Field Day +2

As promised, here is the video that I promised to show here.

Some thoughts on lightning protection - I don't have any fancy lightning arrestors in my shack. When the weather is threatening, I disconnect the coax. I keep one of these AcuRite portable detectors in our rec room, where I spend a lot of time. If there's a thunderstorm or a lightning strike within a 25 mile radius of the house, I can run downstairs and disconnect the coax, in the event that I forgot to previously do so.

I brought it to Field Day and there was one time during our operational period that it sounded. We disconnected, even though we didn't hear any rumbles. After a few minutes of no further warnings, we resumed our operations. The end of Field Day was another story entirely as I mentioned previously. The lightning strikes were quite close, highly visible and quite disconcerting. All the radios had been disconnected by that time, but it was still quite the spectacle to watch. When you see a lightning bolt touch down maybe 5 miles or so from where you're standing, you tend to get to your car pretty darn quickly.

In the event you don't have one of these, or perhaps thinking that since you'll only use it for Field Day, and don't want to spend the money - there are free apps that you can get for your cell phone. I have "My Lightning Tracker" on mine. There's a free and a "Pro" version available for about $4. I use the free version. You can set it so that you will get alerts anywhere from 200 miles away to an area just as close as you want to set it for.  It is generally accepted that a single bolt of lightning can travel as far as 10-12 miles from its source. Better to be warned and disconnect your transmitters than be caught up in some kind of Gooey-Kablooey lightning strike.

Dave KD2FSI went to Reverse Beacon Network and plugged in NJ2SP. This is where his FT8 signals were being heard. We have confirmed QSOs in the log for New Zealand (CW), France (SSB) and Australia (FT8), so I think that will pretty well dispel the notion that you can't be heard anywhere unless you're running power into a Yagi.  5 Watts into a wire can go pretty darned far!

Something else that happened that caused me to raise an eyebrow (like Mr. Spock - "Fascinating!") - my PowerWerx deep cycle battery petered out for the very first time.

I first noticed something was amiss around 2:00 AM when my power output on 80 Meters was only about 3 Watts. I was too concentrated on making QSOs to really think about it much, as I was still being heard and being answered. Then, when the KX3 actually started shutting down on transmit, I looked over at the little monitor that Bob W3BBO made for me, which was out of direct eyesight. It was reading 9.83 Volts. I have the KX3 set to where it will operate with a supply voltage as low as 10 Volts. I must have not recharged it sufficiently since I last used it from when I used it at the backyard patio table. That is being rectified as we speak. Luckily, W2LJ always has a back up plan:

I pulled my Blue Man Crew out of my backpack. This is the battery that I use for events like FOBB, QRP To The Field, the Skeeter Hunt and POTA activations. The very same one you see up top in the blog header photo. Normally, I'll use it for about 4 hours tops. On Sunday, it lasted from about 3:00 AM until 12:30 PM without a whimper. The only thing I did to play it on the safe side was to turn off the KX3's display backlight.

Lastly, at the end of tear down as we finished packing  the vehicles, Dave had mentioned that 2024 will be the 10th Anniversary of the founding of SPARC. We decided that Field Day 2024 will have to be an extra special one. We have a whole 10 - 11 months to plan for it.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Field Day - another one bites the dust

How was your Field Day experience? First off, I hope you had one. Even with all the preparation, hard work of set up and tear down, it's still a fun and great experience. Being with some of your best friends for 24 hours, all doing the things you all love to do the most - priceless!

The South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club had a very, very good Field Day. I don't know how our effort stacked up against previous years. I'm always a "glass half empty" guy in that regard, and then I'm usually pleasantly surprised when the results come out in December to find out that we did better than I had thought.

The weather was cooperative for the most part. The weather prognosticators were somewhere around the mark with their predictions. There was a very light sprinkle of rain at the beginning of set up, but that diminished very quickly and we were blessed with good weather almost until the very end.

As usual, set up went well.  It seems that SPARC has this down to somewhat of a science. As the main part of the group gets the shelters ready and Ron N2LCZ gets the network of logging computers up and running, Dave KD2FSI and I get the antennas going.

I'm going to get a bit gushy here about Dave. He's a one man Field Day all by his lonesome. I don't know where SPARC would be without him. Between his antennas, the other equipment and the radios he brings ........... But that's not the end of it. His expertise and presence are above and beyond the "stuff" that he brings. We'd be lost without him.

The same goes for Marv K2VHW. He's the Founding President and President Emeritus of SPARC. He IS our spark. An Amateur Radio operator for over 50 years, a two time Emmy Winner for Technical Excellence in Broadcasting, untold experience in mobile communications testing, trouble shooting and repair  ....... how did we get so lucky to get these guys in our group?

When the bell rang at 2:00 PM we were ready. We got going and over the next 24 hours we gave it our best. In addition to the activity behind the radios, we had a lot of visitors. In addition to curious walkers going by us (we are in a public park, after all), we had visits from some folks who specifically brought their kids by to see what Amateur Radio is all about. We also had visits from the Red Cross, and our new Hudson Division Director Nomar Vizcarrondo, NP4H, and our Division Public Information Officer, Ed Efchak WX2R came by during setup. We also got a visit from one of our Town Council members, Derryck White, who is also a CERT member and one of our biggest supporters from within our borough. He even helped us during tear down.

A peaceful Sunday morning scene.

