Time and lack of it!

OOps, just noticed My Clock on this blog was set to DST-- sorry. I think I corrected it!
I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! Our trip out of town was delayed by a snowstorm. We finally visited Grandma Saturday and today which was very nice but upon Our return it was dark and so is our Chicken coop! Water frozen solid and distressed birds! I finally have the trouble narrowed down to a circcuit breaker,bad disconnect box or the more likely culprit-- underground feed from the pole building to the coop. Decided I need daylight to continue so took off tomorrow and currently am backfeeding with an extension chord. All breakers and fuses off and pulled! Can never be too safe!!
In a Ham related subject-- last week checked SWR on My Butternut vertical and it was very high on all bands. It was fine the weekend before during Sweepstakes but now was definately bad! We had an ice/snow storm in between then and now.. so I wonder. I checked all visable connections and dug the snow at the base away so I could inspect those connections. Finally started digging thru snow and weeds to the connection between the hardline and the 75 ohm matching stub. Nothing obvious, but checking SWR again showed all back to normal! Oh,boy! The feared intermittant connection-- I think its buried under coax seal and black tape at the hardline/coax transition. I think I'll try to baby it till the weather warms a bit-- preferably spring!!
73---Tim

ARRL SS SSB 2010

This is the first time I participated in sweepstakes and despite the long exchange, I did have a good time. The exchange consists of a "serial number or QSO amount", "precedence or class" of which I was "A" for single operator low power, my callsign, a "check" or year first licensed as a Ham and ARRL section. So My entire exchange went like this for QSO#1--- 01 A N0UJJ 92 MN Try that many times over without a voice keyer!! I also had to copy similiar exchanges from the far end. ARRL sections are two and three letter abreviations and there is eighty of them- USA and Canadian! I also found My listening ability to My brain and then to type it correctly to a logging program is not great. Half way thru I actually switched to writing it down and then transferring it to the PC, not very efficient and certainly not good for calling CQ. This again meant a strictly S & P contest for Me. Eventually I started noticing a rthyme to the exchange but every interruption meant starting over getting back into that rthyme.

Contest started at 3:00 CST for Me and 15m was the band to be on . My exchange at first was rough but eventually had the hang of it! My S & P ability is not bad so by the end of the first hour had a little over 30 logged. Then it was time to break for supper. Upon returning, after a few chores,found the bands closed on both 15m and 20m and most activity had shifted to 40m and 75m. Both these bands for casual QSO's and net check-ins work well for Me,but during a contest, My little pee-shooter station struggles. It also was extremely noisy and was starting to give Me a headache so I decided to do something else and check back often. I was really hoping for some activity to move to 160m so I could try out My inverted"L", but this never happened and I finally went to bed. I was well below what I had hoped for the first night but not giving up.

Sunday on and off times were dependant on Family activities and I managed to get on the air several more times. 15m was again My best band but 20m also worked fairly well and I added many multipliers on 20! I did have a few embarrassing exchanges when I was informed I was a"dupe om". Seems I had fat fingered several early entries. One was super station NR5M, but He handled it well!

I also realized the last hours of this contest seemed more relaxed than the first rush on Saturday. Some portions of the bands also were less congested and I had better luck with logging contacts within the first few tries. My Yaesu FT-950 performed very well and I was constantly amazed with the narrow bandwidth setting and how signals jumped out of the QRM to be totally copyable! Contour filter,IF shift and notch all made it better for picking out signals. I wish the other end could hear Me as well as I hear them!! Maybe time for QRO level!-- LOL or not!!

At the end My log showed 129 Qso's,41 sections for a total of 10660. Not as good as I had hoped,but each contest I learn new tricks- maybe someday My score will reflect that!!

