Guest operator

I had a guest in the shack last night for the Zombie Shuffle

Bonesy and I had a good time last night. I had a bit of trepidation of having only the vertical as my antenna weapon of choice, but it turned out to be less of a hindrance than I thought. In all, I worked 11 stations, three of which were bonus stations. 

80 Meters turned out to be the money band. I had a few QSOs on 40 Meters, but most were accomplished on 80 Meters. I listened on 20 Meters for a few minutes, only to hear a few ESP signals. I quickly decided to not waste any time there. Where signals were good, QSB was BAD last night. Several signals that started out at close to 599 would disappear in seconds. It made for quite the challenging, but fun evening.

I had planned to stay on longer than I did, but around 8:30 PM local time, somebody in the neighborhood turned something "on" and my noise level rose to over S9. So I shut it down for the night and headed upstairs to catch a bit of TV before bed.

Not my best outing by any means, but as hideous as band conditions have been for the longest while, I was pleasantly surprised. Kudos and thanks to Paul NA5N and his wife Jan N0QT for another SPOOKtacular event - it was a ton of fun and is one of the hallmarks of the QRP year.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Zombie Shuffle is tonight!

 

And here are some updates from Paul, NA5N:

The 2020 23rd annual QRP Zombie Shuffle is almost upon us.

Friday, October 30, 2020, 1600-midnight your local time

Rules: http://www.zianet.com/qrp/ZOMBIE/pg.htm

The Zombie Shuffle past 3 years has been met with awful bands, solar flux  only 62-65 and Kp 3-4 noise.  Yuck.

GOOD NEWS

The sun is slowly waking up for our next solar cycle with some improvements seen on the bands.  Today, and tomorrow for the Shuffle, the solar flux will be 88 and the Kp index only 1-2 for hopefully better bands and propagation than the past few years.  So, get on the air.

BONUS STATIONS

Quite a few stations volunteered to be Bonus Stations, and a few were invited.  Thanks to all.  I tried to distribute the Bonus Stations in different areas across the country, including "out west," for better variety and to help improve your SPC count.  A bonus station will send "2020" for their Zombie number, which in itself is like bonus points, plus their bonus station multiplier.  Most Bonus stations will also send some goofy or scary name of their choice for an extra measure of Zombie fun.   Some of the names chosen are quite interesting and unique, so copy the OP name carefully.

Below is a list of the Bonus stations and the SPC to help you find them:

AR      WA5BDU

CA      KE1B

GA      K4BAI

IA      WØPWE

ID      KU7Y

ID      K7TQ

IN      AB9CA

MA      KE1L

MD      W3KC

NE      N5SEZ

NM      NA5N

NM      K8TE   (Note 1)

ONT     VE3MGY (Note 2)

PA      K3SWZ

PA      W3BQC  (Note 3)

TN      AC6ZM

TX      WB6BKL

WA      WU7H

WA      NB5M

Note 1: K8TE is the New Mexico ARRL Section Manager, who requested a Zombie number to participate.  He will be QRP.

Note 2: Last year's top scorer and official "MGY" (Titanic) station

Note 3: Club station, WA3WSJ OP, Boschveldt, PA QRP Club

If you've been QRT during the solar minimum, or a bit rusty or new to CW, the QRP Zombie Shuffle is for you.  Code speeds are modest around 18wpm, but Zombies will slow to your speed (QRS) if needed.  Very informal to make some QSOs regardless of your operating skills and to have some on-the-air fun.  Notice the scoring, the sum of all the Zombie numbers you work, is based more on serendipity than skill.

Hope to work many of you. Don't forget to snap a photo or selfie to submit.

72, Paul NA5N

Socorro, NM

Zombie name: "Kilroy" as in "Kilroy was here"

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here

Rig: Ten Tec Argo at 5W

Ant: 5BTV vertical, 36 radials, or 130 ft. long terminated folded dipole

Key: 1938 McElroy bug, weighted to 16 wpm.

Thanks for organizing this for yet another year, Paul! I hope to hear a lot of you on the air tonight as well. I am down to just the HF9V for the evening. Ol' Mapley is still not down, it's been quite the wet week here in Central New Jersey.

72 de Larry W2LJ - Zombie # 858

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Eureka!

 While cleaning out the shack on Sunday, I found some treasure buried in a corner. I had forgotten that I still have about eight of these (just like in the photo):

The photo is from eBay, mine were purchased at the Sussex Hamfest years ago.  I still have these safely tucked away in the basement and they will provide the solution to raising the W3EDP again, once the Ol' Mapley is gone.