The visit by our ARRL Officials, Nomar NP4H has the yellow lanyard around his neck and Ed is wearing the red ARRL shirt at the right. The banner came out exceptionally well. Thanks, Vistaprint! For the record, going from left to right - Marty WB2BEW, Neil WA2EGE, Tim AB2ZK (with the green CERT cap), Nomar NP4H, Bill W2AOF (SPARC Club President) Ron N2LCZ (IT Expert Extraordinaire), Marv K2VHW, Harry KC2PGX, Ed WX2R.

Dave KD2FSI, our "Indispensable Man" running VHF/UHF, FT8 and all things digital.

Marty WB2BEW with a Phil K2OTA, working SSB. Marty would later get a QSO in the log with France. 5 Watts from a KX3 to a multiband End Fed - not bad!

This is what I was looking at for the next 24 hours. The laptop is one of Ron's Lenovo WS530's.  

Dave's MFJ-1982HP running in a roughly East to West direction. This was the SSB station antenna.

We always try to get a lot of signage up for our site, so that visitors can have their own sort of "walking tour" when we are super busy with other things.

More descriptive signage. Bill W2AOF our Club President got these from Vistaprint a few years ago when they were running a sale. They come in handy and let non-Hams know what they are looking at.

My MFJ-1982LP running in a roughly North-South direction. You can see one of the driveway reflectors that I purchased, holding up the near end, with the UNUN cable-tied near the top. The coax is running down to my KX3. We tie some caution tape to the wire itself as we park in the space off to the right and we don't want anyone walking into the wire. After this shot was taken, but before 2:00 PM, we put little orange cones down so that people would not traverse where we did not intend them to. The weird event of Field Day was that even with that, someone stole and walked off with the driveway reflector at the far end, while we weren't watching. Tim AB2ZK happened to need to go to his car for something and let me know that it was gone. We initially thought that maybe someone had driven into it or something like that, but it was totally gone with no trace (not even pieces) to be found. At least whoever took it, didn't damage the antenna - which performed flawlessly this year, after my soldering repairs to the UNUN. In fact, during the wee hours of the overnight, Marv K2VHW used it to worked New Zealand with our maximum output of  5 Watts. 

I have video of that and will post that tomorrow. I wish that Bill W2AOF had been present for that QSO. He was tuckered from the heat and humidity of the day and left for home to get in some rest. However, he had traveled to New Zealand to visit some friends earlier this year. As someone who made that long flight from New Jersey to New Zealand, I think witnessing that QSO would have really brought home the wonder of Amateur Radio and QRP. We Hams are so used to what we do, that sometimes I think we take for granted how magical it all really is. When you experience that flight, the distance and the time and then you see a "measly" 5 Watts of power do that - for me at least, that is a super "Wow" moment.

Bob WB2UDC giving me a break at the CW station.

The new crescent Moon, coming close to it's set sometime very early Sunday morning.

First light is always a welcome sight.

It's amazing how bright it is so early in the morning. This was taken just a little after 5:00 AM.

The bands themselves were decent, but frustrating. QSB was like a roller coaster. A station would be 599 one second and 339 the next. The bulk of our CW QSOs were completed on 40 Meters, which I thought was in great shape. 80 Meters was decent at night, but there was a lot of static crashes to deal with. Since 20 Meters was the choice of the SSB guys, I only went there when they were taking a break. I could hear signals on 15 Meters the couple of times that I checked, but they were so low in strength that I could not make anything out. 10 Meters was completely dead the various times I twiddled the dial on that band.

Around 12:30 PM on Sunday, you could tell the weather was shifting. While most normal people woke to clear skies and a beautiful Sunday morning with blue skies, by lunchtime the sky had turned to that ominous lead gray color. With an hour and a half of Field Day operating time left, I convinced the crew to start tearing down. About halfway to three quarters of the way through, there were unnervingly close lightning strikes and the clouds literally burst open. We had to retreat to the safety of our vehicles. When the rain lessened up, we were able to finish the job and get the commonly owned Club "stuff" back to the CERT building.

I'll have a few more thoughts to put down for posterity tomorrow, when I post the short video that I took during the overnight. There's a thing or two more that I want to mention. My brain is a big bowl of oatmeal today. In the days when I wore a younger man's clothes, I was able to cope with an "up for 36 hours" stretch with a lot more ease and aplomb than I can now.

More thoughts about weather and equipment tomorrow - stay tuned!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Two things

First - I was watching the local NYC Tri-State News last evening at 6:00 PM on WCBS Ch. 2, particularly the weather forecast with Lonnie Quinn. This guy, I trust as much as I can trust any weather prognosticator. His forecasts are generally dead on. What I particularly like about Lonnie is that for normal forecasts, he's in his jacket and tie, but when the "stuff" is going to hit the fan and it's going to be a rough go, the jacket comes off and his shirt sleeves are rolled up. Last night was a jacket and tie night. He's forecasting a not so great weekend, weather-wise, but not a wash out, either. There will be periods of light showers with perhaps a pop-up thunderstorm here and there. But there will also be long periods with no precipitation. Not ideal weather for the beach, but not terrible for Field Day.

Second - I came across this post on the CW e-mail reflector by Dave Ring, N1EA. It's a poem about CW that was generated by ChatGPT (AI) at the prompt of John M0STQ. Since a lot of us will be listening to a lot of Morse this weekend:

John M0STQ says:

We've probably all heard about ChatGPT, which is a combination of coded chat bot and an LLM (large language model), trained on a huge chunk of scraped internet text up to about the end of 2021.

I gave it this prompt "write me a poem about morse code" and it came up with this...

In a world of signals, hidden and grand,

A language of dots and dashes, hand in hand.

