, decisions.........

POST HQP Update:
As you can see in the comments below, WQ6X took 2nd-place for Cw in the W6 Call area - proof once again that just showing up can win an award.

 

  Ron
 WQ6X

WQ6X operates NAQP-SSB & SARTG RTTY while hunting for Lighthouses

This weekend found me in Brentwood California (in the SF east bay) operating from N6GEO's QTH using a 6-BTV vertical to radiate the RF for participation in the SARTG RTTY contest in between operating hours of the NAQP SSB contest (as part of SCCC Team #2). Because this was also the International Lighthouse & Lightship weekend operating event, I was also on the lookout for light houses, finding two; one in Washington state (Jim @ KD7JB) and Denmark (Thomas' @ OZ5ESB.
For operation in the SARTG GiG I ran a FLEX 1500 SDR radio into an Ameritron ALS-500m mobile amplifier (storage battery operated no less) giving an output of about 95 watts. I was unable to produce an adequate microphone hookup to the Flex 1500 so for NAQP I pressed the ICOM 7000 into service using a coax switch to jump between SARTG & NAQP and back. While I was also Cw capable for ILLW, I only managed to work lighthouses on SSB.
The SARTG contest was fun yet I was surprised at hearing NO SARTG activity on 80 & 40 meters both evenings. SARTG is actually a 30 hour contest running over a 48 hour period.
Because the SARTG sports two 8 hour off periods for everyone (one at 08:00z on Saturday and one at 00:00z on Sunday) no geographical location are unduly compromised. Being that 10-meters was virtually dead all weekend, for me SARTG was 20 & 15 meter affair. Thanks to ZS4TX, ZM4B, LU7HF, T4OC, JH7RTQ, KH6ZM & R3PW I managed to work all continents (WAC) in the 40 contacts made in this contest.

For NAQP, band condx sucked so I spent the 1st hours playing in SARTG AND NAQP ON 20 meters.  At 22:00z 15 meters finally came alive for both contests.. Suddenly the solar flux index (SFI) jumped from 123 to 149. Within 2 hours it was back down to 129 and an increase in K-index.
I did not move down to 40-meters until 03:30z, only to find S-9 atmospheric noise that the ICOM noise filters could not minimize, as well as a bunch of neighborhood RFI signals all over the band.
75 meters did not come alive until nearly 04:00z. Thanks to patient listening, K2PO (Bill in Oregon) managed to pull me thru on 160 meters when I tuned the 6BTV vertical with an MFJ 949-E tuner. Ironically, several California stations on 160 could not hear me. I ended up with 135 QSOs on all bands but 10-meters.

So for this weekend I accomplished all 3 goals; working NAQP, learning the fine-points of the Flex 1500 using RTTY and finding a couple of lighthouses on top of it all.
What were YOUR radio operations like this weekend?
Are you in one of my 3 logs?

WQ6X makes it to the NAQP Cw Contest - barely

Because the NAQP is only a 12 hour contest, unless I guest-OP an already setup station, I tend to put together simplistic portable operations, as I did this weekend operating from Concord Ca. in the East Bay (EB) section. For this event, there was no operating desk, only the laptop sitting on a chair, with me sitting on the floor. Because NAQP Cw is largely computer-driven fancy operations are often not necessary. As you can see, I threw together a variation of phased hamsticks atop a simple wooden pole wire-tied to the fence. From one vantage point the antenna "almost" qualified as a stealth antenna. The ICOM 7000 was in as good a form as ever, never missing a dit or a dah. I only wish the bands were as good as the radio. With a somewhat low solar flux (108), while the A/K-Indexes were low it didn't prevent a considerable amount of atmospheric noise on both 40 & 80 meters. As you can see, I made attempts on both bands. 160 was quiet, although there were no signals to be heard as well. 10 meters was also lacking altho I see there were reports that KH6ZM was quite busy on 10-meters. While other countries are encouraged to join us in NAQP, there were a dearth of signals heard. JA stations were plentiful but were busy in some sort of "QSO Party" on their own. Because of my minimal antenna I can imagine that my signal was rather weak. I could not get a fix on what direction my hamstick array was favoring so I mechanically turned it from due-north to southeast looking for the best signals; which were from W4-land & W5-land. While I could work easily W8, W9 & VE3, W0 gave me little action outside of KS & Co. W1, W2 & W3 were largely unavailable to me. So were my hamsticks actually cloud warmers?
Many stations were not patient with weak signals. Instead of persisting with a weak signal they chose to call CQ for another 3 - 5 minutes. It would have been quicker to work me first. Kudos to Loco XE2MX for persisting with me on 40-meters to pull me through.
One of things I like about NAQP is that sending Name & QTH for the exchange is not as impersonal as sending something such as 599-KW. I also like some of the more original names such as: Gord, Gator, Axel, Rusty, Marko & Loco. It was also nice to see a couple of YL names this time.
So where were YOU during NAQP?