I have aluminum ones holding up my weather station and the VHF-UHF J-Pole as well as serving as the mast for the FAR end of the W3EDP. I have no doubt that the remaining sections that I have will also do a great job supporting a wire that weighs next to nothing. I'll strap one to one of the chain link fence posts with a gazillion cable ties and that will in turn support its brethren and the W3EDP. 

Actually, this is not so much a support as much as it is a pivot point. The wire leaves the house, goes to the mid support (which is a dog bone insulator tied in place on one end with dacron rope - the wire goes through the other hole) and routes the wire to the right roughly about  70 - 80 degrees to the end support mast. I should only lose a few feet in height from where the W3EDP was at in the tree.

Money saved ....... a good thing!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

I am officially W3EDP-less.

 The W3EDP came down this morning. It was a little more difficult than I had thought it would be. It was really up there! Unless the entire tree came down that wire wasn't coning down on its own.

I began by undoing where the balun was hanging by the house. That was easy enough. Then I loosened the anchor point at the other end. Lastly, I untied the center support that was holding the wire in the tree. I thought once I loosened that, it would just fall to the earth. 

That didn't happen.

The dacron rope must be wrapped around some limb pretty well. It came down some, but not nearly enough. I ended up pulling the wire through that dogbone insulator that was up there and got it down that way. The center insulator and rope that are still up there are disposable as far as I'm concerned

Now I'm looking at masts to take  the place of the tree once it's down. Perhaps something from DX Engineering or perhaps the MFJ-1904. It doesn't have to be super heavy duty - it just needs to hold an insulator so I can "right angle" the wire to the other side of the back yard.

After that was done,  I straightened out the shack, which is something I've been meaning to do for a while.  I got rid of the large garbage bags of "crap", and got things organized and stowed away. 

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP = When you care to send the very least!

Saying goodbye to an old friend

 

It's time to say goodbye to the maple tree in the back yard - my trusty antenna support over the last 22 years. My neighbor came by today to tell me that his cousin, who has a tree service business will be by sometime this week to take it down.

Unfortunately, it's time. The trunk has carpenter ant damage and the tree is not the most healthy. The trunk is hollow in places and were we to get another Sandy type of storm, it would most definitely go horizontal. So tomorrow, the W3EDP will come down as well as the VHF/UHF J-pole, so that will not get damaged when the crane is moved into my neighbor's driveway.

Once the tree is down, some sort of mast will go up in that corner of the back yard to take place of Ol' Mapley.  For the foreseeable future, I will have only the Butternut HF9V and perhaps the AlexLoop for the time being.

Good bye, ol' friend - thanks for holding up my wire antennas!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

This is the stuff I dream of

 A good Amateur Radio friend, Marc W4MPS recently activated a POTA site. Here's a video he published:

Wow! What a beautiful setting! And beside the superb radio operating by Marc, how about that dronesmanship? Eh? Don't those aerial views just add to the beauty of it all?

I would love to travel out West and activate parks like this. Being able to take in the natural beauty of God's creation AND have fun on the radio at the same time - what could possibly be better than that!

This reminds me of another time and another place in a totally different circumstance. Marc helped the South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club activate our local Spring Lake Park back in 2015 for Field Day. Marc was in New Jersey visiting his daughter and he stopped by to give our  CW effort some much needed assistance. The view was nowhere as spectacular and the weather left a lot to be desired.

You can see by the jackets and ponchos being worn that the weather was less than deluxe for that Field Day. Actually, after it was over, we all wondered how it was that none of us came down with pneumonia. It was chilly for late June, and very damp and wet. The funny thing was, that after Field Day weekend, that year we did not get another wet weekend until well into Autumn!

Thanks, Marc, for sharing your video. Make sure to take us along on any further adventures!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Making a comeback?

 The "Run for the Bacon" Sprints, a monthly event held on the 3rd Sunday of the month, and sponsored by the Flying Pigs Amateur Radio Club Inc, have been on the contest scene for years. But like a lot of things over the years, participation has dwindled.

In an effort to correct that course, the Sprint time has changed to a little bit earlier start as a means to increase participation. For example, on the East Coast, the old time was from 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM local time. For someone who has to get up early to go to work the next day, that's a big hurdle.

The time has been changed - to a start a couple hours earlier. In my case, it's now from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM, much more appealing. In fact, the RFTB is occurring tonight and I just may jump into the fray. It's getting darker earlier so contacts on 80 Meters should be a real possibility.