73---Tim

2000 views

Thanks to all those viewers who paused at My blog, wether by chance or on purpose. This blog is mostly simplistic Ham Radio related potpourri (sp?)of everyday meanderings from the comfort of My basement. Nothing too in depth because quite frankly I have a hard time putting My thoughts on paper, lots of sporadic firings of semi-technical stuff!-
This continues to be a multi-purpose blog- it helps My family understand what I do in the basement and it gives Me a chance to improve My thought to paper writing. Its also just plain fun to do!
here's to 3000!
73---Tim

Heil,DSL and "L"

I was able to test My Heil proset last night with the help of a good friend on 10m. I was able to test mic gain settings and also have processor on/off, check difference between the Hc-4 and Hc-5 elements and use the built-in equalizer settings on the Yaesu. Interestingly enough, My friend at the other end liked My audio with the processor on. Both of Us have hearing issues so other Hams might like My audio better without processing. Next contest will be the ultimate test arena!
This morning I started to test our new internet service- Qwest DSL. We have not had many choices other than dial-up modem or satellite until recently. We have really liked Satellite internet but it is on the expensive side.Now after hooking up several laptops and one desktop to DSL, the speed is quite a bit better. Still having some issues with various PC's but I will eventually work thru them.
A snow storm has been predicted to arrive here by noon tomorrow so I needed to work outside on several projects before then. My inverted "L" needed to be higher on the horizontal leg and I thought I now had just the tool to do this. My Wife had bought Me a new fishing reel for just this purpose and using a golf ball with a hole drilled in it I was able on the first cast to get over the top of a very tall pine tree. Now My antenna goes straight vertical for 30 feet then angles up another 20 feet before dropping back to the 30 foot level at the end point.On a 160m net tonight I had many good signal reports and most signals are louder on the "L" than My 260 foot doublet!
Success at last!! big smile!!
73--Tim

New/old PC

The Hamshack PC is getting old and tired. Its been a good ol' reliable computer, but its slowly becoming full of stuff! One gigahertz and a half gig of memory at one time was enough ,but no more. Every program on the hard drive is updating and expanding with every download.
I'm very lucky to work in a business with access to old parts for many things including PC's. This also means access to many very technically talented individuals. Last year I replaced My Wife's desktop with a laptop. Its a 2.66ghz Dell with a small 40gb hard drive. Recently upgraded memory to 1.25gb so it loads fairly fast but the Hd is very full. Its an IDE drive and best buy actually has a 350 GB one for about $70. Lots of room!
I was able to use a copy program borrowed from a friend although the drive from Western Digital has one online also. Either way it saved Me many hours of reloading software, a process I've done before after reformatting HD's because of nasty viruses. No fun. This was fairly painless- worked well and now updating software.
New/old PC will be ready soon-- now if I can just find a cheap serial card......
73--Tim

New Headset and more

I'm the proud owner of a Heil Proset Plus and am looking forward to checking it out on the bands. Was out of town and have not had the opportunity to try it other than some sound checks into a dummy load. I plan on checking into the local 10m net and will ask for some audio checks then. the decision to buy this particular one was not done lightly. Its expensive and I was trying to use available equipment I had on hand, but had too much trouble trying to get old equipment working with my present HF radio. I discussed on the air ,several options and had even partially decided on a certain model , but listening to the Proset plus really sold Me. I like the dual element option . For DX and contesting or simple QSO's I can use the one that works best. The DX element,the HC-4 sounds tight and will probably be real similiar to using microphone processing so it should have good talk power. With the Yaesu FT-950 I can also reduce the transmitt bandwidth so lots of options available, many combinations so a on the air test will be in order!
The HC-5 element should be very pleasant for casual QSo's , from listening to others on the air it has a rich mellow sound. The Headset also has the phase reversal option which is supposed to help to cut down fatigue for long contesting stints! All in all , tough decision to part with the money but I think it will be a good addition to My shack!
I've also tried to spend time outside working on the inverted "L" project before daylight savings time ends! I have now run power from My shack to the weatherproof box at the feedpoint so later this winter adding a remote tuner will be easier. Also have been trying to get a rope postioned higher and throught the trees for a better, clearer , path. Trying a different trick using a golf ball with a hole drilled thru it and a full size fishing rod and reel. So far this working better than the slingshot fiasco!
Halloween decorations are down and put away and lots of Christmas decorations are seeing the light of day--or night!! Dark here now at about 5:00 CST--ouch!
73---Tim