WQ6X teams up with N6GEO for NAQP RTTY

For this summer's NAQP RTTY contest I again teamed up with N6GEO as a Multi-2 similar to what
we did for the WPX RTTY event.  The difference this time is that we ran a pair of FLEX-1500 SDR radios into a pair of Tokyo Hy-Power 45 & 50 watt amplifiers.  This was part of an experiment in preparation for an upcoming RTTY expedition.
George's QTH is in an antenna restricted area so we popped a TH-3 Jr yagi antenna atop a military surplus portable tower approx. 7mh.  The yagi was shared between both radios by way of a homebrew antenna multiplexer.  We also used an 8-BTV Vertical with camouflage paint. 
By the time I left today, both antennas "mysteriously" vanished. 

The Windoze Vista laptop I used to run the FLEX 1500 encountered a number of "blue screen" events.  Because our computers were networked together we decided my station should be the Run-2 station so as to not lose access to VE7CC should another crash happen; which of course
it did not. 

Similar to Field Day I ran exclusively 20-meters, leaving the 80/40 & 15/10 meter chores to George.  Our 255 QSOs was hardly a record breaker, although for a RTTY GiG it was a great beginning. 

There was also the DMC Rtty contest running concurrently with NAQP.  Some stations worked both contests concurrently, although how they logged it is a mystery to me.  I used the DMC contest
as a warmup exercise before the NAQP started and ended up submitting an 8 QSO log for that event.  Overall, NAQP RTTY is a lot of fun.   It's nice to get to know people on a "first name basis"
in this contest.   However in the log submission soapbox I wrote the following:

So typical of competitions lately is stations not checking to see if frequencies are in use before jumping in.   We may not have had the loudest signal around, however we were noticeable enough that we were obviously hearable and yet stations moved in on us anyway.  I also noticed a lack of breathing room around the NCDXF beacon on 14.100; which to me is inexcusable.  If you don't know about the 14.100 beacons then you should not be operating 20-meter RTTY
in the first place. 

A number of stations had trouble calling me properly on frequency.  With my other radios (ICOM 7000, FT-900 & FT-920) using the RIT is a simple knob twist.   However one of the poor design features of the FLEX-1500 is its [in]ability to accomplish RIT easily.  By the time I figured out
how to use VFO-B as a RIT, the contest was nearly over. 

In general our NAQP exercise proved that the FLEX radios can easily drive a medium-power amplifier to full output.  I was amazed that the HL-45b amplifier never "broke a sweat" at
full power.   It was so cool, I couldn't use it to warm my coffee cup as I have done with other
solid-state amplifiers.  Oh well, luckily that was the only real problem I encountered with this operation. 

RTTY contests are quickly becoming a favorite with me.   Cw is of course my favorite
because it saves my voice and does not require "fancy hardware" the way RTTY does.  
However the click-and-work possibilities with SDR radios I find considerably intriguing. 
I look forward to future RTTY GiGs using software defined radios.

IARU 2013 - Weird from the start

2013's IARU Hf Contest was weird even before it started; thanks in part to the on-going solar disturbances (K-index oscillating between 2 and 4).  I intended to run an amplified Flex 1500 with my trusty ICOM 7000 as a backup radio.  Unfortunately, the receiver side of the 1500 developed a strange whistle making it unreliable for use in this weekend's radiosport.
The HF2-V installation seemed flawless, at least for the first 5 hours of the contest.   I took a 2 hour sleep break and awoke to find that the antenna would receive but not transmit even though the SWR meter indicated a less than 1.5:1 match on all bands.  Finally, after dark, a flashlight exposed the coax shield making capacitive contact with the vertical driven element.  Insulating it with red tape brought everything back to proper life.
By o6:30z, with less than 7 hours to go, I made up for lost time with some frenetic search-and-pounce on 40-meters followed by several frequency runs on 40 & 80.  On 160 I heard several California stations but could not get enough of an antenna match to work any of them, altho the HF2-V has tuned on 160 before.

This year the number of HQ stations seemed way more plentiful than in the 2012 event.  For some reason I find working HQ stations to be really cool. The W1AW callsign was /4 this year and the NU1AW call was /3.  While running a frequency it was an honor to have HQ stations calling me rather than them just sitting on a frequency waiting for us.