Morse code whispers, in rhythm and sound,

A symphony of messages, profound.

 

With a simple click, a dot appears,

A fleeting moment, to the listening ears.

Short and swift, a gentle tap,

Encoded words in a Morse code wrap.

 

Then comes the dash, a longer beat,

A bolder stroke, a message complete.

Steadfast and strong, it boldly declares,

Secrets encoded, in cryptic layers.

 

Through wires and waves, the code takes flight,

Across vast distances, day and night.

A bridge between souls, in distant lands,

Unseen connections, in invisible strands.

 

In wartime strife, it spoke of hope,

A lifeline woven through battles' slope.

Heroes tapping with strength and might,

Morse code echoes, in the darkest night.

 

But beyond the war, a hobby embraced,

A world of enthusiasts, passion encased.

Operators deftly keying with grace,

Conveying thoughts, at a steady pace.

 

Morse code, a language unique and pure,

A testament to human will endure.

In a world of beeps and boops, it shines,

A symphony of dots and dashes, divine.

 

So let us remember, this code of old,

A tale of ingenuity, daring, and bold.

Morse code, a treasure from days gone by,

Whispering secrets, reaching for the sky.

Not bad, eh?

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Not thrilled with the forecast for Field Day

The prognosticators are predicting a pretty crummy weekend. Thunderstorms and rain both Saturday and Sunday. Not ideal weather for Field Day and being in close proximity to antennas.

Another club in our area is seriously considering calling off their whole effort, but SPARC is not. We treat this as a CERT activation for a real emergency, and under a real emergency you have to play with the cards you are dealt. If worse comes to worse, we'll just disconnect the antennas and wait for any cells to pass.  One thing I will bring with me this year is my lightning detector. It can detect lightning strikes anywhere within a 20 mile range.

In 2015, Field Day was rainy and chilly. I swore up and down we were all going to come down with pneumonia, but we survived the weekend unscathed. A few years ago, Field Day was so windy, we thought our makeshift shelter was going to blow away. Back in the days of the Piscataway Amateur Radio Club, we had a particularly bad thunderstorm roll through on Field Day. We disconnected the antennas and sat around shooting the breeze, waiting for the storm to pass. During lulls in the conversation, we were hearing a faint "tic-tic" kind of noise. That's when we happened to look down at the coax lying on the shelter floor and saw faint blue arcs jumping between the center conductor and shield. This wasn't occurring as lightning was actually striking, but was happening when there was enough static electricity building up in the area.

We've been under a semi-drought the past weeks, to the point where lawns are beginning to turn brown, so the rain is welcome and is supposed to stretch into mid next week. So while the rain is most welcome, (It couldn't start AFTER Field Day?!?) we can deal with it, but if the Lord would provide us with decently dry, or not really pouring weather during set up and tear down, we'd be eternally grateful! 

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

First Day of Summer - not a bad start!

Summer officially starts today at 10:58 EDT or 14:58 UTC - and that also means that today is the first day that you can sign up for a Skeeter number for the 2023 iteration of the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt.  I started accepting requests at 12:01 AM (O' Dark Thirty) this morning and so far we've filled the first 53 slots.

Just a recap of the major points:

1) The Skeeter Hunt is open to all Amateur Radio ops. With the sunspot number increasing, might we see a few DX Skeeters this year? I don't know, time will tell.

2) This year, the Skeeter Hunt is on Sunday, August 27th from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM EDT or 17:00 to 21:00 UTC.

3) You do NOT have to operate portable to get a Skeeter #. You earn a better multiplier for dong so, however

4) This year there are 17 Bonus Skeeters (so far). These are ops who participate every year, are reliable and have good signals. They all have Skeeter #s assigned to them that are palindromes - #11, 22, 33 through 161. Work any Bonus Skeeter for 100 points and collect up to 10 for a maximum of 1,000 bonus points. 

For all the details, go to www.qsl.net/w2lj

Summer is my favorite time of they year. I enjoy the long days and I enjoy the warmth. While I'm not a big fan of hazy, hot and humid, I'd much rather have that than cold, dark and freezing. I hope you all have a fantastic Summer and for my readers who may reside in the Southern Hemisphere - I hope your Winter is not terrible.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

My gut might have been right

Plus, I was beginning to hear rumors about this at the Hamfest on Saturday.  At first, I just brushed it off, but when I saw that this was still not resolved over the weekend, I started to give my hunch and this "rumor" a little more credence.

CNN is reporting this:

cnn.com/2023/06/15/politics/us-government-hit-cybeattack/index.html

Although, these days, I don't know how much CNN or any news outlet can be trusted. I come from the Walter Cronkite "old school" of news and so much of what I see on TV broadcast news seems to be more opinion and editorializing rather than "Just the facts, Ma'am." Please ...... just give me the "who, what, why, where and when". I don't need to know how the reporter or anchor "feels" about it, or their personal theories.

In any case, our candidates from the Saturday session won't be too thrilled until this mess is cleared up. I could have told them how in the "Olden Days Before Fire Was Invented" that we had to wait 6-8 weeks for our licenses to show up via snail mail, but I'm sure that would have gone over like the proverbial lead balloon,

Well, at least they can't hack radio waves - or does jamming count?

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

This is not good - continued!

 FCC servers are still down "for maintenance", as they have been since last Wednesday.  

After working in the professional photographic field for 29 years, I have been working in the IT field for the last 16 years. For 6 of those years, i was employed at a Data Center. In all my time, I have never seen server maintenance take more than one evening, two at the most. I am by no means an IT expert, but something seems amiss here. My gut hunch says something is going on here that involves more than just routine maintenance.