For the details, please visit - http://qrpcontest.com/pigrun/

Hope to hear you on the air tonight!

73 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

This is how Autumn should be!

 http://www.w1pid.com/20/knox/knox.html

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

A good friend - now an SK.

I found out from my good friend Bob W3BBO that a mutual friend of ours, Rich Alderiso AA2KS had become a Silent Key this past July.

I first met Rich when I became a member of the Piscataway Amateur Radio Club. His call sign was AA2KS, he lived in North Edison and he ran (with his brother) a wholesale produce business out of Newark.

The love of his life was his wife Patty. When our group of friends decided to make the trip to Dayton in 1994, we concocted our plans over an amazing Italian dinner at Richie's house. Patty was an awesome cook and we enjoyed our planning sessions as much as we enjoyed the trip to Dayton itself.

Through PARC, we embarked on several special events together. Rich was a participant in trips to the Edison Memorial, the Twin Lighthouses at the Atlantic Highlands and to Long Valley, NJ to activate a special Halloween event for "The Ghost of Long Valley".

Our trip to Dayton in 1994 was taken in Richie's brand new Cadillac; and we'll never forget how he made us wipe our shoes off with a towel before we were allowed to get in.

Field Days were not complete without Richie' presence. He always arrived early with something from his business in his trunk. Whether it was a load of fresh peaches, or fresh watermelons, he always helped to make PARC Field Days extra special.

Richie was multi-talented and Amateur Radio was not his only hobby. He was also a builder of musical instruments (cellos) and he was also into clock making. Eventually, Richie and Pat moved from Edison down to the Jersey Shore to be closer to his daughters - and that's where we lost touch.

It saddens me that another Ham Radio acquaintance has passed on. I'll always remember Richie for his quick smile, the way he could crack a joke, for his friendship and his hospitality.

God bless you, Richard - may you have nothing but good propagation up there in the Big Ham Shack in the sky. You will be missed - it was a pleasure and honor to have known you.

72 de Larry W2LLJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Propagation is a fickle thing.

Yesterday, and again this morning, I have been trying to work my friend Bob W3BBO in the Pennsylvania QSO Party. You would think that between Erie, PA and Central NJ, either 40 Meters or 80 Meters would be a sure thing, right?

Nope.

I keep Bob's call listed in HamAlert so I know that when he's on. He was spotted multiple times on 40 Meters yesterday and 80 Meters AND 40 Meters this morning. Every time I run downstairs when I get notice of a spot, I tune on or close to the frequency that he's been spotted on - nothing. Can't hear a peep. I'll betcha a dollar to a donut that were he to switch to 20 Meters, somehow I'd be able to hear him - which goes against all logic as far as I'm concerned.

While listening for Bob, I was hearing a lot of SKCC stations on the air. I am guessing that this week is the SKCC Weekend Sprint. I'll have to dust off the ol' bug and practice with it, off the air, and maybe join in and work a few next month. I would try today, but straight key sending is holy terror on my wrist and my bug sending would send folks running for the hills swearing to "Never work that W2LJ guy again!"

Speaking of upcoming events, this made it to QRP-L this past week. Notice of the 2020 Zombie Shuffle:

Zombies and Zombettes:

That time of the year again.  The 23rd Annual Zombie Shuffle QRP whatever-it-is will be held Friday, October 30, 2020 from 1600 to midnight YOUR LOCAL TIME.  This should allow for a little 20M at the beginning before forced to 40 or 80M.

Rules are here: http://www.zianet.com/qrp/ZOMBIE/pg.htm

Pretty much the same ole malarky QRP fun that is senseless and pointless with ridiculous scoring for getting on the air and working a few fellow QRP Zombies.

Bonus stations this year will be sending "2020" as their Zombie Number for an even bigger score and additional multipliers.  We'd like to see Bonus Stations in the East, Midwest, West and VE.  So, if you're planning on operating for an hour or two and want to be one of the coveted Bonus Stations, please let me know (na5n@zianet.com).

If you've never participated in the Zombie Shuffle, give it a try.  Just some silly Halloween fun to work some fellow QRP stations.  Not a high speed QRQ contest; stations will match your speed if you're a bit rusty or new to CW.

We'll never have a more Zombie year than 2020!!! :-(

72, Paul NA5N

Grand Zombie #004/2020

AIN'T THAT THE TRUTH !!!!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least