Tuesday, December 31 8:38PM - Happy New Year to All. I have a feeling 2025 is going to be a better year than the past few have been. I hope I'm right.
I did some different things today. I helped Bruce make a big pot of Chili and Cornbread Muffins on the side. Then we along with Jeff (and Roscoe) ate up a large portion of it late in the afternoon. We watched some football. It was sad for me to see Alabama get beat, giving them 4 losses this year under their new coach who replaced the retiring legendary coach Nick Saban. Saban failed to win ten games in his first season as Alabama coach also, but then went on to win at least ten games each year after that. Maybe that will be the fate of new coach, Kalen DeBoer also.
I got my 4 2025 calendars mounted today. I always have pretty much the same assortment of calendars, 2 Ronald Reagan, Heritage Foundation, and our local bank.
I hooked up my Begali Straight Key for ARRL SKN tonight, but was only able to make one SKN QSO. I answered a few CQ SKN calls but only one answered me, KE8TBM. No one answered my CQ SKNs. -30-
Monday, December 30 8:13PM - Gee, is it almost a new year already. The perpetual question, "Where does the time go?" pops up often, but much more often at this time of year than any other, I think. At least it seems that way to me. Or maybe it is at someone's birthday that it happens most often. I often reply with another question, "And why does it go faster as one gets older?" I guess there are no real answers to those questions.
Not much going on today. I spent a lot of times with my trains. I also went for another outside mile + walk as the weather was pretty nice still in the 50s.
The bands seemed in good shape tonight and fairly well occupied, but everyone seemed already engaged in a QSO and I had trouble getting my streak QSO as no one answered my CQs either. I finally worked ND2O on 40 after some 55 minutes of searching and calling so the streak completes another calendar year. That's part of 1994 and all of the years from 1995 through 2024 now. Whew! I wonder if 2025 will be another year to add to that? -30-
Sunday, December 29 7:33PM - Except for some rain showers now and then, today was another nice Fall day in December. The high was 65 which might be a high record for December 29. If not, at least it was high enough for another mile + walk and some time spent sitting on the front porch. The high wind predicted hasn't materialized yet, but is still predicted for tonight and tomorrow.
Except for the SST Sprint, there wasn't much activity on the bands tonight. I worked WB2KAO in the SST, listened around a bit, then QRT. -30-
Saturday, December 28 7:49PM - Seemed more like an October day than late December today. A high of 62 degrees without any strong wind or rain or anything else. Just nice weather. I walked outside for over a mile and then sat on the front porch for about an hour.
Not much activity on the bands this evening as usual of late. I did manage to get a good rag chew with Clyde up in Vermont on 40 meters in response to my CQ.
Otherwise just an all-around good nice day is the best way to describe things. -30-
Friday, December 27 7:53PM - One of my one-time favorite contests is on this weekend. I used to love the RAC Winter Contest and did quite well in it at one time. Also the RAC Canada Day contest in July. It was not all that popular a contest at one time in the 1990's and a minimal QRPer like me could do quite well and get a score pretty well up in the results. Nowadays it's another story and both are very popular contests among a lot of big time contesters. At the time in the 90s, a friend (now a SK) Corb K8UCL and I competed strongly with each other in the RAC contests and in other things like chasing DXCC entities. We were going to try to do some team entries in contests, but sadly around that time Corb became ill and passed away before we couldl do any team entries.
Now as with many other once-favorite contests, I just don't have the interest to seriously enter the RAC contests. I did fool around a bit this evening trying to see how many provinces I could work. The Western ones were easy and I got VE7, VE6, VE5, and VE4. However the ones East of there were not all that strong here and those that were had sizeable pileups.
Another nice day today and I took about a 3/4 mile outdoor walk. -30-
Thursday, December 26 8:44PM - Another good day, both weatherwise and otherwise. I went for a good outdoor 1.25 mile walk through the park. The town sets up Christmas trees for the town merchants and any individuals that want one in the park. I don't know what the financial arrangements are, but it seems a nice thing to do. I took a picture of a couple of the trees including my grocery store Sprankle's which I showed to the girl who waited on me there today. She hadn't seen it and thought it was nice.
Then Mike arrived, and we killed a couple hours before going on our annual Christmas lights tour. We played with my train, exchanged gifts, got on the bands for a while, and ate a meal from Vocelli's. We thought the number of lights displays was down quite a bit from last year. In fact for the last 4 years now they seemed to be down. It will be interesting to see what happens next year.
I was late getting to the rig for my streak and I had to struggle a bit, but finally got a POTA QSO from N4KPT on 40M. -30-
Wednesday, December 25 8:46PM - Another Christmas is in the books, or almost so. It was a good one for me. Not great, but good nonetheless. I got and more importantly gave some good presents. I had a good dinner with neighbors Bruce, Jeff, and Roscoe. The weather was good enough for a one mile outdoor walk. The bands were good enough for a nice late afternoon rag chew. I had fun running my trains. I can't think of any negative things important enough to mention. What more can one ask for a good Christmas. I hope you can count your Christmas a good one too, like mine.
I got a good quick streak QSO from HR5/F2JD on 20 this evening to add one more good thing to the Christmas list. -30-
Tuesday, December 24 7:56PM - Twas the night before Christmas. That song has been running through my mind a lot today. It was a good night (day) before Christmas here. I got a couple of last minute Christmas presents ready to go. I called a couple of friends and relations to wish them a Merry Christmas. Then I delivered some presents to friends and neighbors (and a neighbor dog - you know who). It was a delight watching two neighbor kids (age about 4 and 2) open their presents. Especially to receive their sincere thanks and hugs. Nice to have polite kids these days. Later on I opened two of my gifts from Bruce and Roscoe. One was a tossel cap with a bright light in it. That will come in handy when I go out to get my weather readings at 9PM. Now I'm going to see if I have the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol (Scrooge) to watch later. Finally on this list, I left my Christmas lights on all day.
I hope you all have a great Christmas or the start of a Happy Hanukkah tomorrow.
The bands were a little busier tonight with good conditions. I worked IK4ZGO and KE4I on 40 meters for the streak. -30-
Monday, December 23 8:21PM - A busier day today. I got rid of some metal junk (old lawnmower, metal weather stripping, old tools, and so forth) from my basement that I'll never use again. A friend of my neighbor's collects metal junk and sells it at a junk yard. Doesn't cost me a cent to get rid of it.
Then I watched Roscoe while Bruce did his knee therapy. Later in the day, I went shopping and got stocked up on some food for over the holidays and picked up a couple last minute Christmas gifts. I also mailed a Christmas gift and some checks.
The bands seemed decent this evening. I got on a little late because of my shopping trip and worked a couple stations quickly and easily.
Tomorrow I'll finish up distributing some gifts and tie up some other last minute Christmas chores. Other than that, I'll just take it easy. Tonight later Bruce and I will watch some Christmas stories on TV. We watch about an hour, and if it's a longer show, we'll split it into two parts. Tonight it's the second half of "A Christmas Card". I think it's one of those "Hallmark" movies, and a very good one. -30-
Sunday, December 22 7:59PM - For what it's worth, something a little different today. I cut my hair and topped it off with a shave. It was a cold day today not getting out of the mid-20s. At least it wasn't windy so no bad wind chill. The forecast through next Sunday looks pretty good with the high temperature each day advancing slowly from near 40 tomorrow through near 50 by next Sunday. It would be nice if it stayed that way through January and February, then warmed up, but we know that is not going to happen.
The bands seemed good this evening with a lot of SST activity on 40 and 20. I only did one QSO though for the streak, KM4FO in KY.
Tomorrow I have to dog sit Roscoe for an hour or so while Bruce does his knee therapy. Then I have to mail a gift and some checks at the Post Office and also go to Sprankle's and Family Dollar for some last minute Christmas stuff. Hope the prediction of a nice weather day holds true. -30-
Saturday, December 21 7:42PM - I was just watching an Eric's Trains Video Blog (hate that word Blog. It reminds me of the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings, which as those who've read the book know it is a creature best described as the embodiment of pure evil. That's why my "blog" is called a diary instead of that word.) OK, back on track now (pun intended). In one of Eric's blogs I watched today, he said his viewers may be wondering why he hadn't posted a blog for a while. He explained it was beause he just didn't have much to write about lately. I can sympathize with that as some evenings when I sit down to write my diary page, I just don't have much out of the ordinary to write about and just to have something posted, I try to find a new way to make my daily routine events less boring. It's not easy and I feel bad about it, but thst's my life and after 79 years it's hard to change. You can't teach an old dog new tricks describes it best I guess.
Having said that, I must say that this is yet another of those days when nothing much did happen out of the ordinary things like playing/working with my train layout and doing some house cleaning and the like.
I thought I'd get in the 9A DX contest and I did, but not till this evening. I only heard a few DX stations. Most contesters I heard were here in the USA. I wasn't going for a score so I didn't work any of them, just 2 DX stations, E70T and 9A2NA. Then with the streak satisfied another day, I quit to come and update the web siary and a couple other web pages. I'm going to do that now. -30-
Friday, December 20 7:30PM - For those who observe Astronomical Winter, tomorrow is your day to celebrate or to hate. I think it's 4:21AM or thereabouts when it starts. Those of us who celebrate Meteorological Winter already have almost 20 days of Winter in the past for this year. The 20 days haven't been too kind so far, but not as bad as they could have been either.
The bands continue to be poor in the evenings when I get on the air. Conditions seem decent, but folks just are not populating the CW portions of the bands. I continue to keep the streak going though. Tonight it was KC1BMD who helped out when I found and answered his CQ on 40 meters. We also worked just about exactly one year ago as he stated. -30-
Thursday, December 19 7:39PM - Not much to report. I did some cleaning today of my trains and a few other things. The bands didn't have much to offer this evening, but I did get a POTA QSO from K5SJC to keep the streak going. Also I updated my bio on QRZ to bring my QSO totals up to date (as of November 30 this year). I guess that's about it for this entry. -30-
Wednesday, December 18 7:54PM - Another great day with Mike on the Requin. It was one of our better days with 26 QSOs from 15 states, Ontario, and Cuba. We didn't do any self-spotting, just called CQ and let the bees find and come to the flowers. HI We didn't have any real long periods in-between QSOs. Even though there were no long dead periods, it was nice to finally get my memory keyer working to call CQ for us.
We arrived not long after 1500Z and chatted with Art from the sub for about 15 minutes or so before we started calling CQ on 20 meters. It took a few minutes to start getting calls, but then as I said, they came pretty steady after that until we closed down at around 1845Z. We spread out our activity among 20, 30, and 40 with 10 QSOs on 20, 7 on 30, and 9 on 40. Pretty equally divided to give everyone a shot no matter their location. Also divided equally at 13 each were the QSOs between Mike and me. Most signals were good with only a very few rough to copy. The states were PA OH IN VA WV AL NY MI LA FL NH WI SC NC IA + ON and CUBA.
The sub will be down for the winter now until mid-March for maintenance, etc. We'll miss our trips there.
After we shut down and were going out through the Carnegie Science Center, Mike and I separated a bit and I happened to strike up a conversation with a girl who was posting promo posters for upcoming Science Center events. Apparently she was a "higher up" in the Science Center, because when I mentioned we were operating the radio room in the sub, she grabbed my hand and shook it, thanking me profusely for helping with the sub. Art has often told us, activating the radio room was very much appreciated by the Science Center. That was proof of it for me.
We headed home then with our customary stop at Chili's or Applebees. Today it was Applebees where I had a chicken nuggets platter and Mike had fish and chips. After dropping me off at home, Mike headed North to Brookville. The next time we get together it will be December 26 for our annual Christmas lights tour, a day late this year as Mike has something else going on Christmas Day. Let me check my diary and see how long we have been doing the tours now. We started in 2010 so count them up and you'll see this will be Number 15 if I can still count correctly at my age. Wow!
In contrast to today's good band conditions, they slipped a bit this evening at streak time (0000Z) and it was a bit rough finding a QSO so I worked POTA station WB0RLJ again. -30-
Tuesday, December 17 7:53PM - The bands seemed a bit busier this evening, especially 20M. I don't know why or even have a good guess why. For my streak, I worked a POTA on 20, AB9CA and a DX on 40, E71YOTA.
Tomorrow we will have an unusual December trip to the Requin. It is usually shut down for December, but this year it is remaining open a little longer than usual. It will be shut down in January, February, and part of March as usual. Our activation of the sub will be as follows. We'll be there from about 1500-1900Z depending on traffic getting there and how long activity is worthwhile staying. Frequencies will be 7042, 10117, 14062 +/- 3 or so depending on QRM. We'll use the sub's call of NY3EC. If you work us and wish a QSL, use the NY3EC address in QRZ. No particular sked times for the three frequencies so keep checking all 3. We'll use QRO 100 watts since it is a sub activity to promote the sub and not a QRP activity. Of course when I say 'we', I mean Mike KC2EGL and me. It will be just the two of us tomorrow. Hope to get you in the sub's log. -30-
Monday, December 16 7:58PM - Kind of a rainy Monday. Sure beats a s@#wy Monday even though it was on the gloomy side. Mild at a high of 55. Would have been a nice day for an outside walk except for the rain.
So I just hung around inside and worked on my trains. The bands were average tonight. I checked 20 and found nothing interesting so I went to 30 and landed practically on top of VP2V/AG9A. Listened for a bit and found he was operating split so I set up and worked him after a few other stations. -30-
Sunday, December 15 7:41PM - Here's the Post-Mortem on the 10M contest. It was pretty much a bust here. This morning I got to working on my Trains and that plus a couple other things drove the contest out of my mind until around Noon or 1700Z. When I tuned in, I found DX was pretty much but a distant memory if it was there at all in the morning hours. I listened for a while to see if I could find anything interesting. I would have liked to have found and worked MD and DE to complete my 10M WAS. I did hear a few MD stations but they were way down at the noise level which was remarkably low at just about S0. I really didn't bother even trying to work them. After listening for a while, I gave up without working anyone. I did some other things then had a spaghetti dinner at my neighbors. I never got back to the rig until around 5PM or 2200Z. Conditions were pretty much the same. I thought I'd see if I could work any of the 5 states I need for a 2024 WAS. I found and worked KM7W for Montana. Then I heard and worked AL4A in Alaska for what I think is a brand new prefix. Haven't thoroughly checked yet. That put an end to my contest effort - 2 QSOs, quite a comedown from 2001 when I had 460 QSOs in 83 multipliers in about 19 hours.
Then I thought maybe I would do the SST Sprint but wound up just using it as a means of getting my streak QSO then QRT. -30-
Saturday, December 14 7:38PM - Just put my laundry in the washer and thought I'd write the diary entry while it is hard at work out there in the pantry. Our trip to the PA Trolley Museum was a blast just like the previous times we've gone there. One big difference though. We left here a little past 11:00AM to be sure to be there in time for our 1:20PM Santa Trolley. Well, when we arrived at the Museum or where the Museum used to be, we were greeted with a sign saying "We Have Moved". Apparently Mike's GPS hadn't been updated. So he programmed in the new address and we were off again. It didn't take long till we got to the beautiful new Museum. Wow, what a change from the old one. Magnificent! to say the least.
We had some time to kill before the Santa Trolley departed so we checked in and walked around the two huge buildings looking at the various displays including some model trains, old trolleys, the many displays describing various aspects of Trolley operation. When it got close to 1:20PM we boarded the Santa Trolley. The riders sang Christmas Carols, and enjoyed listening to stories by one of the Museum hosts. The Trolley went about half way around the tour route where we stopped to see Santa and all the kids (and a few grown up kids) had their pictures taken with Santa. Then back on the Trolley for the second half of the tour and back to the Museum.
There was another Trolley that took visitors on a general tour of the Museum grounds. We took that Trolley also. It was also interesting to talk with the tour guides, trolley drivers, etc. They were all very friendly, especially one who was in the building where the old Trolleys were displayed. Also one who recently (a couple years ago) became a Trolley driver and tour guide. When that tour was over we caught up on a few things we missed before departing.
Above are two young kids sitting with Santa, the Santa Trolley, and one of the model train exhibits.
When I got home, I checked the 10 meters contest, but 10 was already virtually closed by then except for a couple WC USA stations whom I didn't try to work, only being interested in DX stations in the contest. Hopefully 10 will be full of DX tomorrow. I then worked WV1V and W2G for streak QSOs. -30-
Friday, December 13 7:44PM - Hope those of you who are superstitious made it through Friday the 13th today. It's just another day to me. I don't have any more bad luck than on any other day. HI.
It was a cold day today and we got a thin layer of s#$w during the night. Fortunately most all melted especially where the sun hit it. We had a high right around freezing 32 degrees and the brutal wind subsided from the last couple days.
There seemed to be even lower activity on the bands tonight. I had to look quite a bit to find and work someone, but I finally got N4OW in FL on 30 meters to keep the streak alive. -30-
Thursday, December 12 6:31PM - Maybe if I write this early tonight, when I get on the air later, I'll work something really rare that I should have waited to write about here in the diary. Sometimes life works that way.
I just did something I have been thinking about for a while now. I was curious to know how many states I have worked this year. Well, I just found out it was 45. I have missed MT NV OR SD WY. I thought I had a couple of those. I'll have to double check when I compile my 2024 stats sometime after December 31. I'll find out then how many countries, prefixes, and other things also that 2024 provided me with in ham radio.
It was a bitter cold day today, not so much pure temperaturewise, but wind chillwise. Those were lazy winds today. Too lazy to go around you, and they went right through you to the bone. BRRRRRR. One more cold day, then some moderation into the 40s and 50s for a few days.
This Saturday, Mike and I are going to Washington, PA to the PA Trolley Museum. We had a good time there a few years ago seeing the museum objects and riding the Santa Trolley. We even had our picture taken with Santa. I'm sure I posted that in the diary. Let me see what day that was if I can find it quickly before 0000Z. December 12, 2018 if you want to check the archives and see two little kids happy to be sitting next to Santa. Wow, has it been 6 years ago already. Hard to believe. -30-
Wednesday, December 11 7:58PM - I spent quite a bit of time with my trains today. Specifically the Union Pacific 844 Living Legend. I was unhappy with its low smoke output. Although in reality low smoke from a steam locomotive is a sign of an efficient system and a mark of a good fireman. Still seeing more smoke adds to the animation of a locomotive whether it be a real one or a model railroad one. So I studied some Lionel instructional videos about the 4 main type of smoke or steam generators in Lionel locomotives. I found one of the four applied to what I have in my 844 and I studied the ways of increasing output. To keep this short, it involves the way the smoke fluid is injected into the generator. It works best if you use a needle type bottle with a long narrow needle like tube and inject the fluid deep into the smoke stack to get the fluid near the bottom of the fluid chamber where the wicking is so the wicking is saturated thoroughly with the fluid. After trying that, my smoke or steam output indreased dramatically and looked more realistic like the average output from other model locomotives I watch in videos and/or in videos of real full size locomotives. I'm happy with it now.
The bands were about average this evening with decent conditions but low activity. I snagged a POTA station, K5SJC for my streak QSO, listened a bit more, then QRT.
It was a rainy day today, and eventually the rain changed to s#$w in mid afternoon. Fortunately it didn't last long and didn't accumulate on the still too warm ground. -30-
Tuesday, December 10 11:20PM - A day spent with Mike. He arrived a little after noon, coincidentally just when the team arrived to clean my gutters. So we watched them take care of that which they did very quickly. Then we played with my trains and hung the Christmas lights around my door.
Next up getting on the radio and then getting a couple of subs for our meal. On the radio, Mike worked TO9W and a POTA station. I just watched and didn't work anyone.
Next the main event of the day, going to the SkyView meeting. As usual I settled in the radio room to play with the rigs and visit with some of the club members. I worked Japan and Belize using the club call and their big antennas. Then I made my streak QSO with the IC7300 cut back to 5 watts and the club 40 meters dipole. -30-
Monday, December 9 7:34PM - Did you notice it? If you live along or near to the 40 degree north latitude line, the sun set a few seconds later this evening. Yes, we had the earliest sunset this winter on December 6-8, and it will set a little later each evening now until mid-summer. It's almost imperceptible at first, but the rate of change increases each evening until mid-March, then the rate of change reverses and decreases till mid-summer. Got that? There will be an astronomy quick quiz somewhere someday.
The bands seemed a bit better this evening, propagation-wise, but still poor activity-wise. I had to look around a while till I found VE9XX on 30 meters to work for my streak QSO.
A nice weather day for almost mid-December with a high in the low 50s and a little rain (no s@#w). -30-
Sunday, December 8 7:57PM - Every so often when I sit down at the rig and the SST is on, I use it for my streak QSO. Then I think well this time I'm going beyond the streak QSO and just see how many contacts I can make in the test. I used to make in the 30s most times and even into the 40s a few times. But then the desire fades and I simply shut down the rig for whatever reason. Getting old? Lazy? Something else? That happened tonight and even though conditions seemed superb, I quit. I bet there will be some nice scores turned in tonight. Wonder what Mike will do. Maybe he'll have a best score ever? I hope so. Well, just heard from him via text and he didn't have my good conditions up there in Brookville. Too bad.
Other than watching the selection show for the NCAA Football playoff, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. I did walk down to Sprankle's in the nice 50 degree weather even though I really didn't need anything there. I played with my trains a while. I seem to be doing that every day now for at least a little while. -30-
Saturday, December 7 8:20PM - Today was laundry day as usual on a Saturday. Besides that, I also lubricated my trains in some preventative maintenance. That plus watching some football with Bruce (and Roscoe??). Then this evening I decided to fool around in the 160 Meters Contest. I thought I'd just try to work as many states as I could in a short period of time combined with the 5 I worked last night. I only added 4 tonight for a total of 9. Most everything I was hearing that I could work were in NY NC OH VA MD MI IN PA KY. As I said last night, my best work on 160 is at a sunspot minimum. I have worked a couple hundred stations in the 160 Tests at those times. But that is then and this is now. HI -30-
Friday, December 6 7:48PM - Let's see, what happened today? Not much worth remembering, I guess. HI I did figure the high winds were winding down and put my wind chimes and flowers back out on the porch. It was a little more windy than usual, but not enough to blow things around.
I got some deer baloney yesterday from Jeff and I've been picking away at it off and on today. A couple days ago in my Senior Food Box, I got some other good things and with those things and the baloney, etc. I think I'm pretty well set until Christmas. Of course there is always something to run out of and having to restock. HI
I thought I'd use the 160M Contest for my streak tonight, but instead I worked W8NIC on 40 for a short rag chew. However curiosity then led me to 160. Conditions seemed pretty good there and I worked 5 QSOs in 5 different states in a few minutes very easily. Maybe I'll go back later. I need 8 states for a 160M WAS. AK HI ID LA MS NV NM WA. LA and MS are down by the Gulf where it is still warm and probably plagued with QRN. The others are just plain rough to work from here for whatever reason. Actually I find I have more luck on 160 during sunspot minimums for whatever reason. We'll see what happens. -30-
Thursday, December 5 7:50PM - I did some more Christmas decorating today, and now except for the outdoor lights Mike is going to help me with on Tuesday, I'm pretty much done with decorating and gift shopping now. I have to decide now what I'm going to give myself for Christmas. HI. I have a couple things in mind.
Here are a couple pictures of my decorating efforts today. The traditional manger scene with spray s#$w in the window. And the garland of tinsel rings hanging above the big doorway separating the living room and parlor.
I don't know how many years now for the window manger scene nor the garland, but it has been a long time for both as well as the manger scene on the table I pictured here a couple days ago. The little Christmas tree is relatively new given to my by my late neighbor Nancy I guess some 15-20 years ago.
Before the current window scene there was a Santa Claus scene when I was quite young. I used glass wax then instead of spray s#$w. I wrote about it here in the diary with pictures several years ago around Christmas. I might look it up and have a link to it here in the diary sometime.That is one nice thing about this web diary. I can look up events in my past here. At least back to the start of the diary in 2006. Wow, has it been that long now? HI.
There wasn't much activity on the bands tonight so I settled for working WB0RLJ for the streak the second evening in a row.
Mike worked New Zealand today and that triggered a memory from early in my ham life not long after I got my General license in the mid 1960's. I used to stay up late (2 to 3 AM sometimes) when there used to be a lot of CW activity on the bands especially from young hams in their teens. I was calling CQ on 7020 in the 0700Z hour and got an answer from ZL1HY. I nearly fell out of my seat and once I recovered, we wound up having a 23 minute solid rag chew. That was very exiting to a 19 year old young ham, to say the least. That is one reason why I enjoy calling CQ so much and also not using spotting as well. You never know who you are going to work and that makes it much more of a thrill.
BTW, the sn#$ and wind never materialized all that much here today. We did get a very lite covering of s#$w and some wind gusts, but I would estimate only in the mid-20 MPH range. We still might get something overnight though but doesn't look like anything severe. -30-
Wednesday, December 4 8:27PM - This was kind of a calm before the storm day today. We had some very light s#$w and some not so strong winds today. Kind of a typical December day around here. It's supposed to be different tomorrow with some accumulating s%$w and gusty winds. Not all that bad but not that good either.
The bands were average tonight. Conditions seemed decent but not a lot of folks taking advantage of them. It took a little while to get my streak QSO but finally worked WB0RLJ in a POTA activation at 0012Z.
As for other action today. I took an extended shopping trip stocking up on groceries that will hopefully last me a couple weeks now. Thanks to Bruce's brother Jeff. And that about sums up the day here. -30-
Tuesday, December 3 8:02PM - Not a whole lot going on today. Just the usual daily chores and nothing out of the ordinary. The weather was pretty good for this time of year so I took a walk to the Post Office and mailed a couple of checks. Then went a bit further, about a block, and picked up a couple things at Sprankle's.
The bands were a bit on the dead side this evening. Especially 20 meters and above. 30 was dead at first, then picked up a bit later. I had an unusual QSO when Special Event Station W5W answered MY CQ on 30. That's the station for Pearl Harbor Day, operated by Barb and we even chatted a little bit. Before that, I worked old friend Ernie AA2YK and we had a nice 23 minute "touching base" QSO getting caught up on our news. -30-
Monday, December 2 7:59PM - Not as busy a day as yesterday, but I wasn't idle all day either. I'm planning on a stocking up shopping day on Wednesday, so I walked down to the bank today to get some money. It was a chilly day, but not bad for walking. I hit the 1 mile mark just as I got home and walked in the door, literally. I also did some work on my web site getting caught up on posting the 2024 Guestbook entries on their own separate page now.
Also I did some more Christmas decorating getting close to the finish or maybe close to the half-way mark would be more accurate. Mike is going to help me with some outdoor lighting when he comes down for our monthly SkyView visit. I hate getting old and needing help with some things but it's nice to have friends like Mike who are willing to help.
Meanwhile here is where the decorating stands so far:
Pretty much the same as last year when I decided to downsize things. The base of the little tree is covered with some Christmas wrapping paper now this year about the only change so far. I've said this before but the angels around the base of the tree are from cub scouting many years ago. Let's see, that would be about 73 years or so ago now. Appropriate number for a ham. HI.
The bands seemed pretty good tonight. I got a couple quick QSOs although the one turned into a bit of a rag chew of 16 minutes. -30-
Sunday, December 1 7:54PM - In contrast to many days of late, it was a busy one today. I'll just give a Readers Digest version of the events of the day. Of course it was a First of the Month day which makes it a busy one right there. Plus I postponed most of my End of the Month chores I should have done yesterday.
I wrote some of my FOM checks today and took them to the PO and mailed them. Next big thing was uploading my November QSOs to eQSL after converting my spreadsheet log formatted QSOs to an ADIF file. Some routine things then I took care of my November weather data. November turned out to be a warm month with an average of 5 degrees above normal.
Ham radio turned out good this evening as conditions were very good. There was a lot of activity in the SST sprint, but I only worked one station to make my streak QSO. That was on 20M. Mike and Linda were talking about W5W as a Pearl Harbor memorial SE station, so I looked for them and found and worked them easily on 30 meters. Shortly afterward I realized I hadn't changed my antenna so I worked W5W with my 20 meters antenna on 30 meters. Didn't seem to matter as it was an easy QSO after one other station worked her. Yes, her. She gave a name as Barb. Then I did some more tuning around and found a very strong station on 20 acting like a DX station. It was, TO9W in St. Martin over S9 operating split. I set up split and thought I'd wait around for a little bit just to see if I could make contact. I didn't have long to wait. He worked two stations, then answered me.
That with some things not mentioned is how the first day of Winter went here. Oh, I have to fix my end of winter countdown now. 73. -30-
Saturday, November 30 8:00PM - Two more Thanksgiving meals today made from leftovers. Whew! Other than that and resting from the meals, really not much going on today. I did start my Christmas decorating, but only a very minimal effort consisting of putting up my little Christmas tree.
I almost forgot about my launddry, but I remembered and am doing it now as I type. The bands seemed a bit better this evening, but still not a lot of activity. I got AB9CA in a POTA activation for my streak QSO. -30-
Friday, November 29 6:27PM - I am stuffed. I just had Thanksgiving dinner #2. There's enough left in the fridge for #3 tomorrow also. Thanks to over-generous neighbors Bruce and Jeff. Wow!
Besides eating today, I did some other things in between meals. I cleaned out the corner where my little Christmas tree with the manger scene will go in a few days. I also finished my CQWW DX log and converted it from my Excel computer log file to the Cabrillo format and submitted it to CQ. I wasn't going to do so, but they emailed me with a request to submit the log, so I did.
I also finished the CQWW DX Contest story and posted it here on the web site. If you are at all interested, you can read it in the CONTESTING Section, Stories page, where you'll find a lnk to the 2024 CQWW DX story. Let me know what you think.
Not too far from streak time now at 0000Z, so I'll finish as much of the web site updating as I can, then QRT till I find out who will be the streak QSO and get some other data that I can't get before 0000Z. -30-
Thursday, November 28 7:54PM - I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and had a lot to be thankful for. I did on both accounts. It was a quiet Thanksgiving for the most part here and I partook of a great meal courtesy of my neighbor Bruce and his brother Jeff and well.... Roscoe too although he didn't do much to help prepare the meal. He just helped to eat it. And if he didn't feel he was getting enough he would let us all know with his loud barking. I surely was thankful for all of that.
I am thankful for my hobby of ham radio. It sure provides a lot of wonderful QSOs among other things to be thankful for. I love and appreciate all the QSOs I make, but now and then a special one comes along like it did tonite. I worked K0CDJ who is kind of a contemporary of mine as far as ham radio goes. He is a year older than me and has been licensed a few years longer than me. We share many memories of hamming in the mid 1900s, especially how we both enjoyed working CW on 80 meters. We both would stay up late and work all over the country chatting with folks here and there till all hours of the morning. What a contrast to today when you're lucky to find a good rag chew among all the folks who simply get on to exchange club numbers and the like. That is fun and important too, especially in keeping the usage of CW alive, but there is still nothing like having a good conversation with someone on CW. My QSO tonite with K0CDJ just came by accident. We didn't spot each other or anything like that. He was calling CQ and I tuned across him on 80 meters, answered him, and it went from there. We didn't need spotting, scheduling, etc. I think that is what makes ham radio all the more exciting, never knowing what is going to happen when you get on the air.
I worked on my contest story about the CQWW DX Contest for a while today and have most of the text written. Now I'm working on the stats, how many QSOs on each band, from each continent, CQ Zone, etc. When I get that done, I'll let you know here in the diary and post a link to it in my Contesting section. -30-
Wednesday, November 27 7:51PM - I say this a lot, but a day with Mike is always a good one and it was so today. Even more so with Linda being there in the Requin with us today. She fits in very well with our little group of Mike and I. She has made a lot of progress with her CW since we first met her back in early June. I haven't counted, but I think all three of us made about the same number of QSOS. Let's see If I'm right. Back in a minute. If I counted right, and I am open to a recount. HI I had 14, Mike had 13, and Linda had 12. Can't get too much closer than that. That's a total of 39, one of our better Requin showings.
We also had a lot of visitors pass through the sub, many of them youngsters, and it's always good to have a brief greeting or short chat with them as they pass by the radio room. It got pretty busy at time, making QSOs and talking with the visitors, and each other at times. We managed to make pretty good copy with the QSOs though. A lot of them were rather weak down in the QRN on the sub.
As usual Mike and I stopped for a meal on the way back home. Today it was at Applebee's, one of our two favorites along with Chili's. Linda had to head homw as soon as we finished our outing on the Requin.
We got so busy we didn't have time for a picture of the three of us. Hopefully next time. Art said the sub might stay open in December this year so we may be able to have one last visit in 2024. It will then be closed in January and February for sure.
The bands were good today. In contrast not so good tonight but I did have a 2XQRP QSO for my streak with W2KEZ on 40 meters.
I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow. I hope those of you up in Canada had a great Thanksgiving last month. Why not do a double dipper and celebrate the USA one as well? You can never give too many thanks for all the wonderful things life has to offer. -30-
Tuesday, November 26 7:56PM - I put the finishing touches today on copying my paper log to computer for the CQWW DX Contest. After Thanksgiving I'll hope to start writing my contest story to add to my collection of contest stories here on the web site.
Meanwhile we have our annual day before Thanksgiving trip to the USS Requin in Pittsburgh tomorrow. We'll be operating approximately from 1500 to 1900Z on 7042 10117 14062 all +/- 3 to avoid QRM. "We" this time has an extra member joining Mike and me. It's Linda W1MP. The three of us will take turns operating and logging. As usual we'll use the sub's call of NY3EC. Hope you'll take some time from Thanksgiving preparations to try to work us. Since it's a submarine event and not a QRP event we'll be using 100 watts of power to the sub's vertical antenna.
A couple streak QSOs tonight - W0KO a rag chew from ND, and DX from CT9ABV. -30-
Monday, November 25 8:01PM - From hundreds of stations per band to almost nil tonight. I struggled to make my streak QSO tonight, but I did work AK4JA/M on 30 after some 20 minutes or so. Then I QRT to work on my CQWW DX log a bit. I got all 142 QSOs transferred from paper to computer earlier today. Tonight I was curious to see how many countries I worked. It was 58, not too bad. I'll do some more ananlysis and work on my contest story around the interruptions from Thanksgiving so it probably won't be done till next week sometime. Oh and we're going to the Requin on Wednesday so another interruption there.
It sure was a lot of fun in the contest. Now I'm looking forward to the ARRL 10 meters contest next month and maybe the ARRL 160 meters contest too. Oh and another used to be favorite, The Canada Winter Contest. We'll see. -30-
Sunday, November 24 7:32PM - It's over. The CQWW DX, I mean. I kept pretty much to a minimal laid-back effort like I said I would. I did get a little intense on Sunday afternoon however. I wound up with 142 QSOs including 1 dupe. I don't have any other stats yet since I logged on paper and I can't really analyze anything else till I get all the QSOs transferred to my computer spreadsheet log which will take a couple days. Then a day or so after that, I think I'll write one of my contest stories about it.
Meanwhile here are some things that happened. I got my usual contest WAC, but it took a while to work Japan for Asia this time. I worked two Iceland stations in a row on 15 meters which is kind of unusual. It was frustrating to come so close to working 3B8M and not making it. It wasn't for lack of effort on the part of 3B8M. He took maybe 3 minutes of trying to get it but couldn't quite pull my complete call out of the noise there. He had the same problem with the next station who called him, so it wasn't anythin on my part, just plain bad conditions on his end. I worked 3 straight Hawaii stations AH7RF KH7M KH6AQ. Strangely though, I couldn't work Lloyd KH6LC whom I almost always work in contests and also have had a long rag chew with him at one time. I wound up with 3 Japan QSOs after having a problem getting the first one.
Enough of a tease. Tune in in a few days for the full story if such things interest you. Now on to the rest of the site updating, then I need to finish my exercise routine. -30-
Saturday, November 23 8:45PM - Well, I got a bit into the CQWW today, but no serious effort by any means. A serious effort would have me from 200-250 QSOs at this point in time. I have 64. I'm just doing a short time here and a short time there with the gaps filled with other interests or chores. I'm doing the contest the way I get the most enjoyment. That is, just tuning up or down a band and working what I want to work from just as many stations as I can work to just picking and choosins certain stations like a new prefix, band country, etc. Today it was the former, just working everyone I can. It was especially fun this evening on 40 meters. It was good to Europe and Africa and I worked 15 stations in about 50 minutes. Some stations came in brief streaks of 1 per minute. Earlier in the day I was doing the same thing on the higher bands. 15 was particular good for the streaks. All in all it was a relaxing fun effort and I didn't put any pressure on myself for goals of any kind. Of course as always I used no spotting of any kind. Oh and I make this an all DX contest even though you can work W/VE stations for points also. I don't. I think I'll get on again later and see what 40 has to offer and 80 also. But now I'm taking a couple hours off. BTW some of my pipelines were working good. I worked several Hawaii stations and several NE Africa as well. My late afternoon one to Scandinavia not so. I called some OH stations with nothing more than a K3? or such. -30-
Friday, November 22 8:11PM - Well, the contesting desire hasn't shown up (yet?). I only used the CQWW to get a couple streak QSOs, actually 4 of them. One a little surprising, XR7X because I have had difficulty working the southern part of South America lately, and it only took a couple calls to work him.
Not much going on again today outside of the ordinary. I did take a walk in the light rain to mail an important check, but it was not an ideal walking day. Even Roscoe didn't stay out very long on our walks. The temperature didn't stray far from 40 degrees, one way or the other. We had our first measureable s#@wfall of the season, and fortunately it didn't last long before the s#$w changed to rain and melted what fell on the ground.
I think I fooled the wind. I took in my porch furniture and flowers and the predicted gusts immediately went from upper 30s MPH to mid to upper 20s. -30-
Thursday, November 21 8:04PM - Tonight was similar to last night. I either worked the DX on the first or second call or not at all. Again one of the DX QSOs was from Madeira. This time CT9ACD.
I don't feel any real desire to put in a big effort in the CQWWDX this weekend. In past when I've felt that way, I often wound up actually putting in a big effort and doing quite well. Maybe that will happen this year. We'll have to wait and see.
You know I envy those folks who don't have all that many countries worked because there are a lot of new countries available for them to work in the big DX contests or otherwise. Meanwhile with my 230 countries worked, there are very few easy ones left to work. Most of the 110 I need are rare ones or in parts of the world I have difficulty working like SE Asia for one example. Let me see something. My last four overall new countries came like this:
8-Apr-2022 - C31CT
29-Jun-2023 - 1A0C
17-Feb-2024 - ZD7W
30-Oct-2024 - 3D2AG/P
Pretty sparse. Equally sparse are countries I worked on a new band. Since 23-Nov-2021, I've only worked 8 not counting the 4 overall ones above.
I'm thinking more and more about starting a new DXCC when the year of 2025 starts. Another thing we'll see when the time comes. -30-
Wednesday, November 20 9:16PM - Not much to write about on this last day of nice weather. Tomorrow a preview of winter shows up and lasts a few days. Took advantage of the weather today and did some porch sitting and stocked up on some groceries for the next few days.
The bands were strange tonight. I either worked DX with 1 or 2 calls or they didn't hear me at all. 5 of my last 7 QSOs were with Madeira. I think I worked a good portion of the hams who are going to operate Madeira in the CQWW. Almost time for a Roscoe walk so I'll close here. -30-
Tuesday, November 19 8:24PM - I said tonight I would list the countries I have worked on 8 different bands, so let's do that right away. Here goes:
8 band countries: 6Y 8P 9A C6 CM CN DL EA EA8 F FG FM FS GI GM HC8 HI I J3 J6 J7 KH6 KP2 KP4 LX LZ OK OM ON P4 PJ2 PJ4 PJ5 FJ6 PJ9 S5 SM SP TI V2 V3 VP2M VP5 XE YN YO YU ZF. That's 48 8-band countries.
To finish off, here are the 9-band countries: G.
And 10-band countries: K VE.
That's a total of 92 countries I've worked on 7 or more bands. For those new to me and my site, all worked with QRP, CW, Simple wire antennas, No use of spotting of any kind.
Yes, you can work DX, and lots of it with a simple station setup like mine.
Tonight the streak QSO came from Madeira Island once again, CT9/HA7GN on 40 meters and it took just a single call to get him. I guess Madeira is going to have a big presence in the CQWWDX test this weekend. -30-
Monday, November 18 8:26PM - I got another project taken care of today. I got my leaves raked. It's nice to have a helpful 32 year old neighbor to help out now with things I used to be able to do all by myself. I am still able to do part of the work, of which I am glad. His two young boys (around 5 and 3 yrs old, I think) helped out a little bit also. Of course a pile of leaves is a kid magnet and they enjoyed jumping in them. I thought after the fact that I should have had a picture taken of me jumping in the leaves. Probably a good thing I didn't try that.
A couple days ago I was wondering how many countries I have on 7, 8, 9, 10 different bands. Well, I figured it out. Tonight I'm going to list the 7 band countries alphanumerically by country prefix. In following entries I'll get to 8, 9, and 10 bands. Here goes:
7 band countries: 9Y CE CT CU E7 EA6 EI ER ES GD GW HA HB HC HK HK0 HP HR J8 KG4 KL7 LA LU LY OE OH OH0 OZ PA PJ7 PY UA1 UR V4 VP2E VP2V VP9 YL YV Z3 ZD8
That's 41 7-band countries.
Tonight was a bit different for the streak. I worked KP2B on 20. Then it was CT9ABV on 30. 3 or 4 minutes later it was CT9ABV on 40. He must have gone QSY about the same time I did. Then I finished with a POTA QSO from KD9UDV. -30-
Sunday, November 17 8:28PM - Not much happening today. Too chilly to do much outside, but I did go for a walk outside. I think it was about 3/4 mile or so. The rest of the time I played with my trains, and did some house cleaning, also a little cooking. I fixed a smoothie, and also fried the last of my green tomatoes.