Whatever it is, I hope it's resolved quickly. Our exam candidates from Saturday were all anxious to know when they would hear about their new call signs or upgrades.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Part of getting ready for Field Day

Getting ready for Field Day isn't just the physical logistics. There are some mental logistics to get in gear, as well.  The most important one of these for me involves using this app, which I keep on my phone:

I set the speed at about 37 WPM or a bit higher and let her rip. Sometimes I consciously try to copy and other times I just let it play in the background to get my ears "muscle memory" back to where it should be. I find that doing this for a week or couple of weeks before Field Day helps tremendously, especially when I haven't been able to get on the air and conduct actual QSOs.

CW Trainer by Wolphi LLC is not a freebee, but I think it's worth every penny that I paid - I think it was a little over $2 when I purchased it back in 2018. Here's the actual description that's from the Google Play screen:

Learn or improve Morse code with Morse Trainer for Ham Radio.

Learn or improve Morse code with Morse Trainer. Now with Farnsworth speed and Koch method.

If you are a ham radio (amateur radio) operator or just want to learn Morse code. With a lot of settings it is very comfortable to adjust Morse Trainer to your current level.

The following settings are available:

- Frequency (200 - 2200Hz)

- Waveform (sine / triangle) 

- Fading (to reduce click at the end of a dot or dash)

- Speed (2Wpm - 52Wpm)

- Farnsworth speed

- Spacing (spacing between dots or dashes)

- Dot-Dash Ratio (length ratio of dashes compared to dots)

- Letter Spacing (Space between letters)

- Word Spacing (Space between words)

Five different learning modes are available in Morse Trainer

- Random groups of X mode: Morse Trainer will play groups of X randomly selected letter, numbers or special characters. X can be an amount between 1-9. Those characters can be individually selected. If you want to learn just "s","i" and "e" just select the 3 letters and Morse Trainer will create groups of X with those 3 letters.

The characters can also be chosen from 20 lessons of the Koch method.

- Real ham radio callsign mode: Morse Trainer will randomly play real amateur radio callsign from a database of 5000 callsigns which appeared in Contests over the last couple of years.

 - QSO text mode: Morse Trainer will play randomly play QSO text. The database consists of 300 different qso texts.

- Most common English words mode: Morse Trainer will play randomly the 500 most used English words.

- Own text mode: Enter your own text and Morse Trainer will play it over and over again.

- Ebook mode: Text files can be loaded from SD card

Morse Trainer is priced less than the cost of a fancy coffee and it is a great app to learn and improve you CW speed away from your amateur radio station or your PC.

Disclaimer: I am not connected to Wolphi LLC is any shape, manner, way or form. I'm just a satisfied consumer who likes this app a lot, and thinks it can be useful to other Amateur Radio ops. It has helped me increase my code speed and keep it there. It has also helped me keep my gray matter in good "Morse shape" when I haven't been able to get on the air. And who knows? Maybe some day they'll come up with the adage "A little Morse Code each day helps to keep the Alzheimer's away!"

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care 

International QRP Day +1

Alas, I didn't get to get on the air yesterday for International QRP Day (more about that in a bit) but I did run across this interesting video courtesy of the K9YA Telegraph Facebook page. (Facebooks IS actually useful for something!)

I found it interesting, anyway!

Back to yesterday. I was at that W2QW RVRC Hamfest for which I posted the flyer a couple days ago. I got there at 5:00 AM to help park the vendors into their assigned selling spots. Then around 8:15 AM, I went over to set up and get ready for the VE Session.

We had eight candidates in all. There were supposed to be eleven, but two called me on the telephone Friday evening to cancel (theyfelt they weren't ready) and one was a no-show.  Three upgraded from General to Extra, Two upgraded to General, and two earned their Technician Class license. The eighth candidate came to us with no license and left with his General. That was especially gratifying. We had hoped he'd have a trifecta day and make to Extra, but it was not in the cards yesterday, but I'm sure it won't be long!

For the most part it was a good day. The weather turned out perfect and buyer attendance measured up well compared to previous years. The only disappointment was we could have used more sellers. The weather prognosticators were calling for the possibility of showers - which actually came late in the afternoon, and only in some scattered areas, way long after the festivities for the day were just a memory. 

72 de Larry W2LLJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

International QRP Day

Tomorrow! Saturday, June 17th 2023.

The post a few below regarding the GQRP upcoming events was released specifically to coincide with the day. I am sure there will be a lot of SOTA-teers on the air tomorrow, as well as some POTA activations that may turn down the power. If you get on the air yourself, you might want to spot yourself and indicate that you're running QRP so that other QRP'ers can find you. A really VERY good place to do that is QRPSPOTS, which is a valuable but yet very underused resource brought to us by The Four State QRP Group. We QRPers should really change that and make this our first go-to whenever we get on the air. There's nothing wrong with self-spotting to let our brothers and sisters in Low Power know where we are on the dial.

I hope you all have fun enjoying QRP and whatever the day has to offer!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Busy time of the year!

 I don't know about the rest of you, but for me, June always seems to be one of the busiest months of the year, particularly where Amateur Radio is involved.

As a CERT Member who is also an Amateur Radio Op, we had three call outs (actually, maybe 4) this month. First there were the NJSIAA High School Track Meets where we performed traffic and pedestrian control duties the first weekend in June. Later, in the same week we reprised that role for the Feast of St. Anthony, a carnival hosted by Our Lady of Czestochowa Church in town. Next week is High School graduation and possibly Middle School graduation as well.

