Black sheep of the family

 Happy April Fool's Day! 

I'll admit, I'm the black sheep of the family - image courtesy of Alain Mouton as seen on Facebook.

It's just a joke, guys. Please don't get offended!

BTW, tonight: Walk for the Bacon QRP Contest - https://qrpcontest.com/pigwalk20/

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Weekend 3/15 & 3/16

Looks like we're heading into a rainy weekend in my part of the woods. Now that it's getting warmer, I'm hoping to spend a bit of time during the weekends down the street, at the PAL parking lot, putting the Washington-Rochambeau Trail on the air, as that's where it's located. Maybe not this weekend if the skies are weeping. But maybe, just maybe, I can eventually earn a Kilo Award by getting 1,000 contacts from there? Time will tell.

This is what you can expect to hear on the bands this weekend:

Contests (again, even if you're not participating, this is what you can expect to hear) - Going forward, dedicated QRP Sprints/Events will be highlighted in red:

BARTG HF RTTY Contest:  http://www.bartg.org.uk/

Popov Memorial Contest:   https://www.contest.ru/memorial-popov-eng/

Russian DX Contest:   https://www.rdxc.org/rules_eng

Virginia QSO Party:   https://www.qsl.net/sterling/VA_QSO_Party/2025_VQP/2025_VQP_Main.html

AWA John Rollins Memorial DX Contest - https://www.antiquewireless.org/homepage/event-details-for-rollins-dx-event/

Run for the Bacon QRP Contest -  http://qrpcontest.com/pigrun/

K1USN Slow Speed Test - http://www.k1usn.com/sst.html

This coming Wednesday Night 3/19 (Thursday Morning UTC)

NAQCC Monthly Sprint - https://www.naqcc.info/sprint_rules.html

Walk for the Bacon QRP Contest (20 Meters) - https://qrpcontest.com/pigwalk20/

Special Event Stations:

03/14/2025 | PI Day - David Sarnoff Radio Club, Princeton, NJ

Mar 14-Mar 15, 1800Z-0100Z, N3P, Princeton, NJ. David Sarnoff Radio Club. 14.031 14.314 7.031 7.227 . QSL. Don Corrington, AK2S, 7 Pinewald Lane, Burlington, NJ 08016-3421. n2re.org

03/15/2025 | Gulf of America Special Event

Mar 15, 1400Z-2000Z, K5K, Kingwood, TX. Texas Emergency Amateur Communicators (TEAC). 7.20 14.325 21.235 28.325. QSL. David Taylor, N5KWD, 2179 Lake Village Dr, Kingwood, TX 77339. Celebrating the renaming of the Gulf of America, from Galveston Island State Park on the Gulf of America. Special Event + POTA + IOTA. QSL and SASE to N5KWD for commemorative QSL card. teac.net

03/15/2025 | Solivita Car Show

Mar 15, 1300Z-1900Z, N4SRC, Kissimmee, FL. Solivita Radio Club. 18.124 24.980 14.074 21.074. QSL. Solivita Radio Club, 307 Bell Tower Crossing West, Kissimmee, FL 34759. FT8 on all frequencies (10 through 40 meters). Frequencies may change. See website for updates. https://solivitaradioclub.weebly.com

With Monday being St. Patrick's Day, I'm kind of surprised to see no Special Event Stations on the air for that. St. Patrick's Day and Ireland and the Irish hold a special place with me as my dear departed Mother-In-Law was born and raised in Donegal, Ireland before she and one brother emigrated to the US back in the late 40's (I think it was). Nora and Harry were the only ones to come here out of about 8 or 9 siblings,

I think I've told this story before, but in honor of the day, I'll tell it again. I always get a chuckle when I think about it. When Marianne and I first started dating, it was a little bit before she took me to her home to meet her parents. As any young suitor would be, I was a bit nervous, but upon meeting my future in-laws things seemed to go warmly and exceedingly well. The conversation drifted to things about me, as they wanted to get to know me better and that's when I mentioned that my main hobby was Amateur Radio.

