ATNO!

Got a new one last night on 17 Meter CW - 5W0COW - Samoa on 18.073 MHz at 00:34 UTC. An all time new one.  He was calling CQ and was actually kind of lonely.  New one in the books!

I literally happened to be at the right place at the right time as I was putting the KX3 back to its home after its Field Day stint.  Just to make sure everything was working properly, I fired up the rig and was twiddling the dial on 17 Meters, and the rest, as they say, is history!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very lest!

A Tip o' the Hat

I really have to extend a hearty "tip o' the hat" to all you QRP SSB guys out there.  Not being used to SSB operations, not being used to QRP SSB operations has provided me with a learning experience. In your writer's most humble opinion, QRP SSB has a difficulty factor of 10X compared to QRP CW.

Today during lunch time, I was hunting around for NPOTA stations on 20 Meters.  Not hearing anything on the CW bands, I moved on up to the realm of voice - foreign territory, indeed!.  There I heard two stations. K0USA on 14.260 MHz and K0RP on 14.340 MHz.  K0RP was very weak, with QSB making it worse. K0USA was a good 5X5 into NJ and even 5X7 when QSB would let up. I decided to  concentrate on Mary, who was the op behind the mic.  It took the better of 15 minutes, but I got in the log - and it was a new one for me, MN46, the Homestead National Historical Monument in Nebraska.

For her part, Mary did a superb job dealing with my weak signal.  Only 5 Watts to the Buddistick has gotten me decent results on SSB in the past, but today, with the monstrous QSB, it was their beam (which was pointed south, by the way - I was off the side) and her great ears that made the difference. I owe her a ton of gratitude for sticking with me and granting me the ATNO.

Getting back to the topic of SSB vs CW ..... I'm pretty confident in my CW skills. From past practise, it's pretty easy for me to gauge who is workable and who isn't. I still get surprised from time to time; but I've gotten pretty good at figuring out who I am able work and who I am not..

QRP SSB is still a crap shoot for me. Like I stated, it's foreign territory.  To make things even worse, shall we say that patience is a "hard won virtue" for me?  Living in New Jersey all my life, I'm used to the fast pace of the Northeast. Things, especially at work, are wanted yesterday.  I'm used to dealing with that, and delivering those kind of fast results.  The downside is, that I've come to expect that, in return.  Waiting is still a battle for me.  Not in all situations, but in many - especially when I am dealing with myself.

QRP SSB is an extra hard challenge for me and will be for quite a while. The upside is hopefully, I'll become more skilled at it; and I'll also gain more patience, because of it..

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

You can't work 'em if you can't hear 'em.

The snow plows came through to clear our street.  Even so, they never really plow the entire street. They clean it up for sure, so that you can travel safely down the road, but there's always that snow plow residue on the sides of the street. So, until the snow melts substantially, I can't park on the street, as I usually do, there's just not enough room to park and still have space for other cars to get by.  That means I have park in the driveway. Since I generally get home last, I have to get up and move my Jeep when my wife Marianne has to leave for work at 5:00 AM (I've mentioned - she's a nurse).

So this morning, after moving my car for her, I made some coffee and headed down into the shack. I had about a half hour before I had to shower, shave and get dressed for work. I figured that maybe, just maybe, I'd hear K5P, as this is their last day on the island, I believe. And sure enough, there they were on 80 Meters, calling CQ!  And from the rate they were answering stations, you could tell they were listening for ATNOs - stations they had never worked before (which would have been me!).

They were decently loud - about 559 with QSB on 3.530 MHz with QSB.  Even so, this was the best I've heard them throughout the entire DXpedition. I put the KX3 into "Dual Watch" mode, so I could figure out where they were listening, and then I fired up the KXPA100 to 90 Watts and jumped into the fray.

Then some idiot proceeded to come onto their QRG (the frequency they were transmitting on) and began to send an non-ending string of S9 dits, totally obliterating them.

"You can't work 'em if you can't hear 'em."

Sigh.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

A good weekend

The weekend is not over, but the family will be busy this afternoon, so I wanted to get a few words in. The Thanksgiving holiday was wonderful. The family came over, my sister and her husband, and Marianne's brother and his wife.

Back row l-r: Joseph, Marianne, David Miller, Ann Marie Miller (my sister) W2LJ, Tim Dunmyer (Marianne's brother)

Front row l-r: Cara, Lisa Dunmyer

And we feasted on turkey, ham, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, spinach, cranberry sauce and gravy. And the turkey came out nice and juicy. W2LJ didn't screw it up this year!

Friday was sunny and warm, a great day for getting outdoor Christmas decorations up. Not trying to rush the season, but I'd much rather string outdoor lights while the temperatures are in the mild 60s instead of when it's closer to freezing.