This Saturday is the Raritan Valley W2QW Hamfest. I'll be there at 'O-Dark Thirty in the morning, helping vendors drive to their allotted parking spaces, and then conducting the VE Session at 9:00 AM. We have 10 candidates signed up so far, but fortunately a lot of the local VEs have agreed to come out and help. I hope that between those two functions and helping to man the club selling table that I actually get time to walk around and look at "stuff".

This coming Sunday, I'd like to drive over to Home Depot and buy a couple driveway reflectors.

Not for my driveway, but for next weekend - Field Day.  Their purpose being to serve as tie off anchors for the ends of my MFJ-1982LP end fed. The idea is that these will make the ends more visible to "traffic", especially at night. I hope to find something like the one in the picture at either Home Depot or Lowe's. The little hole at the top would be ideal for threading through the mason's twine that I use for tying down and securing the end insulators.

And of course, next weekend is the big event itself, Field Day. I plan to be there for almost the entire 24 hours. I'll have to leave Sunday morning for a couple hours for Mass and then return, but other than that, I plan to while away the hours listening to and sending Morse Code. As a wise man once said, "Those QSOs ain't going to make themselves!"

I know it can change, and probably will (fingers crossed), but the long range 10 day forecast is a bit "iffy"., with a chance for thunderstorms for Field Day Saturday.  I can deal with rain, we should be amply covered, but we all know that radio and thunderstorms do not mix well. I particularly remember a Piscataway Amateur Radio Club Field Day many years ago. We were in Rich W2PQ's pop up camper which served as the 40 Meter shack. A thunderstorm blew in and we quickly unplugged the coax from the radio and dropped it to the floor. While we were sitting there waiting out the storm and kibitzing, we kept hearing a little "tic-tic" kind of noise. That's when one of our club members happened to look at the PL-259 laying on the camper floor and saw a little blue spark occasionally fly between the center pin and shield connections of the coax! It reminded me of those old Frankenstein type movies that we watched as kids that had those giant Tesla coils in the "laboratory".

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Upcoming GQRP events

From Enzo M0KTZ:

The GQRP Club invites all the QRP enthusiasts to a line-up of QRP activities, to salute the arrival of the new season. Details below.

There will be plenty of puny signals out there, starting this weekend, so switch your rig on, get on the bands, fly the QRP flag, and have fun.

- 17th June, International QRP Day. Almost two dozens Club members will activate the Club callsign G5LOW (England), together with its regional locators GM5LOW (Scotland), GW5LOW (Wales), Gi5LOW (Northern Ireland), GD5LOW (Isle of Man), and GU5LOW (Guernsey). All bands, from HF to UHF, and all modes (CW, SSB, AM, FM, and several digimodes), throughout the day. Just look out for the "LOWs".

- 17th June, the Club also runs the Suffolk Trophy, an activity reserved to members, with operation for six hours only in no more that two periods. Contacts are with any Region 1 country; normal QSO, no serial numbers. Each Region 1 country counts 1 point on each band. The total score is total of IARU countries on the bands used. Only one contact per country per band is allowed irrespective of mode. The other station may be QRO. Please log Name, address, call, power used, equipment, time, call & band for each contact.

- June 17th to June 25th. It's time for the Summer Sizzler, a relaxed get-on-air QRP event, an ideal opportunity to meet and greet new and old friends, to test our latest homebrew creations, and to fill the bands with friendly QRP activity. Several certificates are awarded for contacts made using only homebrew equipment (Busy-Bee), only QRPp power levels (Tiny-Flea), only vintage rigs (Old Beetle), and while operating /P or /M (Iron-Knee). The special Ladybird certificate is awarded to the best log submitted by a member who has been licensed for less than three years.

The best overall log will be awarded the First GM3OXX Memorial Trophy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hopefully propagation will be good enough to work a few GQRP friends!

72 de Larry W2LJ - GQRP #11653

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

This is not good!

With a VE Session scheduled at the W2QW Hamfest this weekend, to boot! We all know the speeds in which the government acts - Slow, Stop and Reverse!

 From the ARRL:

FCC Universal Licensing System Applications Are Unavailable

06/13/2023

The FCC Universal Licensing System (ULS), which includes Electronic Batch Filing (EBF) used by VECs for new and upgrade license submissions and club license applications, Application Search, License Search, License Manager system used for filing applications directly with the FCC, Tower Construction Notification System, E-106 System, Antenna Structure Registration Online Filing and searches, TOWAIR and all ULS Specialized Searches, are currently down.

The FCC’s EBF and License Manager Filing systems have stopped accepting and processing all amateur radio exam session files and applications. The EBF system has not processed any VEC license applications and examination session files since Monday afternoon. The other systems have not been available since Friday June 9 at the close of business.

ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM, said her office contacted the FCC staff, which said systems are down due to maintenance but did not estimate how long the systems would be down. “As soon as the FCC staff corrects the EBF system problem, we will immediately file the backlog via the automated system, which would take only a few hours or less to release,” Somma estimated. When the License Manager system is again available, amateurs will be able to file license renewals, vanity call sign applications, and other license updates online directly with the FCC.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Announcing the 2023 NJQRP Skeeter Hunt

The long anticipated announcement for the 2023 NJQRP Skeeter Hunt - the 12th Annual, if you can believe that!

For all the details - please go to www.qsl.net/w2lj or go to the Skeeter Hunt page of this blog (the next to last tab on the right - located under the KX3 photo up at the top).