This evening I used the SST for my streak QSO. Although I don't need ZD7, I did try ZD7VJ for a while on 20 with no luck. I only recently worked that entity. It was either in the last CQWWDX or the ARRLDX contest. Must be getting ready for this year's CQWWDX. A very good op, whoever it is. He IDed at least every 2 or 3 QSOs which really helps those of us who don't do their ID from spotting. -30-
Saturday, November 16 7:55PM - I had a chance to get on the bands this afternoon, and it was worthwhile. I'll fit that into the story later. I did my usual early morning things here. Then after I took Roscoe out, Bruce made waffles for us. Strangely Roscoe didn't want any. After we finished that, and a couple other things, I did my laundry. After it finished, I folded it and took it up to my bedroom. Of course my shack shares the bedroom and while I was there, I decided to check the bands, something i haven't done at that time of day (1830Z) for some time now.
Conditions were good and I right away found and worked K4KVC POTA on 12M in FL. 4 minutes later it was D4DX on 15 meters. Then two more POTA stations, KT7RC in AZ and KZ2V in CA, both on 15M. Then another QSO with D4DX, this time on 10M. Six QSOs using a single call to get each except for the AZ POTA. I had to send my call twice for him. And of course all without any use of spotting, just tuning around listening. All in 16 minutes. I'll have to spend more afternoon time on the bands, I guess.
The weather was nice so I went for about a 3/4 mile walk, ate something, and did a couple chores to pass the time till 0000Z, then it was back to the shack. I worked AB9CA POTA in OK for the streak, then added a second QSO with AB0BM who was very weak and rough copy but we exchanged all the info required for a QSO. -30-
Friday, November 15 8:23PM - It was decent weather today for walking. So after I took care of some mid-month bills, I walked to the Post Office to get them in the mail, then I continued on another block to Sprankle's and got some pineapple for a smoothie and some potato salad and tried something new, some cranberry pound cake. I guess that is somewhat appropriate for the Thanksgiving season. Anyway it was delicious. I'll be getting some more of it if they keep having it.
The bands seemed very poor this evening but I had a solid QSO with K6ACW in San Diego on 20 meters for my streak, then followed it up a little later with HA8IB on 40 meters. -30-
Thursday, November 14 8:00PM - Let's see what did I do today? I did some dog sitting with Roscoe while Bruce was being visited by his Physical Therapist this morning. One thing that has crept into a semi-routine daily thing is brewing up a "smoothie" in my blender. Linda gave me a recipe several weeks ago, and I really like them and make one every day or every couple days. The basic recipe consists of milk, water, spinach, pineapple, cinnamon, banana, ginger with a variety of other fruits and vegetables. Then a good mixing in the blender for a minute or so. Mmmmmm. She also gave me a sample of three other ingredients which I exhausted and am going to order some more. Chia seeds, Ground flaxseed, whey protein powder.
Tonight a couple of quick streak QSOs, one POTA from AB9CA and a short rag chew from KG4NBI. That sums up today in a nutshell. Nothing special set for tomorrow so we'll see what turns up. -30-
Wednesday, November 13 8:24PM - Not a lot going on again today. I did go grocery shopping with Jeff, and that's about all out of the ordinary everyday things.
I got three QSOs this evening for my streak. One POTA, W4WJE and a couple rag chews with folks I"ve worked before. Now typing this and waiting for 9PM to get my weather readings. Looks like we'll get some more rain tomorrow. -30-
Tuesday, November 12 10:22PM - A busy day today with Mike. He came around 1PM and we got started on a planned project. That was building a model train cradle for him and repairing one of mine. To those who don't know, a model train cradle is a device that holds model train cars and engines upside down for servicing, oiling, greasing, cleaning wheels and other such services. We finished pretty quickly, then I ran my train for a bit. Then we just plain killed time including ordering tickets for the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum Santa Trolley Ride on December 14. We did that before a few years ago and enjoyed it and had planned to go back for some time now once CoVid was cleared up.
Then we ordered and ate a pizza before heading off to the SkyView Club meeting. I visited with some members and Mike used the club Antenna Analyzer to check some mobile whip antennas he plans to use and/or share with Linda who was also at the meeting. She brought me some Chicken Nuggets from McDonalds and also returned the antenna wire I had loaned to her.
I got my streak QSOs at the club as follows:
1. I worked LW2DO on 20 using their Quad and the club call of K3MJW at 2338Z for my "Other Calls" log.
2. EA8/OK6RA with my call with the club IC7300 at 5 watts on 40M CW with the club 40 dipole which counted as a K3WWP log streak QSO at 0022Z.
3. The same with AD4WQ on 40 meters at 0054Z.
4. V31RH same as the EA8 QSO above for an "Other Calls" log.
That sums up another very good day here. -30-
Monday, November 11 7:49AM - Happy Veterans Day. I hope you all did something today to honor those who served or are serving to keep our country safe from those who are seeking to destroy it.
I did some more house cleaning today and also walked down to Sprankle's to pick up some groceries. Working/playing with my trains also occupied some more of my time along with the ordinary daily chores.
I got a quick rag chew QSO for my streak this evening with Tony N2ATB on 40 meters. We chatted about 20 minutes. -30-
Sunday, November 10 7:44PM - The bands seemed good today according to what Linda and Mike were telling me. They listed some good DX they were hearing/working. However I had already worked all of it in the past. So I got to thinking about something while I was working/playing with my trains and doing some house cleaning today. I thought maybe I'd try something in 2025 similar to what I did back in 2000. That was the year of the ARRL Millennium DXCC Award. I worked a DXCC by March 18 that year for the award. Maybe next year I'll see if I can work 100 DX Entities, and see how fast I can do it under the same conditions as 2000. That is of course using CW, QRP, simple wire antennas, and not using spotting of any kind. I told Linda and she thought it was a "noble" goal, and to go for it. Well, I'll see when the new year gets here. There's still a lot of time before then for a lot of changes.
A couple of quick QSOs for the streak this evening. One in the SST from NZ0T, one on a 30M CQ from AC4BN.
We actually had a pretty good rain that lasted a good part of the day today. It will be interesting to see what is in my rain gauge at 9PM when I get my readings. -30-
Saturday, November 9 8:25PM - The bands nothing to write home about nor write about in the diary. I worked K8NY in WV on 40 for the streak. Then I did some listening with Mike and Linda for a while. We all chased V55LA and XT2MD. I didn't hang around all that long since I have both Namibia and Burkina Faso each on a few bands, so I QRT. I don't know if Mike or Linda got them or not.
A bit on the chilly side but I got in an outdoor walk and a little bit of porch sitting time. Tomorrow we may get some...what do they call it....oh yes, RAIN. Haven't seen much of that lately. Stiill we are not as bad off as Eastern PA especially around the Philadelphia area where they've gone around 42-43 straight days without any measureable rainfall. -30-
Friday, November 8 8:19PM - This is old home week around here on the ham bands. I had another 30 minute rag chew with another friend I haven't worked in a while tonight. It was Carl N5XE on 30 meters. He tail ended me after another 30 minute rag chew with K3EU on 30. Not sure if I worked him before or not.
This afternoon it was DX. I worked V55LA on a single call on 12 meters. That was a new band country, # 116 on 12 meters and # 1,135 band countries overall now on the 160-6 meters bands.
I also did another project today when I took care of some annual banking. That's two days in a row with a completed project now. If I can just keep up my ambition. HI -30-
Thursday, November 7 8:27PM - I don't know how long it will last, but I'm going to try to do one big project per day to help clean up this house. Today I got caught up on a lot of correspondence that had been sitting around unanswered way too long. I answered it all, then carted it off to the post office enjoying the walk along the way there in the nice weather.
Tonight there didn't seem to be much activity on the bands, even less than usual. Still I wound up with a 30 minute rag chew with Chet WA3I in Delaware on 40 meters, another friend I hadn't worked in a while. He said our last QSO was before the pandemic in 2019. -30-
Wednesday, November 6 8:17PM - Most of the action today happened on the bands this evening so I'll concentrate on that. I had four QSOS with friends I hadn't worked in a while. It's always nice to run into old friends. The first one was with K8MPH, but it didn't go so well, plagued by QSB and QRN, lasting only a few minutes on 40M. I thought 30 might be better so I went there and called CQ where I was answered by W4UX. We chatted for 14 minutes getting caught up on things. As soon as we finished, N4IY tail ended me, and likewise we got caught up on things in a 21 minute QSO. In the QSO he mentioned this was the third band we had worked on and it would be nice to work on 5 bands. That triggered a memory which I will get to in a moment after I talk about one last QSO. When we finished, I got another tail end call from WB4UHC. The call sounded vaguely familiar, but I wasn't sure until he said he used to take part in our NAQCC activities many years ago and refreshed my memory. Our QSO lasted 15 minutes. That completed a very pleasant exactly one hour of pounding brass.
Now to the story triggered by N4IY's comment about working on 5 bands. Back on June 12, 1996, I worked W4HG on 10 meters when the bands were in great shape. I needed his state of NC on 12 meters. I asked him to QSY to 12 meters to give me a new state. He gladly did so and we connected easily. I was curious to see if we could then work on 15 meters, and we went there and we did. Well, maybe you know where this is heading now. You're right. From there it was down to 17, 20, 30, 40, and on to 80. All the bands down through 40 were pieces of cake to use that phrase. When 80 came along though, we made it but it was rough with an exchange of RSTs of 469/349. Before that sigs were s6 through s9 except for 30 which was 559 both ways. 80 was so rough we didn't think we could make it on 160 and didn't even try. Looking back now, I wish we had at least tried. Still working on 8 bands from 0111Z through 0144Z is pretty impressive and unusual, we thought. That's 33 minutes total. Maybe I'll dig out the QSL card(s) from that evening and post a photo here in the diary. -30-
Tuesday, November 5 8:13PM - Let's see what happened today. As usual not a lot out of the ordinary. I did cut my hair today. It was getting pretty long and shaggy. I've mentioned in this diary a few times, but for those who may be new to the diary, I have not been in a barber shop since 1972. I've cut my own hair regularly each month or so ever since then and saved a lot of money along the way. Since I'm not competing for Mr. America or any of those male beauty contests, I do a good enough job to please myself.
It was another beautiful weather day which involved a lot of sitting on the porch and playing iPhone games or listening to W7ABC podcasts of the Cousin Brucie and Vinnie Medugno music shows of classic rock music from the 50s, 60s and a touch of the 70s as Brucie puts it.
This evening as it is most of the evenings, I got a quick streak QSO. Tonight from N5NLP in Okla. on 20 meters. We had a nice chat. -30-
Monday, November 4 8:12PM - I walked all the way downtown today to the bank and drug store for some shopping. I haven't done that for a while and it felt good to be active like that again. I think I was letting my age catch up with me and I hope I can reverse that now and do some shopping on my own instead of depending on my neighbors to drive me there. We'll see. Anyway the weather is nice for it these days.
It's so nice to get in my streak QSO at 7 pm now instead of 8 pm. I don't seem to be as rushed in the evenings now. Tonight I had a nice rag chew with NC3S in DE on 40 meters. Then Mike texted that he worked CT9/UR9IDX on 17M. I texted back I had worked him many times on different bands, but said I might try him after I finished my rag chew. Mike said he got him on the first try. Anyway after the rag chew, I did go to 17 and found the DX, but didn't feel like working him as he was pretty weak now, but then I changed my mind and did work him and on my first try.
After two days of Standard Time I think my body is adjusted to it now. Still hate it getting dark so early though. Oh well, nothing I can do about it. -30-
Sunday, November 3 9:08PM - I can't think of anything out of the ordinary happening today. Well I went shopping with Jeff and stocked up on some groceries. I don't do that every day. Then I guess the big thing today was getting used to the first day of Standard Time. I hate that because I miss the light evenings even thought they aren't light that long in the evenings no matter what kind of time we are in. That won't be reversing now until around December 7 when the earliest sunset of the year occurs. Then it starts imperceptibly setting a little later each evening. Oh well, I won't say any more about that for now.
This evening I used the SS for my streak QSOs. I first worked K1RX on 40, then later I ran across KH6J on 15 and decided to work him for the fun of it. My Hawaiian pipeline was working great and we had a perfect exchange of info without a single repeat of any kind. That made a total of 2 SS QSOs this year, a far cry from the 400+ I made in my younger days so many years ago. HI -30-
Saturday, November 2 8:30PM - I got a day ahead last night in setting the clocks back. Fortunately I only did a couple before I realized it. Now tonight after that brief rehearsal last night, I'll do it for real. HI. In fact I already did a few of them, ones I don't look at that much.
I also fixed up the messed up weather records from last night. I had to go back to a backup copy of the spreadsheet and re-enter the October data. With that, I'm pretty much done with the changing of the month chores for another month.
Tonight I went straight to 30 and bypassed the SS contest which I don't really care for although at one time long ago I did do quite well in it with my QRP. On 30 I quickly worked NS8S in MI for a short rag chew. -30-
Friday, November 1 8:40P - This is the first of the month obviously, and that means a lot of financial, etc. work for yours truly. Plus it's the night to set the clocks back to standard time, and I have a lot of clocks, some, but not all that set themselves automatically which helps. Then in doing my October weather reports I somehow messed up one of the pages in my Spreadsheet file and have that to work on the next few days when the mood strikes. So it wasn't all that great a day here.
I at least got a good quick QSO for the streak from my friend Dan KB6NU on 30 meters. -30-
Thursday, October 31 9:10PM - BOO! Happy Haloween! The weather today was truly something to be happy about, for sure. A high of 81, probably the last time we see the thermometer hit that number outside until spring sometime. It has hit the low 80s in early November before though. One time back on our red/white day in high school back in the early 1960s I remember, but don't quite remember the specific date and temperature right now. I'll have to satisfy my curiousity and look it up, but not right now.
Tonight nothing even slightly exotic on the bands. I had a rag chew with Bruce WA1HGJ then a short QSO with a very weak KW4NJA who answered my CQ on 30M. -30-
Wednesday, October 30 7:00PM - Not much going on once again again today. Maybe I'll get something on the bands again last night like I did last night, but probably not. I'm still a little excited about working Rotuma last night and adding entity number 130 to my list of entities.
This was trick or treat this evening. I only gave some candy to the neighbor kids, then shut up my house to keep the distant kids from showing up from all over towm and from neighboring towns. -30-
Tuesday, October 29 9:09PM - If I understand correctly, I got a brand new overall DXCC entity in my log tonight. 3D2AG/P is listed in 3D2AG's QRZ listing as being operated from Rotuma Island which in the ARRL DXCC listing is listed as a separate entity from Fiji. Barring any possible correction, that's entity #230 worked here of course with CW/QRP/simple wire antennas. The first overall new entity since 1A0C on 29 Jul 2023 and ZD7W on 17 Feb 2024. The bands were superb tonight with strong signals from everywhere although not a whole lot of them, at least in the CW segments which are the only places I operate or listen.
I also worked VP5/WT3K, not nearly as exotic as Rotuma, but DX nevertheless. Also a rag chew with NR4A in Florida.
Nothing much else happened outside of enjoying the nice mid-70s temperatures an beautiful sunny skies more like mid September than late October. But getting Rotuma filled my excitement quotient. HI -30-
Monday, October 28 9:24PM - Just a brief note about tonight's streak QSOs. First a quick POTA with N4KPT whom I've worked 11 times now. Then DX from VP5/WT3K. Then with Linda in a joint listening session, she worked a POTA in OR, and I followed working the same station. I think OR is a new POTA state. I'll check later, but have to walk Roscoe now. -30-
Sunday, October 27 9:18PM - Not a lot going on again today, but the 0000Z hour was interesting on the bands. I thought I'd get a SST QSO and QRT, but I got that so quickly, I decided to hang around a while. I wound up getting another SST QSO from CA on 15M, a POTA from CA on 17M, and a DX from Haiti on 17M. Now time to walk Roscoe. -30-
Saturday, October 26 8:49PM - This was kind of a train day today. I fired up my Nickle Plate Road Diesel and my Frisco Steamer today for the first time in several months to maybe a couple years. They both ran well so I got them cleaned up a bit and now I have three Legacy Lionel engines plus some older Lionel engines from many years ago to play with and an American Flyer set too. That should keep me busy during the upcoming bad weather season. Along with ham radio of course.
I listened for the ham I worked last night in his POTA activity today, but no luck. -30-
Friday, October 25 8:46PM - Another quiet day here with nothing special done besides the usual chores that pop up every day.
It was a quick 15 minute rag chew starting at 0005Z tonight with N3FLL who does some POTA activity and is going to Valley Forge Park tomorrow.
I guess that covers the day here. -30-
Thursday, October 24 8:33PM - It cooled off from the past few days today. Down about 15 or so degrees from yesterday after a cold front went through late last evening. Supposed to warm up again in a few days though, and that's good.
The bands seemed kind of deserted again this evening except for 40. I got my streak QSO on 20 from N4OW though. A nice solid chat for 12 minutes from Florida. -30-
Wednesday, October 23 9:25PM - Late and time to walk Roscoe, so just a brief note. My streak QSO came quickly from N4KPT, about the 10th time I've worked him as a POTA station. Then got VQ5Y on 40. Earlier heard JA3XOG on 10M but couldn't get him. -30-
Tuesday, October 22 10:41PM - A great fall day with sun, warmth, and no precipitation which was very good for sitting on the porch listening to a Cousin Brucie podcast from the WABC web site. Also some time spent doing some more house cleaning.
The streak QSO came tonight from N4KPT and his POTA operating. But I also added a couple more QSOs as well. An 8 minute chat with KA1BSZ, then Jock N1JI tail ended when that QSO ended. However conditions were rough and that ended in a couple minutes. But I texted Jock to see if we could try again. We did and that time it worked
better and we got caught up on some doings in a 17 minute rag chew which was cut short this time with a quick band fade. -30-
Monday, October 21 7:55PM - Just getting the time on the entry then going to go to the shack and hopefully get my streak QSO quickly.
Well, I got a quick short QSO at 0005Z. However then a 27 minute rag chew with old friend Bob N9HAL. So it's getting close to Roscoe walking time already. Not too much else to talk about anyway. I replaced a defective smoke alarm in my attic this afternoon. Also spent a lot of time on the porch enjoying the sunny 78 degree weather. I'll have to check to see if that's a record high for October 21. I watched the Penn State weather as usual this evening and they reported that Phoenix went 21 straight days with a daily record high temperature and that goes back to 1895, I believe. Also I think they said it hit at least 110 degrees 4 times this month so far. The first time ever it's been 110 or higher any day in October.
OK, better finish my updates and walk Roscoe now. -30-
Sunday, October 20 8:52PM - A nice weather day today so I took a long outside walk and sat on the porch a lot. Inside it was organizing some photos on my computer and playing with my train. No ham radio till this evening when I got on and worked one QSO each in the ILQP and SST. In my contesting heydays, I loved the ILQP. I think that and the WIQP were two of my favorites. Now that the contesting urge has left I only use them for my streak QSOs. The only contests I enter at all seriously now are the big DX ones like CQWW, ARRL, IARU, CQWPX. Time changes everything. It hasn't changed my weather data gathering though, and it's time to close here and get my
9:00 readings. -30-
Saturday, October 19 10:35PM - This was an unusual busy day today, both housework and on the bands.
I gave my furnace filter a real good cleaning for the upcoming fall and winter chill and cold seasons. I also cleaned up part of my kitchen. My garden friend Ange is away and he told me to pick all the peppers and ripe tomatoes and share them with the neighbor who watered the garden when he was away earlier in the gardening season. So I took care of that. That took me to laundry time. That finished the bulk of the household chores and I sat on the porch a while enjoying the 70 degree weather.
When 0000Z came, as usual it was off to the shack. The bands seemed pretty good. I first worked POTA station N4KPT on 30 meters after I tried to no avail to work PX0FF on 20 meters. Then a short rag chew with WB4KLI who was also QRP. I then went on to check the higher bands and found W1AW portable in California for some reason or other that I didn't know. I worked him easily. Finally I checked 30 meters again and found guess who there? Right, PX0FF and this time I got him after a bit of a struggle. I seemed to think I might need Fernando De Noronha on 30, and when I checked later, I found it was a new country on 30, #157 and band country overall #1,132 and FDN on band #5 now. So an interesting day and evening for a change. -30-
Friday, October 18 8:51PM - Seem to be stuck in a rut here lately. Beautiful weather but a bit chilly to sit on the porch. That may change the next few days though as there are some 70+ degree days predicted. Playing a lot with trains again today. Not getting on the air till 0000Z. That's pretty much the outline of my rut if I leave out the ordinary everyday chores.
The streak QSOs tonight were VQ5Y on 20 and K5TF on 40. -30-
Thursday, October 17 8:40PM - I got a quick QSO from K4IBZ on 30 meters for the streak this evening. The bands seemed a little better and a bit more active tonight, but still a far cry from what they used to be in the evenings. I could comment on that sad state of affairs, but I don't feel like it.
This was a shopping day today. I have about one of those per week with appreciation to my neighbor Bruce or his brother Jeff. In addition to groceries, I had to get some printer paper from Walmart. That would be impossible to get without some transportation.
It was a cold day today but warming up slowly over the next few days with temperatures in the low to mid 70s. Kind of a farewell to the warm part of the year. -30-
Wednesday, October 16 7:44PM - Fall has pretty much settled in here. Another cold, breezy, drizzly day. The high was 53 but with the breeze it seemed colder. Once again not a day for being outside other than to walk Roscoe. I take that back, I did walk to the PO to mail a couple checks. That's when I really felt the cold.
This evening found the bands under-occupied again, at least in the CW segments, but I did find Gary K1YAN for a good 39 minute rag chew. -30-
Tuesday, October 15 8:38PM - The bands seemed good tonight, but not a lot of activity. Mostly rag chew QSOs here and there with good solid signals both ways.
I found a SE station on 15 meters for my streak QSO. W7O in Washington state. He was calling CQ BF. I wondered what that was for. Just looked on QRZ and it was for Bigfoot. HI. I guess you can have a SE station for just about anything these days.
Nothing much else going on today. I did send in our NAQCC Anniversary log from yesterday to get that out of the way quickly since that was the only N3A operating I was planning to do for the event.
It was a cold blustery day again today, No sitting on the porch at all today. I was only outside to walk Roscoe, nothing else. -30-
Monday, October 14 10:16PM - Regular diary readers know that Columbus Day means that Mike and I activate a special call for NAQCC Anniversary Week, usually a variant of N3A. Today it was N3A/3. Mike arrived a little before starting time of 1500Z. One thing was a little different this year. Instead of going to the Kittanning Community Park, we decided to operate from my shack rather than sitting outdoors in drizzle, low temps, and wind gusting to maybe 30MPH. We got set up and started a few minutes after 1500Z. Mike said he would do the logging and I could do the operating. That suited me.
Thimgs started VERY slowly and our first QSO didn't come until 1558Z, nearly an hour into our operating time. It was Gene N5GW who found and worked us finally. Then a half hour more till our second QSO. The QSOs continued sporadically until we had just 5 QSOs three hours into our operating time. The last hour proved better with 9 QSOs for a total of 14 from 12 states and Ontario. Even though it was slow going most of the time, Mike and I still enjoyed it as we always do despite how things turn out.
After the four hours were over, it was time for some food and we ordered a meatball, pepper, and tomato pizza from our current favorite Pizza Parlor, Vovelli's. Then after some time running my new train, the UP844, it was time for Mike to go home and check on Jayden.
At 0000Z it was shack time to get my streak QSO which turned out to be a 22 minute rag chew with Ed K6SX. So the day turned out good once again when Mike visited. -30-
Sunday, October 13 9:23PM - Close to Roscoe walking time, so a short entry. Mike and I decided with the poor weather coming tomorrow, we'd just operate from my shack for the NAQCC Anniversary event with N3A/3. We'll be around the QRP hunting ground from about 1500-1900Z on 7045 or 14065 +/- QRM.
Got an SST QSO and XE1CCB/QRP for the streak tonight. OK, gotta go. -30-
Saturday, October 12 9:16PM - A quiet day today. Nice weather for an outdoors walk and some porch sitting. Also a laundry day as is every Saturday.
The PA QSO Party today held no interest for me other than in working Mike KC2EGL to help him with a QSO which was also my Streak QSO for the day. I also worked a couple of AZQP stations in KC7V and K7UGA. As you probably know, that latter call was Barry Goldwater's old call and now is a club call. That sums up what little there is to sum up today. Maybe more will happen tomorrow. -30-
Friday, October 11 9:05PM - Not as exciting as last night. I didn't notice any aurora when I went out to get my weather readings, but I'll check later on Roscoe's walk.
40 meters sounded a lot better tonight, but 30 and 20 still a bit iffy. I got a fairly easy QSO at 0002Z from AA0YY in MO on 40.
Big project today was trimming my front yard bush. I didn't do the hard work part though. That was done by my neighbor who is in his early 30s. Don't I wish I was that age. Mmmm. He was joined by his wife and two young boys, about 4-5 yo and about 2 yo. It was a lot of fun watching the kids. Actually it looks pretty much like it did when I used to trim it. This is the first year I turned it over to someone else.
Other than the usual daily routine things, that was it for today. -30-
Thursday, October 10 10:43PM - I think this is a good start to this entry:
I took Roscoe for a walk, watched some TV with Bruce. Then when I left to come home, I checked for any signs of the aurora. I had checked earlier and only noticed the sky due north was a little brighter than the rest of the sky, but no colors or other typical curtains, rays, etc. However this time I noticed rays emanating from the light area I saw earlier. Still very dim. Then I glanced to the right and saw the red glow in the sky and snapped the picture. When I checked the picture, the colors were more vivid in the picture than I was seeing. Also the green color was mixed in also.
That took me back some 65 years or so which was the last time I had seen an aurora display as bright as tonight. At the time, a school teacher lived next door and I went to get him so he could see the display also. Really spectacular then as well as now.
It sure wreaked havoc with the ham bands though. Other than a DX pileup where the folks with their super stations were pretty strong and steady, most other signals were fluttery from the effects of the solar flare/CME on the ionosphere, and I had trouble working any of them. I had visions of my streak grinding to an end although I really figured such conditions usually don't last a full 24 hours, and I still had 23 hours to go. I didn't have to wait that long though as I heard VE3GFN finish a QSO, and I tail end called him. Took a few repeats, but he got my call and we had a 6 minute QSO. The streak lives on! -30-
Wednesday, October 9 8:46PM - Today was a frustrating day that turned out well in the end. It was my Senior Food Bank day, and I had learned earlier that my food box had been suspended. I spent a good part of the day trying to figure that out calling just about all the social services offices in town without finding out anything. Later when I went to get the food box, I went early to talk to the officials there. One recognized me right away, and explained the situation. Seems there is another John Shannon in their Western PA data base and the suspension should have been applied to him instead of me. All's well that ends well and all is straightened out now.
As far as the bands go, they are still rather poor, but improved over the past couple days. However another high speed Solar Flare or CME is headed to Earth to hit tomorrow. So conditions should return to their poor state again for a day or two.
For the first time in ages, my QSO tonight came from a mobile station, also for the first time in a longer time period, it came from the CH net. -30-
Tuesday, October 8 9:22PM - Bands poor but had a nice 23 minute rag chew with K3PI on 40 meters, then got a QSO in the NAQCC Sprint from WB9HFK.
Kind of a chilly day today, but still nice enough to sit on the porch for a while. Also ran the UP844 quite a bit today learning some of the intricacies of it. That about sums up the day. -30-
Monday, October 7 9:11PM - A typical chilly fall today. Nice for walking and I took a couple of them. One to the PO to mail a check and one just a regular walk. Didn't check the bands at all until 0000Z, and if they were that way all day, I didn't miss anything. Didn't get the solar info yet, but I bet the figures weren't good. Except for 40 and 80, they were pretty empty. What signals there were had a strange kind of flutter on them. Well at least about half of them did. I managed to work N0F in MO on 30 and K6SK in NJ on 40. I also ran my train quite a bit today. I had the thought of getting a Big Boy now. I think a 4014 and 844 would make a nice looking double header engine combo. Realistic too since those two have worked together quite a bit in the real railroad world. But that's a big expense and as Mike said today, I might want a bigger layout if I do make the purchase running up the cost even more. We'll see what comes of the thought, if anything. -30-
Sunday, October 6 9:16PM - A heavy rain/thunderstorm this evening kind of messed up timing of things. Anyway I was late getting on the air, but stayed long enough to make 4 SST QSOS. Then some good timing. The rain stopped long enough for me to get my weather readings at 9PM. The rain totalled 0.86 inches, most of that in a heavy downpour that lasted about 15 minutes. That's another entry in a nutshell for the diary. -30-
Saturday, October 5 8:25PM - A nice sunny cool fall day today. I went for a couple outdoor walks and sat in the park for a while. It felt good to get out like that for a change after being too hot, too cold, too wet, too etc. I hope to get in some more days like today before it gets too cold and stays that way.
The bands weren't too good this evening. Well, that's debatable. I did struggle to get a GA station on 30 before I checked 20 and found it, then 15 both full of stations. I had forgotten about the CA QSO Party this weekend. I will remember tomorrow evening when it comes time to get my streak QSO. No fooling around, just go right to the CAQP then. -30-
Friday, October 4 10:53PM - Even later tonight, so even shorter. Ran my 844 quite a bit. Sat on the porch quite a bit. All my usual daily chores. Finished putting September weather in the computer spreadsheet. Turned out September was a couple degrees above normal and precipitation below normal.
Worked N3A/4 for a NAQCC Anniversary QSO. Kevin KI4DEF was the op. Added 3 POTA QSOs and one DX QSO. That's it for now. -30-
Thursday, October 3 10:30PM - Late again tonight. I succeeded in getting the Legacy CAB 2 controller for the UP844 working today, and that makes running the 844 easier and more convenient in addition to being able to do more with the 844 now. It was an easy fix. I just reprogrammed the engine. When Mike and I did it, we must have either missed something or used a wrong button.
I got a couple POTA QSOs for the streak this evening.
Not much else to talk about today. It was a chilly day with a low of 44 in the morning, but did warm up to 75 by late afternoon. Supposed to be several nice days in a row now with plenty of sun bringing on some warm temperatures for some good porch sitting sessions. -30-
Wednesday, October 2 9:12PM - Worked some more on my first of month things today. Almost done now. Just a bit of work on the weather. I changed course in mid-stream and worked on clearing out some more mail instead.
Got a quick POTA QSO this evening from N4KPT.
Actually saw the Sun today as it cleared up late this afternoon. The sky had an odd blue color to it which hasn't been seen in quite some time after all the shades of geey lately. I got a nice picture but don't have time to prepare it for posting. Maybe in tomorrow night's diary entry. -30-
Tuesday, October 1 8:52PM - Spent quite a bit of the day getting caught up on my end of / first of the month chores today including a walk to the PO and bank. About the inly thing I have left now is putting the November weather data in my computer spreadsheet. In between the chores I sat on the porch quite a bit. Got to take advantage of the relatively nice weather before the nasty weather comes along.
This evening I worked my friend Dan KB6NU, then worked POTA station N4KPT, both on 30 meters.
Oh I also spent time with my UP844. It's a joy just to watch it run. -30-
Monday, September 30 8:44PM - Hey look at the time number - 844, the number of my new locomotive, the UP844. HI. Today I should have been doing my end of the month things, but instead I took it easy, sat on the porch and ran the UP844 quite a bit. Oh well, there is always tomorrow to do both the end of and start of a month chores.
Tonight I started with a DX QSO again as I did a couple nights ago for my streak QSOs. Tonight it was Frank in Denmark, OV1CDX whom I have worked a few times before. Then I added W2XS in a short rag chew, before his XYL ended it prematurely. HI. -30-
Sunday, September 29 8:28PM - I got my new engine, the UP844 running today and ran it quite a bit. Still some work to do on it though. It runs with the LionChief app on my iPhone, but not with the Legacy controller. Hopefully I can figure that out since the controller is more versatile than the app. Stay tuned for a solution (I hope) soon.
That occupied quite a bit of time and I never got on the bands till 0000Z this evening. They were pretty poor and I had to work to even get a SST QSO, but I did from N5OT on 20M. That in a nutshell was my day today. -30-
Saturday, September 28 10:43PM - The dateline tells the time situation. It's late after watching the Penn State football game. So just a short entry for a day that had not much happening anyway. It was nice to have another joint listening session with Linda again this evening. We chased some MEQP QSOs with not a lot of success mainly because of QRM from the big RTTY contest. Linda did get a POTA QSO though and now needs 2 more for some kind of POTA Award.
My streak QSO came from Andy HB9CVQ whom I worked easily on 40 meters practically as I just sat down at the rig a couple minutes past 0000Z. -30-
Friday, September 27, 7:48PM - Just getting ready to head to the shack to get my daily streak QSO.
Not a lot to report today. I didn't work on my new locomotive at all today. Hope to get back to that tomorrow.
It was a fairly nice day today. A bit on the humid side even though the high temperature was only in the low 70s. Even with the humidity, the atmosphere is still dry enough to prevent any precipitation from the leftover tropical storm, and we're not supposed to get all that much through Tuesday when it comes to an end. -30-
Thursday, September 26 8:47PM - A somewhat frustrating day today. Mike picked up and delivered the Lionel UP844 locomotive today, but we just couldn't get it running right. It's been 4 to 5 years since I set up a Lionel Legacy engine and I forgot a lot of what I knew then about the setup. Mike is more into MTH engines than Lionel so between the two of us we didn't have any success. I guess tomorrow I am going to have to take a crush course from the operating manuals to figure it all out. Stay tuned.
Otherwise we ate at Wendy's and shopped at Walmart before Mike had to head back home.
The bands continued their usual pretty dead conditions this evening. I did manage a POTA QSO again with KD9UDV as I did last night. Then no answers to my CQs for 15-20 minutes. -30-
Wednesday, September 25 8:53PM - Something a little different today. I took a couple outside walks. One to the Post Office and one just a general walk around 0.7 mile. In between was a shopping trip to Sprankle's and Family Dollar.
The bands were their usual poor selves tonight. Little activity. I worked KD9UDV for a POTA QSO, then called 15-20 minutes of unanswered CQs on 40-20. -30-
Tuesday, September 24 9:17PM - Back on 8/17/2023, I ordered a Lionel UP844 Living Legend locomotive. It was to be delivered to the local train store sometime this summer. Well, today I finally got tired waiting and called the store. They said it either was in stock in the store or was being delivered to the store. Later the store called back and said it just arrived. Strange coincidence after all that time. Anyway Mike is going to pick it up for me on Thursday.
Otherwise this evening I got two QSOs for the streak. A POTA from WD5GRW and a rag chew with W3EEK. -30-
Monday, September 23 8:47PM - Ditto the past few days more or less. Nice weather for sitting on the porch doing nothing but listening to rock music of the 50s, 60s, and a touch of the 70s. Anybody recognize that phrase? If so you must listen to Cousin Brucie on WABC via podcasts or live Saturday evenings.
One interesting call tonight. I worked on 15 meters one of the longest calls I've worked - 4V1SAVANNAH. Read the QRZ bio for some fascinating history I never knew. Of course the 4V1 prefix belongs to Haiti. That's all I'm going to tell you about the call. -30-
Sunday, September 22 9:21PM - A day similar to yesterday. Almost could just copy yesterday's diary entry here. HI. Linda and I did a tag team effort in the SST sprint tonight, but it wasn't as successful as the NJ QSO Party one last night for various reasons. That's really about all to say about today. -30-
Saturday, September 21 10:34PM - A lazy late september day with a couple good hard needed rain showers dumping just over an inch of rain. Not much else going on till this evening.
Those of you who have followed the diary for some time know what a tag team contest effort is. For those who don't, Mike and I often do a contest together in my shack where I work a station, then Mike works the same station. Most of the time it works, now and then the station we're chasing goes QRT or QSY before Mike can get him. Well, tonight Linda and I did a tag team, a remote tag team contest effort for about 85 minutes or so. I say remote because she is some 40 miles from here in Pittsburgh and we communicate via text to sync our listening to the radio. Tonight I worked 9 stations in the NJ QSO Party, and she got 7 of the 9 also. It was a lot of fun and she agreed. After I had to leave to walk Roscoe and visit Bruce, she added a couple more stations. -30-
Friday, September 20 8:44PM - Interesting evening of QSOs again tonight. I worked K4MIA/5 on 20 meters at 0000Z. It's a special event call in honor of POW/MIA recognition day. Then I added a POTA station on 20 meters in AK0A in KS before heading off to 30 meters. There I quickly found and worked.... K4MIA/5 at 0015Z. Next off to 40 meters to see what that band held for me. At 0021Z, I found and worked....wait you're getting ahead of me. Yes, K4MIA/5. It should be noted that I did not use any kind of spotting for the 3 QSOs. I was just tuning the bands checking peaks on the IC705 Spectrum Scope and three of the peaks I heard here and there on the bands happened to be K4MIA. No pre-meditation of any kind. Just good old tuning the bands and listening.
I'm glad I added 3 QSOs to the K4MIA totals since the SE call is for such a good cause/intention.
Other thab that not a lot to "write home" about, as they say. I worked with Ange's new garden helper a bit showing him the ropes. He's going to be a good helper and I can now retire full time from the helper job finally.
I'm also still helping neighbor Bruce getting settled in to life with his new knee replacement. Among other little things, I watch Roscoe while the visiting nurse and therapist are there. Otherwise he just barks constantly. So I walk him and bring him over to my house till the visits are over. -30-
Thursday, September 19 9:58PM - An interesting evening on the bands. After sitting at the key complaining to myself about the lack of rag chews on the CW bands, and wondering why that is the case, from stations only interested in exchanging brief info such as RST, ST, club numbers as with POTA, SKCC, special event stations, etc. to other reasons I won't go into, I actually made three rag chew QSOs this evening thanks to WA1HGJ Bruce, WB1GYZ Bob, and KB6NU Dan. It was a great feeling to really using CW to communicate several sentences of information to each other. Rag chewing has been so rare lately, I actually had to pause briefly to remember some info I regularly exchange like rig number, how long I've been a ham and some other simple info. Hopefully I'm back in the regular rag chewing mode and can find other hams who are the same way. Nothing like a great rag chew to get something other than the simple POTA, SKCC, SE, etc. QSO info on the CW bands. Maybe we need some kind of award to honor rag chews of certain lengths. Sort of like the current RAG CHEWERS CLUB, but for making more than the one rag chew to get that award? Think about it! -30-
Wednesday, September 18 8:54PM - I'm tired after a long busy day today. Just a brief summary. The Requin trip went well for Mike, Al, and me with some 14 or so QSOs. After that a great two hour visit with my old co-worker from WPIT. When we left Charlie we went to Applebees for a great meal, then home after a day that kept me busy from 7:30AM till about 7:50PM. Whew. More tomorrow about today. -30-
Tuesday, September 17 9:16PM - A trip to the Post Office this morning. Some yard work this afternoon. Gathering up some WPIT mementoes for a visit to an old WPIT co-worker after our Requin operation tomorrow. On the bands long enough this evening to continue the streak with a POTA QSO. That sums up the day.
Tomorrow the Requin trip from rougnly 10:00AM(1400Z) to 2:00PM(1800Z) on 7042, 10117, 14062 +/- 3 using the sub call of NY3EC at 100 watts. Hope to work you. A nice Requin picture QSL if you do and want one. -30-
Monday, September 16 8:42PM - Middle of the month bill paying today took up some time. Those of you who have followed the diary for some time know I have a friend who has a garden down the street a bit. I help him out now and then, but my help has been diminishing the past few years as I get older. Finally this year I have virtually retired from the garden work. Today I trained a new helper for the garden which used up some more time. That and the regular chores plus some relaxing on the front porch took me to shack time this evening.
I sat down at the rig and virtually immediately found TZ4AM on 20m operating split so I set up for split and worked him. A rough QSO with several repeats on my part for him to get the P in my call. Then added a POTA QSO and QRT. May go back in a few minutes though. -30-
Sunday, September 15 10:02PM - Another day of not much going on here. I did clean out some old boxes in the basement to put out in the garbage tomorrow, but that was about it as far as non-standard chores go.
I never checked the bands until 0000Z this evening and worked K1VUT in the SST sprint. Then Linda and I had one of our joint listening sessions and worked some POTA stations. That pretty much covers the day if I omit the usual events which I am doing.
I'm forgetting one thing though. I told Mike I'd post this in the diary if I didn't forget which I almost did. He texted the following: "Congratulations on day number 11,000. I remember when you were approaching day number 5,000. We were at the Breezeshooters Hamfest operating as a demonstration of QRP CW into a homebrew dipole." I replied, "Great memory. Must be nice to be young. HI I'll mention that in the diary if I remember. HI" -30-
Saturday, September 14 9:22PM - It's actually September 15 UTC now. I mention that because September 15 is a noteable day in my QRP/CW/simple wire antenna streak. It's day number 11,000! Not too long ago it was at the 30 year mark. When I think about it, It seems remarkable it has lasted so long. Yet in another way it doesn't seem long at all since Eric KB3BFQ and I were sitting in my shack talking about sports streaks such as DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak in baseball and wondering how the concept of a streak could be applied to ham radio. With Eric doing most of the thinking, we came up with how many days in a row could a QSO be made with QRP/CW/simple wire antennas. Well, as of today a partial answer is 11,000 because it has now been done. And there is no end in sight as far as I am concerned. Other factors may enter in that are beyond my control.
