At Year's end...

It has been a busy Christmas, but enjoyable. My family is healthy and happy and 2010 was a good year. I hope 2011 is healthy,happy and prosperous to all. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I finished the interface to the Yaesu FT-950 and I am trying to find time to finish the Kenwood interface. Next weekend is RTTY Roundup contest starting at 12 noon on Saturday for Me.Lots to do to get ready- maybe will be able to find some time to participate!
We had a rain storm yesterday which made everthing an icy mess but it was warm enough it fell to the ground instead of covering trees and antennas--so it could have been worse! Temperature has dropped and now its snowing! Have to love winter to live up here- I do!!
73---Tim

RTTY Interfaces

Besides everything else happening during the Christmas season, I've been trying to finish building two Digital/PSK/RTTY interfaces. The light colored box is an interface I made for several older radios for PSK and SSTV. I use a RS232 switchbox to switch between different radios and it has worked well for many years with only minor modifications. The black box is a new project for just My Kenwood Ts-850 and mostly will be for RTTY, although all the other digital modes can also be used with it-even CW !

Both boxes use similiar circuits with level adjustment,isolation audio transformers and optical isolator IC's for all PTT/RTTY circuits. I just finished modifying the original gray box for RTTY and My Yaesu FT-950 and it appears to work. After the holidays will have a better chance to test it.

Speaking of the Holidays-- Merry Christmas!!

73--Tim

RAC Winter Contest 2010

The RAC winter Contest is one of My favorites because of the casual attitude and the "Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays" addition to most exchanges.Our Canadian neighbors seem to enjoy just the fact so many VE's and VA's are on the air at the same time! This contest runs for 24 hours and it started at My location at 6:00 PM CST Friday and ended at 6:00PM CST Saturday. My goal this year was to have a minimum 50 contacts and maybe all 14 RAC official stations in the log. The official stations would be difficult for a SSB only station, but I would give a good try.

I started Friday night scanning the bands until I finally found activity on 40m.My first contact was VY2RAC but I quickly decided 40m was not full of contesters so I switched to 75m and did a S & P effort. After several breaks from the radio I eventually ended up on 160m where My inverted "L" performed nicely. Not alot of contacts on 160m and I called it a night with about same number of contacts on Friday I had for all of last Years contest--all S & P.

Saturday was not what I expected-- was not feeling 100% and actually spent time on the couch watching the UMD Bulldogs win the title game against Delta! Later in the afternoon I was able to again try the contest and spent time on 20m. I didn't hear any activity on 10m and 15m and was not able to participate when conditions again would have shifted towards 40 and 75m. This contest was fun but I again didn't spend enough time to rack up a better score but the bands seemed to be in good shape and I was able to use three different antennas. The Inverted "L" for 160m, 260 ft dipole for 75m and the butternut HF6V vertical for 20m and 40m and all three performed well. i actually broke some pile-ups and didn't feel like a peashooter station at times. One station even commented on My 20 over 9 signal and I commented on his 30-40 over 9 signal--must have been a pipeline! One other fact- USA and Dx for Me were also scoring opportunities giving 2 points-Nice! I ended up contacting 6 of the 14 RAC special stations! Several on multiple bands.

Results--- QSOs Pts Sec

56 612 18
Score : 11,016

73---Tim

10m reflections

I've had some time to read the 3830 reflector and also comments from the MWA members concerning the recent 10m contest. Some very good scores but also lots of sad faces with poor results. Most of the bad results seem to be Northern latitudes, verticals or wire antennas and low or QRP power. Not all contesters with the above mentioned station setups did poorly but
many were like Me- results lower than expected.
I had several nice contacts but overall nothing to write home about! I even listened to several local run stations and compared how well I was hearing the far end. Definately a difference for Me and when I did try running,the results were very poor. Sometimes My vertical has surprised Me how well I can hear and be heard,just this time it wasn't doing as well. I read several writeups mentioning tri-banders at 20-30 ft, these contesters did OK. This is about the height of a future setup with My Cushcraft ATB-34 I've been considering. Inverted"L" was this years antenna project- maybe some metal in the air will be next years new project.
I was lucky to not have murphy pay Me a visit-- no computer,software or radio problems. I used My new Heil Proset plus and was very happy with it. I do have some concerns about setting it up with My FT-950. I'm hoping My audio is sounding OK- would hate to be one of the overdriven scoundrels!!
73 for now---Tim

ARRL 10m Contest-- Saturday/Sunday

We are lucky and did not receive but a light dusting of snow. South and east of Us was another story! Today, Sunday the temps started at 15F below zero-- brrrr. The contest has been just as cold. I thought Saturday morning the floodgates were about to open. Signals suddenly were popping out of the ether. Too bad they came and went so quickly! Two Texas and one Puerto Rico station and were gone. Should have kept with S&P but tried calling CQ to try for a run but the band died and I didn't realize it for a time.
No more activity except one local. Sunday so far is the same- nothing. I will update if any openings happen,but for now....
73---Tim
Towards the end of this contest , northern Minnesota did finally experience 10m propagation. I added mostly Texas stations and even tried "running" but without alot of success. I guess I need
some metal in the air. My Vertical antenna just didn't seem to be enough this time. I ended up with a smaller score than the previous two years- which doesn't seem right! Less than 50 contacts-- would be better If I did CW!
73---Tim

ARRL 10m Contest-- Friday night

Well the contest started at 6:00 CST here in Minnesota and so far I've only logged locals. My score would be double if I was a Charlie wiskey op. All the more reason to start studying again.
Slow start but chatting with the locals has been fun and enlightening. About half of these guys only get on the air during a contest! All of them have been interesting and are great operators.
The news is over and I'm monitoring 28400 without much activity-bed soon. Ok- another local contact. He is mobile heading home so We had a nice QSO and even switched to 2m SSB till He pulled into His driveway. I'll give it a little more time-hoping for some activity before the expected 7-12 inches of snow We are supposed to receive! More snow removal again!
73--Tim

Station changes

Changed My main PC to the new/old Dell and moved lots of equipment to make room for the Kenwood TS-850 and an older Kenwood TS-700a. Little crowded but more rearranging will probably happen soon. CU this weekend for the ARRL 10m contest-- starts 6:00 CST Friday .

73---Tim

The week that was

This Holiday season is busy and flying by. My girls and I went Christmas shopping today and the stores are crazy. We also added about nine inches of snow to Our total on the ground and I have to say its a winter wonderland up here! Gotta love it or you need to leave it. I'm loving it!
I've also been trying to finish upgrading My new/old Dell PC to replace an outdated,slow,slow slow PC that has been My main shack one for quite a while. I believe I've successfully added an I/O PCI card so i now have two serial ports. I've also been downloading Ham related programs to this Dell PC and maybe tomorrow I'll swap the two PC's.
I'm also building an interface for RTTY and the digital modes to connect another PC to My Kenwood TS-850-- yes, I know, I haven't sold it yet and I'm actually going to keep it and add to My shack. I must be crazy-- money would be nice but this just might be temporary. I'll use it for several RTTY contests coming early next year.I'll decide after that!
Christmas tree is up- still need to finish decorating it but We are tired and took a movie break!
Appropriate-- "A Christmas Carol" with Jim Carrey-- fun!!
73---Tim