Noticeably missing was Hawaii (I worked only one station) as well as VE4, VE5 & VE6.  Additionally, VK seemed absent as well as BG (China) except for an HQ station there.  There were surprisingly few JA stations this year, continuing my beef that Asian stations seem to be noticeably absent from this year's radiosport events.  Brazil (PP5), Uruguay (CX3) and Columbia (HK3) were the only South American countries I could work.  Surprisingly, Europe was unhearable from my Alameda location, although I did hear EF5 and EA3.  By the time I was able to transmit, those goodies were long gone.

What amazed me this year was the blatant lack of operational courtesy and operating ethics on the part of a handful stations.  It would seem that I was the ONLY station to ask QRL before moving in on a frequency.  One station drowned out other stations to work me and then immediately moved barely 100 hz above me and began calling CQ.  When I moved up 100hz to match him, he disappeared. There was plenty of room several Khz on both sides of me.  Wassup with the 100 hz business?

Despite the horrible atmospheric noise levels, I was amazed at the stations who DiD come thru; especially on 80-meters.   The way things turned out, I ended up submitting a CW only log.

Where were you this weekend?
Did you play in the IARU Championship?
If so, was WQ6X in your log?

W6SW does it's 18th Field Day from Mt. Abel

Field Day 2013 was the 18th event for the San Andreas Fault-line Survivors on Mt. Abel (8,250' - 50-m N/W of L.A.) using the callsign W6SW (Whiskey Six Short Wave). For our GOTA (Get On The Air [now]) station I reserved the callsign K6F (Kilowatt Six Foxtrot)	which was expertly run by our newest member of the group Dennis - KJ6UVQ. K6F contributed a not insignificant 205 QSOs to our 1,604 total. While 1604 is a respectable total, it is a far cry from some of our other years; especially last year's 2700+ QSOs. Our exchange message was: 3A - SJV.

Because I took down the W6SW road signs last year, I was elected to put them in their usual places for 2013; except for sign #1 - the freeway sign. This year just before FD, the Frazier Park exit on the northbound I-5 was closed, requiring W6SW detour signs at the Gorman exit before Frazier Park.
As usual there was no cellphone service on the mountain, requiring a drive to the bottom of the mountain near the W6SW sign #4 turnoff indicator. For internet and shower access, I had to drive another 12 miles to the Flying-J station at the I-5 exit. 

Due to the fact that the majority of our younger operators have grown up and moved to various locations around the world and some of our "veteran" operators are "getting too old" to camp (then rent an RV dammit), we had a small turnout this year. Then again, those of us who DiD make it to Mt. Abel gave it our usual 300% effort and pulled off our usual bevy of miraculous feats throughout the FD weekend. 

Every year Murphy makes the most unexpected of appearances. For me, it began the weekend before with the All Asian contest when I discovered one of my 2 radio batteries could not hold a charge. That left me to using my Mercury Cougar as a battery charger that weekend and begging/borrowing batteries during Field Day. 

Jim (W6KC) had a double whammy starting with leftovers from a cold followed by the failure of his K3 radio when it was inadvertently reverse-hooked to the storage battery. We swapped in an ICOM 7000 from my car (switching to yet another IC-700 later) to keep Station #2 on the air. 

Antenna-wise we had no serious problems. In addition to the HF-2v and Sloping 8JK cobras and the infamous Inverted-Vee Slinky I used during All Asian, we hoisted a 3-element wire yagi for 20-meter Cw, altho physically it was not as high as last year. Nevertheless, I was able to work virtually every station I could hear. Station #1 also sported a 3-element 20-meter wire Yagi, while Station #2 utilized a similar 3-element Yagi for 15 meters along with a homebrew Delta Loop for 10-meters; altho 10-meters turned out to be a DuD. 

My Yaesu FT-920 certainly rose to the occasion, thanks to the newly added 500hz Cw filter and it's super duper built-in DSP unit. The 920 DSP is so good that it sidelined my external NIR-12 DSP filter - I simply didn't need it. 

Thanks to Jim setting up another ad-hoc wireless network (hanging from a tree) all 3 W6SW stations were laptop networked together. When band conditions on the band I am working slow down my contact rate, it is nice to see the other stations cranking out contacts in that very moment; and vice-verse. Late in the evening as the Station #1 & #2 operators finally crashed for the night network access allowed me to determine which band(s) I should be operating on. 