The QSO for the 11,000th day came in POTA form when I worked N8YO for the first time ever on 30 meters from a park in MI. And that sums up this memorable day. There was really not much else that happened except a little lawn work, the making of a smoothie drink from a recipe from Linda, and the finding of a 3rd operator for our Requin trip next Wednesday, AL N2MA. -30-
Friday, September 13 8:40PM - It continues in the doldrums here today. Not much going on ham radio wise or otherwise.
Right now I'm trying to find a third op for our trip to the Requin next Wednesday. It seems most of our WPA NAQCC Chapter members are busy with something else that day. Still have a couple more to check and if no luck with them, it will be just Mike and me again.
A quick QSO with SE station W5R on 20M was my streak QSO. Well, have a great weekend. Hope you're having our sunny cool dry weather where you are. Sorry for those of you along the Gulf Coast getting deluged. -30-
Thursday, September 12 8:46PM - The weather is stuck in kind of a rut the past several days. It's a nice rut though with lot of sun and cool temperatures and no rain. I'm also kind of stuck in a rut with not a lot going on most of the time ecept for the hamfest Sunday and club meeting Tuesday. Today it was a lot of sitting on the porch listening to music (Cousin Brucie podcast). I also did some more sidewalk work pulling grass/weeds from cracks and some edging.
This evening just a quick QSO at 0000Z with K4A, then QRT for some other things. -30-
Wednesday, September 11 8:50PM - A couple different things today. My approximately every two weeks shopping trip this morning thanks to Jeff. Then an interesting experience. Jeff and I took Roscoe to see Bruce at the rehab center. That was Roscoe's longest ride ever as far as we know. He was a little anxious about the whole thing but behaved pretty well overall. Then it was the day to go get my box of food from the food bank a little later in the afternoon.
The bands were supposedly pretty good today with 10 meters being open, but I didn't get a chance to check until this evening. I did find a couple of Brazilian stations on 10, but otherwise nothing really out of the ordinary. I got a POTA and RT 66 station for the streak and QRT. -30-
Tuesday, September 10 10:05PM - A second Tuesday of the month which means a SkyView meeting for me, Mike, and Linda. After greeting and chatting a bit with early arrivers to the meeting, I wound up in the radio room for a series of one on one talks with some of the members. I love talking to people one on one and don't like being in the middle of crowds of people, so that was an ideal situation for me. I guess there were about 8 or so different members who dropped in to chat at one time or other.
After a couple hours the visitors dropped off and I played with the radios for a bit. I worked Idaho with 5 watts, Indiana with 5 watts, then Indiana again (diff stn) with 250 mW. The first and third QSOs using K3MJW and the middle for my streak QSO using K3WWP with the club dipole and 5 watts power. Not long after that, the main meeting wound down, and after a couple more one on one meetings for me, it was time to go home.
Just another note to end this entry. Shortly after Mike arrived here around 3PM or so we went to WalMart where we both had a couple things to purchase. Then off to Wendy's for a good meal before heading to SkyView. -30-
Monday, September 9 8:16PM - I did something different today. After looking at my trains sitting inactive the past few (several?) months, I decided to fire them up today and give them some exercise. The American Flyer ran very sluggishly, but gradually picked up after several minutes to normal running speed. The Lionel didn't run at all, but that was easily solved by charging up the controller. Then I enjoyed watching them run for a while.
Not much else going on today. I was sitting on the porch a few times. One time I noticed a patch of my sidewalk needed grass pulled from between the bricks and along the edge so I took care of that.
Not much happening on the bands today. I think just a lack of activity as propagation was pretty good. I got a quick QSO this evening from a Route 66 station, W6O in MO on 40 meters.
Tomorrow evening is our SkyView meeting and we'll be going to that. Probably mostly to play in the radio room learning more about the various rig setups, antenna switching, and so on. -30-
Sunday, September 8 7:48PM - This could be a long entry so starting it early then pausing for my streak QSO and finishing after that.
This was the day of the Unionville BCARA hamfest. Mike arrived a little before 8AM and we left some minutes later, arriving just around 9AM. We looked around a little bit. I ran into Tom WB3FAE and told him Linda had some questions about antennas for him. Tom's wife Debbie was there helping Tom. It was nice to see her again. She was always very hospitable to Mike and me when we operated from their QTH for Field Day several years back. Tom and I chatted a bit and then Linda showed up. She had brought her WAC cards to be checked for the WAC award and I waited with her while that was taken care of successfully. Then we all kind of went our own ways to look up people we knew. After a while, I got Linda and Tom together for the antenna info exchange. We came up with some ideas for thought.
I promised to keep this short and I will. I looked up a couple more friends, mainly Bruce AA3LX, and Rick N3VKW and we talked a while. Mike and Linda were talking to some other folks. Then we had our little QRP group picture taken. Someone should send me the picture and I'll post it in the diary when I get it.
Time passed and it was drawing close to Ponderosa time, but Mike wanted to wait for the Noon prize drawing as he had bought a lot of 50-50 tickets and you had to be present to claim the prize if you won. So I talked to Rick some more while waiting. Oh, and Rick had been kind of my PR man and was telling several folks about my QRP streak. I accepted it although I wasn't publicizing it at all myself. One YL ham was particularly interested in the streak and we talked for a while. She wants to have a QSO with me sometime. She's also working on her CW similar to Linda so I got the two of them together for a little chat before she (Lisa AC3JX) had to leave.
Finally the 12:00 drawing took place and the prize was claimed so it was off to Ponderosa for the three of us. We had a great time there, eating and chatting. All too soon it was time for us to head home, Linda to Pittsburgh, Mike and I to Kittanning to leave me off, then Mike went off to Brookville. End of that part of a great day. We'll next get together on Tuesday at SkyView. -30-
Saturday, September 7 10:21PM - It was a chilly day today. Never got out of the 60s. The high was 69 and a stiff breeze at times made it feel even chillier. I did a little porch sitting, but not a lot.
A check of the bands around 2000Z showed them in pretty good shape, at least compared to how they have been of late. I worked W6M on 15 and LZ1WR on 12. Could have worked others but I didn't. I was just listening instead.
They weren't quite as good this evening, but good enough. I worked AD8Y who wanted a QSO with Linda, then he wanted a quick QSO with me. We accomplished that. Then Linda made another QSO while I was away from my rig. I came back and we both worked W6M on 40. She right after me. It was one of our joint listening sessions where We listen simultaneously, she in Pittsburgh and I here in Kittanning and communicate via texting on our iPhones.
Tomorrow she, Mike and I are going to the BCARA hamfest in Unionville, PA. After that to the lunch buffet at Ponderosa in Butler, PA. Should be a fun day. -30-
Friday, September 6 9:24PM - Not a lot to talk about again. Just one thing out of the ordinary. Linda gave me a recipe for a smoothie a couple weeks ago and I finally gor around to mixing it up today. Turned out very well and was very tasty.
Thursday, September 5 10:30PM - Ditto the past few days on the weather, and pretty much so for my activities. Linda is definitely going to Unionville with us on Sunday. Looks like the weather is cooperating and will be another of the nice days of late after a bit of rain on Saturday.
I've got a couple ham radio anniversaries coming up. On September 8, my web site will be 28 years old and then I'll start the 29th year. Also on September 9, it will be one full year of using my "new" ICOM705. Interesting coincidence!
Streak QSOs tonight:2 POTAs: KD9UDV and WC1N. Time now to close out my day - It's late. -30-
Wednesday, September 4 8:32PM - Another beautiful fall day. So the usual beautiful day things here like sitting on the porch and so on.
The bands were pretty good this evening. I got a couple POTA stations for the streak. Before that though, it was even better. In one of our (Linda and me) joint listening sessions she worked her first DX from Pittsburgh with her indoor apartment antenna in the form of Walter VP9KD on 40 meters. That kind of made my day, and hers also.
Mike and I will be going to the BCARA hamfest and swap shop in Unionville, PA on Sunday. It's always a nice little compact gathering with a lot of chances to fellowship with old friends and to meet some new ones. We're hoping Linda will join us there. -30-
Tuesday, September 3 8:45PM - Another nice fall day today. Lot of porch sitting. Walked down to the P.O. and Sprankles. Did some weeding in the back yard. All that kind of backs up my statement about another nice fall day. HI
The bands were not much to talk about the couple brief checks I made now and then. But this evening I worked a POTA WC1N. I also worked W1MP Linda who was at the SkyView club house meeting tonight. That's it for the day. Weather check coming up in a few minutes now, then Roscoe walk time in about 40 minutes. -30-
Monday, September 2 10:33PM - Nice early fall weather today. Meteorological Fall right on schedule. Sat on the porch quite a while today after putting the August weather into my computer. A pretty normal August with a few hot days balancing out a few cool days for a departure of 0.7 degrees below normal on average.
I didn't really get on the bands except for a couple quick checks until 0000Z. I immediately worked WQ8RP for the streak. Then Linda joined me via text and she made a couple QSOs before I found old friend Don K3RLL in the ARS SP Sprint. I worked him then told Linda about Don and she also worked him. It's a little late tonight so I'll let the entry close here. -30-
Sunday, September 1 10:52PM - One big highlight to close out my day on the air. I didn't really need it, having worked it 11 times before, but it was nagging at me more and more that I couldn't work it. Well, tonight I finally did work CY9C with but a single call with one repeat. Nothing to do with what I did. It was just luck. I apparently ran across him just starting up a session or in a major lull in the huge pileups. Found him, set up for split, saw on the spectrum scope where he was listening, tuned my split frequency to that frequency, called and got him in a piece of cake QSO. That was after MANY fruitless tries the past couple weeks.
I texted Mike and Linda telling them and urging them to go and get him. Mike did, Linda didn't try. She and I had one of our joint listening sessions going a little earlier. She had a good solid QSO with K3WK in PA on 40 meters.
It's late so that's it for tonight's entry. -30-
Saturday, August 31 8:52PM - Not a lot going on today again. A showery day. Not much rain but showers came and went quite a bit. There was one rather heavy one at one time. Temperature never got out of the 70s but remained humid with the rain.
Got two quick QSOs this evening, one on 40, VA2EO and one on 30, KC9TSZ. -30-
Friday, August 30 10:21PM - Hard to believe that Meteorological Summer is almost over. I like to cheat though and use Astronomical Summer for summer's ending to get 21 more days of this wonderful season. Don't tell anyone.
It's late and not much to report for today so I'll go back to last evening. I had a nice mix of QSOs in the 0000Z hour then. A rag chew with KF9VV answering his CQ, a POTA QSO with KD2NFZ in ND, a DX QSO with CO8LY, the 64th time I've worked CO8LY beginning in 1994, and a rag chew with WA4IAR who answered my CQ. And one final note about the four QSOs. I did not make a single sending error in any of the 4 QSOs which totalled 40 minutes, roughly half the CW sent by me. That is a rarity as I have very few QSOs without at least one sending error. Then later in the day today I added a nice prefix to the other 4 QSOs, TM24JPL.
I also helped my neighbor still getting adjusted to the new knee. -30-
Thursday, August 29 7:47PM - A couple of out of the ordinary events today. My neighbor came home from rehab on his new knee, and I helped him to get settled in. Roscoe was sure glad to have him home again.
Then I went for my every 2 weeks or so restocking grocery shopping trip.
Checked the bands in between a couple times and nothing of interest was heard. If fact just about nothing period was heard. I did hear a weak Japanese station on 15 meters, but that's about it. Might add to this later if anything out of the ordinary happens in the 0000Z hour. -30-
Wednesday, August 28 8:40PM - You know how animals and some people hibernate in the winter. Well I hibernated in the summer today to avoid the excess heat and humidity. Just took it easy in the AC. I only went out to walk Roscoe and to get my mail.
I checked the bands a few times today for lack of much better to do. They were dead most of the time I listened except for the CY9C pileups and some POTA stations. Speaking of the CY9 pileups, they are really getting unruly with stations erroneously calling right on the CY9 frequency or intentionally jamming the CY9 station. As I texted to Linda one time, "If you have any pots without lids, there are plenty of them right on the CY9C frequency?"
The bands still pretty much the same tonight as they were all day. I did manage a POTA QSO with AB5SE on 30M for the streak though.
I did some more work on the QSO names I mentioned and have stage 1 done now, i.e. total QSOs per name. Not many changes from last night's list. Here are the current top five QSO names:
BOB 2955
JOHN 2884
JIM 2528
BILL 2323
DAVE 2260
A lot more work to be done yet. -30-
Tuesday, August 27 8:21PM - Here early tonight, but not a lot to talk about. Linda and I were talking a couple days ago about different names we've worked in our QSOs. What's the most often worked and things like that. I found that of my 98,000 or so QSOs, some 64,000 I have names for. The rest are contest QSOs, etc. I didn't bother to try to find names for. I've checked some 40,000 of the 64,000 so far, and here are some of the most popular names. These are just basic names so say 200 QSOs with K4BAI count as 200 John's. I'll drill down to unique Name/Call combos later. Bill - 2323, Bob - 2955, Dave - 2260, Jim - 2528, John - 2884, Joe - 1036, Ed - 1040, Don - 1255, Dick - 1126. I'll have a more complete report somewhere down the line.
Last night I turned on the rig just before getting into bed at midnight to check the bands. I heard a fluttery signal on 20 in QSO with someone and waited to see who it was. Turned out to be R9LY in Asiatic Russia in Tyumen. He called CQ when they finished and I answered and got him on the first call. Exchanged basic QSO info solidly. So at least as of then, my Asiatic Russia pipeline is in great shape. -30-
Monday, August 26 10:01PM - Running late again tonight and really nothing beyond the usual daily happenings. So I'll just leave it go at this for the entry today. -30-
Sunday, August 25 7:30PM - A great day at SkyView with Mike and Linda. Unfortunately Tom WB3FAE couldn't make it.
Mike arrived here around 7:30 and after I finished breakfast and did a couple other things, we headed for SkyView a few minutes past 8AM (yawn). We arrived at SkyView around 8:50, parked and checked in. Mike bought some raffle tickets, and I chatted with those handling the raffles. It turned 9:00A and time for the first drawing. Know who won the very first drawing? No, not Mike, but Linda. She showed up coming out of the club building and we chatted a bit about the prize.
Then Mike and I went to the radio room and got setup. He took the IC7300 and I took the IC7610. Took me a little while to get used to that rig, but I got going after a little bit. The room was quite noisy with folks visiting and talking loud and our rigs turned up to battle their noise. It was rough but workable. Mike started on 20 basically waiting for the Kansas QSO Party to get underway. I was on 40 working some POTA stations and a couple rag chews. We were both running 5 watts since it officially was a QRP demonstration.
Soon the KSQP was rolling, and I was itching to get some DX which I wasn't going to get on 40. So I switched to 15 with the help of a couple members since I wasn't quite sure of the antenna switching. I started off with a KSQP station to check things out, then another one to make sure. One of the members, Bob, I don't remember his call now, kind of talked me into turning the power all the way down on the rig which I did. Then I looked for some strong DX and found SM5CAK whom I have worked a few times from home and gave a call. The power turned all the way down is 250mW. I got him on the first call. He was 599 and gave me a 559. It was solid copy both ways for a couple minutes. That pleased me, but there is more to come. I worked another KSQP QSO, then back to DX.
G0KPE was booming in and I got him easily. When I told him I was running QRPp at 250mW he became very interested and we wound up with a 19 minute rag chew. He asked about my rig and antenna. The antenna is a Yagi on a crank up tower and it was cranked down at the time. When he heard the rig I was using, he said he was using the exact same rig and asked if I would like to try copying him at 250mW. He had a zero noise level there in England and I had a S1 or S2 level at the club, but I said let's try anyway. Well, I copied him 539 solidly despite the noise and just a tiny amount of QSB. We had a 2XQRPp QSO for a couple minutes, then he went to 50 watts the rest of our QSO. We reminisced about the previous sunspot cycle and thought that such QRPp work was more common and easier then compared to this current cycle. Some more chatting about some things in which I gave him my own call K3WWP. Did I say I was using the club call of K3MJW? I did that because some of my work was with gain antennas and that goes into my "other calls" log, not my K3WWP log which is strictly QRP CW simple wire antenna QSOs. Anyway our QSO came to an end. Probably could have gone on longer but "all good things come to an end".
Next up and unusual QSO. I really wanted to work this QSO to find out just where it was located. I turned up the power to 30 watts, worked him and found out. The call was D1IY, not in QRZ and D1 is not an authorized prefix. He gave his QTH as Donetsk which is in Ukraine so we hypothized maybe it's something from the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Somewhere we found a reference to The Donetsk People's Republic so we may be right. Stay tuned for more! HI HI
Back to 250mW again for another KSQP QSO and I finished with EA2GR.
Linda stopped in the radio room just as we were about to leave. She was doing volunteer work for the Swap meet so we didn't see much of her
Now to the shack for my streak QSO. -30-
Saturday, August 24 8:36PM - Another nice weather day, but the heat and humidity is gradually returning to normal for this time of year. It sure was nice to have a week preview of fall though.
A lot of action on the bands for a change thanks to the Ohio, Kansas, Hawaii QSO parties and the YO DX contest. I really wasn't interested in working them so I just got one QSO in the Ohio QP then went rag chewing for a while.
Tomorrow it is off to SkyView for their annual Swap and Shop event. I'll be going with Mike as usual. Linda will join us there. -30-
Friday, August 23 8:30PM - Let's see. What happened of interest today. Hmmmm, not a lot that I can remember other than the usual daily routine. Outside of ham radio, I mean. Had a couple interesting things in that.
There is an International Dog Day or something like that going on. Linda got me interested in it, and I got on early this morning to try to find and work K2D, one of the special event stations for the event. It didn't take long to do that. It turned out to be operated by one of my WPA friends Brian K3ES. Linda had texted me a little earlier and we wound up in one of our joint listening sessions. Unfortunately right after I worked Brian, he QRT before Linda had the chance to get him. I did ask Brian in QSO a couple times to listen for Linda, but QSB was bad and he didn't hear me. Part two. I texted Brian to thank him for the Dog QSO and mentioned about Linda. He said he would be back on again later and asked for Linda's call and said I could give her his phone number to text him about a QSO. Before the story gets too convoluted, I'll shorten it. Linda and Brian did make the QSO. Then Brian told Linda he was going to try 80 meters a little later. She in turn told me when he told her. I went to 80 and we worked in just about an ESP QSO, but we did exchange enough info to make it official. Linda and Brian couldn't hear each other though and didn't hook up then.
Linda and I continued our joint session later today. Soon after we texted each other, I found and worked 5B4AMX on 20. She was hearing him good and strong, but he was not hearing her at all despite going begging for calls. I don't think her random wire works too well on 20, but that's another story. We both took a break and both came back around 0000Z and I worked KO4TFE for the streak. Then she and I tried some other stations but with no luck.
I QRT around 8:30 and came here to do the web site update. We might try again later for some stations. -30-
Thursday, August 22 9:42PM - It was an interesting evening after a so-so day. The weather continued nice today so I got in some more porch sitting. I'm sure going to miss that when we get well into fall and then the horrible season we won't mention.
This evening Linda and I were into one of our joing listening sessions when I heard Gary K1YAN and called him to ask if he would listen for Linda. Gary and I have been friends for years and he was glad to do it. Linda called him and the QSO worked good from the very start. I could hear all of Gary's part of the QSO, but our skip zone didn't allow me to copy anything of what Linda was sending but Gary was copying her solid from what he was saying to her. They had I guess almost a ten minute QSO. I thanked Gary for helping out and then wen't back to Linda on text again and we talked about the QSO and some other thingbefore we both QRT. I was very happy how it all turned out. -30-
Wednesday, August 21 5:00PM - It was a gread day on the Requin today with Mike and Linda. Mike got here about 8:45 when I was walking Roscoe. I spent more time with Roscoe than usual since he would be home alone till either Jeff or I would be there to take care of him at probably 3:30PM or so. After I finished with Roscoe, Mike and I left for Pittsburgh and the Requin. It was an uneventful trip. We never even got lost on the way. We arrived at the Science Center parking lot almost exactly the same time as Linda. She came just a tiny bit after we did and she honked her horn to get our attention.
The three of us then went through the Science Center to get to the sub where Art greeted us. We talked for a while and then headed to the radio room and got set up to start calling CQ with our auto keyer. Mike started on 20 meters, I logged and Linda helped copy. It was quite noisy on 20 meters and we needed a lot of repeats to be sure of calls. As time went by, we kind of played musical chairs taking turns calling CQ, logging, and helping to copy.
It was pretty active and we wound up with...let's see, 15 QSOs among us mostly on 20 with 3 on 40. Time went all too fast with us kibbitzing among ourselves about this and that. We also greeted the tour visitors briefly as they came by the Radio Room.
About 2:00 we decided since we all had things to do at home, that we would quit for the day. Linda headed to her apartment and Mike and I headed here to Kittanning. We got a couple subs (appropriate food) from Vocelli's, then Mike continued on to Brookville. br>
The three of us next get together at SkyView on Sunday for their Swap Event. Tom WB3FAE will also join us there. We haven't seen Tom in a while now. It will be good to see him again. -30-
Tuesday, August 20 8:18PM - Not a lot of news today. I did some house cleaning (very delayed spring cleaning - HI). Sat on the porch in weather that felt more like early October than August. We never made it out of the 60s today and being quite breezy, it felt colder than that. Very refreshing clean air though.
This evening the bands were rather poor. I couldn't get POTA station WB0RLJ to hear me at all. Then it was a real struggle to get OL3YOTA for my streak QSO. I didn't count, but I must have sent my call 15-20 times before he got it right. I have to commend and thank him for sticking with me so long to be sure he got it right.
Tomorrow it's a subpedition to the USS Requin with Mike and Linda. The usual setup. There from about 1400-1800Z depending on conditions. We'll be on 40, 30, and 20 at no specific times around 7042, 10117, 14062 +/-3 or so. We'll use the sub call NY3EC at 100 watts since it is a sub activity and not a QRP activity. We'll try to keep the speed between 15-18 WPM. Please try to match your sending speed with ours. Thanks. -30-
Monday, August 19 10:30PM - Yes, 10:30PM and since nothing out of the ordinary happened today, I'll just wish you a Good Evening, Good Night, Good Morning, Good Afternoon depending on when you are reading this and close the entry for now. More tomorrow. -30-
Sunday, August 18 8:45PM - A good day today. A visit from Mike for the Skeeter Hunt. It was similar to the FOBB last month where the weather forced us to operate from my front porch with makeshift antennas and battery power. The results were better today though. It was still slow going, especially on 40 where I made but 9 QSOs while Mike made 19 on 20. Hopefully we'll get out to the park again for one of these outings. Conditions are much better there especially with much less noise. We stuck out the whole 4 hours though.
When we got back here, we had meatball subs from Vocelli's. Then we made out and submitted our Skeeter Hunt log summary. After visiting a while longer, Mike took off for home in Brookville to check on his dog, Jayden
I fooled around a little till I got a text from Linda and we had one of our joint listening sessions. She made two QSOs with NA2DX and K1USN. My streak QSO was also K1USN in the SST Sprint. Now I'm getting caught up on a couple things to close out the day at Midnight. -30-
Saturday, August 17 9:11PM - Big event today. Taking Roscoe to the Groomer. It went smoothly as it always does even though Roscoe gets excited about it.
Otherwise mostly a take it easy today. A little house cleaning about the only work involved.
Had a quick DX QSO in the CVA contest from KP4TZ. Followed that with a good rag chew with old ham friend Alan W4MQC up North here for the summer from Florida. -30-
Friday, August 16 9:57PM - Late getting here again. Good time on the bands with Linda, then taking care of Roscoe, getting my weather, and here it is almost 10:00 already. The bands were good for DX. I worked ES1924TE on 20 for a nice new prefix. Then worked 9K2HS which is from an area of the world that isn't all that easy to work. That was on 15 meters. For the streak QSO at 0000Z, it was David OK1DTP on 20. All three worked quite easily. Then Linda worked N7C/1 on 40. I was able to copy her about 449 in and out of my noise. Then we tried a QSO later but it was rough. We heard each other but not really good enough for a QSO, so we'll have to try again sometime.
Nothing else exciting or important enough to write about this late at night. HI -30-
Thursday, August 15 8:44PM - Again not a lot to report on today. A little more lawn work. Some music listening and porch sitting.
Maybe the most interesting thing came about from some texting with Linda about working Canadian Provinces. I realized I had never really created a spreadsheet of Province QSOs per band, etc.So I think I'm going to work on that as time permits.
One other thing today. There wasn't much activity on the bands as usual, but PJ2ND was strong on 20. So I thought I'd try to work him with QRPp and turned the IC705 down to 500mW and called a few times with no success. So I boosted power a tad to 900mW and got him the first try. Strange because there's not much difference in signal strength between 500 and 900 mW. But then radio is strange! -30-
Wednesday, August 14 9:11PM - Here we are halfway through August and it's getting darker earlier and earlier each evening. I was sitting out on the porch enjoying the cool night air an at about 8:50PM it was already pretty dark even though the sky was clear without a cloud in sight. It's sad to think of what this is portending before all that long. SIGH.
Otherwise it was pretty much the same daily routine. Some lawn work, some sitting on the porch, plus the other daily chores.
Tonight I worked a nice special event DX station and got a nice new prefix from it. I'm speaking of SN600W on 20 meters. Took a bit of work to get my call across right, but we made it after a minute or so. Now it's getting close to Roscoe walking time. -30-
Tuesday, August 13 10:09PM - Skyview meeting tonight, so this is late being written and will be short. I had a good time just talking with the members including Linda W1MP, Bob WC3O, John WA3KFS, and others. Left a little early to get home to get my weather readings, walk and feed Roscoe, get my daily QSO and a NAQCC Sprint QSO. Now I'll get ready for bed, finish updating my web site here, have something to eat, watch some Internet TV, and call it a night. -30-
Monday, August 12 8:40PM - Another of those days. Some work, but mostly taking it easy. I ran the weed whacker around the perimeter of my flower beds and the back yard itself. I also did some house cleaning inside. Then I walked to the Post Office to mail a couple of QSL cards to Linda.
Tomorrow evening I'll be going to the Skyview Meeting with Mike. This evening my QSO on some very dead bands came from N9OL on 40 meters at 0010Z.
And the beautiful weather continued today so I did my latest favorite hobby of sitting on the porch listening to music. Funny how some songs just pop into your mind and then you have to go searching for them so you can hear them again. I have Spotify on my iPhone, and can find just about any song you can think of there. Today it was a song called "Fallin'" by who?? Finally I remembered the artist and found the song. It was by The Seeds. Anyone remember them? -30-
Sunday, August 11 8:25PM - One of those pretty much nothing days. Just a couple minor getting caught up chores and things like that. Never got on the bands until 0000Z this evening, and then only long enough to snag a SST QSO with Brian KG4CRJ on 40 meters. The weather continues nice and I did do a bit of yard work and also sat on the porch a few times. That in a nutshell was my day. -30-
Saturday, August 10 8:26PM - Got a couple of good things done today. I did my weekly laundry. I cut my hair. I've mentioned this before, but I haven't been in a barber shop since 1972. I've cut my own hair since then and saved a bundle of money in the process. I'm getting a bit less limber with age though and getting a little harder to get the hair on the back of the head and neck. So I may have to end that streak and visit a barber again in the next few years. We'll see what happens.
Another very beautiful post-Debbie day today. It was wonderful to sit out on the porch listening to music mostly from the 1960s.
A quick WAE QSO took care of the streak tonight. Thanks UA7K. -30-
Friday, August 9 9:49PM - We wound up right on the western edge of Debbie, and we dropped into and out of the heavy rain bands all night and early this morning. As a result we wound up with just 0.51" of rain compared to 3, 4, 5 and more inches in central PA as she passed through.
After that, the weather turned nice and I was outside quite a bit, pulling some weeds from the bricks. Soon I'm going to have them all pulled, I hope. I also sat on the porch quite a bit which I have been doing often later with the nice weather.
This evening I worked HB9ON in the WAE contest, then WB9HFK and WB0CJB in the FISTS Sprint. It was good to hear at least a little activity in a FISTS Sprint. -30-
Thursday, August 8 9:29PM - Well it's late again and I wanted to write a little bit more tonight, but I think I'll have to put it off till tomorrow with just a few notes tonight.
It was another nice day before Debbie's visit tomorrow, and I did some outside work around the house. Then I also did some more work on my stats of the 30 years of the streak.
This evening Linda and I had one of our joint listening sessions on the bands. She found me a QSO for my streak at 0000Z and it turned into a nice rag chew. I knew Linda could copy the fellow I was working so I asked him to say Hello Linda. She copied that, my call, and her call when he sent that. Something different and fun. Before that, I worked a station with a very long 9 letter call from Macedonia, Z380ASNOM on 20 meters. After the rag chew, I worked I1YRL, Luc whom I had worked several times before. That was also on 20 meters.
Those are the highlights of the day in a nutshell. -30-
Wednesday, August 7 8:27PM - I updated the streak page mentioned in yesterday's diary entry. I still have a few things left to update on it, but it's about 95+ percent updated through the QSOs of August 5 now. I've noted on the page those stats that still need some work.
Also today was a nice day to be outdoors, so I cleaned my brick sidewalks of grass and weeds that were growing in the cracks. That's one thing I've liked doing all my life. I think it's kind of an instant gratification thing. The bricks look so nice as soon as you finish. I always like to do things like that. I like to clean something that is really dirty rather than clean something that already looks clean. Things like that where you can really see a difference.
I got a quick POTA QSO from KQ4DUX tonight. After that I called about 15 minutes of fruitless CQs. I remember up until a couple years ago I could call CQ and get an answer most of the time within a few minutes at most. Since then it seems to be getting harder and harder to get an answer to my CQs. Probably due to the lack of activity from hams who want a plain QSO instead of DX, POTA, sprint, etc. QSOs. I don't know.
Did you look at the Solar Flux number for today? I just did to update my propagation page. It's 303, yes 303. There aren't all that many days when it breaks the 300 barrier. I'll have to check my Solar Flux records that go back a good many years to see how often that occurs. My records go back to 1947. A few of the early years have some missing data, but there have been 14 years that had at least one day with a SF over 300. That's 14 out of 77 years, not all that many. I'm not going to count the number of days in those years that had a SF over 300. At least not now. The highest overall figure was 457 on April 7, 1947. The next day it was 424. Keeping in mind there are some missing days, those are the only two days it went over 400. -30-
Tuesday, August 6 9:14AM -
Yes, Happy Birthday to "The Streak". It reached 30 years yesterday and started on its 31st year today. 30 years of making at least one QRP/CW/simple wire antenna QSO each and every day of those thirty years. Whew!
You can see stats of the streak on my web site home page near the bottom of that page. Also I will be updating the page devoted to the streak itself in the QRP section, QRP Streaks page, Main page as time and ambition permits. HI -30-
Monday, August 5 9:20PM - Pretty much the same story as the last few days. Not a lot to talk about. The only thing out of the ordinary was a trip to the drug store to pick up some Cranberry pills and a 2032 battery. The bands tonight were a little better than usual. I worked a couple POTA stations and one DX station, SM5CAK. Now it's over next door to take Roscoe out and watch some TV with my neighbor. -30-
Sunday, August 4 8:14PM - A rather quiet Sunday. This morning before it got to hot I got something done I had been putting off for a while. I removed all the crab grass from my tulip bed. Some of it had really big deep roots, but I only disturbed a couple tulip bulbs while removing it. I simple pushed them back into the ground and they should be OK.
Other than that it was just a taking it easy day like so many have been of late. I never even checked the bands until 0000Z. If not for the SST which had a little activity, I would still be looking for my daily streak QSO. I worked Joe AI0Y in ND on 20 meters pretty easily, then tuned around a bit and QRT. -30-
Saturday, August 3 8:39PM - Somewhat of a busy day today. I went on a shopping trip with my neighbor to get stocked up on some groceries and other things. I also did my laundry this afternoon. I watched a deluge of rain that lasted a half hour or so. It will be interesting to see how much is in my rain gauge when I check at 9:00. Got on the bands for the first time this evening and was surprised at the activity till I figured out it was the NA QSO Party. When I was active in contesting, the NAQPs were among my favorite contests with the simple exchange of Name and State and the large amount of participation. They were the only contests I was able to maintain a rate of 50+ QSOs/hour for the whole contests with my CW/QRP/simple antenna station. I don't know if that intense contesting urge will ever come back again, but if it does, I'm sure the NAQPs will be among the ones I participate in.
A bit unusual activity tonight. I've had it rough getting answers to my CQs of late. Tonight I got two QSOs via CQ on 30M. One from AL and one SC. -30-
Friday, August 2 12:00N - Just finished putting the July weather data into my weather spreadsheet. I thought I'd comment on it while all is still fresh in my mind.
It was a very unusual month in some regards.
There were NO daily records of any kind set.
There were no monthly records set.
Only one monthly record tied: Fewest days with precipitation .25" or more - 2.
Some expected monthly records were tied at zero, Lowest DD(H), DDHS, H32-, L32-, L0-. Highest H32-, L32-, L0-.
As far as monthly averages go, the minimum temp +2.0 above normal, maximum +2.2, mean +2.1, precipitation -1.86"
Unless something unusual happens the rest of the day, this will stand as today's daily diary entry. -30-
Thursday, August 1 9:16PM - Late tonight, so just a short entry. I'm almost done with my EoM/FoM chores. Didn't get to the July weather records today so I guess that will be tomorrow.
Two streak QSOs, N9FGC and SM6LRR. Better run now. Roscoe walking time almost here. -30-
Wednesday, July 31 8:23PM - What has happened to rag chewing on the CW bands? Is it becoming a dying art? Sure seems like it to me. I am backing up what I said in last night's diary entry about rag chewing vs. the short QSOs of POTA, SOTA, sprints, etc. During the month of July, I made 105 QSOs. Even making a rag chew 10 minutes or more instead of the more realistic 30 minutes, of those 105, only 8 were rag chews, the longest of which was 19 minutes. I'm not going to figure it out, but I think that is representative of the past year or so on the CW bands. If I had to rely on rag chews for my streak QSOs, the streak would have ground to a halt by now. I need those POTA and sprint/contest QSOs to keep it going. I would much rather have a rag chew with someone, but I'll take what I can get for the sake of the streak.
Of course this is an End of Month day, and I have most of the EoM chores done due to an effort today. Still have a couple to do tomorrow unless I finish them later tonight.
Speaking of the streak, it was another POTA QSO I needed tonight to keep it going. Thanks W0RLY. -30-
Tuesday, July 30 9:27PM - Not much going on again today in the Dog Days of Summer. Do you know where the term Dog Days of Summer came from? The ancients who were much more into Astronomy than we are today, but that's another story, knew that this time of year, the brightest star in the sky after the Sun aligned with the Sun, and they thought that star's heat added to that of the Sun and caused the high temperatures. I'm speaking of the star Sirius, and it was ridiculous to think the heat from Sirius 8 light years away could add to that of the Sun. But nowadays many people have no idea what Sirius is and know nothing about it. That also is another story for maybe another time.
My streak QSO came quickly again. I had heard HH2K on 17 meters well before 0000Z and instead of working him then, I thought I'd wait and see if he was still there at 0000Z. Short story - he was and I worked him easily. So easy I thought I'd try some CQs and go for a rag chew. Almost forgot what a rag chew was, it's been so long. It seems very few folks want to rag chew any more. All they want are POTAs, SOTAs, sprints, and other forms of very short QSOs. Anyway KB2FJD did answer my CQ and we did have a rag chew of sorts for 15 minutes. -30-
Monday, July 29 8:35PM - Another not a lot happening day here. Sitting on the porch, listening to music, walking Roscoe, and the like.
A quick DX QSO for the streak from DL4HRM on 20M this evening. Not much else heard earlier in the day. -30-
Sunday, July 28 9:19PM - A frustrating day in the FOBB. We decided on not going to the park because of the excessive heat in the low to mid 90s. We operated from my home front yard with battery power and makeshift antennas instead of my home antennas. We were safe from the weather but paid the price with local QRN and poor conditions in general. I made a total of 3 QSOs and Mike was shut out. That's the worst we've ever done in any kind of portable operation as far as I can recall.
It's late now and I may have more to add to this, but not now, maybe tomorrow. -30-
Saturday, July 27 8:31PM - Another lazy hazy....... of sitting on the porch just enjoying the weather listening to music. At least tomorrow will be somewhat different with The Flight of the Bumblebees sprint. Mike will be here and we'll use the NAQCC club call of N3AQC. Should prove interesting with a few other sprints/contests going on this weekend as well.
I worked a few IOTA stations for my streak this evening. Now I'm doing my weekly laundry as I type here. That about covers the day. I'll probably watch some of the Olympics with my neighbor after finishing the laundry, getting my weather readings and walking Roscoe. -30-
Friday, July 26 9:13PM - What's that Nat King Cole song, Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer? I guess you could use that to describe the days around here the past little while now. I find myself not doing much of anything outside of just taking it easy, sitting on the porch listening to music, etc.
My QSO this evening came from the MARAC contest when I worked K1IB in VT on 40 meters. -30-
Thursday, July 25 11:13PM - Grocery shopping about the big event today. Otherwise pretty much a regular day. WA3MIX on 40 meters this evening was my streak QSO. -30-
Wednesday, July 24 9:22PM - Not a lot to write about again today. A fairly nice day. So I sat on the porch again listening to my music. This afternoon I fooled around on the bands using QRPp of 1 watt down to 500mW. No luck working anyone though. This evening I worked WX7V quickly for the streak. That's it for today. Tomorrow a grocery shopping trip to restock my cupboards. -30-
Tuesday, July 23 7:40PM - Another day where nothing much happened until this evening. I did a lot of sitting out on the porch enjoying the fairly nice weather and listening to music from the 60s on Spotify on my iPhone. I do a lot of that. Just don't mention it often here in the diary.
Linda was going to the SkyView meeting this evening and I suggested if she was going to get on the air there that we try for a QSO. We could see if we have any more luck from there than we do from her apartment in Pittsburgh. Well, it worked out pretty well. With the high power and big antenna farm at the club, I copied her well and she copied me somwhat weakly. Anyway it was good enough for our second QSO now. I still need to get my streak QSO this evening. I hope that goes well some 12 or so minutes from now. -30-
Monday, July 22 8:30PM - Kind of a boring day today. Not much going on in the way of excitement, just some work doing this or that. For example I did some house cleaning and some garden work. A longer project was taking care of answering QSLs from my buro mailing I received a couple weeks ago. I've got them all filled out and packed up to send to the ARRL Outgoing QSL Bureau when I get to the Post Office. I also did some web site work editing things here and there that needed some changing.
As far as radio goes, the bands were pretty poor as usual today. The usual few good signals here and there, but mostly empty space abounds on the bands. I worked Gary K1YAN on 40 tonight for the streak. It was a rough 10 minute QSO, but at least we got a chance to touch base with each other. Gary and I work often on the bands. -30-
Sunday, July 21 8:36PM - Yesterday/Today of course is the anniversary of the first moonwalk. Let's see, if my math is correct that was 55 years ago now. It's one of those events where most folks who were alive then can tell you just where they were at the time. For the moon landing in the afternoon of the 20th, I was driving to Pittsburgh to go to work at WPIT. I followed as best as I could while at work and was disappointed when they moved up the time of the moon walk. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they moved it from Midnight to 11 PM ET. That meant I had to really hustle to get home in time to tape (audio) it since WPIT signed off at 11PM then. Well I signed off a few (several?) minutes early, rushed to my car in the parking garage in the Gateway Towers, home of our studios, sped out of there and sped home to my Pittsburgh apartment. Fortunately traffic was light probably because most folks were glued to their TV sets watching the moonwalk. I made it home in record time but still missed the beginning of the moonwalk and Neil Armstrong's classic "One small step" speech. I threw my tape recorder on the bed and set it up as quickly as I could and started recording the audio portion of Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra's commentary. I still have those recordings which covered quite a bit of the event. I should dig them out and see if they still work after sitting in a hot attic all these years.
Nothing much happened out of the ordinary this July 21st here. I did my laundry this morning. I got on the bands a couple times but they were their usual dull selves again. I managed a quick QSO with KP2B a few seconds after 0000Z for my streak QSO and that was it. -30-
Saturday, July 20 9:09PM - Completed one project today. I set things up so Linda and I could communicate via CW on the text feature of our iPhones. Now I can help her out with some code practice. We had our first QSO this evening. Well it was really just a one way test in which I sent here a bit of code which she copied perfectly. Now we have to plan where we go from here for the most benefit to her.
It was a bit rough tonight again, but I managed to work WB2KAO Tim in Rochester, NY who BTW is a blind ham. Earlier in the day I had a short chat with Mike, F5PLC in Belfort, France on 15 meters. Sigs were very QSB but we made it work for 8 minutes. I guess that sums up the day. -30-
Friday, July 19 8:29PM - Let's see, what happened today I could write about. I guess the highlight of the day was a QSO with JR3JFZ. Of course I've worked over 200 JA stations now, but what made this special was that only a couple JAs of the 200+ were as strong or steadily strong as was JR3JFZ today. He peaked S9 or over with an average level of S7 and I was a solid S5 there. I got him with just one quick repeat call. We chatted about 5 minutes and could have gone on longer. I was texting with Linda at the time and she could copy him somewhat from her Pittsburgh apartment station. The QSO excited me like finally working RI in the 13 Colonies event. It was not even near sunset at the time early in the 1700Z hour. After I worked him I listened for another 10-15 minutes marvelling at the strength and lack of flutter of his signals. He worked several stations with 3s in their call so there must have been a pipeline between our areas of the world for whatever reason. I tuned around but didn't hear any other JAs or other places near Japan.