My future M-I-L gave me a look like I was Medusa and I had 1,000 snakes growing out of my head. After a bit of awkward quiet, we got past that and had a wonderful dinner and evening together. My Father-In-Law, who was a petrochemical engineer seemed genuinely intrigued and asked me a lot of questions about the hobby and the various contacts that I had made, particularly the DX ones. Later, as I was driving Marianne back to her apartment, I asked her what that was all about.

It turned out that one of her uncles back near Donegal was a Ham - and no, I never found out what his call sign was. I was told that he had a tower and Yagi attached to his house. One day, during a particularly bad thunderstorm, his tower took a direct lightning strike and there was significant damage to the house.

That's all my M-I-L knew about Amateur Radio. Lightning and damage to the house. That was why I got the stare that I received. I later assured them both that I was licensed for over 20 years at the time and that I never had a tower and I always took the utmost precautions to prevent anything like that happening to me. I doubt that swayed her misgivings any, but I never heard anything about it again.

Nora (she was always "Mom" to me) actually came to live with us for a time after my Father-In-Law, Joe, or "Dad" as I always called him, had passed away. She had broken her hip and couldn't live alone on her own anymore. She eventually moved to a Senior Assisted Living Facility near us until she too, passed away. I'll always wonder if that was because she just craved a bit more independence, or if she just wanted to be away from my vertical and wire antennas!

Anyway, in any event

May the road rise up to meet you, 

May the wind be always at your back, 

May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

LOL!

Look at the serial number of a laptop I shipped today - the last three letters. I hope it doesn't fade in and out on the user!

You know you're a Ham when you notice stuff like this immediately!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Field Day Results for 2024

Results came out a few weeks ago - I forgot to mention this. This is how SPARC placed in our category:

You can't come in any more "middle of the pack" than SPARC!

I was looking at the 1st place holders, the NE TX QRP Contest Federation and I was thinking how do only three guys make 730 QSOs? That is phenomenal! But then again, from their description, they are contesters.  Most likely very experienced contesters. We're not. 

I'm sure their antenna setup is probably significantly better than ours and we were curtailed by thunderstorms and the educational activity that we put on this year. And there was a lot of "meet and greet" with visitors going on at our site this year, which I guess is really part of the purpose of Field Day. But all that took time away from the radios.

Marv K2VHW jokingly commented that his goal for SPARC is to equal those 730 Q's next Field Day. In response I told him that several things will be necessary:

1) No educational activity - took too many people away from the radios.

2) No food. there will be no time for eating.

3) Unlimited coffee. Need to keep going full bore for then entire 24 hours.

4) Ample supply of "Depends" You know why - no time for Nature breaks, either.

5) Defibrillator on site. Because one or more of us will probably have a heart attack.

This is all in good humor, of course. We don't take Field Day as a contest that seriously and we realize that a major purpose of Field Day is to educate the public about Amateur Radio and its role in Emergency Communications.

But still, it would be nice to finish 1st Place in our category one of these years. So on the drive to work this morning, I was thinking about a possible way to increase our QSO count. Since we're limited to 5 Watts by our battery category, we've relegated ourselves to being Hunters and Pouncers. But after a few times of going up and down the band, say 40 Meters, it seems like you've worked everyone you can hear. Then it's time to switch to a different band .......right? Maybe instead of changing bands, it might be a good strategy to go up the band, find an unoccupied frequency, and call CQ for a while. It might not generate a lot of QSOs, but it's better than wasting time hunting on a band that you think you've pretty much fished out. And if we find ourselves calling CQ with no takers, say after 10 minutes or so, THEN we can switch bands.

Now, for my duty as one of the 40 Meter Foxes last night - it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, although QSB was really bad. I'd have a Hound call me at 579 and I'd give my half of the exchange and then they'd come back to me at 449 or even 339. Wow!

According to the Reverse Beacon Network, this is where the skimmers were picking me up last night:

And sure enough, the s/n figures for Europe were pretty pathetic - only a computer or Superman was hearing me there!