A few points to remember:

1) Due to a personal commitment, the Hunt has been moved to the 4th weekend of August - the 27th, for this year only. 

2) New Bonus Point Challenge for 2023:

Eighteen Skeeters have graciously consented to act as Bonus Skeeters. They have been issued numbers that are palindromes (numbers that are the same forward and backward) - Skeeters 11, 22, 33, 44 ...... right through 151.   When you work one, that QSO is worth 100 points - and you can work as many as you can up to 1,000 bonus points. The Bonus Skeeters are highlighted on the roster. A clarification - you can only claim the Bonus Skeeter once - so if you work W2LJ (#181) on 40, 20 and 15 Meters, you can only claim 100 Bonus point (not 300).

3) Skeeter numbers for the rest of you will be issued in the same way as they have since the beginning of this event. Send an e-mail with your name, your call sign and the state you will be operating from to either w2lj@arrl.net, or w2ljqrp@gmail.com NO SOONER THAN 12:01 AM EDT June 21st, the First Day of Summer. You will receive an e-mail back with your sequential number, or you can check the roster, by clicking here.  Please do not apply for a number via the Facebook page, as I may very well miss your request - and we wouldn't want that to happen, would we? Numbers will be issued right up until the Midnight before the day of the event.

I hope you'll have fun and enjoy the Hunt this year - good luck and happy QRP'ing!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Decision made

I've decided what I'm going to do with my second KX3, not that it's earth shattering news, or of importance to anyone but me. I'm going to keep it for now, but still order a QMX kit in the near future once I pay a few medical bills down to a manageable level.

I'll live by that old Amateur Radio adage "You can never have enough radios!"

After having the QMX and using it for portable ops for a while, I'll re-visit the issue if necessary.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

PS: Here's the important news. Look for an announcement regarding the 2023 NJQRP Skeeter Hunt to come out tomorrow!

Coming this weekend - June 17th, 2023

If you find yourself in the greater Central New Jersey area, come and join us!  I'm no longer a member of the club, but I continue to help them out, whenever I can. The 10 Day weather forecast is calling for clear sunny skies with temps in the low 80's for next Saturday. I'll be there for 5:00 AM, helping to direct vendors to their parking spots and then running the VE Session at 9:00 AM. This is a great way to kick off Father's Day weekend!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

 

Pondering the unponderable

I never thought I'd ever do this, but I am pondering the thought of selling one of my KX3s. Specifically, the one downstairs in the shack.

What I am seriously considering, is replacing that one with the KX3 that I use for portable ops, and then replacing that with the QMX from QRP Labs.

I'd be giving up 17, 15 and 10 Meters, but then I can probably count on both hands the time I've used those bands in a portable situation. In the FOBB, Skeeter Hunt and other QRP events in which I operate from the field, the bulk of my contacts come on 20 and 40 Meters.

I'd miss the auto tuner, but I do have an Emtech ZM2 languishing in the backpack that I used to use when I had my PFR-3A. The smaller size and weight of the QMX would be nice, definitely not as much to carry.

An added plus is that with the extra money that would be garnered from such a sale, I could finally purchase an antenna analyzer, which is something I've been wanting for a long time now. 

I'll still have to ruminate on this for a while.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Whew!

Earlier this year, when Marv K2VHW went to Borough Hall to reserve our place at Putnam Park for Field Day, he received some disconcerting news ......... disconcerting for SPARC, that is.  The town is proceeding with some improvements to the park. New pickle ball courts and volley ball courts will be built as well as a new shuffle board court and work out areas. In addition they will be refurbishing the handball and tennis courts that are in place already.

Of course, this is a great thing for the town, but the downside is that the park will be closed while construction is underway. An additional fly in the ointment was that the Borough was uncertain as to when construction would begin. If this was to happen BEFORE Field Day, we would be out of luck regarding the place where we've camped out the last two Field Days, and as it turns out, we like this location much more than Spring Lake Park, our old location.

We found out this week that this project will begin AFTER Field Day, much to our relief. We were given the go ahead for 2023.  However, this might be our last year of setting up closer to the street, as indicated in the picture. We might have to move farther into the center portion of the park, away from the street depending on the amount of refurbishment / expansion of the tennis and pickle ball courts. There is currently a grassy gap between the tennis courts and the tree line that provides ample space for us. Of course, this is just a proposal, and often what's proposed and what actually ends up happening may be different.

The good news is that even though we may have to re-locate to a different part of the park, there are no plans to remove any trees - God's gift of antenna supports to us Hams.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Where's Summer?

In the USA,  Memorial Day Weekend is considered to be the "unofficial" start of the Summer season. Boy, I'll say it was certainly "unofficial" this year!

I had intended to set up the KX3 on the patio table, along with the magloop in the backyard and spend the day hunting museum ships. It only got into the higher 60's (19 C) and the sun and clouds were competing all day with the clouds winning most of the time. Because there was also a bit of a chilly breeze, I decided to do my hunting from the main shack downstairs, instead of setting up outside.

I ended up working three POTA stations, one of which was Alan W2AEW who was operating from Cheesequake State Park K-1612, which is in Old Bridge, NJ all of about 20 or so miles away from me. I caught him on 15 Meter groundwave. He was about a 539 for me and I was a 529 for him, but we got the exchange made.