Oh earlier in the day before the JA station, I had a first for me. The first QSO with a POTA station in England, M0TTQ on 15 meters. And that in a nutshell is how my day went. -30-
Thursday, July 18 3:39PM - Early diary today because this just came in the mail:
With this certificate came a response to the note I sent along with my application about the rarity of the GB13COL station in the 13 Colonies events:
Now 400 watts should be more than enough power that GB13COL should be heard easily anywhere. I work many 400 watt stations from England in the big DX contests and work them easily. Perhaps the key is the fixed location. Does that mean that the location for GB13COL was fixed when the call was first used several years ago and can't be changed now? If so, that's a shame they picked such a poor location in the first place. If a new location can be picked each year of the event, why not do so? It's an explanation but when it is thought about, it doesn't make a lot of sense. At least my comments were read and replied to, so maybe if enough folks comment, something will be done if it is possible to do so. -30-
Wednesday, July 17 8:54PM - As I've said so many times, it's always a great day when Mike and I get together as we did today at the Requin in Pittsburgh. We arrived a little late and chatted with Art while the first sub tour cleared the passageway. Then we set up the station and found to our dismay the Auto keyer wasn't working so we had to do all the sending manually. We could have really used some help calling all the unanswered CQs that we called because of either the poor or unoccupied bands today. We only made 9 QSOs, but 4 of those were important ones as I'll spell out here. As you know I've been helping Linda W1MP to get accustomed to ham radio after she was away from it for a couple years. I thought today I'd try to give her some QSO practice from the sub. It worked like a charm. Right at 1500Z I called her and was delighted to hear her respond. Signals were 599 both ways. That was QSO #1. Then I called her with NY3EC and got the same results for QSO #2. Next I had Mike work her and that went just as well for #3. Finally it was time to get a QRP QSO with her. Don't tell anyone, but to assure a contact for QSO #1 I ran 100 watts for the first time since the late 1960s or maybe early 70s when I was testing other ham's rigs for them and only maybe 3 QSOs total then. I should add I mean 100 watts as K3WWP since I do use 100 watts here on the sub but with the call NY3EC. To get to the point, I put the 100 watt QSO in my "Other Calls" log as K3WWP/3 and now I wanted one with her at QRP for my regular K3WWP log. So fingers crossed, I called her and she did hear me at S2 and we completed the QSO for #4. We were texting through the QSOs and she said she was nervous when she was sending, but she did a good job and we hope it boosted her confidence now.
Mike and I hung around until about 1:40PM and with the agonizingly slow pace of calls, we decided to QRT then. We left and went for a meal at Chili's, then on home.
This evening the bands continued poor, but I worked John K4BAI in the NAQCC Sprint for my streak QSO. -30-
Tuesday, July 16 8:36PM - Bands close to an all time low here, but I did manage a QSO with W2ITT to keep the streak going.
Tomorrow Mike and I are going to the Requin. We should be there from about 1400Z to 1800Z or so. We'll be using the Requin's call as usual NY3EC. Frequencies around 7042, 10117, 14062. No fixed time schedule for the bands. Just check the three frequencies +/-.
Hope to work you.
Another hot day but maybe the last for a while unless you consider mid 80s hot. Still very dry though barring a rogue thunderstorm, if even that. -30-
Monday, July 15 10:56PM - Another good day with a couple of little sidetrackings I won't go into. Both cleared up successfully. Another hot day with a high between 94 and 96 depending on which of my thermometers you believe. The official mercury in glass one said 96 so that is what the high goes down as.
The only real time outside was walking Roscoe and getting the mail. Those events were made as quickly as possible.
The bands weren't all that great. I did manage a POTA, DX, and SE QSO for the streak.
Now it's time for my late snack then off to bed. -30-
Sunday, July 14 8:10PM - Happy Bastille Day to all the French folks. I'm here early tonight. Linda and I had our joint listening session early and she made a QSO on 40 with K9FW. I could hear her about 119 to 229 during that QSO. Then we tried to work each other, but she couldn't hear me although I heard her about the same 119 to 229.
This evening I worked Joe in ND AI0Y easily then QRT again to update the web site as you see here. -30-
Saturday, July 13 10:05PM - Similar tonight to last night. The bands were good and I got in the IARU contest to get my streak QSO. Because the bands were good I went beyond just one QSO and kept going. Conditions were so good on 15 I was working most stations with but a single call. Then about 8:30P Linda joined me via text and listened along with me. She pointed out stations she was hearing in Pittsburgh and I checked them out here and if they were needed DX stations I tried to work them and in most cases did. Or I would find stations and tell her where to listen to see if she could hear the station working me. I've mentioned before that the distance between her and me precludes us hearing each other on the bands for the most part. When it was time for us both to QRT, she said she really enjoyed the session and I did also. I hope that doing things like this will help her with the code as an adjunct to the Morse classes she is taking on line. I wound up with 17 QSOs in an hour and 20 minutes, all DX and just over half HQ stations.
Nothing much else out of the ordinary comes to mind except my neighbor Bruce took me on a grocery shopping trip to stock up on supplies that were too heavy or bulky to carry home walking.
It looks like Mike and I will be going to the Requin this coming Wednesday. More on that as the day gets closer. -30-
Friday, July 12 10:32PM - Late tonight. I was on the bands till after 9PM because for a change they have been good at least since late afternoon. I've worked 5 DX stations and one POTA yesterday (UTC) and today. Four of the five DX stations came with but a single call from me with no repeats needed, 9A168TESLA, E71A, PX5DX, P44W. The other, PY2EX was a short rag chew.
Other than that, I didn't do much else outside the normal chores of the day. Can't even remember much of what I did do outside of the chores. HI. Now I'm kind of tired and getting ready for my late night snack and then off to bed at Midnight. -30-
Thursday, July 11 8:44PM - It was a beautiful weather day today and I took advantage with a lot of porch sitting, some yard work, and just being outside. It was only in the mid 70s most of the day, and still 73 right now. Call it a short spring or fall though, because summer is coming back with a vengeance the next few days. When I texted with Linda and told her I was porch sitting, with her sense of humor she asked if that was like babysitting or dog sitting. I replied it was similar but only if the baby or dog was very well behaved.
The bands were a little better today, especially this evening. I got an easy POTA QSO for the streak, then backed it up with a nice rag chew on 20 from K4ARD in FL who answered my CQ after I called just a few times. -30-
Wednesday, July 10 8:30PM - Another kind of a quiet day today unlike yesterday. Can't even think of much of anything I did outside of my daily chores.
For my streak this evening I worked another QRP station, John W2XS out on Long Island. Conditions were poor for a 2X QRP QSO but we managed to stay hooked up for about 8 minutes copying about 50 to 70 percent or so. Will conditions ever realize this is a sunspot maximum and act accordingly? -30-
Tuesday, July 9 10:13PM - A very good today with a visit from Mike, a Skyview meeting and a visit with Linda at that meeting.
Not a whole lot went on early today other than the usual. The action picked up around 3:30PM when Mike texted to say he was on his way. I ordered a pizza to be here when he arrived around 4:30PM. It got here early and I kept it warm till he arrived and then we finished off the pizza quickly, and waited till 5:15PM to head for Skyview. When we arrived, Linda was already there working on QSL cards with Bob WC3O for the club's 13 Colonies K2M operations. First I gave her a big tomato I brought from home, then I joined in along with Mike working on the QSL cards. When we got caught up on them, Linda and I headed to the radio room where I hoped to help her get a CW QSO or two.
I brought a straight key for her to use and Bob hooked it into the club's IC7300. She got used to it a little bit, and we listened around on 40 M for a QSO at a speed she could copy. Finding none, I suggested she try calling CQ. She was a little hesitant at first, but I encouraged her and she called. After a couple CQs she was answered by VE3SYO and had a short QSO with Peter. She did well in the QSO. We listened around a bit more and talked till it was time she left for home.
Mike and I stayed around for a while longer, then we headed home also. When I got home and Mike headed to Brookville, I got my weather readings, then headed to the shack for my streak QSO. It didn't take long to find and work WX7V in Dallas, TX on 20M. Now time for a Midnight (well, 10:40PM) snack, a few chores and off to bed at Midnight. -30-
Monday, July 8 8:28PM - A good day today. It was too hot to do a lot outside though. So I spent most of the day in the AC inside. Sure glad I gave in a couple years ago and got that AC.
Then this evening, the bands were quite good and I even got an answer to my CQ after calling just two times. Almost forgot how to handle a QSO I initiated with a CQ as it's been some time now after all the 13 Colonies event and some contests. HI
Tomorrow it's our monthly trip to SkyView for their Tuesday meeting. -30-
Sunday, July 7 8:23PM - A good day today. Decent weather although a bit humid. I fooled around quite a bit on the bands mainly looking for GB13COL. I heard the stations trying to work him, but heard nary a dot nor dash from him as usual. I filled out my 13 Colonies award application form this evening but didn't finish it just in case I (very unlikely) managed to work GB13COL before the event ends at 0400Z tonight. I'm also enclosing a note urging they get a better operator and/or station for GB13COL next year. I've only heard them once or twice in the 10 years I've been doing the 13 Colonies event and 9 of those have been clean sweeps of everything but GB13COL. I don't know if the note will do any good but it gives me satisfaction to know I let them know my feelings.
Other than that, I got a quick streak QSO in the SST Sprint this evening from WK0B whom I seem to easily work a lot in the SSTs. I also texted with Mike a bit today which reminds me I need to look up a picture he wants. Kind of dark where the pix are stored now so I guess I'll do that tomorrow. That's it for another diary entry. I'll have to figure out again just how many entries I've typed since beginning the diary back in 2006. Wow 18 years now. -30-
Saturday, July 6 8:25PM - One of those "nothing" days that come along every once in a while. I can sum it up in a few words. Laundry. A bit of lawn work. Seeing if I can get each of the colonies on more than one band. Not going well. Only 6 colonies so far. End of today. -30-
Friday, July 5 8:15PM - Early tonight because the deed is done now. I got my 13 Colonies Clean Sweep this afternoon on 20 meters when I worked K2C in RI at 1656Z. I was wondering for a while if I was going to make it but then K2C came out of hiding yesterday and today was the third session for him that I heard. It was an easy QSO. He was not too strong and didn't have a big pileup (yet) and I got him after 3 or 4 tries. Linda was happy when she heard I finally got it and she congratulated me. As I said, I feel like Alexander the Great now with no more Worlds (Colonies) to conquer. It's always that way for me and probably a lot of other folks. Working toward a goal is more fun and exciting than completing the goal. There's a burst of euphoria for a while at completion, then a little letdown a while after that. That makes 9 years in a row now for a Clean Sweep of the Colonies. I also got TM13COL for the 4th year in a row. This year on two bands, 17 and 20. The 20M QSO was just a little bit ago for my streak QSO. It's the 9th year in a row I haven't worked GB13COL barring a miracle the next couple days. I've actually only heard them a couple times in the 9 years very weak and unworkable. Of course all done without spotting of any kind. I just tuned the bands checking out the peaks on the spectrum scope to see who they were and if it was a call I heard that I needed, I jumped on them and usually got them pretty quickly except for K2E in DE which took a while to break the pileup with my QRP. Linda confirmed what I've often said that in a pileup it's often a lower power station with a good fist who breaks the pileup ahead of a higher power station with a sloppy fist.
OK, enough of that except to say I was actually trembling with excitement for a little while after the QSO. -30-
Thursday, July 4 9:15PM - Running late again. Same reasons. I at least heard K2C RI today, but not strong enough and too big a pileup to work him. I had a Fourth of July dinner with Bruce, Jeff, and of course Roscoe this afternoon. That covers the day outside of the piddling everyday chores. HI -30-
Wednesday, July 3 9:13PM - Same time as last night. Same reason. I was looking around the bands for K2C RI, my last 13 Colonies station. I got K2F MD earlier in the day. Never did get K2C or even hear them.
Not much else to report about today. It was a hot humid day with a high of 92 and right now the humidity is 63 percent on my remote unit. I did do a little outside work though. I picked 102 dead daylilly flowers off my daylillies. And that briefly wraps up today here. -30-
Tuesday, July 2 9:13PM -This was a fun day today. I spent quite a few times checking the bands for my 3 missing 13 Colonies stations. I also put the June weather in my weather spreadsheet. I was surprised to find June only 2.3 degrees above normal. That very hot week was almost offset by cooler weather the rest of the month. Precipitation was slightly over 50% of normal.
This evening I spent a lot of time on the bands after the 13 Colonies stations and at the same time texting with Linda. It was nice to have her "riding along" so to speak. Especially when I found and worked K2E in DE for one of my three needed colonies. She said she enjoyed the pileup, and it was a big pileup. Took me a while to break it, but I did with a couple of proven tricks, calling slightly off frequency and delaying the call a second or two.
We've got some early fireworks going off now from those folks who get a kick out of making noise. It's annoying but they didn't get started as early this year for whatever reason. Hopefully it won't last long after the Fourth is over too.
Oh, Linda got voted into SkyView tonight. I knew she would when I, Mike, and one other member nominated her last month. Tonight it's official. -30-
Monday, July 1 6:55PM - July already? Where did June go? Oh that's right, time passes faster when you get older. Time should slow down since you can't move as fast when you get older.
It was a busy day today. Even on the bands with the 13 Colonies event, the RAC Contest, and good conditions in general. I have 9 colonies worked plus WM3PEN. All without using any kind of spotting, of course. I just tune the bands like we did in the old days, with one exception. I now use a visual aid to help in scanning the bands, a panadapter or spectrum scope, but I still have to examine each signal peak by tuning to it and listening to see who it is.
I worked 2/3 of a WAC today, NA SA EU and OC.
I also walked downtown today to do some banking and shopping. It was ideal weather for walking this morning with a nice breeze and temp in the upper 60s/low 70s. I even did a bit of lawn work pulling some more grass from brick cracks, etc.
I'm writing this diary entry early so I can do some more 13 Colonies chasing later. It would be nice to finish the Clean Sweep tonight, but I'm sure there will be at least a couple colonies that will windup being holdouts. HI I need RI NJ DE MD. -30-
Sunday, June 30 8:34PM - Busy day reaching it's peak right now. Just one thing I want to mention. I suggested a new antenna configuration to Linda and she installed it and it works. She just worked N2PPI in the SST among all the RAC QRM. Otherwise I'm busy with the EOM work and other things. So I'll close for now and pick things up tomorrow. Oh also a somewhat long grocery shopping trip today. -30-
Saturday, June 29 8:22PM - I worked FS/W6IZT this afternoon on 12M. Thought maybe it was a new band country but I have FS on all bands 80 through 10 except 60. This evening my streak QSO was also DX when I worked EA4AOC on 20M.
We had a lot of bad weather in WPA today but our "shields" were up here and most all of the bad weather went right around us. We did get light showers, but that was it. -30-
Friday, June 28 8:29PM - A sort of busy day today with this and that. This evening I worked with Linda via text to do some antenna checking. Unfortunately we are at an awkward distance from each other, pretty much in a skip zone and too far for ground wave. Our QRP signals just didn't make it to each other. We tried 80 through 20 just mostly for fun. I heard her about RST 119 on 40M and that was it. She's going to work on her antenna and we'll try again tomorrow.
It didn't help us that the bands were pretty poor overall tonight. I thought for awhile I was going to have a rough time getting my QSO, but then I found and worked KR8R on 40 meters. I did hear a somewhat rare station on 20, but he never heard me calling. It was HZ1TT in Saudi Arabia which would have been an overall new entity had I gotten him, but..... That's only the second time I've heard Saudi Arabia now. -30-
Thursday, June 27 8:21PM - I had a rarity tonight. Made a 21 minute QSO at 20 WPM without making a single sending error. I always strive for that, but most all the time a couple little sending glitches creep in. HI
Another somewhat of a rarity. I actually did some house work. Actually outside work. It was cool and breezy between the houses here so I pulled the grass and weeds from the cracks in my brick sidewalk.
I also called my friend Charlie whom I worked with at WPIT. We talked quite a while about this and that, mostly reminiscing about the WPIT days which are now 30 years in the past.
I did other things today also, but those are the highlights.
My QSOs tonight are the 21 minute QSO I mentioned with W4TJE and a DX QSO with CT3MD. -30-
Wednesday, June 26 8:40PM - Multitasking right now. Updating the website, and about to get my 9:00 weather. So forgive any typos here. HI
We had a line of storms go through a little while ago with some moderate rain and no thunder/lightning, but now it regenerated a bit and I hear some thunder. No problem though. Our precipitation shields are working pretty well today.
I got a quick QSO again tonight. It was David XE1XR on 20M at 0004Z.
That's it for now. -30-
Tuesday, June 25 8:25PM - Today featured a couple of projects. First I worked on getting our FD QSOs into my "Other Calls" log. Since we used N3A in FD, they belong there rather than in my K3WWP log. That's taken care of now. Next it was getting our FD report put together and uploaded to the ARRL. That went more smoothly than I thought and didn't take as long as I thought it would. That's #2 project done. I paused to get my QSO at 0000Z. I worked another YL ham, Amanda KY4GS on 30 meters. That's the Readers Digest story of today in the life of K3WWP. HI -30-
Monday, June 24 8:22PM - Kind of a busy day today with various things. It started of as usual with some daily rituals such as checking email and texts, reading my favorite comic strips. Then walking Roscoe and having breakfast.
Next I did some work on our FD log getting it in shape to import into my "Other Calls" spreadsheet. That took quite a bit of time to work with 229 QSOs. Some more odds and ends like Roscoe walks. Then a little more texting with Linda, and we went to our shacks. We found W1AW and one other station. She listened and said she did good on the W1AW copy. Then I did a couple other things, came back to the shack at 0000Z and in a couple minutes found and worked Luc I1YRL for my streak QSO. Now I'm here typing. Going back to the shack after the 9 o'clock weather. That was/is my day in a nutshell. -30-
Sunday, June 23 8:26PM - Sunday started off similarly to Saturday with the exception that Mike fixed breakfast instead of going out for it. He fixed a delicious hash brown omelet with cheese, chipped ham, and eggs. Mmmmm! After that we got started on FD again with a new goal now of 200 QSOs. The bands seemed poorer than yesterday especially in the morning. They did pick up a little after noon. Perhaps a lot of hams were attending Church services since it was a Sunday Morning.
Nonetheless, we did easily make our goal of 200 QSOs and set a further goal of 225 with a little over an hour and a half left. Sometime on Sunday, a few DX stations showed up on 15M working FD. We managed to work F5IN and RW1A, and possibly another one or two. I don't have the logs in front of me here.
We rolled on and made our 225 QSO goal. Then we said let's try for 230. We missed that and wound up with 229.
We cleaned up the shack a little bit, then Mike took Jayden out for a walk. When they got back, we headed down here to Kittanning. On the way we tried to figure out how many states we worked. It was hard without the log to look at, but we think we worked all but a couple, one being SC and another CT, plus a couple more we weren't sure of. We both were very pleased with how things turned out. Could we have done better? Well, the computer bugs slowed us down a bit, but all in all we think we got as good results as we could have with a QRP/CW/simple wire antenna setup in the existing poor conditions.
That pretty much finishes the FD wrapup except for a couple comments. I texted with Linda a few times during FD wondering how she was doing with the setup we fixed for her the other day. I was pleased to hear that she was able to make some contacts.
Being Sunday, I used the SST for a quick QSO with KG4CRJ as I wanted to do my Laundry this evening. I just finished that and now I'm going to finish my web site updates and rest my brain a bit from FD. Even with Mike logging, it's still somewhat of a strain on this old body and brain. HI -30-
Saturday, June 22 - I thought instead of combining the Saturday and Sunday diary entries, I'd make one for each day. I'm writing this Saturday entry on Sunday evening. I'll remember as best I can the happenings of Saturday.
I got up Saturday morning around 8:00AM and before long Mike took me out for breakfast. A delicious breakfast, I might add as pictured here.
After that it was back home to Mike's where we made some final preparations for FD. We thought we had it all ready and watched some British TV while we waited for 1800Z to arrive.
When the time did arrive, we settled in for a long session. The deal was that I was going to work the stations and Mike was going to log them. Well it didn't take long for Murphy to strike. The logging program didn't work on Mike's computer. After much fiddling around he got an alternate logging setup working and we were on our way.
We started out on 20 which seemed to be the best band. It was, and continued to be so the whole event. However we did make contacts on 80, 40, and 15 as well. 10 meters never did open up for us. Nothing really eventful happened except the occasional computer glitch here and there. We took a break for supper around 2100Z. I had lasagna and Mike had a Penne dish. Delicious as usual. After that it was back to work until 0000Z where I took a mini-break for my K3WWP streak QSO with W6ZE on 15 meters. I worked him with our N3A call, then I got him again with K3WWP. Of course we were using CW, QRP, and a simple wire antenna so it was an official K3WWP QSO.
We closed out the FD session for a while to watch some more TV and for Mike to walk Jayden. At 0300Z we went back to the bands for a final hour before bedtime. We upped our total to 160 QSOs and decided to reset our goal which was 150 up to 200 and went to bed.
The story continues on the June 23 diary entry above. -30-
Friday, June 21 8:30PM - Waiting for Mike to arrive to take me to his QTH for FD this weekend. Just got off the air after getting OK1DTP again for my streak QSO as I did 2 nights ago. Then it was 20M, tonight 15M. What next? Maybe 10M. HI
Otherwise it was another hot (95) day so I stayed indoors virtually all the time.
As I said, I won't have a diary entry tomorrow evening. I'll catch up then on Sunday evening with a report on FD and whatever else happens between now and then worth talking about. HI See you then. -30-
Thursday, June 20 8:20PM - A busy day today, sort of. I had some chores to do, including a shopping trip for Bruce, for Roscoe, and for me. Bruce's brother Jeff took me to Walmart for Roscoe's food for the next month or two and a couple things for Bruce. Then to Sprankle's for groceries for me for the next couple weeks or so.
Actually that was all the chores. I also spent time texting with Linda about the setup of her station yesterday. We made to get on the air at the same time when it is convenient to see if we could work each other. We may be too close to work, but I thought it would be interesting to compare what we were hearing to get an idea of how her setup was working, at least for receiving.
The bands continue to be poor here, but I managed a sure QSO with special event station W3B on 20 after an aborted QSO with WA0JDE. I don't think he got my call correct as he faded out before he finished sending it correctly.
Almost time for FD. I'll be going up to Mike's QTH in Brookville tomorrow evening. We'll then put final touches on the setup for FD Saturday morning. I don't think I'm going to update my web site for Saturday, but wait till Sunday to do the updating after I come home Sunday afternoon or early evening.
Just got a text from Linda who says she's hearing stations on 80. So another band is working from the setup we fixed up yesterday. Glad to hear that.
OK, see you here in the diary tomorrow evening, then next on Sunday evening. -30-
Wednesday, June 19 8:51PM - Always a great day with Mike and now Linda too. Mike and I left for her apartment in Pittsburgh around 10AM and arrived there at 11AM after getting lost and circling the blocks a couple times. Finally we found the right driveway and Linda was there waving at us.
This could be a very long entry so I am going to condense it somewhat. After we settled in a bit, we got to working on what we went there for in the first place, her ham station setup. First we sized up the area where the rig and antennas were going to go. Then we opened up the box that contained the antenna tuner, an Icom AH-4, that we would be using with her Icom 706MKIIG. After some head scratching, we figured out how to assemble the tuner. It was a bit involved, but the three of us put our heads together and got it done with Mike doing most of the thinking and work. That took quite a while, especially putting some PL259 connectors on the cables supplied with the tuner. The time spent on that got us to the point where we were getting hungry, so when we got to a good stopping point, Linda asked if we would like some pizza. You know our answer, and she ordered 5 medium pizzas for the three of us with different toppings on each one. She said that would give us enough to eat then, after which we could take some home with us and she would keep her share also. That worked out well. We had some fruit juice for drinks, and some homemade pepper sauce she had made for the pizzas.
After dividing up the pizza to take home, we got back to work. While Mike finished putting the tuner back together, Linda and I started thinking about and working on the random wire antenna we were going to string around her apartment balcony. That took a while to get done, but we finally got what I call a Rube Goldberg random wire. Next up we hooked up the antenna to the tuner and the tuner to the 706. Then it was the smoke test. Linda jokingly(?) brought in a fire extinguisher. She has a sense of humor not unlike that of Mike and me.
Anyway, there was no smoke, and we proceeded to checking out the setup. It took a bit of thinking, reading manuals, etc. to get things working right. One of the most confusing things was it would work on voice, but not CW. That would not do since Linda, like us, was interested mostly in QRP CW. Finally I found a section in the manual dealing with full break in on the rig. Mike was sitting at the rig doing most of the checking and I gave him the manual, and it did turn out the lack of CW was due somehow to the VOX/break in setting.
So with everything working OK, we tuned around looking for some CW signals. Not surprisingly with the conditions of late and the seeming decline of CW for whatever reason, we didn't hear any. There was some digital and phone activity so we knew the setup was working. We talked some more with Linda as we had been doing all through the project. After a while, Mike asked if I was ready to head home. A little reluctantly, I said yes, and we gathered up our things, and Linda went down to Mike's car with us to see us off.
After I got home, I checked a text that Linda sent. It contained a video with audio of a CW QSO between VE3FXX and WA3AER on 40 meters. Both stations were loud and clear and confirmed the setup was working on CW. We then texted back and forth about ham radio for a while. I wanted to be sure I thanked her for the pizza, etc. and especially for her hospitality. She said she enjoyed our visit.
It was now time for my streak QSO and her code class. I found the bands pretty good, working OK1DTP on 20, then a rag chew with W8BWE on 30. After doing some other things here, I got around to finishing and posting this diary entry a couple hours past the time on the time stamp. HI -30-
Tuesday, June 18, 9:10PM - The hottest day this year so far at 95 degree. I was only outside for 3 quick short Roscoe walks today. It felt like going from the fridge to the oven when I'd step outside.
Otherwise I texted Linda about plans for setting her station up tomorrow. My goal is for Mike and I to get the station going well enough for her to do the FD on HF this weekend.
Checked the bands briefly in the 2300Z hour and found virtually nothing. I did get two pretty quick QSOs after 0000Z for the streak though. -30-
Monday, June 17 10:36PM - Late tonight. Mike and I had planned to do a subpedition on the Requin Wednesday, but because of the heat in this area, the sub was going to be closed at Noon to avoid the extreme afternoon heat for the visitors. Since that would not give us much time to operate, we decided to cancel the operation.
I came up with an alternate plan. Linda has been working on getting her station set up, and I checked with her if she could use some help. I had some wire she could use for an antenna that Bob WC3O had helped her plan. She said yes, it would be great if Mike and I could come and help out. Now I had to check with Mike and he agreed we could go. So I guess instead of a subpedition we'll be doing an apartmentpedition or something like that. Tune in the diary on Wednesday evening for a report on how things went. As Linda said, it would be nice if we can get set up far enough to actually make a QSO. I sure hope we can do that.
Because we were working out details at streak time, I just took enough time to make one POTA QSO with N4KPT. I didn't even listen long enough to know how conditions were. -30-
Sunday, June 16 8:40PM - The last cool day before the week long heat wave. Actually it was almost 90 today but that is cool compared to the upper 90s coming the rest of the week.
I just kind of took it easy today with no big projects. I took Roscoe on his usual walks. He seemed to take the heat better after his hair cut grooming yesterday. I got on the air for my streak and got two quick SST QSOs for the streak, then had a nice rag chew with Bill K4VSV. Now one more Roscoe walk, watch another episode of Victory at Sea with Bruce, and a late night snack before getting ready for bed. -30-
Saturday, June 15 1:38PM - I just finished my DX QSLs display page, and I really think it is neat. I'm enjoying looking at the 214 cards there from 214 different countries I've worked with CW, QRP, and simple wire antennas. If that sounds like something you'd like to check out, do so in the QSL section, My DX QSLs page. If you do, let me know what you think via email or the guestbook.
I also just got back from helping to take Roscoe to the groomers, so with that and the QSLs work, I'm kinda tired and going to take it easy for a while before I get into something else. HI -30-
Friday, June 14 8:56PM - I see it's almost time for my weather readings, so I'll do that, then write this entry. OK, I'm back. The high today was 80 which will feel cold compared to what is coming next week. There are three days predicted to be near 100 and a couple others in the upper 90s. Whew. Glad I got an AC unit a couple years ago.
I checked the bands this afternoon and got a nice German prefix in DL2024O on 15M. This evening there was a little more activity on the bands. I made a couple QSOs for the streak.
I'm working on updating the page on which my DX QSLs are displayed. I think it will be much better this way with a link to each card picture instead of being all jumbled together on one page. I'll announce it here in the diary when it is finished and ready for viewing. -30-
Thursday, June 13 8:40PM - I received a buro mailing today with 12 cards, most of which were requesting my QSL for whatever reason. No new band countries, and only one new prefix, TM100.
I did a little more work on the web site today, mainly updating a couple of pictures and description of my random wire antenna in the HOMEBREWING-Antennas section.
The bands were their usual poor selves tonight. I managed to get VE3FP for a POTA QSO on 30M, but I called many unanswered CQs after that. I'm still not sure if it is poor propagation or just that fewer hams are getting on CW. The CW bands are sure devoid of signals of late though. This sunspot maximum seems nothing like the last couple when the bands were full of CW signals from all over the World. -30-
Wednesday, June 12 9:15PM - Today was an interesting day. What's another word for interesting? I use that word far too much. HI.
I spent a part of the day texting with Linda about ham radio.
Otherwise the weather was good for being outdoors. I sat on the porch quite a bit. Later in the day my neighbor took me to get my monthly Senior Food Box.
This evening was good on the bands for a change. Not great by any means, but better than a lot of days of late. I worked 3Z65C on 15, VP9KD on 40, and had a 34 minute rag chew with N7GBH on 40. Running late because of the time on the bands, so I'll close here and get ready for walking Roscoe. -30-
Tuesday, June 11 10:03PM - Home late from Skyview after a great day with Mike (and Linda). Mike came around 4:45PM and brought a lasagna dinner for us. We enjoyed that and after a few minutes, we headed to Skyview, arriving around 6:15PM or so. I waited outside for Linda to arrive. We talked for a while outside and I showed her the antenna farm. Then we went inside and got introduced to the members who were there. Then I showed her around the clubhouse before we came back into the meeting room and talked with the members some more. She submitted her application to join the club with Mike, me, and another member nominating her. Then she wanted to take a picture of the radio room, so we went back into there and spent the rest of her time there until she left a little before 8PM.
After she left, Mike and I stuck around awhile and I got my streak QSO and also a QSO in the NAQCC sprint. Then we headed home. -30-
Monday, June 10 8:54PM - A chilly day today. A good day to be inside, but I still spent some time outside walking Roscoe, sitting on the porch, and walking to Sprankle's.
I also spent time texting with Linda and Mike about getting coordinated for the SkyView meeting tomorrow evening.
Conditions were rough this evening. Actually propagation seemed decent but I was having trouble making contact till I finally worked NA4A at a POTA site.
Time now for my weather check so 73 till I talk about the meeting in tomorrow's entry. -30-
Sunday, June 9 8:31PM - A nice weather day, nice take it easy day, so I did. Not much at all going on, but what little there was, was fun and/or needed doing. I was running a bit low on groceries as Bruce had been too busy to take me shopping. So his brother Jeff took me today and I almost made my first ever $100.00 grocery bill, but fell a few dollars short. Jeff kidded me, asking if I wanted to go back in the store for some more items to make the $100. I passed. HI
This evening of course was the SST Sprint so it was easy to get my streak QSO with W8FN at 0002Z. Then I worked Steve K2KRG in a 14 minute QSO at about 24 WPM or so after he answered my CQ on 40.
Now I think I'll do some more porch sitting till it's time to walk Roscoe, or at least for a while since the walk is still 50 minutes away as I type. -30-
Saturday, June 8 9:13PM - Almost forgot to write the diary, I got so busy here. Anyway I'm caught up and there's not really much to write about anyway. HI
The bands were kind of up and down today depending on when you got on the air. I worked HA3NU in the 2000Z hour this afternoon on 15M. Then had a rag chew with Bob N9HAL this evening in the 0000Z hour for the streak.
It was a nice cool June day and I did a bit of yard work. I also sat on the porch quite a while. Am I getting old? Don't old folks sit on their porches a lot? Well at least they used to when I myself was younger. HI
OK, Roscoe walking time shortly. -30-
Friday, June 7 8:31AM - The main thing out of the ordinary every day events here today was taking Roscoe to the vet for a pedicure (PAWdicure?). Anyway whatever it's called, to get his nails (claws?) trimmed. They grow very fast and kind of got away too long this time. He seems much happier now after that.
Otherwise I did some more work on the web site again. Nothing in particular. Just checking things and updating things here and there.
Also some sitting on the porch in the nice weather listening to music on my iPhone.
Very inactive bands this evening. About the only real activity lately has been POTA stations. Tonight I worked NA4A for my streak QSO. Then called fruitless CQs for 20+ minutes on various bands. -30-
Thursday, June 6 8:40PM - I did some more work on the web site today. If you are observant and came to the site via my main page, perhaps you noticed a change in the photo logo near the top of the page. I liked that Requin picture from a couple days ago and replaced my 2023 picture with the Requin picture for 2024. I also cleaned out a couple more Links pages.
I texted with Linda some more about her setup. Possibly something like a mobile whip on her balcony railing and a counterpoise on the balcony floor would be something to think about. My friend in Toronto, Dave VA3RJ has had great success with something like that.
The bands are pretty bad tonight. I finally worked a POTA station for my streak. -30-
Wednesday, June 5 8:30PM - I worked on my web site today as my main project. I'm cleaning up my links page. I was checking and it's quite rare that I get any hits on the links. I think most folks now use one of the several search sites like Bing (my favorite) to find info about a subject instead of exploring links on a web site. Because of that, I'm considering just dropping my links or cleaning out the bad links and just leaving the good ones without changing any that still work. Also I'm not going to ask for any new links. I'll keep them as WYSIWYG now.
I exchanged texts/emails with Linda today about some more info for her ham setup. I hope with the help of SkyView, she can get on the air and be active again.
I only got on the bands today for my streak QSO which came from AK0A POTA activity on 20. Otherwise in the time I was on, there was very little activity heard. -30-
Tuesday, June 4 11:00PM - Actually to be truthful, this is being written around 9:00AM on the 5th as I got home from SkyView late and tired last night.
It was another good day with Mike that ended with the SkyView meeting. Mike arrived around 2:00PM and we killed time talking about various things until we ordered a Vocelli's pizza around 4:00P. After devouring that we killed some more time by checking the bands. As usual of late, they were pretty much dead with maybe one or two weak stations per band. The only DX I recall now was an LZ station who was too weak to work. That took us to 5:30PM or so when we headed to SkyView, arriving around 6:30PM.
As usual, Mike headed to the meeting room, and I to the radio room. I prefer 1 on 1 QSOs instead of being in a big group of folks. I had some nice eyeball QSOs with, among others, Dan NM3A about the QMX+ QRP rig he built. It'a nice little rig. The first time I've seen one. Also another ham whose call I forget, who was trying to work his son on a POTA outing in WV. He was too close for 20M, but later when his son moved to 40M, they made the QSO. There were also a couple other short eyeball QSOs. I then looked around for some DX, but other than an Israeli station who disappeared before I had a chance to work him, there were no other DX stations. So I made a couple of QSOs, one a POTA before 0000Z, and WB2DHY after 0000Z on 40M at 5 watts to the 40M dipole for my streak QSO.
Mike then came in the radio room with his new Begali single lever paddle that he got from Italy via Dayton via SkyView from Bob WC3O. I tried it out, but was sloppy with it since I use a double lever paddle all the time.
Then I got a chance to talk with the SkyView President to see if the club could do anything to help Linda W1MP who was with us at the Requin a couple days ago, get her station and antenna set up in her new QTH. Then the Radio Officer joined us. We had a discussion, and they said they would see what they and/or other club members could do. Personally I would like to help but living 40 some miles away and me not having a car makes that very difficult to say the least.
Now it's off to get caught up on some other things from yesterday. -30-
Monday, June 3 7:49PM - One big project today took care of a good deal of the time. I am reorganizing my antenna pictures section of the web site. I have it pretty much ready to go, and hope to upload the revised section tomorrow. I hope when I get it going, you'll take a look at it and give me some comments on it.
Nothing much else to talk about. Just waiting for 0000Z now and streak time. -30-
Sunday, Jun 2 6:09PM - It's always a great day when Mike and I get together for a subpedition, parkpedition, or just a visit. Today's subpedition was enhanced by the presence of a third op. I'm speaking of Linda W1MP who moved to Pittsburgh a couple of years ago from Vermont. This was her first time operating from the sub. She's a very knowledgeable Extra Class ham operator. which is important, but more important she seems to fit in very well with Mike's and my sense of humor and our personalities. In between making around 23 QSOs we spent a lot of time talking with each other and getting to know each other better. I'm not going into detail, but suffice it to say I think all three of us enjoyed the session from the time we showed up at the sub around 1345 until we closed down around 4 hours later at 1745. That was the bottom line, but also the 23 QSOs were a pretty good showing for the Requin in the Museum Ships Weekend Event.
That's left to right me (K3WWP), Linda W1MP, Mike KC2EGL having a bit of a break awaiting the next answer to their recorded CQs. -30-
Saturday, Jun 1 8:26PM - Kind of a nothing day to start the month of June. I did my laundry a little bit ago to get back into the swing of doing it on a Saturday evening again. Quite a bit of porch-sitting today. Not much else worth mentioning.
The bands, well at least 20M, were good today. I got a quick QSO in the European FD event from PI4AMF/P on my first call. In fact I was slow on the draw and started to answer him as he went to another CQ. He heard me calling under his CQ, paused and came right back to me.
Tomorrow it's off to Pittsburgh and the Requin for some operating in the Museum Ships Weekend. Of course Mike will be there. Without him, I couldn't go. We'll also have a new op with us, a YL or XYL who just moved to the area from Vermont according to Art. That's all I know about her except she is an Extra Class ticket holder. -30-
Friday, May 31 8:47PM - Weatherwise, a day pretty much like yesterday so I did pretty much the same things as then.
I also did a lot of the end of month / first of month chores. I'm glad I have them out of the way now for the most part. Still have to mail a few checks and put the May weather in my weather spreadsheet, but that's about all that is left, I think.
I got a DX and a rag chew QSO this evening. The DX was on 20 from Ben DL5ANT and the rag chew on 30 from Gary K1YAN.
And that's a quick Readers Digest wrap up of my day here. -30-
Thursday, May 30 8:34PM - A nice weather day and I spent a lot of time outside. I did some yard work in the backyard, pruning my rose bushes and pulling and weed whacking some weeds and tall grass that was not reachable when my neighbor cut the grass a few days ago. I also went for a walk outside. For the first time in a couple weeks I closed the Move ring on my watch, went to 42 out of 70 in the Exercise ring, and closed the Stand ring. I feel good about that.
I also sat on the porch for a while and was visited for a little while by a neighbor boy who is about 4 years old and his mom who works at Sprankle's.
I guess that about wraps up the day. Now the next couple days will be busy with the end/first of the month chores. Then Sunday also with the Requin subpedition. -30-
Wednesday, May 29 7:52PM - Just a few minutes till streak time. I'll get this diary entry started, then go get my QSO.
It was a messy day today with chilly temperatures and intermittent showers. About the only outside action was sitting on the porch listening to some more Cousin Brucie and of course, Roscoe's regular walks in between the raindrops. I did listen briefly to the bands this afternoon. Heard a good catch in T77BL but pretty weak and I couldn't get him. I have San Marino anyway on a few bands anyway, so I wasn't all that upset.
Off to the shack now. I'll report here if I get anything. Otherwise will just close this entry. I got two nice rag chews this evening. One from AK8D on 40 and one from WB9FMP on 30. -30-
Tuesday, May 28 8:37PM - A pretty good day today. The weather was nice and I spent a lot of time outside with the regular Roscoe walks, sitting on the porch listening to Cousin Brucie podcasts, and pulling some grass and weeds from my brick sidewalks. Sounds like my leg is about back to normal, and it is virtually there. Now I've got to keep myself from getting too frisky and aggravating it again.
The bands were interesting in the midnight hour last night. I worked a couple nice stations, WW1USA which is a World War 1 memorial club station in MO, and DB100FK which is a new prefix, I'm pretty sure. Haven't had time to check yet today.
This evening I snagged a quick POTA station, NA4A, for the streak, then called CQ and Dan KB6NU answered me for a nice rag chew on 30M.
Just learned from Mike a while ago that we are set to do Museum Ships Weekend from the Requin. We'll be there for a few hours on Sunday from 1400 to 1800 or so depending on activity as usual. It will be a bit different from our usual subpeditions in that Art said we'll also have a YL op with us who just moved to the Pittsburgh area from Vermont. All we know is that she is an Extra Class op. Of course we'll be using NY3EC for the operation. Not sure of what bands or frequencies yet. Probably the usual. It's NOT a contest so the WARC bands can be used as I understand it. See you then and there. -30-
Monday, May 27 8:37PM - My streak QSOs tonight were "leftovers" from the WPX contest. By that I mean stations who set up for the contest at some ideal vacation spot, then after the contest, they stay at those spots and give out some extra QSOs, usually in the WARC bands that are not available in contests. Tonight it was K4BAI at VP5 and WI9WI at PJ2. I've worked both many times over the years at various contest locations plus their home locations.
Only a couple of extra happenings in the CQWPX after I wrote the diary entry. I worked 4T4O Peru as a new 705 recorded country also as a new 705 worked country #101.