If you count the two Foxes, KR0U and myself, then there's 51 Hounds in the log. There were a couple of dupes that I edited out. I don't think I did too badly for being a rusty ol' Fox. I posted a preliminary log to the QFOX iO Group. Let's see how many corrections come back.  I am not like the other Foxes. I do not use N1MM. I still log with pencil and paper. Were I to attempt to computer log, by the time I would type in the call signs, I'd probably only work 1/2 the stations I ended up working. I'm not multi task capable in that regard. I'm lucky i can key and write at the same time!

There is one thing about being a Fox that I dislike. The Hunts here on the East coast are from 9:00 to 10:30 PM. When Fox duty is done for the night, I'm so wired that I generally can't fall asleep until around Midnight. When you have to get up at 5:00 AM for work the next day, that makes it a bit tough.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Happy All Hallow's Eve!

 "Honey, have you seen my HT?"

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Hearing things? Or Poltergeists? Nah .............

I awoke at about 2:30 AM, like many men of my age do, with the necessity to make a trip to the bathroom. I made my way downstairs and when I got to the kitchen I heard a tiny voice saying something. The voice was so low and tiny, I couldn't make out what was being said. I was able to discern that whatever it was, it was coming from the rec room, and it was repeating every 15 seconds or so.

We have a Warner Brothers clock hanging on the wall in there. Each hour, a different Looney Tunes character announces the time. My first inclination was that the clock was broken and that I'd have to remove the batteries and all would be well. But that was not it. Except for the "tick-tock", there were no sounds coming from the clock.

The voice reappeared again, and this time it sounded like it was coming from behind me. I turned my attention to the bookcase. That's where the cordless phone resides as well as where all my HT's live.. I put all my drop-in chargers on one shelf and I have them all plugged into a power strip, this way everything is centralized. The power strip was off as all my batteries were up to charge. Or so I thought.

Again, at first I thought the cordless phone went bonkers and perhaps it was announcing that I had voice mail? No, it turned out that the tiny voice was coming from my Baofeng UV-5R. When I returned it to the shelf the other day, I must have forgotten to turn it off. About every 15 seconds or so, the HT was announcing "Low Voltage! Low Voltage!"

I didn't even know it could do that!

So if some day you wake up in the middle of the night, and you hear a tiny voice calling out to you from seemingly nowhere, it's not a demon, ghost or hob-goblin. It just might be your handheld radio telling you that it needs more juice!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Hamvention Weekend

Even though the big shebang is taking place in Xenia this weekend, there will still be happenings on the bands this weekend:

Contests:

NZART Sangster Shield Contest - https://www.nzart.org.nz/activities/contests/sangster-shield

His Maj. King of Spain Contest, CW - https://concursos.ure.es/en/s-m-el-rey-de-espana-cw/bases/

Arkansas QSO Party - http://www.arkqp.com/

Baltic Contest - http://www.lrsf.lt/en/

Run for the Bacon QRP Contest/W8DIZ Memorial Sprint - http://qrpcontest.com/pigrun/

Special Events:

05/04/2024 | NJ Knights of Columbus 128th State Convention

May 4-May 18, 0000Z-2359Z, K0C, Brick, NJ. NJKCARC (N2AJO). 7.225 14.240 21.350 28.340. Certificate & QSL. Art Olson, 339 18th Ave, Brick, NJ 08724. For domestic contacts: QSL card, send SASE; for QSL card and certificate, send two dollars. For DX contacts: QSL card, send two dollars; for QSL card and certificate, send five dollars. For more information, visit K0C on QRZ.com or Email: olson339@comcast.net www.qrz.com/db/K0C

05/12/2024 | National Police Week - To Honor Our Fallen Heros

May 12-May 18, 0001Z-2359Z, K3FBI/0-9, Fredericksburg, VA. FBI Amateur Radio Association. 14.275 7.060. Certificate. Jay Chamberlain - NS4J, 27 Fox Run Ln, Fredericksburg, VA 22405-3303. To honor all Law Enforcement members who have died in the line of duty. All bands and all modes. Multiple stations from around the U.S. Downloadable PDF certificate by the end of June at QRZ, https://www.qrz.com/db/K3FBI k3fbi@arrl.net

