W4FT on Amateur Radio

The MS Bike Event is less than two weeks away.  The GPS files can be downloaded at http://w4ft.com/public_service_support/msbike-2009-new-bern-nc-sept-12-13/ 
Check that webpage for more details.

73,
W4FT

Yesterday was the August SSB edition of the North American QSO Party, a 12 hour event - a great time to test the TA-33M antenna that I put up a few weeks ago.  For single ops, this is a 10 hour event out of 12, starting at 2pm local time.  For once, I had just about everything ready. Overall, I’ll give this year’s effort a B- grade; moderate fun, but not enough to leave me super excited after the event. 

Conditions are what they are at this time in the sunspot cycle, not spectacular.  On 20, the new antenna performed nicely, giving me contacts from CA to ME to FL. Fifteen meters was a lot weaker, mostly I think, due to just fewer operators.  As for 10 meters, nothing!  I didn’t hear a single op anywhere on the band!

My biggest problem was 40 meters.  Something tells me I need to make some repairs on that antenna – a B&W 160 thru 20 trap dipole. The match on 40 is a bit off and I could hear more stations than could hear me.  It’s frustrating when you hear an S-9 signal and they can’t hear you at all.  No pileup, just them calling and calling and not hearing my answer.  There were a lot of loud signals that couldn’t hear me.  Eighty was easier to make contacts on, but fewer ops.  On top band, only two contacts, but that’s not too surprising.

All in all, I had an OK to good experience.  I found a few station issues that need resolution – mostly noise from computer equipment – that need to be addressed; found that my newly installed beam is working pretty well (still need more op time to make sure),  and maybe it’s time to put up some new wire antennas in the 90 ft. trees for the lower bands.

Oh yeah, how’d I do?  135 QSOs over about 9 1/2 hours and 68 multipliers for 9180 pts.  Not bad, about middle of the pack for North Carolina ops in past years.  I even heard Alaska and Hawaii on 20 meters.  Too bad they didn’t hear me. 

73,
W4FT

Over the last year, I’ve had a few articles published in the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society’s monthyl newsletter, the Exciter. 

• RARS Field Day 2008 – The Results Are In – Dec 2008, as AG4XR
  A review of the RARS efforts on Field Day over the last decade, the latest results and suggestions for the future. Following mine is an article by Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, with a different view of Field Day.  Both are worth a read for Field Day fans.
• Contest Time Off: How Do You Measure It? — Feb 2009
  Some of the contests have rules about how many hours you can operate and about what constitutes off-time, but the rules aren’t clear on how to handle two windows of non-operating time: the time at the start and at the end.  This article clarifies how they count time in contests.
• How Big *Is* RARS? Or, Why Are Some Countries So Hard To Get? — Mar 2009
  Our Section Manager noted that RARS is the largest club in North Carolina.  At about the same time, the IARU added two new entities.  Surprisingly, there are over 100 countries and 33 entities that are smaller than RARS!
• How Far Should Your Go-Kit Go? — Jun 2009
  Have you thought about what purpose your Go-Kit should serve?  This article is a discussion about setting up a Go-Kit for your specific needs.

Any comments? 

73,

Cliff, W4FT

ARRL: 2008 ARRL November Phone Sweepstakes Results

http://www.arrl.org/members-only/contests/results/2008/SS-Phone/sidebar3.html

After last year’s November Phone Sweepstakes, I put a few words up on the ARRL contest website’s soapbox section under my old callsign.  It looks like it caught someone’s editorial eye.  They posted it as a sidebar article to the results!  Wonder if it makes it into QST?    If you want to read about this exercise in frustration, just click on the website above.

73,

Cliff – W4FT

Welcome to W4FT ver.2.0!  I used to have a website on the free space provided by my ISP, but they decided to change everything to pure flash content and a system that requires development on the site.  Since all of my tools and skills became useless, I decided it was time to build a site somewhere else. Along the way, I decided it was time to switch to a more blog and content management friendly system.  This is the result. 

Over time, I will try to add some useful tools and commentary on ham radio and maybe some other assorted topics and off-topics along the way.  Mixed in, at least for a while, may be some content from my old website, maybe for historical reasons or just to make me smile. Hopefully, you’ll find some stuff here that you can use or even makes you laugh.

This site welcomes comments and feedback, but is a 100% moderated site.  All comments will be reviewed before being published and may be edited or outright deleted.  Edits range from spelling corrections to minor cleanup for acceptability. Consider this site to have a rating somewhere between PG and R.   This doesn’t mean that I don’t accept dissenting opinions, but I will delete any flame wars, spam, insults, slander, or anything else that isn’t appropriate.  See my Terms of Service (as soon as they are published) for full details.

Enjoy your time here and feel free to comment.

73,

Cliff – W4FT