4T4O was also a reminder of a good contesting lesson. Earlier in the day I called him many times with no result. Then later I found him again and got him on my second call. If there is someone you really want to work, but can't get him, note his frequency and come back later. Propagation or whatever may have changed and you can get him easily now. Don't waste too much time trying to work someone. It often is easier later.
It was a nice day today weatherwise. It was also a day that should be meaningful. I listened to the Cousin Brucie Saturday evening podcast today and he emphasized this should be a meaningful holiday because our servicemen, living and dead, made it a "happy" holiday because of what they did. I thought that was a very good point made by Brucie.
I did my part by attending the Memorial Day Parade. At least part of it. I didn't stay for the long line of Fire Department equipment though. Not because they are not meaningful, but because my leg was getting tired standing there. I was happy to see one of my Sprankle's girls in a Sprankle's truck give me a big smile and wave as she passed by me.
I hope you all had a Meaningful Holiday also. -30-
Sunday, May 26 5:37PM - I don't think the CQWPX contest has any surprises or thrills left, so I'll write its obituary now and move on to other things.
I stated my goals in last night's diary entry. I made out fairly well adhering to them. I worked the following new prefixes with the band on which it was new plus an X if it was an all around new prefix regardless of the band:
I added the following new recorded countries to the ones listed in the previous diary entry: 5W1SA, KL5DX, MD2C.
No more new overall IC705 countries, but as I said last night, I am at 100 worked now on the new rig.
It was nice to work some old contesting friends like OH0Z, PJ2T (wkd 119 times now), F5IN (Mike) first time in several years, EI7M, CR6K, DK9PY, PJ4A, SN3A, 8P5A, OM2VL, OM7M, FY5KE. Actually maybe friends is somewhat of a misnomer since some of those stations could have different ops. Anyway it was nice to work those often worked stations again.
As usual, I made my contest WAC. The stations this time were: PT5J, TI8/N7ZG, DP7D, RA9B, D4Z, NH7T.
All in all, I made 46 QSOs which was not bad considering my limited goals and the ionospheric storminess. I'm happy with it.
It was interesting to see how the conditions affected the bands. 20 was almost devoid of DX at times, being best late at night here. 10 showed very little outside of NA and SA at any time I listened there. 15 was the star especially on Saturday although it was not that good on Sunday. 40 was crowded and I didn't listen much there. 80 showed me nothing.
I had some interesting QSOs on 15 in 5W1SA who got me on the second time I called with no repeats. JE6RPM was an easy Japan although he was the only Japan I could work. JA3YBK is usually an easy catch, but this time despite booming in, I couldn't catch him. He was strong even in late afternoon here. RA9P was booming in, and was an easy catch at 1:07PM local time here. 9H6A a somewhat rare country here for me was easy to work.
I'll probably check the bands again to see what is there as sunset draws near just before 0000Z when I'll get my streak QSO probably from the SST. I'll let you know in tomorrow's entry if anything unusual shows up. One final thought. Conditions here weren't unique apparently. The most common phrase in the contest was "NR?". I guess copy was rough everywhere although only a very few stations asked me for a number repeat. Of course all my numbers were short compared to most. HI -30-
Saturday, May 25 6:57PM - A very laid back contest day for me. I set out with the following premise in mind and haven't deviated from it (yet). I set out to only work stations that qualify in these four ways:
1. Stations from countries that I haven't recorded on the IC705 yet. I got 5 so far: 8P5A, RA9P, D4Z, PJ4A, 9H6A. That makes 72 countries recorded now.
2. Stations I haven't worked yet on the IC705. I got two, RA9A and 9H6A. That gives me DXCC at 100 countries worked on the IC705 now.
3. Friends or contesters I admire and like to help them out with a QSO.
4. Stations that I consider out of the ordinary. Ones from countries that were hard for me to work at one time. Or that are still hard to work for me. Or new prefixes or band countries, etc. Things like that in sort of a combo category, I guess. HI
Basically just working what or whom I want to work with no inkling of any scoring competition. Now I think I'll get back to the shack and try to fill out those four categories some more. -30-
Friday, May 24 9:07PM -
Thank you Bruce, Jeff, and Roscoe. The cake was delicious and the thought was better. Have you ever had an ice cream cake? Our local Walmart makes them, and they are delicious.
QRP contesting is strange, at least in my case here. Sometimes it seems like I've got a stealth KW amp and a beam somewhere, and I can go up and down the bands and work almost all the stations I hear. Other times it seems like I'm running about 1mW from inside a Faraday Cage. Tonight it is the latter so far. I struggled to make 9 QSOs in about 55 minutes. Hopefully that will not continue the whole weekend and things will pick up. I'd like to get the last couple countries I need to make 100 worked with the new IC705. Also I hope I can increase the number of countries I have recorded on the 705. I guess it's wait and see. -30-
Thursday, May 23 8:36PM - Well, I'm not quite ready to run a Marathon yet, but I'm getting close to being back to normal in my daily activities. Tomorrow I take a sorely needed grocery shopping trip with Bruce. My fridge is looking like Mother Hubbard's Cupboard. HI. Todau is the first day in a couple weeks that I will have done all 5 of Roscoe's walks. Also I did two long indoor walks today, the longest in two weeks at about .55 and .65 miles. I may complete 3/4 of my Apple Watch exercise ring before the day is over. All of that is a great birthday present a day in advance.
The bands showed some pre CQWPX contest activity today. Nothing rare heard, but I did work Ireland and as I said to Mike (Brennan), it's always nice to work Ireland. EI9JF sounded like he was next door on 20M when I worked him beating his pileup easily.
Almost time to get my 9:00 weather readings. Nice to be able to go out and get the shelter readings again. -30-
Wednesday, May 22 7:45PM - Just sitting here waiting for the streak hour of 0000Z. Today was a progress day for my leg. I walked further than I have since I hurt it. Still way short of my average of around 7 miles per day before the leg slowed me down, but I'm happy with about a mile and a half today. I also walked Roscoe twice today, something I haven't done in a while. I'm climbing steps easier, and some other things also.
I didn't check the bands today. I thought about it a couple times, but never got to it.
The bands seemed decent this evening although I only got one QSO for the streak, and it was a POTA station. I think this fellow must live in a Park and is active many hours per day. Anyway I hear him all the time on just about any band. I'm speaking of WB0RLJ. He always provides a streak QSO if I can't get anyone else. Usually I have to repeat my call once or twice, though. -30-
Tuesday, May 21 9:21PM - I only got on the bands one time today, at my usual 0000Z. They seemed in better condition than they have been in a few days now with strong sigs on 40 thru 20 meters. I got two easy QSOs, N4E on 20 for EMS Week SE with Eliza as op. That's the third year in a row I've worked Eliza at N4E. Then a CQ on 30 netted WI0WA in guess what state who was testing his SOTA station for the upcoming SOTA good weather season.
Other than that not a lot going on today. I got caught up on my weather readings that I missed due to the sore leg. I used my remote readings in place of my shelter readings. The temperatures are virtually always the same anyway. The precipitation I interpolated from 2 nearby weather stations. I guess that about sums things up. -30-
Monday, May20 8:25PM - An evening to remember! As I mentioned in the previous diary entry, Jock N1JI was going to visit today on his way home from Dayton to NH. He did arrive around 5:30PM, following which we spent a great 3 hours together. A complete story of all we did would be long enough to be a book, not just a diary entry, so I'll pick and choose what to write here if you forgive me.
After he arrived, we greeted each other since we had never met in person before. First I gave him the tour of my antennas, after which we talked about this and that for a while during which we ordered two hoagies from Vocelli's, a Club and Meatball one. After the time alloted to prepare them, we went and picked them up and ate them here at home.
Next it was up to my shack for the remainder of the visit. I showed him my IC705, and we discussed it quite a bit. He thought it was a very nice rig and had some good features. He especially liked the recording feature and we listened to some of my recordings like the rag chew with Lloyd KH6LC and R90KEDR to mention a couple. Oh and he brought his KX1 rig for show and tell. It was the first time I had seen one, and it is really neat, a full station in a tiny package with built in tuner, keyer, and even a small notebook and pen for note taking. All contained in a package not all that much bigger than a smart phone.
He was asking me about how many countrie I had worked, so I got out my album with one QSL from each of the 214 countries I have verified by regular card. I always like to stop when we get to Mongolia and show the 10 Tugruk banknote the Mongolian ham enclosed with his card. It was worth something like 0.000008 cents in US money at the time. Now a check shows it is worth 0.0030 USD and is the lowest denomination in regular use in Mongolia.
We also talked about several other topics like POTA, antenna tuners, etc. until he said he'd bothered me long enough and was going to head back to his hotel now. I told him it was no bother at all and I was enjoying the visit. I suggested he stay at least until 8:00 when I would get my streak QSO. He liked that idea and he stayed and talked some more until I worked a POTA station N1RIP for the streak. We discussed POTA a bit before we left the shack and he got ready to go to his hotel, then off to New Hampshire during the next couple days.
All in all a very enjoyable day. I told him I wished we lived closer together and could do this more often. He agreed, then went on his way. -30-
Sunday, May 19 8:40PM - Another day of progress for the sore leg. Hardly used the cane at all today. I was a bit worried about it since I'm getting a visit from Jock N1JI on his way home from Dayton tomorrow. I feel better about being able to get around more easily now. I'll report on the visit in the diary tomorrow. If I remember, I may even include a picture or two.
Conditions were good for the SST Sprint this evening so I stayed for 10 minutes and made 6 QSOs in 6 SPCs. Let's see, that would project out to 36 QSOS for a full hour. That's feasible too, since I did 42 QSOS one SST early in 2023 when I still had my full contesting desire. So maybe one day.....
It was a nice weather day today. I didn't go for a walk, but at least I sat on the porch a couple times and enjoyed the weather. -30-
Saturday, May 18 9:06PM - Well, this was a good day in two ways. The leg is the best it has been in a few days now, but still not 100 percent, just close. Hopefully in 2 or 3 more days.
The bands were the best they have been in a few days, but they too, have a couple days to be 100 percent. I tested out 20M in the 0000Z hour in the KOS contest. It wasn't quite as easy to work the DX as usual, but almost there. I tried six stations, HA3DX, EA8ZS, S51DX, EF1A, KP2M, and LZ5R. The most distant, LZ5R was easiest to work. EA8ZS usually gets me easily on a first call. He had a bit tougher time getting me tonight. The rest were just a bit tougher to work than usual.
So all in all, things are improving for the OM here. HI -30-
Friday, May 17 9:09PM - I did my 0000Z hour thing again tonight for the streak and came up with a DX and a rag chew QSO with an old friend. The DX was CT9/UR9IDX whom I've worked several times before. It was a bit more difficult tonight though as the bands are still suffering from leftovers from the Solar Flares. Then I heard CT9/DJ1CW, but he couldn't get my call after many tries. Another hint with the failure of my Madeira pipeline that the bands are still not quite back to 100 percent. The rag chew was with N9HAL and it was solid copy for 24 minutes on 30M so that at least was close to normal.
It's a good thing I got my streak QSO in the 0000Z hour last night as when I checked at 0400Z, conditions weren't as good as the previous nights. -30-
Thursday, May 16 8:42PM - Yes, 8:42PM. I'm getting closer to normal each day. Today the step I took was getting back to my 0000Z hour hunt for my streak QSO. I found two of them tonight in that hour. A POTA from NA4A and DX from CT9ACD, both on 40. I checked the higher bands and found nothing on 20 or up. I guess the ionosphere doesn't open for business on 20 until later. I'll check at midnight tonight just to see and work any good DX if it is there and I can get thru. Last night I worked IK1LBL on 20 in the 0400 hour despite him not being all that strong here. He heard me as K3WW on my first call to him and got the P when I sent my call again, We chatted for a few minutes then.
In addition to the 0000Z trip upstairs, I also went up another time earlier in the day to take some things up and bring some other things down. The leg felt pretty good with all the exercise. I also sat out on the porch for a while, and Roscoe came over for a short visit. Both those things felt good.
Next I need to start going out at 9PM for my weather readings. I've been substituting my remote readings for the shelter instruments readings. -30-
Wednesday, May 15 9:06PM - Pretty much the same routine today as the last several days now. I got my QSO in the 0400Z hour. It was K7/E77DX in some western state on 20M. Really not anything more to talk about. I'll go up at Midnight for the streak QSO if I don't go before then. Conditions seem to be good at that hour. I listened this morning in th 1200Z hour for a bit and heard just about nothing then. -30-
Tuesday, May 14 6:40PM - Conditions seem to have come back from the grave as of 0400Z last night. I got on at midnight and had a nice chat with W4USR in NC on 40M. After a rocky start, sigs came up nicely after a couple minutes and it was pretty much solid copy after that for 20+ minutes. After that I explored the bands and found a Crete station working New Zealand stations. One of the NZ stations was a solid 579 or so. I'm going to have to explore that 0400Z hour some more.
I didn't go to the SkyView meeting tonight because my leg is still not up to par. It is improving though. I'm still sticking to my climbing my stairs once a day though. Up at Midnight, down at 8AM for a while yet. Hoping to be back to normal in a few days. We'll see.
A post mortem on the geomagnetic storm. Look up carrington solar flare 1859 for the worst flare/ionosphere storm, etc. in history. Very interesting. -30-
Monday, May 13 9:02AM - The streak has survived another day thanks to Wilbur KB1CL on 80 meters at 0405Z today. Looks like we are through the worst of the storm now, but who knows for sure. The Sun is still unpredictable at this point in its history. Speaking of history, I got to wondering where that 272 Planetary A index stands in history.
I have a table of solar/ionospheric history that goes back to 1947. The Solar Flux data is complete back to that year with some gaps here and there. The highest SF reading in that time was 457 way back on 4/7/1947. Interesting but not actually what I was researching.
Unfortunately my A index data is not that complete. I only have the years 1995-1997 and 2000-Present in my tables here. Also I do have data for the years 1954-2006 from graphs on the Internet. It's a bit hard to pinpoint exact numbers and dates on those charts. There are several times the A index was 200 or higher. Only 1 in the data I have tops this current reading of 272 on May 11. That is a 280 reading on 11/13/1960. One other reading was over 250 at 251 in 1989.
I wish I had more complete data. I may do some research to find the missing data. However for what I have, this current storm is one for the record books. I'm sure some of the true propagation gurus have more complete data. I'd love to delve into it. -30-
Sunday, May 12 8:29PM - Despite the sore leg and the extreme ionospheric storm, the streak goes on without missing a beat. It's just coming at unusual times. Today for example, I worked 2 stations on 40 meters around 1200Z, one in SC and a POTA station in MA. Yesterday and the day before it was a station each day in the 0400Z hour. Before that on the 9th it was the 1300Z hour on 17 meters. The odd hours are due mainly to my climbing the stairs to the second floor shack as few times a day as possible, not the ionospheric storm. Tonight I'll go to bed at midnight and try to get my QSO then. If not, then I'll try tomorrow morning when I get up. Hopefully one of those times will find some activity for my streak QSO. So far it's worked. If not, then I'll have to try some other time tomorrow. There is a sign the ionospheric or geomagnetic storminess is letting up or will be letting up. The A index seems to have passed its peak now. It reached the ridiculous figure of 272 sometime this weekend. It is now down to around 54 as of the latest reading. So we'll see what happens as this crisis period winds down. -30-
Saturday, May 11 7:41AM - I think this may be the earliest I have ever written a diary entry. I got up early as my leg was bothering me lying there in bed. Then I checked the propagation figures for my propagation table and what I found there was interesting and explains the conditions I found just after midnight today. Predictions for today were for Space Weather to be SEVERE and the recap for yesterday was EXTREME. I don't remember ever using either of those terms in my web site table before. The recap for yesterday was: "Geomagnetic storms reaching the G5 level occurred. Solar radiation storms reaching the S2 level occurred. Radio blackouts reaching the R3 level occurred." The predictions for today are: "Geomagnetic storms reaching the G4 level are expected. Solar radiation storms reaching the S2 level are expected. Radio blackouts reaching the R3 level are expected." WHEW! No wonder the bands were completely devoid of CW signals at midnight unlike the night before when there were quite a few CW signals for that late hour. Well, there was one signal heard and I worked them for the streak which brought up another topic for discussion.
When I looked up the station in QRZ and read his bio, it disturbed me. He says he never operates from his home QTH, but always operates remote. He then listed three locations for the remote stations. He gave no indication of which of the locations he was using when I worked him. I don't know which location I should put in my log. I will have to address this issue since it seems remote operation is being used more and more these days. I guess I'll put REMOTE for the location, Unk for the state, country, county, zone, grid square and any other item that can't be determined. Then explain it in the comments item. SIGH!!! Perhaps the FCC should require stations operating remotely to add some kind of indicator to their call sign like K3WWP/RMW4 as a very minimum. Some remote stations I've worked are good at that, at least they use K3WWP/W4 for example.
One of the locations listed in QRZ for the station I worked was a DX location south of here. I'm guessing that was the one since propagation should have wiped out anything from the higher latitude locations.
That takes me back in my memory to when I used to do a lot of AM BCB listening. There was what must have been similar propagation conditions and most all the high latitude stations, even the 50Kw powerhouse ones, were wiped out allowing me to log Latin American, Caribbean, and South American BCB stations. I'll have to look back in my old BCB records to remember some of the stations I logged. That would have been in the mid 1960s when I was going to Pitt and living in the tower dorms with a long vertical antenna hung out the window from something like the 17th floor. Ah, memories! Oh, I remember one station was from Trinidad. I think it was on the same frequency, 730 kHz as was WPIT. Maybe the call sign was VP4RD? If I do get around to digging into those old BCB records, I might devote a couple diary entries to them. -30-
Friday, May 10 7:00PM - OK, last night I skipped the shack visit at 0000Z, and instead went upstairs at the usual bedtime Midnight hour. Before I went to bed though, I got my streak QSO. It wasn't easy as I tried calling 2 or 3 stations and either wasn't heard or lost to another caller. Finally on 20 meters which was still nicely open, I worked Flavio IK1YDB. He got my call OK after a couple tries, but then had a hard time copying the RST I was sending him. Finally he got it to complete the QSO and keep the streak going another day. I think I may try the same tactic tonight. Hopefully the leg is getting better and I can get back to my normal daily routines again soon. -30-
Thursday, May 9 9:58AM - Part 2. The first part of this diary entry covers the events of yesterday. See Part 1 below. The sore leg I mention there has kind of messed up my regular daily routine. For example right now I'm trying to decide when to make my way up the stairs to the shack. I plan to sleep in my bedroom tonight after sleeping in a chair downstairs the past two nights. So I may try for my streak QSO when I go up at midnight and if I don't get it then, I'll still be up there in the morning and I can try then as I did this morning when I got N0IPA. Got that? A quiz will follow. HI HI.
I am finding walking with my cane seems to be becoming less painful with each walk I take to the kitchen or other downstairs room. I hope that's reality and not just wishful thinking. Tomorrow will probably give me a better idea, I hope.
Part 1. 9:58AM. I had a little problem with a sore leg yesterday and didn't know if I could make it up to the shack for the streak for May 9 or not, but I struggled up today and worked N0IPA on 17M to keep the streak going. Whew!
This old age is not all it's cracked up to be. The Golden Age - PHOOEY.
Now to get some breakfast.
Oh about the Requin yesterday. I wasn't able to go because of my leg. Mike didn't go either because of his kindness in stopping by here and helping me out with some things such as getting me my old cane which was upstairs and some other things plus some moral support. Thanks Mike.
Paul AC3IE did make it to the Requin and filled in admirably for Mike and me. I'm not sure exactly how many QSOs he made, but he said "made several contacts with the straight key before I figured out how to connect the one I brought, and then a few more". Thanks Paul. -30-
Wednesday, May 8 9:00PM - I'll write today's diary entry tomorrow morning some time. -30-
Tuesday, May 7 8:42PM - One thing I always strive for in every QSO is to go through it without a single sending error. I don't always make it. In fact I seldom get through without at least one or two errors at the best of times. Well, tonight I had a perfect one of 10 minutes duration at around 19 WPM with K1WK up in Rhode Island. I'm happy with that.
Now if I could just type that well. HI I don't even come close most of the time typing my web site updates, "but that's another story" as my friend from WPIT used to say when he got off the track a bit from something he was talking about.
Tomorrow is subpedition day. Mike, I, and Paul AC3IE hope to be there from 10AM (1400Z) through 2PM (1800Z) if conditions warrant staying that long. Hopefully they will be better than today. Our new policy is not to have a set of times or frequencies picked in advance other than the following. We will operate in the following freq ranges: 7037-7043, 10114-10120, and 14057-14063 avoiding QRM and QRN as best we can and using the band that presents the best conditions and activity at the time. Perhaps Mike or Paul will spot our actual time and freq. I don't ever use spotting myself as you know, but then I never use QRO power either except for these subpeditions since they are to promote the USS Requin, not K3WWP. We use the sub call of NY3EC at 100 watts. Hope that all is clear. -30-
Monday May 6 8:44PM - I thought I'd do a mini review of the ICOM AH705 tuner. I got my IC705 rig back in early September and fooled with a couple different antenna tuners for it. I shied away from the ICOM AH705 tuner after reading some info about it that seemed to indicate it worked best if located near the antenna and away from the rig. That wouldn't suit my setup here. Also the fact it didn't use rechargable batteries and it was said the alkaline batteries did not last that long. I want to flatly deflate both those claims now. First the batteries. I don't remember now just when I put new batteries in the AH705, but it was probably November of last year. I checked the batteries today and after what would that be, six months of daily use, they were still almost like new. My battery checker shows 4.5 ma for a new battery, and both of the ones I took out of the tuner were well above 4.0 ma. I did put two new ones in though and I'm going to keep track of just how long they last this time. It should be well above the 6 month mark at which the ones I removed were still going strong.
As for the location of the tuner, it works just fine with a 2 foot cable from rig to tuner and a one foot cable from the tuner to my antenna switch in the shack. It tunes any of my 6 antennas on any band. All that's needed is to switch bands on the rig, change antennas via the ant switch if needed, tap the paddle briefly and after two seconds, everything is ready to go. That's after the antennas are initially tuned and the tuner memories activated. The initial tuning of a rig/ant/band combo takes a little longer, maybe 10 seconds and only needs doing once if the combo stays the same. All in all, if you have an IC705 rig, I don't think you can go wrong with the AH705 tuner. My findings and opinions. Your mileage may vary.
The bands were not too bad, although kind of empty. I worked ZF2OO on 17 with a single call using just 500mw here. I also easily worked SE call RP79L on 20M. That was this afternoon. Tonight the streak QSO was K1PUG on 30. -30-
Sunday May 5 7:37PM - Not much going on today. Yesterday's solar flare pretty much made the bands lousy today compared to last night's conditions. Also not much else going on except for one project, well 2 projects. Mike heard from Art from the Requin and we will be doing a subpedition this Wednesday the 8th. Accompanying us will be Paul AC3IE. We have a group of about a half dozen ops who join us on the Requin now and it takes a bit of doing to figure out who is available for a certain trip. We can only have 3 ops in the small radio room, Mike, me, and one 'guest'. Paul was the third one I contacted before finding one who was available. The ops are mainly ones we found through the SkyView club. More about the subpedition coming up the next couple days.
The other project was archiving some past diary entries. I was shocked to see that I hadn't moved any old entries to the archives since last October. Shame on me. So I put the last of the 2023 entries into the 2023 archive page. Then I started a 2024 archive page and put Jan, Feb, and Mar entries from this year into it.
Now off to the shack in a couple minutes. Even if conditions are still poor, the SST should provide me a streak QSO or two. -30-
Saturday May 4 9:14PM - Another one of those late entries. This one due to a busy 0000Z hour on the bands. I was working DX plus the 7QP Contest. I thought I'd see if I could work some new counties in 7 land. I haven't really worked much on counties lately for a variety of reasons I don't have time to go into now. I worked Santa Cruz, AZ - Storey, NV - and Pacific, WA. I worked TO60CSG in French Guiana on 17 and 30. Also 3G0YA on my fourth band, 20 meters. Hope it was legit. I had read somewhere the DXpedition was to end on May 4. Anyway a real fun hour.
I also went shopping today to get some food for Roscoe and for myself. Otherwise not a lot going on. Oh, I did add another DX station on 17 at 2201Z, CS2GPDX. -30-
Friday May 3 6:20PM - A little story behind one of my QSOs today. At 2200Z on 15M, I worked Pablo HC5AI. If that were all, it wouldn't be much of a story. However starting not all that long after I became active again in the early 1990s, I worked Alfo HC5AI and continuing through November 1999. Alfo might have been one of my very first Ecuador QSOs. I'm not sure. I may check later. Anyway it was always a piece of cake to work Alfo and I got him on 40, 30, 17, 15, 12, and 10M before he became a silent key. End of story? No. Alfo's son Pedro took over the HC5AI call. Working Pablo until today seemed about the opposite of working Alfo. While Alfo was very easy to work, I don't know how many times I tried unsuccessfully to work Pablo over the past several years. I was very happy when I finally got him tonight to complete the father-son QSO setup. It was just a TU RST QSO, but it was satisfying.
Also today I worked a new prefix in OT24EPIC for a cycling event in Belgium. -30-
Thursday May 2 8:44PM - I worked 3G0YA on my third band today, 17M. A very easy QSO. After I figured where he was listening, I called there and got him with that single call, no repeats. He is really easy now without those huge wide pileups, but better hurry to get him. I think the DXpedition ends May 4. Otherwise the bands were really miserable today and tonight. Only a few good signals here and there, otherwise nothing or very weak signals. Even the German RTTY station on 30 was very weak or absent altogether. Tonight I struggled to get AB9CA on 20 in a POTA QSO. -30-
Wednesday May 1 7:51PM - Just a few minutes before streak time. I'll start the entry now and finish it after the streak is satisfied.
OK, off to the shack now. Back in a bit.
I'm back now after a 17 minute QSO with friend Dan KB6NU on 30 meters for the streak. Earlier today I worked OL87OM on 17 and 3G0YA on 10. The 3G0 piles have really shrunk in number and in size the past few days and 3G0YA is quite easy to work now. I even got them with 900mW a couple days ago. -30-
Tuesday Apr 30 7:14PM - Another month is history. I got most all of my end of month financial things done today. The checks are written and ready to go in the mail. Some other things still need doing like taking care of the April weather records. After the wet start to the month, I still think we came up short of the rainfall record for the month. I think the temperature was above normal as it has been for most months the past few years now. I have to upload my April QSOs. Also some other things like flipping the calendar pages, etc. and I'll be set for another month.
I took some time out to check the bands today. They were a little more active today, but nothing exotic heard here. I made one Special Event 1X1 call QSO with W7Q and that was it. -30-
Monday Apr 29 9:10PM - One of those days when nothing much happened. My neighbor Brian cut my graas. That's about the only news. The ham bands again didn't have much to offer. No QSOs during the day an just a couple streak QSOs this evening from MN and TN to keep the streak going. -30-
Sunday Apr 28 7:36PM - Some interesting QSOs today thanks to some good propagation. At 2057Z on 20 I worked LY4Y easily with 900mW. Then I tried IQ4FH with 900mW, but no luck. I did get him with 2 watts easily though. Then later this evening at 2305Z it was 3G0YA on 10M. A new band for 3G0YA so I used 5 watts although it was so easy I could probably have gotten him with 900mW or less. OK, I blew that chance at a mW QSO with Easter Island, but wait, here he is again on 15M, but I worked him there the other day. Oh well, he is kind of going begging for QSOs. Let's go to 900mW and give a try. Bingo, first call, he got WWP, so I sent K3WWP again and completed the QSO. That's a distance of 5071.5 miles or 5,635 miles per watt. I checked and Easter Island is a new overall mW country here which makes 91 mw countries I believe.
I was again planning to do a full SST tonight, but after all that, I'm not sure now.
It was closest to our warmest day of the year so far today with a high around 80. More info on that at 9:00 when I get my daily readings. Now I'm going to run and decide if I do a complete SST, a partial one, or just use it for my streak QSO. -30-
Saturday Apr 27 8:36PM - The bands were kind of up and down today, but I blame it on overall activity, and not overall propagation. The FL QSO Party livened up the bands with very strong signals. That led me to believe propagation was very good for those who decided to get on the CW bands.
I only worked a couple FL stations although I could have had a lot more had I wanted to. That was this evening. This afternoon I got a couple QSOs in the UK/EI Contest including TF3IRA and HA4FB. TF3IRA was a new recorded country on the 705, #67 now. HA4FB I just worked because it seemed he was having trouble making QSOs at least when I was listening to him. To close out the day I had a nice visit with Jim WB9HDH on 30 meters.
It was a nice weather day again so I got in a couple good length walks to take advantage. I stopped at Sprankle's this evening mainly to see who was working. It was Bryanna. I also picked up a few items while I was there.
I almost forgot about my laundry this evening and just got it started a few minutes ago. -30-
Friday Apr 26 8:48PM - Things were really rough tonight. Finally had to resort to working a POTA for the streak, WB0RLJ on 30M. Conditions were rough early this afternoon also, but then picked up for a while around 2200Z. I worked a couple more AO75 stations for a total of 10 different ones now.
I did some more lawn work today in the nice weather. I also went for two mile+ walks, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. I even sat in the park for a while in the first walk. Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit on the rainy side so may not get to do many outdoor activities. We'll see. -30-
Thursday Apr 25 7:37PM - The bands were a bit better today. Signals were stronger although still not that many of them. I made 3 QSOs. A special Canadian call VE7RCAF celebrating 100 years of service of the Royal Canadian Air Force. That was on 10 meters. Shortly after that a short rag chew with Ed W4ELP in VA on 30M. We've worked several times before. We were both QRP. Conditions weren't all that good with QSB and QRN. Next the catch of the day so far. I didn't really need Easter Island, but like Liberia several days ago, I was just determined to work them, 3G0YA to prove again I can break big pileups with my minimal QRP signals. It took a while but thanks to the setup for split op in the 705, I found the spot in the wide pileup he was listening to, plopped down there and I was about the 7th or so station he worked after that.
Now in a few minutes I'll find out what streak time brings.
Otherwise today I spent time outside in the nice cool dry spring air. I did some edging of my front and back lawns with the battery powered trimmer I got last year. I didn't get too much time with it last year and I'm still getting the hang of it this year and liking it more and more. After that, I deadheaded my tulips so they will put more energy into getting the bulbs ready for next spring. Then I went for a walk this evening of a little over a mile. No shopping, just walking. -30-
Wednesday Apr 24 7:30PM - Just about the same time tonight for diary writing as last night. Band conditions and time getting to the shack also similar to last night. Not as much activity as last night and I only had one QSO, albeit a very interesting one. First of all it was a solid 2XQRP QSO that lasted for 28 minutes. It was with the youngest ham I've worked in a while at 44 years of age. Who? Jordan AB2T. Despite the age difference, we had similar ham careers. Both started off on CW with a straight key. Both used tube rigs for most of our hamming for many years. A lot of other similarities that provided a lot to talk about to make for a great rag chew style QSO on 30 meters.
I say from time to time in the diary how much I like rag chewing. I'm just thinking back now and rag chewing has figured prominently in my hamming ever since day 1. I also have gotten into many other ham interests like county hunting, contesting, DXing, awards hunting, among other things, but I always have enjoyed good rag chews along the way as a complement to those activities. Just like writing these diary entries, I enjoy talking about various activities using CW on the air.
When I tune in to big contests, it makes me wonder how many of the big contesters ever sit down at a key (not a computer or keyboard) and enjoy a good rag chew. I know that some of them do because I've done so with them. Most recently I wrote about the great rag chew I had with Lloyd KH6LC. Also John K4BAI and I have a rag chew now and then. There are others also. In fact too many to list here for fear of leaving someone out. But the majority seem to only fire up the rigs for contesting. Nowadays also there are many who only turn on the rig to work a POTA, SOTA, or DX station.
Well, I am not going to dwell any longer on that because I think I've made my point. I think my point also points out why the CW bands seem to be getting more and more empty in non-contest or non dxpedition times. How about firing up those rigs and just talk with other hams about whatever comes to mind. I'm sure you'll find it as interesting as I do. Now I'm heading off to the shack in a few minutes to get my streak QSO. Hopefully it will be a good rag chew, but if not, I'll take a contest, DX, POTA, etc. QSO in its place. -30-
Tuesday Apr 23 7:32PM - It was an interesting day on the bands today. Unfortunately I didn't get to the shack till later in the afternoon as I was busy with other things like some banking, shopping, and walking among others that occupied my time. When I did get on the air around 2130Z I found conditions to be good with more activity than the past few days, but still not all that much. I quickly worked AO75EX on a single call on 15M to add another AO75 call to my collection. Shortly after that I heard HR9/AD8J and noted I hadn't recorded Honduras on the 705 yet so I worked him easily on the second or third call and did remember to turn on the recorder. HI Then the same thing with FY5KE and French Guiana whom I worked recently but that time I forgot to turn on the recorder. Today I remembered. Now I have QSOs with 67 countries recorded. Should have more, but I forget to turn on the recorder. I am getting more used to it now. I think there is a way to automatically start the recorder but if so, I don't know it yet. Anyway I don't want to record every QSO, just selected ones like new countries and the like.
After a break to walk Roscoe and a couple other things, I went back to the shack and tried some CQs on the higher bands. Roy W7HJL answered me on 12M and we had a nice chat. He is 83, so we've both been around a long time. We chatted about our early days in ham radio in the 1950s and 1960s. It was very interesting and it is nice to reg chew like that when the TU 599 73 QSOs get boring. Not to demean them, but actually talking with someone about various topics is very enjoyable. That QSO with Roy lasted 20 minutes, the longest 12M QSO I've had since I don't know when, if ever.
Hope the bands are as good in about 12 minutes when it will be time for the streak QSO. -30-
Monday Apr 22 7:23PM - Another of those kind of nothing going on days today despite the nice weather. Well, I shouldn't say nothing going on. Perhaps nothing out of the ordinary. My neighbor cut my grass again today and I helped sweep up afterwards. While we were doing that, we had a nice rag chew about various things. One thing in particular was that we both enjoy fishing and neither of us has gone fishing for a couple years. Me just getting old and losing interest. Him because he has a couple young boys to take care of while their mother works at Sprankle's. So we may try to remedy that sometime this year and head to the river when time permits.
I also continued some spring cleaning I started a couple days ago. Today I cleaned out a corner where I keep my telescopes and some of my model train stuff. I plan to do things like that every day or two till I get most of the house cleaned better than it was.
As far as radio, a check of the bands a couple times revealed pretty much nothing except for a medium pileup chasing something on 12M. I never could hear what they were chasing and those doing the chasing weren't all that strong and mostly from EU.
I also went for a couple walks to enjoy the weather. One a little over a mile and the other about a half mile with a shopping stop at Sprankle's along the way.
Next up is my streak QSO in about a half hour. Hope the bands cooperate. -30-
Sunday Apr 21 7:08PM - 19:43, 19:08. Huh? Oh those are the times for my 2 one-mile walks today. 2 of the very few times I've been under 20 minutes for a mile since last fall some time. I've been slowing down as I age and most mile times are in the 21 and 22 minute ranges of late. So maybe that's a good sign. I don't know why I'm speeding up again, but it feels good. Hope I can keep it up (or down).
Lousy bands again today. Virtually dead with what signals I am hearing being very weak ones. Not even much activity in the CQMM as there was yesterday. Once again I have been thinking of doing a full SST sprint this evening, but not if conditions are like they were this afternoon. I might even struggle to get my streak QSO. Well probably not as there are always at least a few workable stations in the SST sprint.
P.S. - Just fooled around in the SST. Got one QSO on each of 4 bands. 15-WA5PFJ, 20-KD5J, 40-NM2A, 80-K1EBY. Didn't hear anyone on 160 or 10. -30-
Saturday Apr 20 7:43PM - The bands were a little more active today. I don't know if it was propagation conditions or activity brought on by the several contests going on, especially the CQMM contest which is one of the more popular ones these days. I got in it on 10 meters a couple times today and was pleased to find the QSOs easy to make most of the time.
Otherwise today it was a shopping trip to Family Dollar early in the day, and just now I finished folding and putting away my weekly laundry. I'm not sure how it evolved from a Monday morning thing through Sunday evening and now to Saturday evening, but it has. HI
Now it's just a few minutes till streak time. With all the contests going on, it should be easy to get my streak QSO in one of them. -30-
Friday Apr 19 8:42PM - And the streak goes on. Well, that streak also, but I was referring to the streak of poor conditions or lack of activity on the CW bands. Today seemed even worse. Virtually nothing heard on the CW bands from 15-10 meters. A couple weak stations on 17 and 20. That covers what I heard today in 2 or 3 checks at various times this afternoon. Actually even the SST didn't do much to help the activity, just a few weak sigs on 20 and 40. At least I did get my streak QSO this evening from KR4AE down in GA on 30 meters, a 2XQRP QSO with very deep QSB both ends.
At least it was a nice day for walking. I enjoyed the weather in a couple long outdoor walks. It was in the mid-60s which is just about an ideal walking temperature. -30-
Thursday Apr 18 5:46PM - The bands were virtually devoid of CW signals from 20 through 10 meters in a couple of checks this afternoon. I finally did get a QSO late this afternoon from VE3MM on 30 meters. It is really sad the condition the bands are in lately. Where are all the CW operators anyway? They still come out in droves for sprints, contests, POTA, SOTA, etc., but doesn't anyone like to just rag chew besides a few of us dedicated CW ops?
It was a beautiful cool partly cloudy day today which gave me a chance to work on the lawns to finish up the mowing job of Tuesday with some edging and trimming with my battery powered trimmer. Really nice to be outside in this beautiful time of year when it's not too cold nor too hot.
I might just go for a walk after I take Roscoe out a little bit later. -30-
Wednesday Apr 17 5:24PM - Thought I'd write this early today. I just got home from our subpedition with Mike and Ken about an hour or less ago. The bands were pretty poor as they have been of late. Mike arrived a little past 8:30 and we passed some time before leaving for the Requin. A little too much time maybe, since we were late getting there. Ken was already there and we greeted Art at the sub entrance and chatted with him a bit before heading to the radio room to join Ken.
We brought my keyer and it took a while to get it set up. Ken hadn't made any QSOs in the short time he was there. After the keyer was set up, we got into full swing in the operation. It sure has been nice having the keyer to call CQ for us the last few subpeditions. Sure saves wear and tear on us. HI Things started out somewhat slowly with Mike as the OP. He worked the following listed by band and in time order:
KC2EGL:
40 W4SYV FL, W8CCC FL, W2MJT AL, KQ4PJB VA, N8XMS MI, K3NF VA
20: NN0TE MN
In between the QSOs and during the QSOs, we had a good time greeting the visitors passing by the radio room. There were a lot of school kids, most of who were early grade school with one big class of high schoolers. Of course accompanied by adult teachers and parents. I also had a chance to have a couple of good chats (rag chews?) with Art, the sub caretaker, and Auri, one of the tour hosts.
With activity dying down even more from its already low level, we decided to close up the station and head home around 2:00PM. Ken went his way, and Mike and I headed to Applebees for a meal, of course. Then back home to Kittanning for me with Mike continuing on to Brookville. All in all it was a very good day, and good to have Ken along. -30-
Tuesday Apr 16 8:40PM - It wasn't a new country or even band-country, but I got a stubborn streak about working A8OK for some reason, and tonight I made it after only 2 or 3 other stations on 30M, no repeats either way. Interesting how that works. You try and try, and then it is as easy as working your next door neighbor. Well, besides satisfying my stubborness, it is a new prefix for my records. And of course yet another streak day in the books.
It was also a day for accomplishing other things. I got my second half of the month bills paid and on their way in the mail. Also my neighbor cut my grass. I decided it was time to have someone else do that chore. I still clean up the yards otherwise though. I pruned my rose bushes. I got the yard ready for mowing moving the sump pump hoses, a statue, a couple little solar powered butterfly gadgets, etc. I swept up the grass clippings from my and my neighbor's sidewalks after he finished. So I'm not fully retiring from yard work just yet. HI.
As I mentioned in yesterday's diary entry, Mike and I are off to the Requin for the first subpedition of the year tomorrow. Hope to work you.
Overall, besides the A8OK QSO, the bands were pretty poor today. I don't know if it was propagation or just lack of activity on CW. -30-
Monday Apr 15 8:44PM - Happy(?) Tax Day. After the big 18 QSO day a couple days ago, I've now gotten one QSO a day the past couple days. Well, I may get more today, but conditions will have to be better than they have been those last couple days.
Not a lot going on today. It was a beautiful day after all the rain the past day or so. Sunny and warm in the mid 70s. Ideal for the two walks I took although the wind was pretty strong and I could feel myself getting blown around like a high impact vehicle. HI.
I also did a little outside cleaning up, mainly picking a lot of maple seedlings out of the cracks in my sidewalk.
Inside I did some work in my shack, mainly rewiring a ground connection.
One final thing. Mike and I will be doing a subpedition on this Wednesday. The usual routine. Arriving around 10AM or 1400Z, operating until 1800Z or so depending on activity on or near 7042, 10117, and 14061 +/- QRM from POTA, SOTA, etc. No fixed time for each band. Just will depend on activity. We'll be using the sub call of NY3EC. Ken N3AFS will be accompanying us. Hope you'll try to work us and be successful at it.
And that's it. Time to get the weather readings now. -30-
Sunday Apr 14 8:14PM - We're somewhat in the midst of a line of thunderstorms right now. So far most of the worst of the line has passed to our north, but there is more coming and it may be coming closer to us now. So we'll see what happens.