05/12/2024 | Police Services Week

May 12-May 18, 0000Z-0000Z, N4P, Gainesville, FL. W. Travis Loften High School Amateur Radio Club - K4WTL. 14.335. Certificate. Robert Lightner, 3435 NW 34th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32605. www.qrz.com/db/k4wtl

05/18/2024 | National Maritime Day

May 18, 1300Z-2100Z, K3S, Baltimore, MD. Nuclear Ship Savannah ARC. 7.1 14.1 21.1 28.1. QSL. K3LU, 980 PATUXENT ROAD, Odenton, MD 21113. Single transmitter SSB and CW aboard N/S Savannah. Please check spotting networks for frequencies. Info on QRZ.com www.qrz.com/db/k3s

05/18/2024 | South Orange Amateur Radio Assoc., 50th Anniversary

May 18-May 19, 1700Z-0100Z, K6SOA, Mission Viejo, CA. South Orange Amateur Radio Assoc.-SOARA. 28.375 21.350 14.250 7.200. QSL. SOARA Special Event, P.O. Box 2545, Mission Viejo, CA 92690. To receive the QSL, send a SASE, or accept eQSL. soara.org

05/18/2024 | W6SFM Bug Roundup

May 18-May 20, 0000Z-0000Z, W6SFM, Fair Oaks, CA. Samuel F. Morse Amateur Radio Club. 3.533 7.033 14.033 28.033. QSL. Samuel F. Morse Amateur Radio Club, 4901 Minnesota Avenue, Fair Oaks, CA 95628. https://w6sfm.org/bug-roundup

05/19/2024 | National EMS Week

May 19-May 25, 0000Z-0000Z, N4E, Gainesville, FL. W.T. Loften High School Amateur Radio Club. 14.335. QSL. W.T. Loften High School ARC, 3000 East University Avenue, Gainesville, FL 32641. www.qrz.com/db/k4wtl

On a humorous note - I came across this video during one of my meanderings across the vast prairies of YouTube:

For a humorous parody type of video - I think it was produced quite well. And make sure to watch it to the very end! And while this video is meant to be taken as humorous satire, I personally know of two instances where this happened in real life. These persons got interested in Amateur Radio, got licensed and got into DX hunting quite heavily. They had the means to be able to afford deluxe stations and very credible antenna farms. Once they earned DXCC Honor Roll, they both basically said "What's left?" and sold all their equipment and allowed their licenses to lapse. What a shame!

Today marks the last "in house production day" at MFJ - interesting that they chose the first day of Hamvention for that. And speaking of Hamvention, I along with the rest of you, wonder what new goodies will be introduced this year - not that I'll be able to afford any of them!

Have a great weekend!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least1

Stuph

I looked at the QMX order list yesterday. I am # 670 in line. If QRP Labs continues to manufacture around 200 pieces a month, I figure I should see mine maybe in August or September. I can live with that.

For my birthday, Joseph and Marianne asked me what I wanted. My no name cheapie bargain basement mobile VHF/UHF antenna just isn't doing the job. I was coming home from a club meeting a few weeks ago and tried hooking up with Marv K2VHW on the way home. He was in and out and I was in and out and neither of us should have been. I had to chalk it up to poor performance from my off brand bargain basement purchase. I sent Joseph a link for a Hustler MX-270 antenna from GigaParts. It arrived last Sunday? Who delivers on Sunday besides Amazon? Anyway, it arrived late last Sunday and I'll put it on my car this weekend, if weather permits.

This means that I'll have to park in the parking lot at work, going forward, as the 36" radiator is just too tall for the parking deck. I bought the smaller antenna that's on the Jeep now, specifically because it doesn't hit the ceiling of the parking deck. However, it doesn't perform nearly as well as I had hoped ..... so I'll deal with the inconvenience of parking outside in order to get better antenna performance.

First World problem, right? But it's nice not having to get into a car that's been baking in the sun all day during the summer; or brushing off snow in the winter.