Friday night, Marv K2VHW and Dave KD2FSI and I headed up to the Fair Lawn Amateur Radio Club auction in Fair Lawn, NJ.  It's about a 45 minute ride from here and is very close to the George Washington Bridge.  This auction has become a Black Friday tradition and was very well attended. I bid on and won a McElroy straight key:

From what I have been able to gather, this straight key is about 1937 vintage and was constructed before they went over to the Stream line style base.

Better than winning the key was hooking up with Don Younger W2JEK while I was there. Don is an avid QRPer and his call should be very familiar to anyone who has entered a NAQCC or QRP ARCI Sprint or contest. We chatted for several minutes and it was good to catch up.

Yesterday and this morning was spent picking off stations and handing out points in the CQ WWDX contest that is running this weekend. I managed one ATNO. Mozambique C92ZO on 10 Meters yesterday afternoon. Since I'm in the contest just for the fun of it (any ATNOs that I can garner) I made a sort of game for myself of just hunting for and trying to work Polish stations. Band conditions are good, but not the greatest. Working stations with 5 Watts has been more of a challenge this year than in the past couple. I guess that's the consequence of the down side of a solar cycle.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

ATNO!

In the DX game, sometimes you have to be real good to work a new one, especially QRP.  You might have to break a dense pile up, or perhaps you have to get up at some ungodly hour to work a DXpedition when there's a lull.

Other times, you have to be lucky, or just at the right place at the right time. That was the case for me, yesterday.  I was down in the shack, twiddling the dial (no pandapter in the W2LJ shack) on 10 Meters. It was mid-morning, and I was just curious whether or not I'd be able to hear any signals. There on 28.050 MHz was 9J2BO calling CQ - without any takers!  Admittedly, off the top of my head, I had no idea where 9J2 was. But is sure as heck wasn't familiar, and if it's not familiar, then it's probably rare. So I dived in with all 5 Watts and gave a call.  9J2BO's signal was loud enough where I thought 5 Watts would be enough, and it turned out I was correct.  It took one repeat, but he had my call!

We exchanged signal reports. I gave Brian an 599 and I received a 559 in return - not bad for 5 Watts to Africa (Quickly inputting 9J2BO into Log4OM informed me it was Zambia. Hot dog!). Then the QSB kicked in (big time) and shortened our QSO.  I cheated a tad and kicked in the afterburner just to make sure that Brian heard my final "TU ES 73", but the previous 99% of the QSO was carried out at 5 Watts - so I'm counting it in my personal QRP tally.

A few seconds later, I heard Brian calling CQ again, and then he just faded totally into oblivion and I didn't hear anything more on 28.050 MHz. Not him, nor anyone else trying to call him.

Right place at the right time. That's all it took for this ATNO!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

ATNOs

I did manage to get 7QAA and 9Q0HQ in the log this weekend.  But as it turns out, I was even more fortunate to make it into THEIR logs.

"What's he saying?" you may be thinking.

I worked both stations on Friday on 17 Meters.  The 7QAA QSO was tricky, as there was a lot of QSB. I was pretty sure they had come back to me, but I wasn't 1000% certain. For a day or so I was sweating it, because it wasn't until sometime late Saturday evening (local time) that their online log was updated and I was able to see my call sign pop up.

I was debating a second QSO, because as noted on the 7QAA Webpage, CW operations cease pretty much as of today. From here on out until the beginning of April, they are going to concentrate on SSB, RTTY with some PSK mixed in. Once I saw that I made it into the log, I was very much relieved.

9Q0HQ was a different matter. I heard them come back to me. I heard the "W2LJ 599" and I heard the "TU". I didn't even bother looking at the online log as I was so certain I was in there. Then, last night, I heard them pretty loud on 20 Meters, so I tried again.  Listening to 9Q0HQ, I have been noticing that they are taking pains to work stations only once per band.  I have been hearing a lot of "WRKED B4" replies coming back to calls, so I figured since I worked them on Friday on 17 Meters, then trying again on 20 Meters would probably be OK.  I stayed with it and worked them, for what I thought was a second time.

This time, for the heck of it, I went to the 9Q0HQ Website and checked their log. You can imagine my surprise to find that I am only in there for the 20 Meter QSO and NOT the 17 Meter QSO from Friday. Wow. I wonder what happened there? I was so certain that our QSO was valid and complete. Unless I was imagining things, I was so positive that I had heard "W2LJ 599" and the "TU" as I stated before. I can't imagine why that QSO is not in the log.

At any rate, I am grateful for the two ATNOs. Going forward, though, I am going to be checking ATNO online logs if at all possible.  I am very grateful for what I thought was a second QSO which turned out to be a first!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!