Not a lot to talk about in the diary today. Band checks revealed the bands to be pretty quiet unlike yesterday. About the only activity was from a few state QSO parties, mostly the Georgia one.
I got a quick streak QSO a little while ago from WA0I, then I QRT. -30-
Saturday Apr 13 8:50PM - I spent more time on the air today outside of days of big DX contests than I have in probably a good many years. Maybe since I got the KX3 some 11-12 years ago. Conditions were great and there were several contests going on. Overall I got 18 QSOs on 40-10 meters except 17. 4 in the Yuri Gagarin test, 1 in the NMQP, 8 in the JIDX Japan test, ! in the NDQP, and 4 otherwise including IQ4FH on 900 mW on 15, Special call LZ543BN on 12, and LY4I on 20. Plus 2 ragchews. WHEW. All that led to some extra work getting the QSOs in my computer log. Kind of like cooking where the cooking is easy, but cleaning up the dishes, pots, and pans afterward is the real work. HI.
It was a lot of fun especially since I still get a little extra kick out of working Russia and Japan because many years ago it was very hard for me to get my first QSO from each of those countries and now I have at least 2-3 hundred with each one.
Right now I'm doing the laundry and have to get my weather readings also, so I better close here. Oh, it was a blustery day today with winds gusting into the 30 MPH range so I didn't go out much except to walk Roscoe. -30-
Friday Apr 12 8:30PM- An impromptu day with Mike today. He texted me this morning saying he had the day off since the golf course was closed because of the excessive rain. He wanted to know if I wanted to go to Pittsburgh to the Apple and Best Buy stores with him. I didn't really need anything, but I figured it would be a chance to do something outside my usual daily routine. Also my neighbor has been wanting to get a computer, but didn't have the money today. So this would give me an idea of what Best Buy would have to suit what exactly he wants later. We left sometime around 12:30 and went to Apple first where Mike updated his iPhone. Then off to Best Buy where Mike shopped around for a printer and found what he wanted and got it. I took pictures of the little spec cards with the HP computers and will study them later. Back here to Kittanning after a stop at Chili's for a meal. I forget what Mike's was called, something like a "Triple" something or other. I had a delicious Santa Fe Chicken Salad. Both meals were huge, but we finished them. I don't really feel stuffed. Maybe one more bite would have put me over the stuffed point. It was close. HI
This evening a couple of quick rag chews for my streak with K4VSV and W1FSY. Now time to get the weather readings. I looked at the rain gauge earlier and it showed around 1.15 inches today to go with about 1.5 inches yesterday. At that point, the April total was already 6.93 inches. -30-
Thursday Apr 11 11:30AM - Here is a post-mortem on the eclipse. First two pictures taken very closely of the same scene out my back window when the sun peeked out briefly from the cloud cover. The first one is at or very close to the maximum coverage of the sun by the moon. The second one a couple hours later when the amount of cloud coverage was similar. There is a noticeable difference in illumination as you can see here.
Below those pictures is one taken by my friend Tom W3TLN in Sarver, PA about 12 miles south of here at the moment of greatest coverage. That is virtually the same as what I was seeing here projecting the image through one half my binoculars onto a piece of white card stock. Unfortunately (or poor planning), I didn't have enough hands to hold everything steady to take a picture. Had the prediction been for a clear blue sky, I would have set up something better or had I been able to go to the path of totality, I would have had something better as well. As it was, this was just another one of a few partial solar eclipses I have seen. Of which, some have also been plagued with cloud cover. You can see the clouds well in Tom's picture.
So it's over now and I never will get to see a total solar eclipse, barring travel to some distant location since the next time a path of totality will touch Earth in Pennsylvania will be in October 2144.
I have had better luck with lunar eclipses since they cover much more territory. Back in the 1950s and/or 1960s, I even submitted observations to Sky and Telescope magazine. But that's another story, as another friend Tom used to say at WPIT when he would whet our appetites with an interesting tidbit about something or other. HI
Here now the pictures
-30-
Wednesday Apr 10 8:30PM - An interesting day in some ways and kind of boring in other ways. It was a nice weather day suitable for being outdoors. I took a walk for a while and wound up in Sprankle's where I picked us some groceries for actually the first of four times today. Then I fooled around on the bands for a couple times early in the afternoon with no luck. When Bruce got home from work, he took me to pick up my Senior Food Box. On the way home we stopped for my second time at Sprankle's, then at Family Dollar to conclude my food procuring trips for the day.
Back home again and on the bands for a while. After last night at Skyview fooling around with QRPp, I thought I'd try to go below 5 watts and see what I could work here. CT9/UR9IDX was booming in on 17 and I tried him at 500 mW, but no luck. I should have tried a few more times though as I got him easily when I went to One Watt.
That kind of whetted my appetite for QRPp since I hadn't done any for a while. I was just looking to refresh my mind how many mW countries I have worked and the last time I totalled them, it was 90. I think I'll work on that some more now since the bands should be in great shape for mW now. We'll see... maybe. -30-
Tuesday Apr 9 10:00PM - A day with Mike. He arrived around 3:30PM. We discussed DX for a while, then off to Subway for dinner. After that, off to Skyview for a club meeting. I mostly just played with the radio room setup, learning a little more about it as I do each meeting. Tonight I set it all up myself and then made several QSOs - KD3KO, N4LQ, AO75CM, DK8OL, E71A, 9K2MU, and after 0000Z, KC3RN for my streak QSO and my NAQCC Sprint QSO. All QSOs were with 5 watts. All except KC3RN using the K3MJW club call. I used my call with KC3RN for a CW/QRP/Simple wire antenna QSO in my K3WWP log. The other QSOs go in my "Other Calls" log. I let Mike work 9K2MU before I did since it was a new country for him and I worked 9K2MU at home a couple weeks ago. Other than the QSOs, I enjoyed fellowshipping with some of the club members which is always enjoyable. Now I've got to close here and finish some things before bedtime. -30-
Monday Apr 8 8:20PM - The day of the great eclipse. I hope it panned out well for you. It was OK, but far from what might have been. First I had to settle for a partial eclipse since I didn't have any way to get to the path of totality even though it wasn't that far away. Since I didn't make it this time, if I want to see a total eclipse in my lifetime, I'll have to go on one of the eclipsepeditions to some more distant spot than anyplace here in PA. The next total solar eclipse with any portion of the totality path in PA is in October of 2144. Another negative this time was the weather. Of the roughly 2 1/2 hours the path existed here, perhaps the sky was free of clouds only a total of 10 minutes or so and never more than a few seconds at a time. Very hard to get any pictures with a pinhole projector or binoculars projection, so I have no pictures to remember it by. There were a couple brief openings near maximum coverage and I got a nice view with the binoculars projection. It was too hard to hold both the binoculars and the camera steady though. I really should have prepared things better. I should have gotten out my 4 inch reflector telescope and used it for a projector. That would have provided a steady image I could have photographed like I did several years ago with the transit of Mercury. However I didn't think there would be much of a chance for longer periods of clear skies, so I just left the scope inside which with the weather was probably a good idea. So that was the disappointing story here. One thing though, that (at 97.5%) was the closest I've come to a total solar eclipse. Oh and one other thing I did notice at maximum coverage an eerie darkening of the landscape. I got a picture but it didn't really show the effect, even when compared to a picture at full sun.
The bands weren't all that good today. I did finally get a station from Cuba recorded on the 705 though when I worked CO8ZZ. I still have a lot of other "easy" countries to record also. I think Cuba was country #63 now. I don't have my list at hand right now. Tonight I resorted to a POTA QSO for the streak from WD4AWD. And that wraps up this entry just in time to get my weather report. -30-
Sunday Apr 7 6:01PM - A busy day today with a lot of little chores accomplished that I am not going to bore you by listing. After the chores were done, I took a trip to the shack and was glad I did. DX was good on the higher bands, mainly 17 and 15. I had one good catch in HB0/OH2YL on 15. I've only worked HB0 23 times. Last time excluding today was on 10/1/2015. All were HB0/***** portable stations. I also worked another AO75 station, this time AO75CM. And IQ4FH. Heard a lot more that I didn't try working. I recorded the HB0 QSO and it's also a new country for the IC705. #62 recorded and #97 toward an IC705 DXCC
Another chance tonight to do a full SST, but right now, I don't feel like it. Maybe that will change. Bands seem pretty good. If they stay that way....... -30-
Saturday Apr 6 8:43PM - Not a lot going on today. One big thing, taking Roscoe to the groomer. While waiting for that to finish, we had a good breakfast at a local restaurant named Valley Dairy. Sounds kind of like an ice cream parlor or something like that. However it is a full restaurant. I had a full breakfast of scrambled eggs, French toast, and sausage. Mmmmm.
Not a lot of activity on the bands other than a couple state QSO parties, the Poland DX contest, some POTA action. I did find a good rag chew finally with Dave N5EEI whom I haven't worked since 2009.
This evening it was my laundry, some March Madness, and a couple contest QSOs for the streak. -30-
Friday Apr 5 8:47PM - A better all around day today. I had quite a bit of ambition from somewhere. I did my state and federal income taxes on Turbo Tax today. That's four years in a row now I've gone with Turbo Tax. It certainly is the easy way to go. It took about 45 mins to compile the info from my tax forms. Then after the Turbo Tax forms were completed and uploaded to the Federal and State offices, they were received and confirmed within an hour. Neat.
Then I gave my bedroom/shack a good dusting. I read somewhere that there are a lot of human cells in the makeup of dust. If that's true, I could probably have made up a new human, I gathered so much dust today. HI
This evening I added AO75CL on 40 meters to my collection of AO75 QSOs. That went quickly, so I hung around a while looking for some other DX or maybe a rag chew, but no luck, so I QRT. -30-
Thursday Apr 4 9:11PM - This was a Murphy's Law day for me. I'm not going to go into any detail. Let that first sentence suffice to describe things.
At least the bands were good today. I added to my AO75... stations and now have 7 of them. I also had a chat with OE5CSP. I worked GS8VL and thought it was a new prefix, but I have GS8VL in my log a few years ago. Tonight I got CQ75URE for another URE anniversary related station. Then I recorded a new country QSO on the 705 when I worked V4/G0TLE. That's #61 towards my goal of recording 100 country QSOs.
OK, let's let today go at that and see if tomorrow is any better. HI -30-
Wednesday Apr 3 12:44PM - The number of the day is 61. Yes it was 61 years ago today my ham radio license as shown here was issued by the FCC:
Of course I didn't get the license in the mail until a few days later. No instant gratification in those pre-Internet days. In fact, my first QSO didn't come until 5 days later on the 8th with KN3WWW, my high school friend with whom I took my Novice examination a couple weeks before. Then we worked again the next day. No more QSOs until the 21st, when I worked Art K3HGD, another local Kittanning ham. Finally I broke out of Pennsylvania when I worked WN9GAR in WI on the 22nd. Things continued to go slow through the rest of April and never picked up until May 9. From then through the end of May as I learned my way around, I got 41 QSOs in my log. A glance shows my most distant QSO in that time was WN5FQV in Dallas, TX. After that, things continued to roll to this day, and I now have 97,534 QSOs in my KN3WWP/K3WWP log plus 6,396 QSOs using other calls besides KN3WWP/K3WWP for a total of 103,930. Whew! Wonder how many dots and dashes of CW that involves?!!
Back to the present, DX was very good today on 17 through 12. Picking and choosing, I worked AO75AR, AO75CL, 9A24WAW, AO75PA, and AO75GA. I could have gotten a lot more, but didn't feel like running up the total to make more work transferring from my shack paper log to computer which I have to do now for these 5 QSOs. Getting lazy in my old age, I guess.
Looks like it's raining again to add to our total of 3.59 inches so far in April. So maybe no walk today, but I'll find something to do. -30-
Tuesday Apr 2 7:38PM - Not too much going on today besides watching the rain. At least so far we didn't get the deluge that was predicted, but we still have to make it through tonight and part of tomorrow. Last night and early today we got 1.75 inches of rain which isn't really all that bad considering....
Otherwise in between the showers I went for a walk and got a couple things at Family Dollar. Just a little while ago, I brought my small telescope down from its storage room to get ready for the eclipse. Looks like I'll be watching it from here at home where it will not be total, but about 97% total leaving a small crescent uncovered. I would have loved to see totality, but that just didn't work out barring a last minute miracle. So I guess I'll have gone through life missing a total solar eclipse. The next one with the path of totality covering part of PA is, I believe, in 2144. There are many others before that, but a long trip to their path of totality would be necessary. I have seen some other astronomical events that are pretty rare along the way like a Transit of Mercury, Transit of Venus, Halley's Comet, other long period comets, some nice Auroral displays, a quasar, a nova, among others. So I guess I can't complain since I was lucky enough to see all those things.
As for the eclipse Monday, I'll have my scope set up in projection mode to project an image of the sun on a homemade screen. I did that for the Mercury Transit several years ago and it worked well. I put some pictures of the setup and the transit in the diary. Let's see if I can find a date if you would like to look at it. Look in the diary archives for May 9, 2016. You have to look carefully to see Mercury as the pictures didn't turn out as well as the actual view of Mercury.
OK, streak time now, so 73. More about the eclipse, etc. in the next few entries. -30-
Monday Apr 1 11:30AM - Happy April Fool's Day. Don't let anyone get you today!
I just put my March weather data into my weather spreadsheet and since a lot of you also enjoy weather records and comments, here goes.
March was another quite warm month. The departure from normal for the daily Min, Max, and mean were respectively +7.1, +6.2, and + 6.7 degrees. It was a somewhat wet month with a departure of +0.57 inches of precipitation. For the year so far the departure is +2.52 inches. Only a couple of daily records were tied. High maximum temperature on the 4th tied 1976 at 76 degrees and high minimum temperature on the 9th tied 2000 at 44 degrees. That's it. -30-
Sunday Mar 31 7:08PM - Hope you all had a Happy Easter. I did here, a nice quiet one, all to myself except for a little time spent with Bruce, Jeff, and Roscoe. That's the way I like it. I'm not one for big crowds of people. I think the ideal relationship among people is a simple one on one contact. Maybe that's why I like CW so much. It lends itself very well to one/one contacts. That is unless you like nets or roundtable QSOs, which I don't at all.
I also went for a little under a mile walk today in the nice weather before a week of rain comes starting tonight. A stop at Family Dollar was included to pick up a couple things.
Other than that, I've been following March Madness. There's an upset in the making with 3:45 left and NC State over Duke trying to become (I believe) the 6th #11 seed to make it to the final four and maybe repeat in a way their championship of 1983 with coach Jim Valvano. I still remember that championship game like it was yesterday. The Derek Wittenberg missed shot (he claimed it was a pass) that Lorenzo Charles grabbed and dunked to win the game 54-52 and sent Valvano all over the court to find someone to hug. A great moment in basketball (sports of any kind?) history. Under two minutes now and NC State up by 12.
Don't think I'll do a full effort in the SST tonight. A bit tired (mentally) from a busy day. -30-
Saturday Mar 30 6:67PM - Once again, I'm thinking of doing a full effort in the SST Sprint tomorrow night. Whether I'll make it or not is still up in the air. I did get a little encouragement from watching Mike do the Friday SST from my station. Whether that will last or not, we'll see tomorrow evening.
Not a lot going on today. I just finished my laundry a few minutes ago. It rained a lot today and ruined my desire to get in a mile walk. So I just did some inside work with some stats on March Madness and ham radio. It's supposed to be a rainy week here which isn't a good thing for doing much outside. -30-
Friday Mar 29 7:40PM - Mike just left after another good day together. He arrived around 3:15PM or so and we chatted for a while and watched some "buzzer beater" highlights from the NCAA tournaments and some high school basketball. We went to the shack a little before 4PM so Mike could get on the SST from my rig. He made 12 QSOs, all on 20M, I believe. When the SST ended, we headed to the fire hall for the fish dinner. We got there at a good time with no waiting in line at all. I guess next year we'll have to remember to leave here a couple minutes after 5PM. Or maybe the good fortune today had to do with it being Good Friday. I don't know, but it was nice not to stand in line. Back home again and we played some computer games until Mike headed home just a few minutes before the time stamp on this entry. Now in a few more minutes I'll head to the shack for the streak QSO. The bands were good earlier in the day. Not as good as yesterday, but I did hear some DX on the higher bands and worked SM5CAK easily on 10 meters. -30-
Thursday Mar 28 7:01PM - March Madness is about to start up again, so I thought I'd get my diary entry taken care of now. The bands were good today for a change. A lot of EU DX on 15 thru 10 in the afternoon and good rag chewing on 30 later in the afternoon. I worked IZ3NYG, S53V, IZ0AEZ, AND SP2XF ON 10. Then SP73VOT on 15 for a new prefix. Later the rag chews were with KB4MNG in NC, then AG4EA in SC. I think it was AG4EA who was using the K4, and I mentioned that my friend Tom WB3FAE had a K4 and I had used it and thought it was a nice rig although overkill for my CW/QRP operating. Of course that made me think of Tom and coincidentally when I was out walking Roscoe a little later who pulled up in their car but Tom and wife Debbie and we chatted a few minutes. They were just driving around town while their relative was working at the YMCA here in town, then heading back home to Chicora.
It was a nice day otherwise also. I went for a mile walk outside in the low 50s degree weather under bright sunshine.
OK, now that's it. I'm going to follow MM now. -30-
Wednesday Mar 27 9:02PM - I really love rag chewing and I had a 41 minute one tonight with Rick KC4KNN on 30M. 30 has provided a lot of good solid rag chews of late. There seems to be very little QSB on that band no matter the time of day. The only negative thing, and I'm not complaining in the least, just stating facts, is that these long rag chews kind of mess up my late evening schedule, especially those that come in the streak hour. So I'm going to have to cut this entry short again.
It was a beautiful day today with sun and a high in the mid 60s. I took about a mile and a quarter walk with a stop at Family Dollar. Then after I got home, I sat with Roscoe on the swing for over a half an hour. It is really nice to have this early spring this year, and last year also.
Mike and I are going to the last Lenten Fish Dinner this year on Friday. Then we'll be doing something for the solar eclipse on April 8 depending on the weather. Climatological records show only around a 20% chance of clear to partly cloudy skies anywhere around here, so the outlook isn't all that good as of right now. Here in Kittanning, the eclipse will be about 97% full. That prediction can be taken to the bank. HI -30-
Tuesday Mar 26 7:44PM - I've decided on a plan of action for my "Most Memorable QSOs" story. I'm going to post it here as it stands as of now. Then I'll continue to work on it and make a regular web site page of it, probably to post in the QRP section of the site. That will be some time in the future, hopefully before the end of 2024. Just how soon depends on time available here and interest shown in the story by you, my readers.
OK, here goes:
First QSOs on a new band are always memorable for that reason. I am going to simply list them all here in two sections. The first section my overall first QSO, some of which came with a different definition of QRP power (<100 watts input power to the final) or a local QSO here in Kittanning (or both). The second section the first non-local QSO with the current definition of QRP as 5 watts output power. All QSOs in both sections were with simple wire antennas.
160 - See next section
80 - Oct 20, 1963 - W2KAK - NJ - 75W
60 - Feb 08, 2013 - WY3H - PA - Kittanning
40 - Apr 08, 1963 - KN3WWW - PA - Kittanning
30 - Nov 09, 1982 - KW8J - OH - 12W
20 - Oct 06, 1963 - VE7BMW - BC - 75W
17 - See next section
15 - Aug 03, 1963 - KZ5EHN - CNZ - 75W
12 - See next section
10 - Dec 28, 1994 - KB3BFQ - PA - Next door neighbor
6 - Jun 28, 2008 - VE2008VQ - QC - TS480 accidentally set to 100W
160 - Feb 15, 1995 - K3KLC - MD
80 - Sep 04, 1964 - WA8HDU - OH
60 - Feb 09, 2013 - K8JD - MI
40 - Sep 04, 1963 - K9FZU - IN
30 - Feb 18, 1993 - KA8WOG - MI
20 - Mar 26, 1993 - AB4HA - FL
17 - Apr 22, 1994 - HK3DDD - COL
12 - Jun 28, 1995 - K0OSW - MN
10 - Apr 23, 1995 - KN4Y - FL
6 - Jun 29, 2008 - W0GKP - MN
The following two sections need editing and merging, but I'm leaving them as they are for now.
May 9, 1963 - W9RQF - First QSO with someone who devoted himself to helping Novices as I was then.
Jul 18, 1963 - VP7ACF - First DX QSO.
Dec 14, 1963 - K4HSB/KH6 - First Hawaii QSO and a very excited KN3WWP.
Mar 14, 1964 - W9KSE - First of many memorable QSOs with Sue W9KSE.
Jun 2, 1964 - ZL1HY - Answered my 40 meters CQ followed by a 23 minute rag chew.
Jul 5, 1994 - 4Z4DX - First Asian to complete WAC.
Jul 30, 1995 - RW0A -First ever Asiatic Russian QSO.
May 10, 1996 - VK6HQ - from Perth answered my 30M QSO from about as far from Kittanning as it gets on Earth.
Jun 12, 1996 - W4HG - We worked on all bands 10 through 80. 160 too noisy.
Nov 24, 1996 - JA3ZOH - First JA station after failing many times before. Now near 300 QSOs with Japan.
Sep 1, 1999 - KO1C - First ever QSO with a commercial xmtr (xcvr), TS570D.
Nov 28, 1999 - VQ9IO - A QSO from a very remote part of the world.
Apr 28, 2000 - VK0MM - Another QSO from a rare country in a remote part of the world.
Dec 29, 2000 - TA3D - Answered my 30 meters CQ to my surprise.
Nov 30, 2003 - SU9NC - First Egypt worked portable from my late cousin's house.
Feb 21, 2004 - D4B - Worked on 80 through 10 meters in the ARRL DX Contest.
Aug 25, 2006 - WA8REI - First worked Ken exactly 40 years earlier on Aug 25, 1966.
Feb 22, 2009 - KH6MB KH6LC - First ever Hawaii on 80 with 5 watts. (K4HSB/KH6 was 50 watts or so back in 1963).
Jul 26, 2009 - VK6DXI - Wkd on 40 meters before sunset here.
Nov 26, 2011 - WL7E - Alaska completes WAS with QRPp mW power.
May 30, 2014 WA4FAT - Similar to WA8REI above, but 50 years earlier on May 30, 1964.
Aug 27, 2014 - W1AW/1 - Completed the W1AW Centennial WAS with Maine.
Feb 9, 2015 - K1N - Completed all 50 NA entities.
Nov 28, 1999 - There have been several common DX entities that it took me a lot longer to work than it should have. To mention a couple, Japan, both European and Asiatic Russia, South Africa. Finally I did work them with South Africa coming on November 28, 1999 in the CQWW DX Contest when I very easily worked Chris ZS6EZ. I wrote somewhere about how easy the QSO was. Almost too easy as I said. Apparently Chris read the comments and when I got his QSL card, he had written on it something like "Apologies, next time I won't make it so easy. HI"
Jan 01, 2000 - I've had many QSOs (182 + some with special VE prefixes) with Dave VE3BMR (92) / VA3RJ (90). So at the turn of the Century, I thought it appropriate that he would be my first QSO of the new Millenium. We arranged for a sked at 0000Z on January 1, 2000 on 80 meters, and pulled it off easily. Dave was VA3RJ then. We had our first QSO when he was VE3BMR back on June 4, 1968. We had many other interests in common so there was always something to talk about. Although we contact each other hardly at all lately, we are still good friends. Dave also maintains a web site as I do. Check it out via a Bing search for VA3RJ. I'm sure you will find it very interesting.
Feb 12, 2015 - Worked S01WS for a somewhat rare African country on 30M. Later worked also on 80, 40, and 15 so not as rare as I thought. It was country 223 worked.
May 28, 2016 - Two for one memorable QSOs. I always like working those island countries in the Pacific. This evening in the WPX contest I got 5W1SA and KH8/KC0W within 11 minutes of each other on 15 meters for countries 224 and 225 worked.
Apr 8, 2022 - Mike and I decided to pay a visit to Tom WB3FAE whom we hadn't seen in a while to touch base with him. Also to see his new Elecraft K4 he had been telling us about. When we got there and talked a while, it was off to see the K4. Activity was good that day with a lot of stations being received to show us the features of the rig. Wait a minute though. Wasn't that a C3 call I heard. That would be Andorra for the last European mainstream country I needed. We made sure the rig was set to 5 watts and hooked to a simple wire antenna, and I went after C31CT. It took a little while, but I got him for an overall new entity.
Jul 29, 2023 - After working C31CT as described above, I had 3 European entities left to work, Market Reef, Monk Apollo, and The Sovreign Military Order of Malta. Mike texted me and said Malta was on 30 meters. I thought it was a 9H station and wasn't too excited as I had several of them worked, but I tuned in anyway and located a pileup I felt might be for Malta. After listening a bit, I made out that it was not a 9H station, but the SMOM station 1A0C. That peaked my interest and I set up determined to work a very rare entity. It took numerous calls until I heard 1A0C come back with K3?. Oh boy, I hope that's me. It was as he got K3W? and eventually K3WWP and I had one of my few overall new countries in the past few years.
Sep 9, 2023 - K4A as my first QSO with my new ICOM IC705 rig.
Nov 5, 2023 - It's always a thrill to complete a WAS, WAC, DXCC in some different way. On this date I worked W3ASW in DE to finish a WAS with my new ICOM IC705. This was accompanied 5 days later with a completed WAC as described in the next memorable QSO below.
Nov 10, 2023 - This time it was WAC with my new ICOM IC705 rig when I worked and had a short chat with JM7OLW. Not only a WAC, but always a thrill to have a chat with a DX station, especially one from Japan or Asia in general. I hear Suke often with a great signal from Japan. In this QSO I found out he uses a 9 element beam at 30 meters (98+ feet). No wonder he is so strong and able to copy me solidly in a chat style QSO.
Feb 17, 2024 - This date brought probably the easiest overall new entity I worked in a long time. It was in the ARRL DX Contest that I heard ZD7W strong and just about going begging for QSOs. I gave him one after just a couple tries and got an overall new entity. I had worked many ZD8 stations, but the few times I heard ZD7, the station eluded me, but not this time.
Feb 24, 2024 - I have worked Lloyd KH6LC 56 times, all but one in contests. That one QSO was memorable in that it was an 18 minute rag chew style one. I heard a CQ from Lloyd and answered him expecting a TU 599 style QSO. However I was surprised when Lloyd gave me a "RST next round", QTH as near Hilo, and name Lloyd. I gave him a 569, QTH PA, name John, and we were off on a very interesting exchange of info about our stations, weather, job situation (retired), age, ham career, etc. He seemed to be copying me solidly, perhaps better than I was copying him with my local QRN and a little QSB. He was running a KW to a beam at 85 feet which explains partially how he always copies me easily in ontests. I recorded the QSO on the 705 SD card and went back and listened to it to catch some things I was having trouble copying live. That's a great feature of the 705 to be able to remember memorable QSO from now on.... if I remember to start the recorder. HI. The end (for now). -30-
Monday Mar 25 8:44PM - The bands continue very poor here or at least very empty. Once I get up above 30 and 20, I hear very little lately. those two bands are providing me with most of my QSOs the past week or so. In fact all of my QSOs since I had a QSO on 80 early on the 22nd. The QSOs on 30 and 20 have provided some nice rag chews. Except for OM2VL whom I can work any time I hear him in a contest, and he must enter every contest, the last DX QSO was 9A3A back on the 21st.
It was a beautiful spring day today with a high in the mid 60s under clear skies. I took advantage with two 1+ mile walks with stops at Sprankle's and Family Dollar. It's nice to be able to walk and get my groceries without having to depend on my neighbor to take me to the stores in his van. I hope to be doing a lot more of that, but still save the heavy objects when I get a ride.
The streak tonight was handled by Bill W9VC with a short QSO on 30M. He was QRP 5 watts also when he answered my CQ. We had good copy at 2XQRP for about 10 minutes.
I'm missing my March Madness fix now for a couple days till the round of 16 Thursday and Friday. The round of 32 went according to seed for the most part. Only two upsets in the 16 games. Almost a record, but there have been rounds of 16 with the same or fewer upsets. 1995 and 2012 tied this year with 2 each. There was only one upset in 1989, 2009, 2019. Hmmm, wonder what will happen in 2029? And why didn't it happen in 1999? There were no upsets in 1991 and 1994. Some trivia for you to think about. I just thought to check the LSU Women's basketball result in their March Madness. I follow them because I've always followed Kim Mulkey, their coach since her playing days at Louisiana Tech and her subsequent coaching stints. She is the only person, male or female to have won titles as player, assistant coach, and coach. In her playing days I always felt she was the best point guard I have ever seen to this day, again male or female. Oh, LSU won to make it to the Sweet Sixteen.
It's 9PM. Better get my weather readings. 73. -30-
Sunday Mar 24 7:38PM - Not a lot going on today. I did have a couple outdoor walks just around 1 mile each with a stop at Sprankle's. The bands were pretty quiet, but I did have a nice rag chew with W0SA on 20M. March Madness games today have gone pretty much according to seeding with no upsets in the first 3 games, but 5 games still to come and an upset is brewing in the Clemson-Baylor game. I was thinking of putting in a good effort in the SST tonight, but I'm kind of backing away from that now. I just don't enjoy contesting like I used to except for some big DX contests. -30-
Saturday Mar 23 7:35PM - I just started my laundry a couple minutes ago. I almost forgot about it with March Madness and some other things going on today.
It was a cold day today with a low wind chill that may have been in the teens at times. A good day to stay indoors. There was not much on the bands to pass the time when I wasn't busy with other chores.
Some time ago I promised to update my Most Memorable QSOs info but one thing or other keep pushing that down the list of things to do. Maybe in a lull in March Madness Monday thru Wednesday this coming week, I'll get to it.
The 115 points by a losing team in March Madness is the record as I surmised in yesterday's diary entry. Most for a winning team is 149 by Paul Westhead's Loyola Marymount. They beat Michigan who also scored 115 points in a losing effort. I might take a more detailed look at the run and shoot era one of these days. I really enjoyed that style of basketball where you didn't play much defense but just went out and outscored the other team.
Now I'm just waiting to see when time comes to put the laundry in the dryer or it gets to be 0000Z and time for my streak QSO. -30-
Friday Mar 22 8:25PM - A lot of action today but it can be summed up in not all that many words except my comments on March Madness.
One major project that took quite a bit of time was getting caught up on some paperwork that had been piling up far too long. I got it pretty much done except that some will require getting it in the mail which I will do tomorrow.
Checks of the bands at various times showed little activity and no QSOs until late afternoon when a CQ netted a 36 minute rag chew with Joe AA4JV in Iowa. We had a very interesting talk about our early days of ham radio, our jobs, and other interesting subjects. We both worked in broadcasting, he in TV, and I of course at WPIT AM/FM. This evening I worked OM2VL in the BW contest on 20M, then a short QSO with W1TCD that was cut short by QRM on 30M.
March Madness wasn't too mad today and went pretty much according to seeding except for 3 upsets by Northwestern over Florida Atlantic, Yale over Auburn for some Ivy League happiness, Colorado over Florida 102-100 in a high scoring game that prompted a look through my MM spreadsheet for some high scores by a losing team. Back in the run and shoot days around 1990 plus/minus a few years, Wyoming scored 115 points in a loss to Loyola Marymount's 119. There are more, but that one came to mind after a couple minutes research. UNLV was another high scoring run and shoot team under Jerry Tarkanian in that era. Anyway, that's a total of 7 upsets in the first 24 or so games so far completed. I just really like March Madness, the only sporting event I follow real closely. -30-
Thursday Mar 21 8:26PM - Very poor conditions today carried into this evening as well. However for the 10,823rd day in a row, I still managed to get a QSO with my CW/QRP/Simple wire antenna. It was with Tim WB2KAO up in Rochester, NY on 80 meters. So the streak goes on another day, thank goodness.
March Madness goes on another day for 32 teams after today also. As happens every year, it seems, at least one #11 seed upsets a #6. Today so far there were two such games with about half of the 16 games played. No upsets underway at the moment in the 4 games underway. Nice to see a local Pittsburgh team, Duquesne, be one of the #11 seed upset teams, over BYU, #6 71-67.
Not much else to talk about today as there wasn't much out of the ordinary going on. -30-
Wednesday Mar 20 8:49PM - Just went from NA to NCAA. NAQCC Sprint to NCAA March Madness. Grambling and Montana St in an overtime barn burner.
Got my usual one or two QSOs in the sprint. Two tonight, both from GA, K4KBL and John K4BAI. Before that I got 9A3A for my streak QSO. The bands weren't so hot today again. I did work GC0SP for a new prefix and M0AIA.
Grambling is pulling away in OT, but still a couple minutes left. Going to follow that now. -30-
Tuesday Mar 19 7:19PM - I was just sitting here trying to think of something to write in the diary when I got two emails with the following attachments:
They are QSLs from a QSO I had yesterday with EA8CMY. When I worked him, he sent a couple letters after his call that I couldn't catch because of QSB and QRN. I see now from the QSLs that the letters were EMESCT and EMELP. I caught the EME part and thought it was something to do with Moonbounce. The email said to check QRZ for more info. I haven't done that yet.
In contrast to yesterday, the bands were horrible today. I heard very few station all day except for a brief period this morning when I heard 4L and Z6 stations but couldn't work them. Z6 is an unauthorized prefix for the "Country" of Kosovo. I have one QSO from there in my log from a few years ago if I remember correctly. I have worked 4L before for sure.
The first First Four game is underway with Wagner leading Howard at the half by 38-27. Love this time of year and March Madness, my favorite sporting event. I don't follow college basketball all year, to speak of, then go crazy when the tournament comes along. I've got my Excel spreadsheet all set for all the important stats to be filled in as time goes by. There were two teams entered this year for the first time ever, Stetson and Grambling. I was kind of surprised at Grambling after their success in football over the years. Then local Pittsburgh school Duquesne for the first time since 1977. I'll probably be talking more about the tournament as it goes on into mid-April or so. -30-
Monday Mar 18 7:54PM - Just had another first in ham radio. When Mike was here on Friday, I casually mentioned I had never heard anything on 2 meters. I had never had a rig capable of 2 meter operation until I got the IC705. I asked him for info on the local repeater. He gave me the date, time, and frequency of the weekly(?) net session, and of course I forgot it. Fortunately he texted me to remind me the net was running. I hurried to the shack and heard several checkins, then heard Mike check in. I was surprised how well I could copy because I have nothing close to a 2 meter antenna. I copied about the same on my 6 and 10 meters antennas, and a couple others as well. So a new experience earlier this evening for me. Of course it was voice so I had no intention of checking in. I just wanted to hear something on 2 meters to see how well it works on the 705.
Earlier in the day, the high bands were good for DX and I worked UR, GM, I, DL, HB, and EA8. Tonight the streak QSOs were WB0RLJ (POTA) and a 39 minute rag chew with Pete K4EWG down in GA on 40M.
Now I've got to hurry as it's almost time for Roscoe's last walk of the day. -30-
Sunday Mar 17 9:11PM - The bands were good today, especially to EU. I picked some good stations to work for their prefixes or new countries for the 705 or new countries to record on the 705. All in all I got EI80MB, GB9SPD, DR100PE, CE2ML for my collection. I now have 96 QSOs recorded from 59 countries. I have 96 countries worked on my 705 since I got it back on September 9. Anxious now to get the last 4 for an ICOM705 DXCC now.
It was a chilly windy day today, but I did get my 1+ mile walk late this afternoon.
Well, the 68 teams are set for March Madness now and I have my MM spreadsheet pretty much ready to start filling in scores Tuesday evening. What a great sporting event!! -30-
Saturday Mar 16 8:54PM - Kind of an up and down day. Started with a shopping trip to Walmart to get some food for Roscoe, and also for some Chili for Bruce to make for tomorrow evening's March Madness selection show. Then a little later a 1.1 mile walk with a stop at Sprankle's for a couple items.
I never did get around to checking the bands during the day. Probably a good thing because Mike said they were in poor shape there. This evening I grabbed a VA station in the VAQP for my streak, then tuned around to check the bands. I found 9K2NO on 20 meters, and just as I found him, K4BAI worked him. He couldn't hear me though so I looked around some more. Finding nothing else, I went back to see if 9K2NO was still there. He was and like before he wasn't all that busy, so I decided to try again and after a few unanswered calls or losing to the competition, he finally came back with K3W? I sent my call and he responded with K3WW 599 NR 383. I guess he was in the RU Contest? I sent my call twice again, and finally got a R K3WWP 599 383. That was only my 4th ever Kuwait QSO, but not a new band country as 2 of my other Kuwaits were also on 20 meters. Oh well, still nice to work a somewhat rare country for me.
Ooops, 9PM now and time to get my weather readings. So 73 for tonight. -30-
Friday Mar 15 9:09PM - Late again on this busy day with Mike visiting, then a long rag chew this evening with K1YAN. Now the details.
Not much going on this morning. The bands were their usual dead selves when I checked, so I did some other chores around the house till Mike came around 2:30PM
We checked the bands and they were still dead except for a couple stations. One of which was DB100FK on 15. I worked them a few days ago so I let Mike work him which he did pretty easily. Then we fooled around killing time in the shack till 4:00PM when Mike got into the SST Sprint and worked 10 stations in a half hour before we went QRT and headed out to the Lenten Fish Dinner. We got there at a good time with hardly any line to speak of like the last two times we went. Just one round at the buffet which is our standard this "watching our weight" year. Back home for some computer gaming then off to Brookville for Mike and walking Roscoe for me.
Streak time came and I called CQ on 30M to be answered by Gary K1YAN. We gabbed for 37 minutes in a good rag chew. Now I'm updating the website before the last walk of the day with Roscoe. -30-
Thursday Mar 14 8:22PM - Happy PI day to all you mathematicians out there. I might as well have spent the day doing math problems instead of wasting time on the bands. Conditions were very poor all day or at least all the times I checked them. I got no answers to my CQs on several different bands, nor any responses from other stations calling CQ. At least I did make one QSO at 0001Z this evening to stretch the streak yet another day.
It was a warm day today. It even felt hot in the sun today and I cut my midday walk a little short, but got my 1.1 mile walk this evening when it cooled down a bit. The high is listed at 76 degrees on my LaCrosse remote weather unit, the warmest day yet this year. Maybe a record for the date. Let's see. Nope, it was 80 on March 14, 1990.
Tomorrow a visit from Mike, and our third Lenten Fish Dinner. Looking forward to that. Also looking forward hopefully to better band conditions.
Getting ready for March Madness. I made up an outline spreadsheet today. Now the info needs filling in Sunday evening when selections are announced. -30-
Wednesday Mar 13 8:44PM - Well, I said I'd talk about yesterday, but let me start with a few things from today. The big event was helping take Roscoe to the Vet for a yearly checkup and to refill some medicines. He got a great report overall and that was very good to hear since he's getting up in years now. He came to Bruce in August of 2012 when he was a few months old, so he's at least 12 years old or as they say, 84 in people years.
Otherwise today, the bands were about average, I guess you could say. I worked OZ7BQ on 12M. Also XE1XR on 15. I needed Mexico to add to my recorded countries of which I now have 56.
This evening a nice chat with Martin AI5IN mostly about QRP and other rigs was my streak QSO.
Now to yesterday. Mike arrived around 2:30PM and we chatted for a while, then went to the shack. I let him listen to a couple of my recordings, especially R90KEDR to see how strong he was here. Mike summed it up that R90KEDR sounded louder than me on the recording. That was pretty much true as he was really booming in. There wasn't much on the bands when we were in the shack, so we went and got a Sub from Subway before heading off to SkyView. We were the first ones there and had to take down the chain across the driveway. Someone else came shortly after and opened up the building as we don't have keys to that yet. We'll have to remind the person in charge about that.
Mike had a paddle that needed fixing and the pieces were there this time, so that was taken care of after Mike made a couple DX QSOs. Then I took over the IC7300 while he worked on the paddle. I had fun making 4 DX QSOs with the IC7300 at 5watts. However I was using the Quad antenna so I used the club call of K3MJW so I wouldn't tarnish my K3WWP log with QSOs using a big beam/quad antenna. HI. I'm learing more about the rigs and antennas at the club, and I was swinging the Quad around to Work CT3MD in Africa, DL6ED in Europe, IR0IDP in Italy, and finally HR5/F2JD in Central America.
Let me talk a bit about the DL6ED QSO after I pause to go get my 9PM weather readings. OK, the low was 36 and the high 71 today. DL6ED became interested when I told him I was running QRP. He was running 500 watts. Then he lowered power to 50 watts and wanted a comparative reading. He was 599 at 500 and 579 at 50. Then he went down to 5 watts and was 559 which is what he was giving me at my 5 watts. It was an interesting experiment and we both enjoyed it. It was solid copy all the way, no matter the power level.
After that Mike came back in the radio room with a couple other members and chatted a while until it was time to leave around 9PM. Before we left, I made a QSO for my streak on 40M with their 40M dipole using my call. However I got to thinking about it later and I think one member turned the power up to 100 watts to make some digital QSOs. So when I got home I made an insurance streak QSO with KE2BVB I knew was QRP and a simple wire antenna. That ended another good day with Mike and the SkyView members. Now this Friday it's another Lenten Fish Dinner with Mike. -30-
Tuesday Mar 12 10:03PM - It's late as you see from the time stamp, so I'll just say good night for now and write about the SkyView meeting and other things from today, tomorrow. Got that? OK. CU TMW. -30-
Monday Mar 11 6:16PM - I worked a couple of nice prefixes today. DB100FK on 15M and MP7DX on 17M, both of which were all time new ones for me. Later in the day I worked II5IDK, not new but I seldom work II5. Anyway that prompted me to take a look at my WPX page in my AWARDS section of the web site. I found it needed updating so I worked on that today. I glanced back through my log pages looking for band-prefixes I worked but hadn't added to the totals on that page. I found somewhere around 100 prefixes and added them to my PrefixCk spreadsheet. I think that is pretty accurate. I didn't link my K3WWP spreadsheet to the PrefixCk sheet which would be the real way to do it, but just relied on my brain for the checking. Then I partially updated my Prefix Awards page. I only did prefixes worked, not verified. That will come sometime later. I explain that a bit more on the introduction to the Prefix Awards page if anyone is interested.