Other than that, not much new radio-wise. We're having typical May weather here, where it's sizzling one day and chilly the next - which of course makes the possibilities of thunderstorms a daily event.  The antennas have been disconnected since the weekend. I'm at the point in life where replacing expensive Ham Radio gear is not an option, so I have to be super careful with what I have.

I've always marveled at guys who change rigs like they change underwear. I've never been fortunate enough to be able to do that. And I guess that helps me to appreciate what I have maybe a bit more than most.

Today's "Blondie" comic strip kind of sums up my situation:

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

3G0YA in the log

But not without some drama.

I had to turn off HamAlert until I got home from work yesterday. It was going off so frequently that it was driving me nuts! I also got a few stares from people who heard Morse Code originating from my pocket! But in the back of my mind, that gave me hope, as I was pretty sure I'd work them sometime yesterday.

I arrived home and had dinner and then turned HamAlert back on and my phone started chirping immediately! They were spotted on two frequencies 24.896 MHz on 12 Meters and 14.025 MHz on 20 Meters. I decided to try 12 Meters first and was rewarded with a loud signal. I mean like sitting-across-the-room-from-me-with-a-code-practice-oscillator loud! The op announced he was listening up, so I set up the KX3 for split operation and set the transmit frequency up 1 kHz, and decided to try with the W3EDP.

Got him on the first try! And that's when it happened! That's when I noticed, to my horror of horrors, that I hadn't turned down the KXPA100 from 85 Watts after the St. Max Net was over on Sunday evening.  I had just worked Easter Island with 85 Watts!

What's a QRPer to do? I decided to try going over to 20 Meters and give a listen and the signal coming from the DXpedition was nowhere near as loud on 20 Meters as it was on 12 Meters. That was when I decided to go back to 12 Meters and give it another shot, this time at 5 Watts.  I called again and they came back to me again fairly quickly. This time however, I sent a "599 NJ QRP TU" as my part of the exchange. I don't know if that matters or not, but when they see my callsign on the same band twice, maybe a note will have been made that the second QSO was a QRP contact. That's the one I'm going to reference for a QSL card.

A bit later, my friend Marv K2VHW, sent me a message that 3G0YA had gotten louder on 20 Meters. I went back to 14.025 MHz and the pileup was much more fierce than on 12 Meters. Heck, there basically was no pileup on 12 Meters! At times they would call CQ and they remained listening at 1 kHz up.  On 20 Meters, the op was running a race track pattern, moving up a bit after each QSO until he got to about 4 kHz up and then he would work his way down again. I had to pump up the KXPA100 and when he finally heard me, I got "W2L??" three times before he finally copied my call correctly.

12 Meters was like shooting fish in a barrel. 20 Meters was more like being in the middle of the pack during a fishing derby.

Anyway, I got them in the log and now I have to figure out what their QSL procedure is. (I went to ClubLog - found my QSOs and paid the proper $$$ for the QSL cards.)

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Letting you in on a secret! (Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!)

Wanna be successful in QRP?

Wanna be really, really successful in QRP?

Wanna be really, really successful in QRP with a minimum of frustration and anxiety?

Wanna really, really enjoy QRP and keep coming back for more - just like Lays potato chips?

Shhhhhhhhhhh!

Don't tell anyone who doesn't answer yes to any of the above questions!

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Learn Morse Code!

Happy Morse Code Day!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Earthquake!

Rare second post for the day.

Lebanon, NJ, which was the epicenter, is just a mile or two down the road from work. New Jersey has experienced Earthquakes before, but they were mild. When I lived in East Brunswick, I lived on a road what saw a lot of truck traffic, so when we had Earthquakes, I thought it was just another 18 Wheeler going down our street.

This definitely got my attention! 

Quite an experience! The room started shaking at about 10:22 AM. I could actually hear the rumble - and I NEVER hear any outside noise in this storage room that they call my office. Some small lightweight objects on my desk fell over, but that was about it. The shaking lasted probably about 20 - 30 seconds or so. I highly doubt there was any major damage inside or to the building itself.

It sure gave everyone here at work a good scare!