Scanning through the bands, and zeroing in on museum ship spots on the DX Cluster yielded nothing. I heard nary a museum ship in the entire time that I hunted. The good thing is that the Butternut is still proving to be a reliable antenna along with the W3EDP, some 20 years after I originally installed it. It has weathered many a harsh winter and a few not so nice hurricanes like a trooper.  This is a good thing because that I doubt I could replace it if anything ever happened to it. I looked up the current retail price and it's now close to double what I paid for it so many years ago.

Getting back to my Summer rant ........ when I woke up this morning it was 47 F (8 C) which is virtually unheard of for New Jersey on June 5th. For years and years, I've always known it to be that in this area of the US, that May 14th is considered to be the last chance for a hard overnight freeze as per Dept. of Agriculture planting guides. We had a few frost warnings after that date this year! We had to bring in some sensitive plants in the house for the overnight on a couple of evenings.

I know what's going to happen. Undoubtedly, we're going to go from early Spring-like weather to scorching Summer heat with a bang seemingly overnight over the next few weeks! While I much prefer the Summer, I do like to ease into it gradually. As I get older, these sudden changes take a harder toll on my system.

The other thing that I got accomplished yesterday was to order a new Field Day banner for the South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club. For the past 9 years we've displayed our original club banner. I thought that having something a bit different and just for Field day was justified. It's nothing fancy, but it does two things. It very briefly explains what the purpose of Field Day is and it also tells folks that they are welcome to come visit, see what's going on and ask questions.

Field Day banner

Original banner

When I designed and purchased our original banner, we were such a new entity that we didn't even have our club logo yet.  We formed in April and as Field Day is in June, I was hurried to have something ready for Field Day deployment and didn't really consider something important. It was a rather spectacular blunder on my part to not include our club call sign on the original.  Even so, it still serves a purpose and is still in great shape despite being displayed in some less than ideal weather over the years.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Museum Ships Weekend

This weekend, June 3rd and 4th, is the Annual Museum Ships Weekend and there will be plenty on the air! Of course, I am partial to this one:

The USS New Jersey, which has been re-outfitted several times, now rests permanently, docked at Camden, NJ, right next to our State Aquarium. The USS New Jersey is the most highly decorated battleship in Naval history.  A little known fact is that the New Jersey was originally designated to be the platform on which the formal ending of WW II was to take place, but because President Truman was from Missouri ...... well, you know how that turned out.

This is an international event and is not exclusive to North America alone. A list of participating ships can be found here.

Of course, I have another busy Saturday planned, including pulling CERT duty at a statewide track meet being held at our high school athletic field in South Plainfield. But ........ Sunday is looking good with nice weather to boot! I cleaned off the patio table last weekend, so I'm hoping that Sunday will be a good time to break out the KX3 and the magloop out in the backyard for some museum ship hunting.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

K7JA SK

Chip Margelli K7JA was one of the "celebrity" Hams. He was quite well known in the Amateur Radio Universe and perhaps his most "famous moment" came during this appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno back in 2005.  Chip is the Ham you see in the opening:

Chip died from cancer on May 29th. To read more about him, you can go here.

BTW, this coming Sunday, June 4th is Cancer Survivor's Day. If you know someone who has survived cancer, this is a good time to help them celebrate their victory. For those in the heat of battle and for those who have lost the battle, this is a good day to remember them in prayer.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

I be tempted

 I'm not sure whether to give a tip o' the  hat to Bob W3BBO for bringing this to my attention or .......

Meet the QMX from QRP Labs.

Its a 5 band multi mode QRP transceiver. Currently it only supports CW and the digital modes, but a future firmware update should include SSB. Here's a rundown on the features:

80, 60, 40, 30 and 20m

CW and FSK Digi modes

All features of QCX-mini (VFO A/B/Split, RIT, Message and frequency memories, beacon, keyer)

5W output at 9V supply (can be built for 4-5W at 12-13V supply)

SWR bridge built in

Single signal transmission (zero unwanted sideband, zero residual carrier, zero intermodulation distortion)

Solid-state band switching and transmit/receive switching under CAT control

High performance embedded SDR SSB receiver with 60-70dB of unwanted sideband cancellation

Built-in 24-bit 48ksps USB sound card

Built-in USB Virtual COM Serial port for CAT control

Si5351A Synthesized VFO with 25MHz TCXO as standard

Easy to build single-board design, Professional quality 6-layer, through-hole plated, silk-screen printed PCBs

All SMD components factory assembled

Connectors: 2.1mm power barrel connector, USB B (for audio and CAT control), BNC RF input/output

Built-in test signal generator and testing tools

Switched mode regulators

Receive current 80mA, Transmit current 1.0-1.1A for 5W output with 9V supply (around 0.7A for 5W with 12V supply).

Optional aluminum extruded cut/drilled/laser-etched black anodized enclosure

All at a price point of $95.00 (kit form), as you can also order one pre-assembled. If you purchase the kit, the enclosure is available for another $20.00. Pre-orders only at this time.

This little rig has me in a quandary - I'm a bit disappointed that 17 and 15 Meters are not available, but I'm tempted to purchase one nonetheless. I could see this little guy becoming my main portable ops radio, significantly minimizing the size and weight of my current "go bag".

I'll have to think seriously about this one.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Congratulations!

 Congratulations are in order to John Shannon K3WWP and Tom Witherspoon K4SWL for being inducted into the QRP Hall of Fame at this year's Four Days in May event at Hamvention.

It's nice to see some of "the guys in the trenches" being recognized for their contributions.  John for his streak, super informative blog and his daily "diary" and for all his efforts to show how QRP, CW and simple antennas really and truly can get the job done.