That was my main project today. I also enjoyed seeing the meltdown of the s@#w from yesterday. Like a typical March s@#w, it didn't stand a chance of lasting too long and is all gone after not much more than 24 hours. Then I went for about a 1.1 mile walk, stopping at Family Dollar for some milk and personal Red Baron pizzas.
Now to go walk Roscoe, then update the Prefixes page. -30-
Sunday Mar 10 8:34PM - Now I have to get used to going to the shack at 8:00P instead of 7:00P for my streak QSO since I use UTC time to determine the day.
I went there tonight with the intention of putting in a full SST, but quickly changed my mind when activity seemed down on 20 meters plus the WIQP was mixed in with ths SST somewhat. So I got two QSOs, AI0Y and K1DW. Then I just checked around the bands and didn't find much else of interest, so I QRT.
The first day of Daylight Shifting Time turned out to be a reversion to winter with s#$w flurries and squalls off and on all day. One particularly heavy squall deposited a little under an inch of s@#w in just about 10 minutes or less.
Actually I went for a walk in one of the flurries. I really don't mind March s@#w that much as I know it won't last long. Even the blizzard of '93 with its 25+ inches was gone in a couple of days.
Well, I'm going to finish my web site updating and get ready to go out and get my weather readings. -30-
Saturday Mar 9 5:53PM - After almost 61 years as a ham and over 103,000 QSOs, it's hard to have something happen that has never happened before in that time span. It did happen today though. At least I'm 99.99% sure it never happened before. I made 3 QSOs, one each on 12, 17, and 30 meters from stations answering my CQs within about a half hour. First I called CQ on 12 and was answered by Bolmar HK1MW at 2150Z. Next I went off to 17 and was answered by Dave W4CI at 2200Z. At that point I realized what was happening was something quite rare for me and I went for the Trifecta on 30 and was answered by Dan NI9Y at 2222Z. I have made QSOs on several different bands in short periods of time especially in contests. Several years ago W4HG and I made a QSO on each band from 10 through 80 meters within an hour or so. However the "via my CQ" made this event today a bit more unique, especially with one of the QSOs being from a DX station on a band, 12M, where I seldom get an answer to my CQs at all.
Before that today I had another somewhat unique experience. I heard what had to be the strongest signal from Russia I ever heard. I worked R90KEDR with just a single call on 15 meters. According to QRZ, that's Asiatic Russia in grid square OO62 in CQ Zone 16. I'm not sure just yet exactly where in Russia that is. I'll check a map in a little bit. The station honors the 90th anniversary of the birth of Yuri Gagarin whom everyone knows was the first man in space. OK, I just looked on the QRZ map and they show the station being located just to the north of Mongolia. That is not CQ Zone 16. So a discrepancy somewhere. If it is near Mongolia, it's kind of strange to have such a strong signal from that area of the world on 15M at that time of day, 1554Z, but..... I remembered to record the QSO, too.
OK, that's it for this entry. I have to walk Roscoe in a bit, then after that it will be time for the streak QSO, maybe from the Oklahoma QSO Party. -30-
Friday Mar 8 7:52PM - March 8 is a memorable date in the history of my interest in weather. Since I started taking weather readings in January 1959 and continued sporadically the rest of 1959, then started daily readings on January 1, 1960, March 8, 1960 was the first day I recorded a below zero reading at -2. That kind of heralded a record cold month of March which was colder than January or February that year. That really piqued my interest in meteorology, which continues to this day 64 years after that -2 temperature reading. One of the few hobbies I can narrow down to a specific date that really fueled my interest. I can remember how my interest in other hobbies got started but nothing as specific as meteorology. For example I can remember my interest in fishing being brought on by my dad taking me fishing at an early age, but I don't remember the age nor the year in which it happened. With my penchant for record keeping, I probably have a written or typed record somewhere. I wish I could remember more accurately when my interest in other hobbies started.
Oh, I know how my interest in radio started. I've told that story here in the diary before several years ago. To reprise the story, I used to listen to the talk show, Party Line with Ed and Wendy King, on KDKA which closed out the day at midnight. Of course KDKA is on 1020 kHz. Well, one night I tuned off of KDKA for some reason and wound up on 1040 where I heard an announcer say something like this is WHO Des Moines, Iowa 1040 on the dial. That did it. I never had any idea there were stations other than KDKA and a local Kittanning station at 1380, WACB (Which stood for Armstrong County Broadcasting). I started tuning around the AM band, logging other "distant" stations. Then I wondered what I could do to hear more stations and more distant stations. I vaguely knew about long wires being used as antennas, but I had no idea how to connect them to the radio. There was no Internet then to look up things. I looked inside the radio at the tubes and other parts. I saw this thing that rotated with the dial and had several plates that meshed with other plates. Of course that was the tuning capacitor or was it called tuning condenser then. I don't know. Anyway it had these little tabs on it to which were connected some other wires that went to a big coil which was the loop antenna although I didn't know that at the time. I thought I'd connect my long wire to one of those tabs. It really didn't increase the strength of signals, but it apparently changed the tuning range of the radio since I now heard stations like Radio Switzerland which I remember as my first short wave station, along with other stations from Europe. I also heard some folks talking to each other. What's that, I wondered. They had call signs like W3CYG whom I found out was an Amateur Radio operator. Of course in that era, voice was done on AM or otherwise I would have only heard the jumbled sound of SSB. Well, one thing led to another and I found out that a schoolmate was into something called CB Radio. He also told me about studying to get his Amateur Radio license. I was getting more and more intrigued by all this radio stuff, and he asked me if I would like to get a Ham license. I wasn't interesed in CB, but Ham Radio appealed to me, especially having to learn Morse Code to get a license. I said yes, and we studied together, both the code and theory. When we thought we were ready, we asked W3CYG who was the ham I heard, to give us the test. We went to his house and he sent some code to get us relaxed. Then he closed the code with something like "R U READY? I caught it and said yes. We both passed the test, sent in the applications and a short time later we got the licenses. My friend got KN3WWW and I of course got KN3WWP. His name was Larry Hooks, and we drifted apart as he moved away after high school and I really never knew what happened to him until a few years ago whwn I heard from his son Chip Hooks telling me the sad news that he had passed away. He was just 29 and was killed in an private airplane crash that also killed the other two passengers. With that little bit of sad news interspersed, I'll close the story here because after 103,000 plus QSOs, this could become a book rather than a diary entry. HI
It was yet another nice day here although I little cooler than the last few days. Just kind of right for my one mile+ walk and a stop at Sprankle's.
As far as ham activity, it was a fairly good day with the bands in decent shape. At least good enough for a few rag chews, although I didn't work any DX. It was kind of rough this evening though, but I finally got K3EU in DC for the streak. BTW, I can't understand why J38R is so popular. Grenada can't be that rare if I have it worked here on 80-through 10, except for 60 and 160. I did try a couple times just to pass some time, but the pileups are too wide to bother trying to figure out. Now if it were an overall new country, I might feel differently and go for it. -30-
Thursday Mar 7 8:28PM - The bands seemed good all day today. I even heard, but didn't work a VK station late this afternoon on 10M. I was mostly rag chewing, but there was some good DX being heard here. Had a nice chat with an old friend I hadn't worked in 4 years on 30 this evening, John W8FJ in East PA, among some others earlier in the day.
It was a dry day today after yesterday, so I took advantage with a mile+ walk and a stop at Family Dollar.
Not really much else to talk about. -30-
Wednesday Mar 6 6:47PM - Not a lot to talk about again today, so here are a couple pictures to look at.
About two weeks ago I saw my first robin of the season, followed a few days later by a second one. Both were shy and flew away before I could take their picture. However today another one showed up and wanted his picture taken apparently. Here he is:
A couuple of days ago I learned some more about my IC705. I had seen a couple of IC7300s where the marker on the Spectrum Scope was divided into red and green sections, but I couldn't find out how to do it on the 705. I finally caught the info on an Internet tutorial video. All you had to do was touch the "MARKER" button on the screen to toggle it between red/green and plain green. How simple and how elusive it was in the basic manual. I still don't see the info in the manual. Nonetheless, here is how it looks. Also note the R and T in the upper left of the Scope screen. The green R denotes the Receive marker while the red T denotes the Transmit marker. When you are operating and receiving on the same frequency, it looks like this:
Now when you operate Split or use RIT, the red and green markers separate with the green on the frequency you are listening on and red on the frequency you are transmitting on. I think it's another very nice feature of the 705 as shown here:
Probably no one else had the problem I did in figuring out this situation, but if so, I hope it helped to clear things up a bit.
Kind of a repeat of last night for the streak. Only the calls were changed..... The POTA was NM5N and the chat was with Robin NG8S.
Time now to spend another 4 hours doing something today before going to bed and waiting to see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully it will be a little drier than today's off and on rain. If not I can keep busy inside maybe learning some more about the 705. -30-
Tuesday Mar 5 8:09PM - Another nice April/May day in March. Let's see, it was 75 today. Yesterday it did hit 76 on my official thermometer when I checked at 9PM. Let's see what the record is for the 5th. 77 in 1992 so looks like close, but no cigar today. It sure felt good when I was out walking for two walks totalling about 1.75 miles and a stop at Sprankle's. Also a sit on the porch swing with Roscoe. A little longer than yesterday at 10-15 minutes. Tomorrow a bit cooler but still well above normal. Also some rain tonight and tomorrow.
In between enjoying the weather, I checked the bands and there was not much to be had. One late afternoon QSO with Bill W9VC on 30, then my streak work this evening for a POTA QSO and a good chat with K3OS on 30. -30-
Monday Mar 4 7:26PM - What is the one day of the year that is like a command? Today.
The bands were markedly better today. Not for DX as much as for good solid W/VE rag chewing. I had nice chats at various times with KB9UWR 20, W4IT 30, W2XU 20, WW8D 30. Then I did get a DX QSO for my streak this evening - Oliver F6ARC on 30.
A near record warm March 4. My one remote unit shows a tie of 76 degrees with March 4, 1976. We'll see if my "official" mercury in glass unit shows the same when I check it at 9:00PM. Whatever the case, it sure felt good being outdoors today for walking or sitting on the porch swing with Roscoe, although he wasn't in the mood for swinging and only stayed a few minutes for whatever reason. I was watching a kids show one time with one of the kids talking with a Veterinarian. The kid asked what was the hardest thing about being a Vet. The Vet said not being able to talk with the patients about what ails them. Sometimes I feel the same way about figuring out what Roscoe is up to.
We're supposed to have another mid-April day in March tomorrow, then it cools off a bit but still above average temperatures. -30-
Sunday Mar 3 7:46PM - After a few busy days with change of month chores, today was pretty much a nothing day. Even the bands were taking the day off with very little activity. I did manage a chat with VE3UXJ on 30 this afternoon and a SST QSO for the streak this evening with Fred N4BA. That was it except I fooled around in the SST, just listening to see how many stations I could hear on 20 in 15 minutes. I heard about 1 per minute just counting stations who were CQing or looking for somwone to tail end their QSO. I don't know what it proved, if anything. I guess it would be possible to make 60 QSOs in the hour if hearing 1 station per minute would continue the whole hour and I could log that fast on paper. Maybe I'll try it sometime, but use 80, 40, and 20 instead of just 20. We'll see, maybe this Friday if I'm in the mood.
Otherwise today, it was a beautiful April in March day with bright sun and temperatures in the upper 60s almost making it to 70 which it is supposed to do the next couple of days. I've just got to say again what a wonderful non-winter it was for the second year in a row. Let's go for many more like this. I went for a couple of outside walks at about 3/4 mile each. I didn't really need anything at any stores, so I didn't stop anywhere, just walked. Probably do the same tomorrow.
Almost forgot I wanted to add a tulips picture in the diary, so here it is:
I should have cleaned out the leaves and bark before taking the picture, but I was in a hurry. -30-
Saturday Mar 2 5:30PM - I just finished putting the February weather records in my computer Excel spreadsheet. While it's fresh in my mind, let me post a few stats for the month here. It was a warm month, but not record warmth because of those hot Februarys we had in the mid 2010s. We came within a degree or two of those records though. Only one daily record, highest daily precipitation of 1.03 inches on February 28. I guess the bottom line is what I said before above, a very warm month, but not record setting warmth.
I think I'll close with just a brief comment on band conditions. They were good again today, but not a lot of activity to be found. I worked a German YL named Ti at DM88YLF, a special event type of station for French-German YL activity. Also OE3WMA whom I recorded for a new recorded country on the IC705. That makes 54 countries recorded now. -30-
Friday Mar 1 8:24PM - Happy first day of Spring (meteorological, not astronomical) to all the Winter haters reading this. Besides the significance of the day, it was a great day otherwise as well. I got some more of my end of (first of) month chores done. I uploaded all of my February QSOs to eQSL and got about 65 matches out of some 400+ QSOs uploaded. I got them all put in my computer Excel log and saved the QSL picture when it was from a station on a new band with that station. I don't download duplicate band-station cards.
I took a walk downtown and stopped at Sprankle's to get a couple things and to see who was working. It was Jan and Chrissy. I hadn't seen Chrissy for a while now.
I then waited for Mike to arrive. He was a little late so I took Roscoe out and of course Mike then arrived in the middle of the walk. I've found that if you are waiting for something, and it's late, all you need to do is to stop waiting and start something else. Then inevitably what you were waiting on will happen. HI That's Shannon's Law. Mike and I talked and checked the bands for a while. They were very devoid of any DX, so we quit and headed off to the Lenten dinner. We got there a little earlier than last time and the waiting line was shorter this time. We had our one trip through the buffet and headed home. Another hour or so of talking and checking the bands with pretty much the same results as before although I did work NP4L for my streak QSO. Then we worked on our schedule of events - hamfests, Requin trips, SkyView visits, sprints, etc. for the year. Then it was time for Mike to head home. -30-
Thursday Feb 29 4:04PM - Here we are in the last day of meteorological winter. It was the second great winter in a row here with very little s@#w and very little real cold. Love it!! After I put my February weather in the computer probably tomorrow, I'll have some stats here in the diary. Our coldest day in February was 18 degrees which may be a record for the highest minimum monthly temperature for any February although we did have some warm Februarys in the mid 2010s.
I got all my end of month financial things done this morning. It's always nice to get them out of the way. A couple of major things need doing and a couple of minor things also. Putting the weather in the computer as I mentioned above. Uploading my February QSOs. Changing my calendars. And a few other little things.
I spent quite a bit of time in the shack this afternoon. I changed some settings on the IC705 to come up with a better looking Spectrum Scope in my opinion as shown here:
I especially like the different color and style scheme of the scanning waveform. Much better than the IC705 default setup. But it's all a matter of personal opinion.
I had a nice chat with LA5ZO on 15 this afternoon with solid copy both ways - 900 watts vs. 5 watts. HI I got it recorded along with some extra copy as I forgot to turn off the recorder when the QSO ended. HI Someday I'll get turning on and off the recorder integrated into my QSO procedures. -30-
Wednesday Feb 28 7:48PM - Well,one extra day of Winter tomorrow before Spring shows up on Friday. I know it is March that is supposed to come in like a Lion and go out like a Lamb or vice versa. However regular February is going out like a Lion. We had thunderstorms, rain, and strong winds. The winds are still continuing this evening but are subsiding gtadually. Hope they return to a calm state before they do any damage. Tomorrow will be a buffer day between regular February and March, then March will come in like a Lamb for the first few days of the month.
The bands, especially 10 meters, were very good this morning. 10 meters sounded like it did during previous sunspot maximums, something it hasn't done this cycle so far, at least as far as my listening here. I worked DL75BRD, RK3ER, and I2NKR very easily and added two of them to my recorded countries although Russia was a repeat country, but Italy was new. After the good morning, things seemed to slip away the rest of the day. It was rather rough getting my streak QSO this evening, but I did work HI3T on 30 meters finally. -30-
Tuesday Feb 27 8:08PM - I spent part of today going back in my mind and through my log adding more memorable QSOs to the list I presented in yesterday's diary entry. I found quite a few, but I'm not going to update yesterday's list until I'm satisfied I've dug up most all of my memorable QSOs. That will probably take a while with over 103,000 QSOs to go through.
The bands were not good today and of the 6 QSOs I made this afternoon and evening, most were very rough with some even being cut off in mid-stream, so to speak. Only two of the six were good solid contacts. Those with Jeff WN1MB in CT and Dave AA2AU in NJ. I haven't looked at the WWV report yet, but I suspect some kind of ionospheric disturbance may have been in effect. The few DX stations I heard were either fluttery or suffered from deep QSB. Let me pause here and look at the report. Well, I was wrong. The ionosphere was pretty quiet with a SF of 168 and A index of 13. Space weather was minor and G1 magnetic storms. Those are pretty good numbers although the bands didn't show it. Oh well, propagation is not an exact science (yet).
I'm looking forward to Friday and another Lenten Fish Dinner with Mike. Before dinner we're going to outline our ham radio events for the year so we don't forget any like we did with the South Hills Hamfest this past weekend. -30-
Monday Feb 26 11:27AM - Over the past few years, I've added some memorable QSOs to my log. Back in 2015, I added stories to the diary about memorable QSOs from 1963 to 2015. Now I'm going to list those early memorable QSOs and the date their story appeared in the 2015 Diary Archives. Then I'm going to update the list with the more recent QSOs and a little story about them. I think it will be a fun project and I hope you will enjoy it also.
Here now is a list in the order they appeared in 2015's Diary Archive. If you are interested in more info about each one, just go to the 2015 Diary Archive page via the Diary Archives link above and scroll to the date of the entry as listed here:
Story Date in 2015 - Station - QSO Date - Notes
Apr 26 - W9RQF - May 9, 1963 - First QSO with someone who devoted himself to helping Novices as I was then.
Apr 27 - VP7ACF - Jul 18, 1963 - First DX QSO.
Apr 28 - K4HSB/KH6 - Dec 14, 1963 - First Hawaii QSO and a very excited KN3WWP.
Apr 29 - 4Z4DX - Jul 5, 1994 - First Asian to complete WAC.
Apr 30 - K3KLC - Feb 15, 1995 - First ever 160M QSO.
May 01 - VK6HQ - May 10, 1996 - VK6HQ from Perth answered my 30M QSO from about as far from Kittanning as it gets on Earth.
May 02 - W4HG - Jun 12, 1996 - We worked on all bands 10 through 80. 160 too noisy.
May 03 - JA3ZOH - Nov 24, 1996 - First JA station after failing many times before. Now near 300 QSOs with Japan.
May 04 - KO1C - Sep 1, 1999 - First ever QSO with a commercial xmtr (xcvr), TS570D.
May 05 - VQ9IO - Nov 28, 1999 - A QSO from a very remote part of the world.
May 06 - VK0MM - Apr 28, 2000 - Another QSO from a rare country in a remote part of the world.
May 07 - TA3D - Dec 29, 2000 - Answered my 30 meters CQ to my surprise.
May 08 - SU9NC - Nov 30, 2003 - First Egypt worked portable from my late cousin'g house.
May 09 - D4B - Feb 21, 2004 - Worked on 80 through 10 meters in the ARRL DX Contest.
May 10 - WA8REI - Aug 25, 2006 - First worked Ken exactly 40 years earlier on Aug 25, 1966.
May 11 - KH6MB KH6LC - Feb 22, 2009 - First ever Hawaii on 80 with 5 watts. (K4HSB/KH6 was 50 watts or so back in 1963).
May 12 - VK6DXI - Jul 26, 2009 - Wkd on 40 meters before sunset here.
May 13 - WL7E - Nov 26, 2011 - Alaska completes WAS with QRPp mW power.
May 14 - WA4FAT - May 30, 2014 - Similar to WA8REI above, but 50 years earlier on May 30, 1964.
May 17 - W1AW/1 - Aug 27, 2014 - Completed the W1AW Centennial WAS with Maine.
May 20 - K1N - Feb 9, 2015 - Completed all 50 NA entities.
May 21 - W9KSE - Mar 14, 1964 - First of many memorable QSOs with Sue W9KSE.
May 25 - ZL1HY - Jun 2, 1964 - Answered my 40 meters CQ followed by a 23 minute rag chew.
May 27 - RW0A - Jul 30, 1995 - First ever Asiatic Russian QSO.
That does it for today and gets us caught up on the 2015 edition of memorable QSOs. Now I'll make the 2024 edition of memorable QSOs including QSOs like ZD7W, KH6LC, 1A0C, C31CT, etc. -30-
Sunday Feb 25 7:48 PM - I am mentally tired after working on transferring my 324 QSOs in the ARRL DX Contest from paper to computer. I will not paper log on any future contests where I expect to make that many QSOs. It was fun doing the paper logging, but tiring getting from paper to computer.
A nice day again today. Started off on the cold side, but warmed to the upper 40s by afternoon. For the third day in a row, I took a mile+ outdoors walk with a little shopping along the way.
Not much activity on the bands today so I took some time to re-play the recording of my rag chew with KH6LC yesterday. I was able to pick out some things I had trouble copying live yesterday. Actually I didn't miss all that much upon re-listening today. It was really interesting to find out so much about Lloyd after working him some 55 times in contest QSOs. I learned something about how he copies me so well in contests and in the QSO yesterday. He has a very low noise floor which along with beam antennas at some 85 feet could really dig out QRP level signals. Especially the low noise floor. My high noise floor really kills QRP level signals here. The difference is astounding when Mike (or Tom) and I operate from Kittanning Community Park or Moraine State Park. Most of the time the floor in the parks is at S0 or S1 at the very most. Down here in town in the valley, the level is at best S4 or S5 and worse at times when my furnace or some other noisy equipment comes on.
Of course being Sunday, my streak QSO(s) came easily in the SST Sprint. I made three of them including one on 15 meters when I went there after satisfying the streak conditions. I was looking for DX and heard Tom K7RI in the SST and helped him out with a QSO on 15. I also heard Carl N5XE and would have liked to work him, but he made one S&P QSO, then I didn't hear him any more. Sorry, my friend.
Mike and I missed out on a hamfest today. We plain forgot about the South Hills Hamfest. So we're going to come up with some system to remind us of future events like that this year. -30-
Saturday Feb 24 5:45PM - Well, I've had over 103,000 QSOs in my 60 + years of hamming, but few as exciting as one I had just a little while ago. An 18 minute rag chew with Lloyd KH6LC on 15 meters. He was calling CQ and I needed to record a Hawaiian QSO on the 705, so I called him expecting a TU 599 style QSO. However he gave me RST QTH Name, and I did the same and we went on from there with age, wx, rig, lot of other info about life in Hawaii and so on. Actually he seemed to be copying me better than I was copying him in my QRN with some QSB. I've got the whole QSO recorded and I plan to be listening to it a few times to try to dig out some of the parts I was having trouble copying. That sure made my day, week, month, year as far as ham radio goes, and otherwise also. HI. I guess that confirms I do have a Hawaii pipeline. -30-
Friday Feb 23 8:48PM - We're closing in on Meteorological Spring on March 1st. If my math is good, that's just one week left in nasty old Winter. Hooray!!
Today was very spring-like with sun and warmth. A high of 58 on both of my remote weather units. I took advantage with an outdoors walk of just over a mile with stops at the bank and Sprankle's. So nice to get out and walk to do my banking and grocery shopping. I hope to be doing a lot more outdoor things as better weather arrives and hangs around.
A good day on the bands with a mix of DX and rag chews. NV3N with a 32 minute rag chew this evening. A couple shorter rag chews with KE8TBM cut short by a Roscoe walk time and AA2YK shortened by poor conditions. Then two DX QSOs with F6IRM and HC1MD/2. I believe that's my first Ecuador QSO in a while, and I forgot to start the 705 recorder. @#$%.
Weather time now, so 73. -30-
Thursday Feb 22 7:56PM - I had a nice visit from Tom WB3FAE today. It's been a while since we've had an eyeball QSO, and it was good to do so again. We spent most of the hour and a half talking about the ARRL DX Contest and then looking over my ICOM IC705. Unfortunately there was very little DX activity on the bands when he was here. Instead we listened to some of my recorded DX QSOs.
I worked a country tonight for my streak QSO that I haven't worked in a long time. Let me see when the last time I worked Mali was. I only have three previous QSOs with Mali, in 1997, 2001, and 2016. The 2016 QSO was with TZ4AM, the same station I worked this evening.
Not much else going on today. Some more work on my ham radio Excel files. No outside walks as it was raining most of the day. Sure better than s@#w. -30-
Wednesday Feb 21 7:49PM - Sort of a mish-mash of things I want to talk about in the diary tonight.
After all the brief TU599 style QSOs before, during, and after the ARRL DX Contest the past few days which I enjoyed immensely, it was still nice in a way to get back to rag chewing. I had a nice 33 minute visit on 40 meters with Bob N2OTG for my streak QSO a little while ago. A very interesting discussion mainly about various keys we both have.
Today was yet another preview of spring day with a high of 60 before the clouds started moving in late in the afternoon preparing for a rainy day tomorrow. I took advantage with a medium length walk while the sun was out. Didn't stop anywhere, just walked.
It's so simple to get a basic DXCC, WAS, WAC with CW and QRP, I like to make it a little more challenging. For example, seeing how quick I can work all continents. I've done that in just a several minute period more than once. Working WAS and WAC with my new ICOM705 was accomplished quickly. With regular non-contest QSOs, WAC took two months. WAS took 5 days under two months. Now I'm working on finishing DXCC. I went through the ARRL DX Contest and added 14 countries to bring me closer at 90 countries now. Those are just some ways I have fun with collecting continents, states, and countries. There are others also like doing it with my KX3 when I first got it. Another way dealing with the IC705 is working on recording QSOs from 100 countries on the SD card in the 705. I randomly recorded many QSOs in the ARRL DX Test and I now have 47 countries recorded. I should say 49 because I have yet to do W and VE which of course will be a cinch.
I hope that gives you something to think about when things get to be too easy with your CW/QRP station. Have fun! -30-
Tuesday Feb 20 8:12PM - This was a...... how do I put it, unusual at times, frustrating day, interspersed with good things.
It started off normally with me getting up at 8:00 as I do every day. I got dressed, did my combination one mile walk / morning prayers, and went to the computer to read the morning cartoons. Then I did some work on my computer ham radio files. While doing that, the lights went out, but before I could even get upset about it, they came back on in perhaps 5-10 seconds. I checked to see if it stopped any clocks, etc. I found only two things that go out even from an outage less than a second, my microwave and my computemp remote weather unit. Everything else resumed its normal operation all by itself.
Next up was walking Roscoe followed by breakfast, some more computer work after which it was time for another walk. When I finished with Roscoe, I walked to the PO to mail some letters that were sitting here for a few days waiting for nice weather. It was nice today with sunshine and a high around 50.
Back home again and up to the shack where I worked some DX. Then back to the computer work. I started to look up one of the calls I worked on QRZ on my iPhone and all I got was a blank screen. I tried another call, same thing. I tried on the computer and got a message I wasn't connected to the Internet. I glanced at my gateway/router and saw a red light which wasn't normal. I called technical support at Windstream, and got a very helpful and friendly girl named Anna. She talked me through several things to try, but none of them worked. Finally we agreed a technician visit was needed. She set things up for a visit tomorrow. OK so I've got to live without an Internet for most of a day. I thanked Anna for trying so hard to help me, and resigned myself to the wait. No website updates tonight, no weather spreadsheet, and so forth. I decided to get something to eat. While I was cooking something in the microwave my landline phone rang with a message saying briefly this is the phone company making a line check. Before I could answer, he hung up. Then a couple minutes later, the doorbell rang and it was the phone technician. I couldn't believe it, and asked if he was responding to my trouble report. He was, and said he was in the area and caught a report on the trouble and thought he'd stop by before he quit for the day. Wow! Can't beat that for service. I had texted Mike about the Internet loss and he said waiting a day wasn't bad, he usually had to wait a week.
Dan (the technician) started to check things out and was having the same problems I was having when Anna was walking me through the steps. To keep this from getting any longer, I'll just say that it wound up that there was some problem with the gateway/router, and Dan replaced it with a new one. It took some time to get it to connect, but finally it did. We set up my computer an phone with the password, etc. and now here I am using it just like nothing ever happened. I was very pleased with the Windstream technical support, both from Anna and Dan.
I got my streak QSO on 40 this evening from 9A/NC8R. It was easy although I had to send my call a couple times before he got the P at the end. Now I'm just finishing up counting my new countries in the ARRL DX Contest that I need for my DXCC on my new ICOM IC705 rig. I stand as of now at 90 countries on the 705. Now I've got to finish my other web page updates. -30-
Monday Feb 19 5:24PM - The story of the ARRL DX Contest story is written. Interested? Go to my CONTESTING section, Stories page for the index of my stories. The ARRL DX link is at the top of the list. -30-
Sunday Feb 18 7:20PM - As I said in a text to Mike a little while ago, after 325 QSOs in the ARRL DX Contest, I am beat. I'm getting too old to put in a big effort in contests any longer, but it sure was fun tuning up and down the bands working station after station. That's what makes contesting fun. I know there are other ways of doing it, but that's my way. No spotting or other computer assistance. Just me and my radio. It was even nice logging on paper. At some points logging a minimum of info for each QSO, I had a rate of a QSO every minute or two. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to save my contest comments for the story I will be writing. I have a lot of work coming up this week with the story, transferring paper info to my computer Excel log, going through and cleaning up the many QSOs I recorded on the 705 SD card during the contest, etc. Whew!
So with that intro for my week, I'll close this entry now and start on some of the work. -30-
Saturday Feb 17 8:08PM - Just taking a break here from the DX test to put my laundry in the dryer and type this diary entry. I've pretty much decided I'm going to write a story about the contest since it's the biggest effort I've put in a contest in some time now. That will come sometime later this week. Just past the halfway point in the contest, I've got 204 QSOs in a good many entities. I have no idea how many as of now. I just work the new ones as they come along. I'll count them later when I transfer my paper contest log to computer. A couple highlights to tease about the story. I got one overall new country in St. Helena. I got my usual contest WAC. OK, enough for now till the story.
It was a good day for contesting with a couple inches of s@#w on the ground. We had one squall this afternoon that was almost a complete whiteout. I could barely see across the street which is right outside my shack window. Wish I'd had my phone with me at the time to get a picture, but I didn't. I almost could just post a white sheet of paper as that was very close to what it looked like for a couple minutes.
I got my streak secured with a couple QSOs in the contest after 0000Z. Now think I'll go back to the shack and continue till the laundry is dry. -30-
Friday Feb 16 9:17PM - A very good day all around today. A brief summary here, then maybe more details later or tomorrow or....? Mike arrived around 3PM and we chatted a bit, then up to my shack where he wanted to work some of the SST Sprint. He got about 7 QSOs in a little under a half hour. Then we went looking for and working some DX before heading off to the fish dinner. We both ate in moderation for a change and I don't feel stuffed at all. Back home for another little chatting, then to Brookville for Mike. I got in the ARRL DX and spent two hours there. The bands were excellent, especially 40. I don't think I ever heard 40 so busy to EU and all the EU stations were strong. I spent a lot of time recording new countries for the SD card in the 705 or I could have worked more than the 22 stations I did work. I got 7 EU stations on 40 as deep into EU as RL3A, UW7LL, LY2XW, LY4A plus my usual pipeline to Scandinavia with LN8W. Right now about time to walk Roscoe in the s@#w, so 73 for now. -30-
Thursday Feb 15 8:03PM - I got on the air a couple times this afternoon. There was much more activity from stations getting ready for the ARRL DX Contest this weekend than the past few days. I picked and chose what to work, mainly based on getting some new countries recorded on the SD card in the IC705. I worked HA8RD, but didn't record him for one reason or other. I think it was a duplicate country but I don't have my notes right here now. Then two countries that were new to the recording, OK6DJ and PF88ANT, who was also a new prefix. All 3 were on 10 meters.
Then this evening, I worked PJ2/NF9V for the streak QSO, then CT9/DL5LYM for a new recorded country, #15. I'm really enjoying the QSO record feature on the 705. Maybe some day I'll have a DXCC on the SD card. HI. That will be a while though. I'll probably do the ARRL DX Contest with recording countries in mind more than anything else.
Nothing much else noteworthy today. Oh, did I mention my tulips have sprouted? Anyway I cleaned up the tulip bed today picking weeds and maple seeds. I hope they are not out too early. I did cover them last night anyway as it got down to 18 degrees. -30-
Wednesday Feb 14 9:29AM - I thought I'd better write this early before I forget what I wanted to write about from yesterday. Mike arrived around 2:15 and we got caught up on some things before we went to my shack. Surprisingly there were almost no stations doing their setup and testing for the upcoming ARRL DX Test this weekend. In fact we found only one and worked him, TO4A in Martinique. I recorded the QSO to add another country to my 705 collection. I'm going to make a list to keep track of the countries and where they are on the SD card in the 705 when I get a chance. After that a little more talking then off to Subway for a Tuna sub for me and a meatball one for Mike. Also one of their somewhat new foot long chocolate chip cookies which we shared. My, are they good. I may have to visit Subway more often. They are only a few blocks from here within walking distance when the weather is good.
Speaking of weather, the big s@#wstorm missed us here and went to our SE and really blasted the SE quadrant of PA with almost a foot and a half of s@#w. We only saw a few flakes here.
After we finished eating, it wasn't long before we took off for SkyView. We got there a little before 7PM. Mike had one of his paddles with him which needed some work. One member brought the springs he needed but another one who was supposed to bring the levers couldn't make the meeting. So Mike will have to wait to get the paddle work finished.
Meanwhile I went to the radio room, and set up one of the operating positions without any help. Before long I worked V26CV. There is a little story behind the QSO. After I got home I got an email thanking me for the QSO. It was from Chuck KG9N who was the op at V26CV. He was the op at KG9N/C6A back in 1994 when I started my streak. My QSO with him was the first QSO of the streak 10,786 days ago. I thought that was nice of him to do that out of the hundreds of QSO he has probably made already plus the many more he will make in the ARRL DX Contest this weekend.
I spent the rest of the evening mostly just listening. Al N2MA came in the radio room to visit for a while and to pick up an American Flyer repair manual I was lending to him. We talked for quite a while.
Later Bob WC3O came in for a while. Just about that time I was hearing another DX station and couldn't quite make out his call. It was one of those deals where just when the station sends his call, QSB strikes or a burst of QRN wipes out the call. I asked Bob if he could help copy, but the same thing happened. Finally I figured the call was CB0ZA in somewhat rare Juan Fernandez Island (Robinson Crusoe Island) off Chile. He was operating split and I wasn't quite familiar for setting up for split on the IC7300, so Bob set it up and after several tries, I made the QSO. I was using the club call of K3MJW since it was setup with their big quad antenna, and I don't use K3WWP with QRO nor big antennas. We were at QRP power though. After I made the QSO, Bob used his call and also worked him. Then I asked Mike if he wanted to try, but after a try or two, CB0ZA disappeared, and we kidded Mike about scaring him away.
We stayed a while longer, and as we were leaving, Bob told me we should come down to the club some evening when there was no meeting going on and we could learn more about the radio room setup and work some DX. It is rather confusing when we have only a once a month chance to use it and that is on a meeting night. So we're looking forward to that some time.
On the way home, we decided we'll go to the Lenten Fish Dinner this Friday for our first one of the year. Mike then dropped me off and headed for Brookville. -30-
Tuesday Feb 13 10:15PM - An enjoyable day with Mike visiting and then going to SkyView. Also a tiring day so I'm going to postpone any comments on today until tomorrow. There are a few things I do want to comment on. -30-
Monday Feb 12 8:11PM - Whowever decided 30 minutes was the ideal length for an official rag chew had the right idea. I don't know how many QSOs I've had that wind up in the 20-29 minute range. It takes a little more effort to stretch them to that 30 minute mark, and often I don't make it or the fellow on the other end of the QSO has to QRT for this or that reason right in the 20-29 minute range. So if you make it to 30, it is worthy of being an official rag chew.
I had one of those tonight with K0CDJ on 30 meters. Well, not quite. I see it was actually 19 minutes.
Had a pretty good QSO with Harald OZ8X on 12M today and got it recorded on the 705. He dropped to 10W from 500W as a check with me. He went from 589 to about 229 and pretty much got lost in my local QRN. He gave me a 329 at the start of our QSO. Interesting.
Tomorrow Mike is visiting for a while before we head off to our monthly meeting at SkyView tomorrow evening. Supposed to s#$w tonight and tomorrow, but the boundary of the storm is right on the Indiana/Armstrong county line and we are on the good (no s@#w) side, it looks like as of now. -30-
Sunday Feb 11 7:32PM - On Super Bowl Sunday I had a Super Bowl of Spaghetti next door with Bruce, Jeff, and Roscoe. Now I am STUFFED.
I couldn't find Greg WK0B in the SST this evening so my streak QSO came from K1RF Steve in CT on 40M.
I went for a measured 20 minute outdoor walk this afternoon which is supposed to re-calibrate my Apple Watch. I'll look into that more later.
Other than that, a pretty quiet day. -30-
Saturday Feb 10 7:45PM - Guess I'll write the entry while my laundry is drying in the dryer. Guess that's a good place to dry it. HI
The big event of the day was taking Roscoe to the groomer for a much needed hair trim, bath, etc. He certainly seems to feel better after that.
I got a couple QSOs during the afternoon today. In between I was enjoying the nice weather with a walk in the park. I haven't been there for a while now. It looks like tomorrow will be the last "Spring in February" day for a while. Monday is supposed to cool down and feature some possibly moderate s@#w Monday night into Tuesday followed by cooler weather the rest of the week and maybe into next week as well.
I got 4 QSOs this evening while waiting for the wash cycle of my laundry to finish. Two in the PACC Contest, PI4COM and PE3V. The PE3 might be a new prefix. I'll check later. Then a real rough QSO with N1CAU through my local noise. Finally a short chat with Gary K1YAN. -30-
Friday Apri... ooops, I mean Feb 9 6:00PM - The weather had me fooled there. A high of 64 and two shirtsleeves walks outside totalling a little over 2 miles. Wow, that is so great. Although it is going to cool off starting in a couple days, still it is not going to be all that bad according to the Penn State Weather World Show looking ahead to Feb 24 or so. Some s@#w, but no big storms, and mixed in with rain. They're usually pretty accurate with their long range outlooks, so let's hope.
A 40 minute rag chew on 30 meters just a little while ago was my only afternoon QSO today. Not much heard on the higher bands, and none of it was DX. A bit surprising with the ARRL DX Contest looming on the horizon. Usually a couple weeks before a big DX contest features a lot of stations setting up for the contest.
Other than enjoying the weather, I did some arranging of some of the "junk" here in the house today. Now I'm waiting to walk Roscoe, and then head to the shack for another day of the streak. -30-
Thursday Feb 8 8:15PM - Another in the streak of spring-like days here. I walked to the PO and the bank today enjoying the low 60s temperature. It was cloudy as opposed to the past few days, but that didn't matter.
I went through my ham radio awards today and arranged them a little better in my folder. I separated the contest results awards from the regular awards like WAC, WAS for example. It's interesting to see how many of the awards from foreign countries are on paper that is a little different from our standard 8 1/2 by 11 paper. I had to trim some down a bit to get them to fit in the clear file folder transparent covers. It was easy though with the paper cutter I bought a few months ago.
I didn't make any QSOs during the day today for the first time in a few days now. Conditions were on the poor side. Tonight though I had a couple of nice QSOs with W4YAS in NC who had some nice things to say about my web site. His name is Yas, same as his call. I just looked him up in QRZ and I see he is Japanese and Yas is short from Yasutaka. Then an almost rag chew with Howard K4LXY. We came up 4 minutes short of 30 as QSB got too bad to carry on.
Our local Lenten fish dinners are starting this Friday. When Mike and I get together at SkyView next Tuesday, we'll make plans which one(s) we are going to attend. -30-
Wednesday Feb 7 8:25PM - I did something useful today instead of the usual fooling around with this or that. I prepared and mailed my Property Tax Rebate form. I hate filling out forms like that, and I'm glad it is done now. Hope I got everything right on it. Now to efile my Federal and State Income taxes. Maybe tomorrow but I'll probably put it off again.
I also got on 10 meters this morning and recorded QSOs with two more DX countries, England and France. The one with England, G4RCG was a good solid one in which we even chatted a bit. The one with France F8AAN was a bit on the sloppy side, but all the necessary info got recorded. A third one with ON5SY kind of fell apart mostly due to my error in starting the recording then ending it prematurely so I didn't count it as logged and erased that file.
It was a nice day, so I extended my walk when I went to the PO and stopped in Sprankle's to pick up some things. Actually I went in to get two things, and wound up with around a dozen items. HI. Supposed to be nice again tomorrow so think I'll go out again while the nice weather lasts. It's supposed to be rainy over the weekend. That's still better than s@#w. -30-
Tuesday Feb 6 12:04PM - Got this 12 Days of Christmas Award and thought I'd take it easy with the diary today and just use a scan for my entry.