But now I can say "I survived the great New Jersey Earthquake of 2024!" (Meanwhile folks in California are probably saying "Hold my beer!") And Monday has in store a near total solar eclipse? 

Signs of the times?

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to say the very least!

For you, or someone you know

who might be interested.

This was posted by Craig Buck on Facebook. Sounds great for the newbie or neophyte Ham:

FREE ON-LINE AMATEUR RADIO OPERATING CLASS

 A free, weekly, 3-hour Amateur Radio Operating Class on Zoom will begin on Thursday April 4 and run through June 20 at 6:30 PM Eastern time.  The presenters will be various experienced folks in the various subjects.

 A detailed syllabus will be published before the classes begin.  Attend them all, or any that you like, but you must register for the classes.  To receive registration information, contact Rol Anders, K3RA, at roland.anders@comcast.net. 

Subjects will include:

All About Operating--A general Introduction

Amateur Radio Organizations—Local to International

Ham Radio Awards

DXing-History and Tips from the Experts

QSLing-How to get that needed card for DXCC or WAS

VHF/UHF Weak Signal Work and “Roving”

Image Operating—Slow Scan and Fast Scan TV

Remote Station control over internet

Learning CW in the no-code era

Digital Modes—From RTTY to FT8 and beyond

Contesting—How to get started, tips for the beginner and intermediate contester

Logging Software—What’s available, how to use

Propagation—A general intro to HF Propagation

Amateur Satellites—How to get started

Portable (backpacking) operation—Tips from an expert

Setting Up a Modern (or not so modern) HF Station

Lightning Protection and Grounding

Traffic Handling

Public Service, Emergency Communications      

Thanks,   Rol, K3RA

_________________________________________________________________

All they need is a class entitled "QRP - have fun with less power!"

And again, don't forget! Hi Hi! (THE original LOL!)

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Where can I buy these?

 

72 de Larry W2LJ 

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Who knew - indeed!?!

I came across the following post on Facebook - out of respect for the poster, I will not name names.

"I guess it's a thing, now: amateur radio Morse code ops are now sending 72 at the end of a communication, instead of 73.

Have they not perfected their 3 yet, or is there some secret club I'm unaware of?

Turns out that, 72 is used for 73 but when you are running QRP.  Who knew?

So, then: we should use 74 when QRO, now!"

I suppose this was meant to be tongue in cheek, but I also sense some snark in this. Of all the things that you can get upset with / annoyed by in Amateur Radio - the use of "72" by QRP Ops is going to get your knickers in a twist? 

Bad pile up behavior, failing to listen before using a frequency, tuning up on a DX'ers frequency, and a myriad of other bad operating practices and "72" gets your goat? And of course you get the follow up comments "Why do QRPers think they're so special?" etc, etc, etc. - Just like the old playground game "Dog Pile On The Rabbit". Sheesh!

Explaining that "72" is used mostly between QRPers, wishing each other "Best QRP" seemed to hold not much, if any, sway.

Well, all I can say is:

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Happy February!

Is it just me - or did January fly by like the proverbial bat out of Hell? It feels like Christmas was just a couple of weeks ago!

Before I bore you, a bit of Ham humor first (found on Facebook)

Secondly (the boring part) - I finished customizing Ham Clock thanks to watching K2CJB's awesome video on YouTube.

The upper left hand corner has my call sign and the local time. Next to that, the tile alternates between the sunspot number (above) and a picture of the sun (below).

To the right of that are the active POTA spots and then comes the latest DX Cluster spots. Getting the DX Cluster to work was a bit of a trial. No matter what DX Cluster I entered, it seemed I always got an error. Finally, I figured out that Ham Clock was looking for an "ON" command. As soon as I entered "SHOWDX" next to that prompt where I was getting a flashing "err", everything started humming. 

An interesting thing about the POTA tile/box - I'm not sure where the info comes for the content, but it listed a POTA activation that was NOT listed on the POTA app that I had running on the screen above the laptop. Maybe someone spotted it to the Cluster and not to the POTA app?