While 20-meter Cw was my primary focus, I also spent time on 10, 40 & 80 meter Cw; and even made a brief (but fruitless) appearance on 160. At around 08:00z (1:00 am) I activated my ICOM 7000 at station #2 on 75-meter SSB making 105 voice contacts. Ge'ldine! even made an appearance, but people didn't really get it so she went back into submersion. I got 3 hours sleep at 4am, awakening to Kona coffee and an hour stint at Station #1 making 52 QSOs on 20-SSB before returning to Station #3 to put the finish on 20-Cw operations until 18:00z (11:00 am). 

Because of the battery problem, I was not able to "run a frequency" on 20-Cw as continuously as I did last year (when I made 600+ QSOs on 20-Cw alone). Individually, I had the highest QSO total this year 504; consisting of: 80-Cw/75-SSB = 33/105; 40-m Cw = 79; 20-m Cw/SSB = 229/52; 15-m Cw = 4; 10-m Cw = 2. 

Friday nite, before the contest, I had a brief encounter with a bear (I was safely inside my car) who happened onto some grapes I left under the picnic table next to my car. Insuring my safety to guarantee our 11am starting time, I reclined the passenger seat and slept in a mummy bag. You can see more pictures of all this in the FD-2013 Photo Album on my Facebook page. 

While I was hoping to put a Flex-1500 SDR radio on RTTY for Field Day, lack of batteries and operators made that impractical - "maybe next year". We also missed out on VHF opportunities, although I did dial VFO-B on the FT-920 for an occasional listen on 6-Meters (50mhz) hoping for some stray CQ FD calls; which didn't happen. 

A notably missing occurrence was the Sunday morning calls from ZS5 stations (South Africa) on 20-meters. In fact, to my knowledge there were no non-W/K/VE/VO/VY stations in the log this year. While we were playing FD in the U.S. & Canada the pileups for "rare" EU and Africa stations (on 20-meters alone) were abundant across the globe. 

Atmospherically, while the K-Index avoided the 4 & 5 range (from the weekend before), K-3 levels certainly caused some serious noise; especially on 80-meters, early Sat. evening. So, for that I guess I should be grateful. 

The W6SW group learns a lot from our operations every year. For 2014, we already have a promise of a greater operator turnout. We have nearly 11 months to make that a reality. 

While we probably did not take a 1st place for SJV section (as we did in 2011/2102), nevertheless it was a lot of fun and very nice to hookup again with people, many whom I only get to see in June of each year. 

What was YOUR Field Day like? 
Do you have W6SW or K6F in your FD log? 

Curiously, 
    Ron 
   WQ6X

WQ6X survives 2013 All Asian C.W. on Mt. Able @ 8250'

WQ6X at Sunrise (@13:00z)

Operating tent behind an HF2-V Vertical

All Asian 2013 marks my last appearance from Mt. Abel (8,250' - 50 mi. N.w. of L.A.) for this contest (a new location for A-A in September is being sought). While Abel is a GREAT location for Field Day, Europe and South America communication paths, after four so-so A-A operations from the Abel location I am now questioning it's efficacy for California to Asia communications; although this year middle-east propagation made a surprisingly nice albeit brief appearance.

Overall, I was disappointed in the 2013 event, although I've been increasingly disappointed in Asian turnout to A-A contests for the last 3 years. If I didn't know better, I would assume that there were 5x or 10x non-Asian stations to Asian stations participating in the 2013 contest.  The lack of Asian stations was borne out by log-submission comments from over a dozen California (W6) operators.

The last 10 hours were effectively a waste off time as most Asians under retirement age are either sleeping, in preparation for going to work Monday morning, en-route to work or already at work. Most of the stations worked during this period (on 20m, 15m & 10m) were probably worked a day or two before.

The median age of operators seems to have dropped by a couple of years, spurred possibly by a pair of top-notch 19 year-old operators. Nevertheless, All Asian seems to largely be an over-50 event. 

A design flaw of this contest is the lack of of a Low Power (LP) category. I don't know of ANY contest or QSO party that is w/o a low power category. Running a barefoot FT-920 is no competition to radios running 500 - 1,000+ watts.  My mountain top location had some benefits but could not overcome the DB advantage of running the RF through an amplifier.

Thanks to a crossbow antenna line launcher, I was able to hoist a pair of sloping Cobra antennas phased in an 8JK configuration as well as an all-band inverted slinky antenna. The main antenna was a ground-mounted HF2-V Vertical with a full set of tuned radials.

For 2013 A. A., there was a substantial amount of atmospheric noise; especially on 80m and 40m. The K-Index cycled thru 4 & 5 throughout the weekend, complicating matters.  After the contest the A/K indices subsided considerably but did not return to a workable place until after Field Day.

What was your experience with the 2013 All Asian contest?  
What were the atmospheric conditions like for your location?

Curiously,
   Ron
 WQ6X