Added another recorded country to the 705 in LZ3ND on 10 meters. See you tomorrow in the diary pages. -30-
Monday Feb 5 8:46PM - Remember Frank Sinatra's "It Was a Very Good Year"? Well it was a very good day here. Another beautiful sunny day, a rarity in February. It was not quite as warm as it should have been, but 48 is not bad for February.
10 meters was good again as it has been the past few days now. I need to get on a bit earlier in the day though. By 1600Z, EU is starting to drop away. Still I did work and record Andy SM2JEB to add another country to my list of recorded ones. I'm also getting a bit more familiar and quicker with the QSO recorder on the IC705. Late this afternoon I worked Bob K8FN again for a nice 23 minute QSO on 30M. Then this evening it was Gary K1YAN on 40 for another full rag chew of 34 minutes. I'm now up to 133 rag chew QSOs in my log going back to January 2016. They're becoming few and far between in that era because I was more into DX and Contests/Sprints then.
This afternoon I went for a walk to the Post Office to mail a QSL and buy some stamps. On the way home I ran into my friend Jasmine and had a brief talk with her. It was nice to see her again.
Now it's time to get the weather readings, so I'll close here. -30-
Sunday Feb 4 7:23PM - There must be another shorter pipeline along with the Hawaii and Northwest Africa ones I have. That is to Greg WK0B. Most times I decide to use the SST Sprint for my streak QSOs, it seems Greg is the strongest and easiest to work station. It was so again this evening. I tried a couple other stations first with no luck, but then found and worked Greg easily.
I worked some more on my rag chew QSOs today and got back as far as April 2017 before I quit. I may go back again for a while this evening. It seems as I go back in time, I find fewer rag chews among my QSOs. I'm up to 124 rag chews now from 25 states and Ontario. Just as an idea of how they decrease going backwards, in the latest full year 2023, I had 26 while in the earliest full year 2018 it was just 7. I had the feeling I was rag chewing more lately and that bears it out, I would say. I don't think I am going to increase the state total much beyond 30, if I even get that far. Time will tell.
It was a nice day again today if a bit chilly early in the day before the sun got higher in the sky and warmed things up to a high of 56. Not a cloud in the sky all day as far as I could tell. A beautiful February so far. Phil has been accurate so far and it looks to continue according to the consensus of forecasts/outlooks through at least February 17. A slight chance of s#$w on the 18th, but that's a long way off.
I played some more with the audio recorder on the ICOM705 today. I like it more and more as I use it. I recorded a couple more DX QSOs today on 10 meters with OM2VL and OZ1LO. I tried a couple others but couldn't get them so I deleted the failures. One other thing I have to try is recording a series of QSOs without stopping and seeing if it is possible then to separate the QSOs into individual files. I plan to record as many different DX countries QSOs as I can.
I'm always interested in records, be it in ham radio, sports, fishing, or anything else. I was checking on the PGA tour on my iPhone while killing some time and I see Wyndham Clark shot a 60 today for a Pebble Beach record. Close, but not an all time PGA record. That's a 58 by Jim Furyk in 2016 at the Travellers Championship. A little extra bit of info puts that in perspective. There have been over 613,000 rounds played on the PGA tour. There have been several 59's shot, but the 58 is unique. Wonder what the LPGA record is? Let's see if I can find it. It's 59 by Annika Sorenstam in a 2001 tour event in Phoenix Arizona. Those are the official records. There are also other claims of unofficial 55's. One recognized by the Guinness Book of Records by Rhein Gibson in May of 2012 in Oklahoma. Three others are not recognized due to unusual circumstances. I'll let you look up more in Wikipedia if you're interested. Do a bing search for "PGA (or LPGA) record low single round scores".
Quite a potpourri of info in today's entry. HI -30-
Saturday Feb 3 7:26PM - I started work today on my WAS rag chew list. I began with the present log entries of today and yesterday and worked backwards until March of 2021 where I got tired and quit for the time being. I found 71 30 minutes or longer QSOs. They were from 24 states and Ontario. The longest one was 52 minutes with K4LXY in VA. There were a lot that were close but just fell short of 30 by a minute or two. Six bands were represented: 80 40 30 20 17 and 10. Just glancing at the list without counting, I would say 80M had the most with 30 in second place. Several stations had more than one, such as K4LXY, VE3WH, K1OV, NR8M, to name a few. Ohio was the best state by a pretty good margin. I'll have more stats when I finish checking all my QSOs or get tired of it and give up before then. HI
My QSO tonight was a brief one in the FOC contest from K3AU. This afternoon, I ran into an old friend whom I hadn't worked since 2006, Kevin KI4DEF. Kevin was one of our early NAQCC members and did a lot to help with the club. He still does a lot of QRP work and likes to operate mW power.
Right now I'm doing my laundry waiting for the dryer to finish its task so I'll close here. -30-
Friday Feb 2 1:06PM - I watched the Punxsutawney Phil show on PCN this morning and was delighted when he made his prediction of an early spring this year. The last time he did that was in 2020 and our February and March were both well above normal temperature wise. Let's hope for a repeat, but all the while keeping in mind that Phil has only been accurate about 40% of the time in 135 or so years.
I did something I hadn't yet done this morning. I tried out the recording feature on the IC705. That is pretty neat. I recorded two of my QSOs on 10 meters. One with OH0Z and another with EA6EJ. Unfortunately EA6EJ faded out after it seemed he wanted to rag chew. That would have been nice to have a recording of. I can see some nice features of the recordings. To check if a DX station got my call correct, and try again if not. To record a contest and then log it later. To "show off" some rare DX QSO. Just a lot of applications as I learn to use it more. It records both sides of a QSO, mine and theirs. I'll have more comments on it as I get more familiar with it. -30-
Thursday Feb 1 8:00PM - I had an interesting thought today. How about a Worked All States with a 30 or more minute rag chew QSO? I wonder how close I could come to that with my 97,000 QSOs. I have all the data in my Excel log since I have always logged both the starting and ending time of every QSO. I could probably write some sort of macro to pull out the data. Or maybe just add another field containing the end time minus the start time of each QSO. Hmmmm. I'll have to give that some thought and see if I really want to go to all that effort or not. It would take a little work, for instance how to handle those QSOs that start in the 2300 hour and end in the 0000 hour just to mention one thing. Well, there's no deadline of any kind and only to satisfy my curiousity, so no pressure to do it. I wonder if I ever had a rag chew with Hawaii or Alaska. Lot of things to wonder about. If I don't find enough 30 minute rag chews, maybe make it 20 minutes or even 15? Then how about something for DX rag chews? I think I've opened a Pandora's box. HI What do you think?
My streak QSO this evening was a 32 minute rag chew with Mike K1OV in Florida. Only 49 states to go. Oh, I did Michigan with Ed AB8DF the other afternoon in a 30 minute QSO. And Ohio with K8FN in a 40 minute QSO about a week ago. And a couple near misses 29 minute QSOs. Darn. Well one was a dupe Ohio anyway, but the other was Virginia. OK, enough of that for now.
It was a fairly nice day today with a high in the upper 40s. Speaking of weather, I put the January weather in my Excel file today. Let me look at it and pick out any interesting stats. The average low, mean, and high were all above normal by the given departure. 26.5 +6.6, 32.9 +4.7, 39.3 +2.9. No overall monthly records were set or tied except the number of days with 1.0+ inch precipitation at 2 days. Of course no 90+ degree days and the like which are tied every year.
Some daily records Greatest Precipitation - Jan 9 1.65", Greatest daily high temperature - Jan 26 64 degrees, Highest daily mean temperature - Jan 27 55 degrees, Hughest daily minimum temperature - three days in a row Jan 25-27 at 44 46 43. Greatest departure from normal high temperature - Jan 26-27 at +27 +22.
Quite a January thaw from the 25-27, pretty much on schedule as it usually happens around the 3rd week in January.
One interesting stat was mentioned on Penn State weather. 90% of the time in Pittsburgh in January the skies were cloudy - the greatest ever in ANY month since such records were kept probably going back to the mid-late 1800s. Awesome. -30-
Wednesday Jan 31 5:11PM - And another month is about to become just an historical memory. It's the 945th month in which I have been alive, if my math is correct. It's the 353rd month in which my streak has existed. It's the 718th month in which I have been a ham radio operator. I don't know why I keep figuring these things as it doesn't do much except to make it more clear just how old I really am. HI
OK I've got all the January QSOs uploaded to eQSL, and now I'll wait for the matches to come in and I'll log them in my Excel log and save the card images that are new band QSOs.
We had an unusual occurance here today. A very bright object appeared in the sky this morning. I forgot what it was for a while until I realized it was the Sun that hadn't been seen here in quite a while with all the overcast skies of late. Unfortunately the overcast won out again by Noontime. SIGH!!! It was nice while it lasted, though. -30-
Tuesday Jan 30 7:55PM - I reached sort of a milestone a little while ago when I worked AB0BM in IA on 30 meters. That was my QSO number 97,000 as KN3WWP/K3WWP since April 1963 when I got my Novice ticket. If you add in the QSOs I made using for example N3AQC, N3A, NY3EC, and a few others I'm not going to list now, that makes a grand total of 97,000 + 6,389 = 103,389 QSOs. Of those, 76,024 came during the streak as K3WWP since August 5, 1994. Gosh, I'm feeling mighty old as I sit here and type this. HI. Now the next big goal if I make it will be QSO # 100,000 as KN3WWP/K3WWP. That's 3,000 more QSOs. In the latest two years, I made 2104 + 1646 = 3750 QSOs /24 = 156.25 QSOs/month. So at that pace, I should hit 100,000 in about 19 months which would take until July/August 2025. If I can stay healthy, that's not unreasonable.
Today was another chilly or mild day depending on what you reference it to. Mild for winter, chilly compared to the past couple weeks. I went shopping with Bruce today to get a couple things. I did some cleaning and dusting. Got on the air a bit late afternoon and worked a nice prefix in HH220Y on 12 meters, along with another nice rag chew with Bob K8FN on 30 meters. -30-
Monday Jan 29 8:02PM - I'm finding that as I age, I'm noticing that my interest in rag chewing is becoming more dominant in my ham radio activities. I really enjoy sitting there discussing not only ham radio topics, but others as well like the weather, fishing, walking, your career, other hobbies, etc. The list is endless, but never politics or religion. When you use voice to talk, it's easy to run out of things to say, at least for me. So CW is an ideal way for me to get into conversations with its slower speed compared to voice. I had just under a 30 minute QSO tonight with K4LXY. Let's see, at a speed of about 18 words per minute, that's 30 x 18 or 540 words or roughly 270 words for each of us. At that speed, we covered a lot of subjects, but never ran out of anything to say and could have gone on a lot longer had K4LXY not had to QRT. Much more interesting than those QSOs where you exchange a club number or some other simple quick DX or contest type exchange. Please don't get me wrong, I love DX and contest QSOs also. I always have and always will. There's a lot of satisfaction in working a rare DX station or making a lot of QSOs in a cantest, but it's a whole different kind of reward from having a long meaningful conversation with someone. End of tonight's "soapbox" if you can call it that.
Today was spent doing routine chores for the most part, but I also worked some more on my weather records and got on the bands this afternoon for a couple QSOs. KP4JRS for a quick DX QSO on 12 meters and KF2P for a short rag chew before QSB and QRN ended it prematurely. Then another DX QSO from V31XX on 40 this evening. Now I'm updating my web site and waiting for 9PM to check my daily weather readings and 9:30PM to walk Roscoe then watch the final part of the movie Shane with Bruce. A late night snack then off to bed. -30-
Sunday Jan 28 7:55PM - A little different streak plan this Sunday evening. I usually go for the SST Sprint to get my streak QSO, but tonight the 705 was set to 30 meters when I turned it on and there were a few good signals on the 705 Spectrum Scope so I thought I'd just stay there and call CQ. My CQs netted 2 QSOs with W8BWE and K1WAT.
It was a cool, compared to the last few days, day today and a lot of rain. We had exactly one inch overnight last night and more rain added throughout the day today. I think it was raining for all three of my Roscoe walks and may be so for the last one later at 9:30.
The NFL playoff games were interesting with KC "upsetting" Baltimore, and now Detroit leading SF. I watched a bit of both games over at Bruce's. He also had a spaghetti dinner for game day which was good. -30-
Saturday Jan 27 8:07PM - That's a nice ham radio related time - 807. Those of you old enough to remember vacuum tubes will recognize that and perhaps have some fond memories of it. I used a 1625 final tube back in my early ham radio days. I don't remember for sure, but I think the 1625 was pretty much identical to the 807 except for the filament voltage, 6.3V vs. 12.6V. Maybe some of you older timers can verify that.
Not much going on today except to look out the window and admire the s#$w-free vista. Isn't it great. At least I love it. Hope it lasts till spring. I guess I said that in an earlier diary entry or two, but it sure feels good to be able to say it and hope for it.
I had a couple nice rag chews this afternoon on 30 and 17 meters. Bob K8FN on 30 whom I haven't worked for about 3 or 4 years. We gabbed for about 40 minutes getting caught up on our news. Then it was Brian WB4IT for a 23 minute QSO on 17. The bands were very cooperative with steady strong signals for the whole of both QSOs.
Then the other extreme this evening with a very quick brief 160M contest QSO with K3ZM for the streak. -30-
Friday Jan 26 5:33PM - I feel good now. I just got an extra dose of Vitamin CW a few minutes ago. I liked that little phrase, "Vitamin CW" when K8QBS used it in our QSO last night and told him I would like to steal it. He gave me permission to use it, so I am and will continue to do so from time to time.
I just worked Jan K1ND in MI and Bill W9VC in IN on 30M. There wasn't much activity on other bands, but 30 was busy in the 2200Z hour today. It usually does show quite a bit of activity in that hour.
It was a warm January day today more like March with a high of let's see, ....... 63 on my La Crosse remote weather unit. That breaks the record of 60 for January 26 in my records going back to 1959. The 60 occurred way back in 1963. The highest January temperature in that long span was 71 twice on Jan 8, 2008 and Jan 13, 2006. We also hit 70 one time on Jan 11, 2020. Needless to say all our s@#w from a few days ago is totally gone. Our high is supposed to be in the 40s the next 10 days now except Monday when it will only be 39. I'll take that kind of weather in January any year. I hope it continues through February then warms up when spring (Meteorological) comes on March 1. Speaking of that, I'm going to watch the Friday Forecast Frenzy on Penn State television now in which they give a 2 day forecast, an extended forecast to 10 days and an outlook for the second week ahead. -30-
Thursday Jan 25 4:37PM - An early diary entry with a little story and a couple pictures.
Last night after I wrote the diary entry, I remembered it was the night for the NAQCC 160M Sprint. I set my iPhone alarm for 8:28PM to remind me later to get on and give it a try.
The time came and I headed to the shack. For some reason my mind was thinking mW sprint and I set my power to 900 mW, but still got on 160M. I heard K8NGW tuning up and getting ready for the sprint. When it started I gave him a call, and he came back with K3W?. I sent my complete call again and he got it and exchanged info to complete the QSO easily. That's about when it dawned on me about setting the power at 900 mW. After calling myself a dummy, I wondered if I ever had made any mW QSOs on 160 before. Conditions were good and I probably should have made more QSOs, but I only intended to get one QSO and QRT. I honored that intention and went to my computer and submitted my one QSO log with a soapbox comment about the mW power. Later I looked up 160 mW QSOs in my Excel log and found I had previously made 16 of them, 14 in the 2010 ARRL 160M Contest and 2 in the 2011 CQWW 160M Contest. That was when I had an attenuator to lower my 5 watts output from either my TS-570 or TS-480, whichever I was running at the time. The resistor values I had on hand lowered the power to 930 mW. So I now have 17 mW QSOs on 160M with my attic random wire. Yes folks, QRP and QRPp does work no matter the situation.
When I looked out at my mailbox there were two big white envelopes rubber banded together. I checked and one was for some health insurance info, the other from the ARRL. I thought maybe it was an award certificate. They sometimes take forever to send out such certificates and I forget I even ever entered an ARRL contest. Anyway it was nothing of the sort, but the following as shown here:
I was surprised because I knew I dropped my membership for a few years while I was inactive while pursuing my career in broadcasting. Apparently that was taken into account and they only totalled the years I was a member. Apparently there were fewer years I was inactive than I thought. I believe I first joined in 1963 or 1964 which would make 60 or so years. So I guess I was a non-member for about 10 years. Sorry for doing the math here, but I was curious about it while I was typing the diary entry here. HI
It was nice to hear from Paul N8XMS via email today. Paul followed Tom WY3H as NAQCC President when Tom retired as President and I retired as Vice President around 2014. I haven't talked to Tom for a while now, and think I may give him a call tonight. -30-
Wednesday Jan 24 4:09PM - Is there any more beautiful sight in nature than that I'm about to show you?
I've been working on my 63+ years of weather records again today. Getting them somewhat better organized. I hadn't looked at some of the records in many years now and it is very interesting to go through them again. It brings back a lot of memories going all the way back to 1959. I could probably write a whole book about the history of those records, but I don't think I ever will go beyond making notations about this and that along the way.
I thought I'd take a little break and get the diary written for today. I have these pictures of a nice s@#w melt and an interesting fog formation.
First the s#$w melt. The first picture from 12:52PM yesterday, January 23. The second from 3:16PM today, January 25. That's a span of a little over 26 hours from downright ugly to beautiful, thanks to the January Thaw's arrival just about exactly on time this year.
Lastly what I think is an unusual fog formation with the fog layer splitting the hills in the backgroud. They're basically just one large hill. I don't know exactly how the fog did the neat splitting job.
Think I'll do some more work on the weather records now or perhaps go upstairs and check the bands. -30-
Tuesday Jan 23 7:37PM - We lucked out weatherwise. NO Freezing rain at all last night or today. That was a real blessing. Actually we didn't even get much regular rain or s#$w. Just a few drops of rain, and that was it, so far.
One reason we didn't get any was because it all was falling as Virga. What's that, you say, if you're really not into the study of weather. Well, Virga is precipitation that falls into a very dry layer of air normally rather deep and close to the ground. As a result, it evaporates before reaching the ground, no matter what type it was before the dry layer. It will even show up on radar before it evaporates, which is why sometimes radar will show precipitation at your QTH, but a look out the window will show you nothing.
I had a couple of rag chews late this afternoon with a couple of hams I had never worked before, VE1CEN Josh on 17, and AB2T Jordan on 30, both answered my CQs. Then this evening another first timer, WD4AWD on a POTA operation on 30. Not sure where he was as a lot of POTA stations don't give out any kind of location, not even a simple, quick state. Another case of the integration of ham radio and computers. You have to check the POTA web site to get a QTH for an operation, and then if he wasn't spotted there, you have to wait a day or so to see where his operation took place. When I do a POTA, I have and always will give an RST State report. -30-
Monday, Jan 22 6:21PM - Although I hate the frozen kind, precipitation and how it is formed is fascinating. Let's look at the basic four forms: Rain, S@#w, Sleet, Freezing rain. There are other sub-forms, but I won't go into graupel, snow pellets, hail, and the like.
Most all precipation begins in the upper atmosphere as s@#w. What happens between there and the ground determines the type at the ground level.
1. If the temperature is above freezing all the way down, it is rain.
2. If it is below freezing all the way, it is s#$w.
3. If the journey starts in above freezing air, but there is a thick layer of cold air at ground level below that, it freezes before it reaches the ground and is sleet.
4. Similar to #3, but the ground level cold air layer is not as thick, it is freezing rain, not freezing till it reaches the ground, roads, trees, etc.
It gets really interesting when there are more than 2 levels of different temperature air on the trip to the ground. Do a Internet Bing search to learn more about precipitation types.
I got a quick DX QSO for the streak this evening. I turned on the IC705 and went right to 10 meters. Right there on 28016 was a strong LU7YZ calling unanswered CQs. I took care of that for him quickly. I called and he came back with WWP?, so I sent K3WWP and got a K3WWP TU 559 report. I gave him a TU 589 and a day was added to the streak. I looked around the bands some more but didn't work anyone else. TX5S was on 40 with a narrow but huge pileup. I never did actually hear TX5S. -30-
Sunday, Jan 21 8:19PM - Remember back in 2010 (I think it was) when the Netherlands Antilles broke up how the bands were overloaded with those seeking to work the new arrangement of those countries? 17 meters sounded a little like that late this afternoon with folks chasing Clipperton Island and TX5S listening all over about half of the CW portion of the band. Maybe that's an exaggerated comparison, but 17 was busy. Not busy enough to keep me from finding a rag chew QSO with Dave W4CI. I tried a bit to work TX5S, but didn't feel like spending time trying to find where he was listening, and gave up. I have Clipperton worked and confirmed on 30, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10 meters anyway.
Tonight I worked old standby SST participant Greg WK0B on 20 meters, then took some time for a rag chew with old friend Bill K4VSV on 30 meters.
A little more work on my weather records the only non-routine activity today. -30-
Saturday Jan 20 7:25PM - A very cold day today with a high of 21 and winds enough to make it feel like the single digits. At least no s@#w to speak of. So a good day to work indoors, and I did. I continued my work of late organizing my weather records. I got four 3-ring binders delivered today and took some records out of a filing cabinet and put them in one of the binders. I also split up a bulging binder and split its contents up with one of the new binders. I also did some more updating of the web site.
Ham Radiowise, I also did some work on my log files. This evening was the HA DX Contest with everyone working everyone else so I grabbed VE3NZ and gave him my number uno in the contest then QRT to do my laundry which I have been doing on Saturday evenings the past few weeks now instead of Sunday mornings. Now as the laundry is in the washing cycle, I'm doing the diary entry and updating my streak table on the main page of the web site along with today's propagation numbers on the propagation page. Maybe when the clothes go in the dryer a little later, I'll go back to the shack for a while. Or maybe not. HI -30-
Friday Jan 19 7:30PM - Another day of s@#w, staying inside, and doing some more web site updating. Looking forward to next week's January thaw with a few days in the upper 40s flirting with 50 degrees.
I had a great 30 minute rag chew about an hour ago with W1DWJ up in NH. We went into the time machine reminiscing about ham radio in the 1950s (when he was first licensed) and 1960s in my Novice days. Very interesting to compare then and now as far as ham radio goes. Vacuum tubes vs. solid state devices. Doing it all yourself vs. so much computer aiding these days. In a way it's truly a case of the "good old days" vs. what is going on these days. Which is better is strictly personal preference. My preference is a mixture of both, but mainly the old fashioned way of doing things with a little help from computers. -30-
Thursday Jan 18 7:58PM - I spent part of today doing some updating to some of my web site pages. Some of them haven't had much care recently and the info was, shall we say, outdated. HI.
Also I was looking at the NAQCC Award winners page on the NAQCC site and saw some of my awards there need updating and I worked on that somewhat also.
Interesting how when you get older things tend to get out of hand more easily. A lot of other things change also with age. I'm finding out a lot about that over the past couple years as the ageing is setting in kind of suddenly rather than a slow gradual change. Oh well, I'm still in good shape so no complaints.
My streak QSO tonight had to do with old age also. It was with Jon W8TY. We first worked way back in the early 60s when I was KN3WWP and he was WN8ELT. It will be 61 years since our first QSO this year on May 23. Whew! -30-
Wednesday Jan 17 7:30PM - For what it's worth, we're one day closer to spring than when I talked about the miserable weather in the diary last evening. Actually in about a week now, we may get a brief preview of spring if the outlook of 50+ degrees pans out the middle of next week. We'll see how right that turns out to be.
Not much on the bands this afternoon. I did get a couple of quick QSOs this evening though. First a brief chat with EA3AR on 40 meters. We've worked before a few times now and then. Then back to PA for a QSO with Eastern PA on 80 meters. A little later this evening is our NAQCC Sprint. I might try to get a couple QSOs in that to keep up my participation in the sprints.
Other than that, it was a shopping day to stock up on some food from Family Dollar and Sprankle's. Some $60.00 worth. I was thinking of trying to compare what I would have paid a year or two ago pre-inflation for the same food. I do have some old receipts from then, so it might be possible to do, but a lot of work and I'm not really that curious since there's not a lot I can do about it anyway. I was going to say something about politics here, but I decided not to. -30-
Tuesday Jan 16 6:02PM - We had another 2+ inches of you know what overnight to continue the miserable weather a little longer. Not much of a melt today with low 20s temperatures. SIGH. At least we are in the middle of meteorological winter today so half of the lousy season is over with.
It was a good day for ham radio, anyway. I had three good rag chews on 3 different bands. It started with KS0M on 10 meters. Dick is one of the oldest hams I have ever worked at 97 years of age. We talked for 16 minutes. Then next was W5LXS on 17 meters. We went for almost exactly 30 minutes and could have gone longer but the band dropped out on us suddenly. Lastly, it was N0ZT on 30 meters for 9 minutes, also ended by the band changing. All three QSOs came from my calling CQ. I was especially surprised by the 10 meters QSO. I hope the bands are still good this evening for my streak QSO. -30-
Monday Jan 15 8:07PM - T'aint a fit nite (day) out for man (me) nor beast (Roscoe). We did manage 4 quick short walks though with one more to come. I feel sorry for the little fellow as the cold and s@#w seemed to bother him today. I had to hurry him along. A little bribery helped in that regard. I took a doggie treat out with me and he did hurry up somewhat in anticipation of getting the treat. We had a low of +6 and a high of 25 today. It was a sunny day for the most part which helped boost the temperature a bit. It didn't help much in melting yesterday's s@#w though. It looks like more off and on snow for a week then maybe some warm up from the January thaw weather next week. I've watched the Penn State weather many years now. I believe it was there I heard Mark Mancuso's theory about the January thaw. It made a lot of sense, but unfortunately after all the years, I've forgotten the details. It had something to do with the Arctic climate. There is a definite peak in temperature that occurs regularly in the third or fourth week of January that shows up in my records.
Speaking of records, not for anything to do with the January thaw, I did quite a bit of organizing my weather records today. I started keeping records as a school project back in January of 1959 and after an intermittent 1959, I started keeping daily records on January 1, 1960 and with the help of my mother and an aunt, I've kept daily records to this very day, and in about 35 minutes as I type, I'll be getting today's data to continue that streak another day.
The other streak, the radio one, extended easily this evening with two QSOs, DX from PJ2ND and a rag chew of 27 minutes from W2XS. -30-
Sunday Jan 14 7:14PM - A tale of two QSOs today. This afternoon a rag chew with Vic W9RGB that lasted 47 minutes. This evening an SST QSO with Grant WA3AAN that lasted maybe 15 seonds at most. Both count as QSOs though, and that's the bottom line for my streak.
Very little going on today worth talking about. I definitely don't want to talk about the weather other than to say Winter has arrived. About an inch of s@#w overnight and the temperature was steady in the low 20s most of the day, and is now 15 degrees. BRRR! One good thing is that the wind has finally died down for the first time since Monday or so. Almost a full week of strong winds. I finally could put my porch furniture, hanging flower baskets and wind chimes back out today so it looks a little more cheerful and distracts from the ugliness of winter somewhat.
I also played with the settings on the ICOM705 a little today. Nothing particular in mind, I just wanted to see what some of the settings do, especially the ones that change the look of the Spectrum Scope. I wound up only changing one that increased the display height of the signals to make them stand out more clearly. -30-
Saturday Jan 13 7:35PM - Let's see, how can I describe today. Maybe like a tiny taste of what it must be like for those folks sitting out a hurricane wondering what it is going to bring them? The key word there is "tiny" because the magnitude of what is going on here is very small compared to a hurricane's penchant for destructive force. We did have the pretty steady high winds all day and they will continue through the night and tomorrow although they will diminish a bit by then. Today they were in the mid 20s range with gusts to the upper 30s range. Just a slight breeze compared to a full fledged hurricane. There wasn't much rain at all here today and there was a little snow mixed in now and then. I guess the real similarity is worrying about what the storms will bring. Will the wind blow down some power lines or some tree limbs on the lines or on the house? Will there be flooding from the rain? Any ice mixed in? Things like that which so far have not materialized, and hopefully won't before this all wraps by late tomorrow. Then we go right into the first real cold spell of winter for the next week or so. SIGH, when will spring get here. HI
The NA QSO Party provided an easy streak QSO with KR2Q whom I've worked many times and who took a moment to ask if I was QRP. Didn't take long to answer with an "R". HI. Otherwise in ham radio today I worked on the listing of all those who have visited my web site and signed the Guestbook. I've gotten quite a ways behind in doing that. It was a good way to pass the time and ease the worry about the weather.
Also tonight for the same reasons, I'm doing my weekly laundry. And that's it for now. Hope to be back here tomorrow evening. -30-
Friday Jan 12 7:30PM - A day spent watching the weather, trying to figure out what it is going to be for the weekend. The best guess right now is a wet, windy one, with maybe some sleet and or s@#w mixed in here and there. Then next week will be a cold one, followed by a less cold, dry one. That's my nutshell forecast mostly gathered from Penn State's Weather World telecast. I've been following the Penn State weather practically since its inception. There have been gaps in that when I couldn't get the telecasts. However I've come to the conclusion that it is the most accurate forecast available. The best feature is that they allow for flexibility in their forecasts just like in the real weather itself. No saying tomorrow will be cloudy with a high of 43 degrees and .24 inches of precipitation. But more like we'll have temperatures in the mid 40s with around a quarter inch of rain. I think that little sample will convey their way of doing things.
Tonight I heard VP9KF on 40 and went ahead and worked him for the streak even though I just worked him a couple days ago. This afternoon I had a nice chat with Pete K1PJA on 30 meters for 17 minutes. Signals were perfectly steady all that time.
OK, if the high winds don't change things, I'll be here with another diary entry sometime tomorrow. -30-
Thursday Jan 11 5:34PM - I just finished my late afternoon check of the bands that I've been doing lately. They seemed a little more active today than the past few days, but still I didn't work anyone. I didn't really try that hard as I was mostly just listening. I did hear and called a few times my friend Suke JM7OLW on 10 meters but my 5 watts wasn't making the trip today as it has in the past. Suke and I have had 4 QSOs all mini-rag chews. By that I mean they lasted a few minutes each and we actually exchanged more than the all too standard TU599 from DX QSOs these days. I also heard a FY station, but he was jumped on before I even tried calling. Also I tried a few CQs on each band with no success.
I was also reading some stories about Nick Saban retiring as Alabama football coach yesterday. There is a lot of speculation about who will replace him. I have my own choice of the people suggested. I think Dabo Swinney from Clemson would be an excellent choice. He took Clemson to the CFP finals in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 where they beat Alabama in 2016 and 2018. They had a bit of a down year this year, but still I think Swinney would be a worthy successor to Saban if he is willing to go and if Alabama can afford and/or is willing to buy out his contract. Just my opinion, right or wrong.
Otherwise we're watching another storm similar to Tuesday coming this Friday and Saturday with a lot of rain, a litle snow, and high winds. -30-
Wednesday Jan 10 8:03PM - A quiet day today after the exciting in many ways day yesterday. I described the day yesterday pretty fully since I didn't get to write the diary entry till after 11:00PM so I won't repeat it here.
I did get on the air a couple times during the afternoon. I've been starting on 10M and working my way down looking for activity and if not finding any, calling 5 or so QSOs, then if no answers to my CQs, I move on down another band. When I got to 17M I found KH7Y calling CQ with a strong signal. I worked him easily, but he had moved to California since the last time I worked him a few years ago. We chatted a bit then I moved on. When I got to 30M, W1WCC answered my CQ there and we chatted about 18 minutes. You probably know with a call like that, there would be a connection with Marconi and also the coastal station WCC on Cape Cod. We talked about my visit to Cape Cod many years ago among other things.
Tonight I quickly found and quickly worked VP9KF whom I've worked 4 times before. Since that was so quick, I went CQing in hopes of finding a rag chew. NS8S did answer my CQ on 40 for a 22 minute QSO. And that wraps up a quiet day. -30-
Tuesday Jan 9 11:11PM - I had a first tonight at SkyView. I worked China, but with three strikes against it counting as an official K3WWP QSO. 1 - I used the club call of K3MJW. 2 - I used 50 watts of power. 3 - I used a tri-band beam antenna. So it goes into my "Other Calls" log, not my K3WWP log. That's fine with me. Once again it proves to me that working QRO with big antennas is just not as thrilling nor satisfying as CW/QRP/simple wire antennas. It was fun though for a change. I also heard two other China stations to make it 3 heard tonight - more than I've heard total in my 60 years of hamming.
Yes, Mike and I did have a good time at SkyView playing with the equipment and visiting with the members. That's been a second Tuesday evening ritual each month for a while now and will continue to be so in the future. I thought we might not make it tonight because of the weather, but the early morning bit of s@#w turned into a mild rain for the rest of the day totalling 1.65 inches of rain. Imagine if that had been s@#w. No thanks, I don't even want to imagine it. Anyway Mike and I lucked out and missed the heaviest part of the rain on our drives to and from New Kensington. -30-
Monday Jan 8 8:44AM - I was going on a shopping trip early today, but that has been postponed so I thought I'd use the time to talk about the 2023 weather for my diary entry today.
I'll just list the data in one or two line statements with a brief comment if necessary.
Here are a couple of earliest in the year for a maximum temperature reading: 72 Feb 15, 89 Apr 14.
The following data is all in the format shown here:
Spring (Mar-May) daily mean temperature departure from normal
Year 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Data +0.4 +2.1 +4.3 +3.8 +1.4 +3.4 +2.5 +2.9 +2.9 +2.1
Summer (Jun-Aug) daily mean temperature departure from normal
Year 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Data +0.9 +1.6 +4.3 +1.4 +3.3 +2.5 +3.8 +3.4 +2.5 +0.9
Autumn (Sep-Nov) daily mean temperature departure from normal
Year 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Data +1.3 +5.4 +5.3 +3.7 +2.6 +3.0 +3.3 +4.2 +1.8 +2.7
Winter (Dec, Jan-Feb following year) daily mean temperature departure from normal
Year 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Data -1.8 +6.3 +6.8 +2.2 +4.2 +6.5 +3.5 +3.8 +7.6 inc.
Yearly (Jan-Dec) daily mean temperature departure from normal
Year 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Data +0.3 +2.5 +4.2 +3.7 +2.9 +3.1 +4.0 +2.8 +1.0 +2.9
I think I'll stop here. I have many more statistics available, but these along with precipitation are the most interesting, I think. Perhaps I'll do the precipiation stats in a later entry. -30-
Sunday Jan 7 8:28PM - I finished putting my 2023 weather data into my weather spreadsheet. I ran into a couple bugs along the way caused by my using a different spreadsheet program from Microsoft Excel. I exterminated most of them, but still have a couple to work on. The stats turned out to be interesting and can be summed up in a quick bottom line word - WARM. Most all stats seem to show a general warming trend over the last 5 to 10 years with some up and down bumps along the way. If time permits tomorrow perhaps I'll illustrate some here in the diary to support my observations.
For the first time since I went back to a one-a-day QSO formula for my streak, I got a second QSO tonight, and it was a great one. A rag chew with Bill K0CDJ on 30 meters that lasted just a few seconds shy of a full 30 minutes. The first QSO was a SST Sprint quicky.
A lot of our s#@w from yesterday has melted, especially on the streets and sidewalks, and that's good. Looks like the next storm on Tuesday and Wednesday will be a rain and wind one with maybe some s@#w mixed in now and then. -30-
Saturday Jan 6 7:57PM - This is the third day now since I dropped getting a second QSO each day with my streak. I like the decision because the three days have proved hard just getting the one QSO. It's not due to any shortcoming in my station or antenna nor anything to do with propagation. It's mainly due to a gradual decline of folks rag chewing on CW. Put on a CW contest and the CW segments are full stem to stern with signals. Get some POTA or SOTA stations on the air and they draw big crowds. Special event stations likewise. But just getting on the air with CW to have a nice chat with someone seems at least the way I see it, to be dwindling. Perhaps it's because the old-timers who like to do that are dying off. Along with that, the newcomers to the hobby are making it more of a computer/radio hobby with their digital modes like FT8 and all those other fancy names they have. Give me my good old fashioned Morse code and some other ham who feels the same way and wants to chat about this or that subject in a nice half hour visit or longer, and I'm happy. Down off the soapbox now.
I finally got around to putting at least part of my 2023 weather data into my computer. Some interesting stats turned up. When I finish inputting the rest of the data, I'll try to list some of the stats. A quick bottom line - it was a warm year, and a dry one. Not record-setting, but noteworthy.
We had our first good (bad!) s#@fall today, about 1.5 or maybe 2 inches. It shouldn't hang around too long (better not) since daytime temps should be in the upper 30s to low 50s the next several days. -30-
Friday Jan 5 5:48PM - Looks like this was a good day to go back to one-QSO-a-day for the streak. It was a bit difficult to get even the one QSO last evening. Finally I was able to work Jack W4TJE down in VA after about a half hour of fruitless calls and CQs. Jack and I usually talk quite a bit, but last night poor conditions limited us to one set of exchanges. It was a QSO though and the streak goes on. I hope I don't jinx things by saying this, but actually it is pretty hard to NOT get a QSO. I've proved that by getting at least one each day for 10,746 consecutive days now. It will take something pretty drastic to keep from getting a QSO.
It looks like winter starts tomorrow with a winter storm advisory, then other storms showing up every 3 or 4 days or so for at least a couple weeks. Tomorrow should give 1-3" of s#@w or 2-5" depending on whether you believe the GFS or EURO forecast computers or some other computer. It was supposed to be no s#$w from one computer or C-1" from another then the storm took a jog to the west in its predicted track, hence the increase in numbers. The latest on next Tuesday's storm seems to indicate it will be mostly a rain storm with temps in the mid-upper 40s. We'll see.
About an hour to go till streak time. I wonder what conditions will yield tonight. I didn't get to check the bands this afternoon or early evening. Hope they are better than last night. -30-
Thursday Jan 4 6:02PM - Nothing much going on right now, so I thought I'd get the diary entry taken care of. Actually not much going on at all today. I did some cleaning up in the computer getting rid of some files I no longer need, and things like that. I also fixed one of the hanging flower baskets on my front porch. It had been hanging kind of askew the past couple weeks.
This evening I go back to my one-a-day QSO streak after ending the concurrent 2-a-day 365 day streak. Actually those who have followed the streak for a long time now know there have been other concurrent streaks accompanying the main one-a-day streak that will be 10,746 consecutive days with my one streak QSO after 0000Z comes along in about 50 minutes now. For those not familiar with the concurrent streaks, they are all listed in the QRP section of the site on the QRP Streaks page in that section. I haven't written up the latest 2-a-day streak that just ended yet. I probably will do so in the next couple months sometime. -30-
Wednesday Jan 3 8:15PM - Three items to cover in this diary entry.
1. I've decided with the completion of 365 straight days of 2 QSOs per day when I worked VE2PEACE on 80M, I'm going back to just my regular one streak QSO per day as I've done for the last 10,745 consecutive days. What I'll do is get that one QSO, then depending on circumstances either QRT or explore the bands to see what else is around. No pressure to get any more QSOs after the first one continued the streak another day.
2. I didn't have the ambition to do my 2023 weather data today, so maybe I'll do that tomorrow.
3. I finished work on the keyer today making up new labels for it as shown in the two pictures here:
The first picture is the back of the keyer and shows the pin jacks I added to keep track of the voltage with the battery checking position on my VOM and the new label for it. Also the jacks for the cable to the transmitter and for the paddle plus an empty hole that must have been there for something long ago when I built the keyer.
The second picture shows the new recessed pushbuttons for (L-R), a 3x2 CQ, a 3x2 CQ that repeats with a 4 second pause in between CQs, QRL? (my labelmaker doesn't have a ? on it), and the call. -30-
Tuesday Jan 2 7:56PM - I had two somewhat big projects today. At least they were out of the ordinary everyday things. I put the December weather stats in my weather spreadsheet. December turned out to be a warm month with a temperature 8.7 degrees above normal at 41.6 degrees, but short of the record from 2015 of 44.1 degrees. It was somewhat dry with about 3/4 inch below normal precipitation. There were 7 minor daily records like Least Daily Range of temperature, High Minimum temperature, Highest Daily Precipitation, and the like.
Tomorrow or the next day I hope to compile the weather stats for the whole year of 2023. It should wind up being a pretty warm year, although I don't think it will be record-setting, but we'll see.
I also worked on the keyer that we've been using or trying to use on the USS Requin. I think I've got most of the bugs exterminated now with four new pushbutton switches. I also added a couple pin jacks to measure the battery voltage. I can't wait till the Requin opens up again probably in mid-March so we can try it out.
I didn't make all 50 states in the ARRL VOTA deal in 2023. I missed out on AK, GA, MA, NV, and WV. Oh well. I didn't think that was as big a deal as the ARRL Centennial deal several years ago when I did get all 50 rather easily or the 13 Colonies deal each year in July whick I've completed with 13 colonies plus WM3PEN several years in a row now.
A couple of quick QSOs this evening thanks to KC4KNN and N1W. I still think I'm going back to the one-a-day QSO after tomorrow ends a year of two-a-day. Another we'll see deal. HI. -30-
Monday Jan 1 8:14PM - Let's see, it was just about a year ago that I started a "sub-streak" complementing my main streak. On January 5, 2023 I added a second QSO to my daily streak QSO making it two QSOs per day, of course CW, QRP, simple wire antenna style. So two more days and I'll complete a year of <<
Going back to the one-a-day will give me more time to explore the bands more thoroughly after I get the 1 QSO instead of looking strictly for the second QSO. There won't be any self-induced pressure.
I did some end of year / first of year work on the web site today. I especially added my 2023 stats to my yearly stats table in the QRP section of the web site along with some other updates.
That does it for another entry and once again a very Happy New Year to all by diary readers. Have a great 2024. -30-