The final small tile in the upper right hand corner shows the current solar weather parameters. You can customize all the tiles by putting the mouse cursor in the upper left hand corner of the box and left clicking. A list of options becomes visible and if you select more than one option, the tile will sequentially display your choices. For me that's that first box where I alternate between the sunspot number and the solar image. The rest of the tiles, I chose only one option.

While I was monkeying around with this, I saw on the screen that Kuwait was on 30 Meters - 9K2NO. I figured "Why not?" and gave a call. It was a bit before I found the "UP" sweet spot, but I did get him in the log. Clicking on his call on the world map gave me his local date and time, his local temperature, and his latitude and longitude info in that bottom left hand corner "DX" box/tile/ Seeing that he had a nice 64F while I was at 34F was a bit depressing, but was neat at the same time.

It's not often you can get a Ham Radio accessory that you can describe as "fun" in and of itself. Ham Clock is an exception. It fulfills that yen for a Geochron at a fraction of the price and it's a neat and useful "toy".

And here's the best part. If I can get this up and running - ANYONE can get it up and running.

72 de Larry W2LLJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Oh! To be young again!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Ham Radio Humor

Nothing really to speak of today, so I'll try injecting a little humor. Maybe this will brighten someone's day. 

I guess one can never have too many radios. Although some of us seem to benefit from those who do and feel the need to "cull the herd".

I did go on eBay yesterday, just to checkout the Heathkit offerings, as I haven't done that in a while. There were a number of unbuilt kits being offered - most continuing education stuff and some test gear. There was nothing much in the way of unbuilt radio kits.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Quickie video

 

Bas PE4BAS ignited an idea in my brain about getting the audio that Bob sent me of his Progressive Receiver incorporated into the blog. I decided to let my video maker software generate a quick, down and dirty video. I apologize for the roughness of this effort, as the images are appearing multiple times in order to fit in most of the sound file that Bob sent me. This video is definitely not one of my better efforts, but it does serve as a vehicle to allow me to include the sound his new build produces. Sorry, Bob - you deserve better than this, but I wanted everyone to hear how good your receiver sounds!

And for those of you who have trouble with the Morse Code, here's a few world famous fellows doing some translating:

Those "eh eh ehhhh eh eh" sounds were PBX YSM TDM NVE ZYL. Gibberish, but at least it was actual letters and not just random dits and dahs!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Unintended consequences of the KH1

Posted to the POTA Facebook page by Mike Maciel.

So ....... what's going on this weekend?

First off, the Zombie Shuffle is tonight! Can't forget about that!

ARRL EME Contest : https://contests.arrl.org/arrlemescoresubmission.php - I know that a local club here in NJ, The Delaware Valley Radio Association plans to be active and has actually been running classes on EME for those who have volunteered to participate in the club's effort.

CQ WorldWide DX Contest, SSB : https://www.cqww.com/rules.htm  Perhaps the biggest DX Contest running.
 

And again, the DVRA will also be running a Special Event Station this weekend:

10/29/2023 | 85th Anniversary of the War of the Worlds Broadcast

Oct 29, 1600Z-2100Z, W0W, Grovers Mill, NJ. Delaware Valley Radio Association. 7.225 14.255 21.300. Certificate & QSL. Delaware Valley Radio Association, P.O. Box 7024, Trenton, NJ 08628. webmaster@w2zq.com or www.w2zq.com

After my Dad passed away, my Mom sold our house and was living in a Senior Housing Residence in West Windsor, NJ. When I would drive down to visit her, I would pass the park in Grover's Mill that commemorates the landing spot of the Martians  My Mom was a little girl when Orson Welles made his famous radio broadcast and often commented on how crazily people acted that night. I once asked her if my Grandfather or Grandmother or any of my aunts and uncles got excited, and she just answered "No, we listened from the very beginning and knew it was a radio play show." Ah yes ....... the difference between hearing and listening!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Humor for the day

You know you're a Ham when your wife or girlfriend scrolls through your phone and all she can see are Amateur Radio apps, photos of rigs, antennas and Field Day and the phone numbers for GigaParts, HRO and DX Engineering!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!