Tom for his excellent blog and all his inspiring videos to show the way "to do it". How to go about portable ops the right way and the way he shows how equipment works and how to use it.

QRP-ARCI Leadership - thanks so much for inducting these two into the HOF. I can't think of any two more deserving!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

An interesting video

 I stumbled across this yesterday

:

Several things stood out for me:

1) He had no real purpose for learning Morse Code in that he's not an Amateur Radio operator or intends to use it on a regular basis. He's learning Morse just for the experience. While I suppose that is a goal in and of itself, it seems to offer no sense of purpose or urgency, if you will.  When you're learning something just for the halibut, rather than because you need to use it, you can afford to be blasé' about it.

2) He practiced when he was tired. Not a good way to go about it, in my  humble opinion. Being relaxed is a good thing, but when you're dog tired, your mind wanders.

3) Even worse, he seems to have started off by writing down the dits and dahs and then decoding them as an afterthought. He seems to have abandoned that by the end of the video. The biggest error one can make in learning the code is to have any type of visual aid, unless of course, you're in the Navy and intend to be looking at blinking lights. I see charts and  other printed "quickie methods" for learning/remembering the characters. Those make me shudder. When you rely on visual aids, eventually you are going to have to "unlearn" them and rely on the sounds only. Might as well do that from the start.

4) If nothing, this young man is persistent. He doesn't give up even when he hits a wall and it gets hard. Kudos to him for that.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

HamTest Online going away

 An email from ARRL:

Sent: Thu, Mar 23, 2023 5:54 pm Subject: HamTest Online is Going out of Business

Thanks to Adam Karsin KG4WWH for sending this:

Chris AB3WG

This is John, W1AI, the creator, owner, software developer, and coursemaster of HamTestOnline. I launched the HamTestOnlin website in August 2002, and I’ve spent the last 20 years helping tens ofthousands of students pass the ham radio exams.  While it's been a tremendous amount of work, it’s also been the most fun and personally rewarding portion of my career.  

However, I’m turning 68 this year, and I’m ready to retire. Therefore (unless I find a serious buyer), we will be shutting down the website effective June 30, 2023. I truly appreciate all the support and encouragement we've received from our loyal customers through the years!

If you are one of our eternal procrastinators, this is your last chance. As this newsletter goes out, we are selling 3-month website subscriptions. However, as the website shutdown date approaches, we will be selling shorter and shorter subscription terms, so that no subscription extends past June 30.

Three months is plenty of time for most students to get to Extra.  In fact, our most successful students use concentrated study, cramming all of their studies into a few weeks.  We've had hundreds of students go from zero to Extra in a single exam session after studying for 6 weeks or less.  If you are willing to put in the effort, you still have time to get your Extra class license before this resource disappears forever!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

ARRL Maryland-DC Section

Section Manager: Mr Christopher D Van Winkle, AB3WG

ab3wg@arrl.org

For those who may be interested.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Sláinte - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all my brother and sister Amateur Radio ops from Ireland, and to those who are of Irish descent!

My dear departed mother-in-law was from Donegal - so this Pole holds the Irish in a special place in his heart. So in honor of the day - I will lift a pint of Guinness to you this evening and will offer an Irish blessing (of sorts) to all of you out there:

May good DX be with you wherever you go, and your QSOs outnumber the shamrocks that grow. 

May your contacts be many and your busted QSOs be few, May all God's blessings descend upon you, May peace be within you, 

May your antenna be strong, May your dial be full of signals wherever you roam.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

This says it all!

 

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

SSB QRP? No way! That's too hard!

 Well, actually, right now ....... no it isn't.

And like he said, band conditions are only going to get better over the next few years!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

From the "weird" Morse Code file

 https://hackaday.com/2023/03/01/morse-code-clock-for-training-hams/

As shown in the article this clock would drive me nuts. The clock has an LED that flashes the time in Morse Code. If I'm not mistaken, the time shown in the video is 11:55?  I don't know if that's AM or PM.

The author says the clock has a speaker and that would definitely work better for me. I suppose I could get used to decoding Morse by sight, but after doing it for 40+ years by sound, my ears feed dits and dahs to my brain more quickly than my eyes.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

ARRL DX CW

I played around in the ARRL DX CW contest this weekend. Not long, just for about an hour and a half to two hours. It was nice to get back behind the rig again after a long absence. I must apologize to the first few stations that I worked. My Morse sending was absolute crap!  But after about 4 or 5 contacts, I found my rhythm again and it was game on.

I haven't been on the air since my time undergoing radiation therapy. And let me tell you, the radiation therapy was a cakewalk compared to this hormone therapy I'm undergoing to keep my PSA level low. But I muddle through the best I can. One of the worst side effects is that it takes motivation away. You just feel like "meh" and not doing much, other than the things you absolutely have to.

But Sunday was rather warm for February here in NJ, which meant the basement was not quite the icebox it usually is during the winter. The temps down there were in the low 60s rather than the high 50s, so it was a bit more bearable.

My main weapon was the Butternut HF9V. All contacts were made at 5 Watts of course. In the time I felt motivated to operate, I made 31 contacts, all search and pounce, of course.. I worked into Europe, South America, the Caribbean and Hawaii.  I was surprised that KH6LC came back to me on my first call!

I made contacts on 10, 15 and 20 Meters. 10 Meters was absolutely awesome! It was truly difficult to find a dead, open spot on the band. I think that 27 of my 31 contacts were made on 10 Meters. I should have stayed on longer, but I caved in to the tiredness. But while I was on, I had a blast!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very keast!