Been Busy!

 Yes its been a while since My last post! Work and family has kept Me busy. I've been out of town for work on and off for the last month . My family has also kept Me busy but that has been fun outings-- swim meets, corn maze,and other doings!
  I have had a little time to jump on the bands and contacted TX3T on 12m but not nearly enough considering how great the bands have been. I've also been trying to get ready for the upcoming CQ WW SSB contest next weekend. Had some reports of poor audio with My Heil microphone so I decided to investigate. I first verified the audio on a local net-- Yes, the audio sounded like a slight RF content to it so next I needed to find out why!
  I've set the parametric equalizer on this radio to take advantage of its excellant audio and I made sure the parameters were still saved to memory by looking back at My post of March 17 2011. Well thats not the problem, so using a dummy load i first verified the audio sounded wrong-- which it did. Sounds almost like a slight hiss/sizzle/sharpness to it . I turned the power down to 5w and it still sounded "off" but not nearly as bad! First clue! This "mike" had been OK last spring- what was different?? Well I had straightened up My shack-- tying up chords including the long Heil chord at the adapter. Hard to explain but the Heil adapter has a loop to it where the 310 plug and "mike" plug come together. I tied it up into a loop and now decided to un-tie it and try talking. - -lots better! Both 5w and 100w. Somehow some TX audio must be feeding back thru. Later I added a clamp on ferrite and will keep it "messy" and not neaten it up with ties!!
  Hope to have many QSO's next weekend during the contest!!
 73---Tim

T32C- East Kiribati

 I have managed to work T32C on Line Island ( East Kiribati) on five bands SSB so far. Conditions were just OK Friday night so I was relieved to snag them on 20m and then saturday night the bands were fantastic and I added them on 10m,12m,15m and 17m all within 2 hours! Neat! I checked later for openings on 40-160m but heard nothing from the group -so off to bed. I still hope to contact them using RTTY and should stand a good chance because their website-- http://www.t32c.com/ says the expedition lasts until October 26th!!
   They are sponsored ( affiliated) with the Five Star Dxers Associatonand i have to say all the operators have good "ears" and a very pleasant on air personna! Thanks to all the hard work! Good website and excellant Dxpedition!!  Also ,happily LOTW users!!
  73---Tim

Emblem courtesy of http://www.t32c.com/    Also a little confusion between Line and christmas Islands. Some info says East Kiribati is Line-- this emblem obviously shows it as Christmas Island .HRD logging shows it as East Kiribati.  Leave a comment to clarify if you understand the difference!!
   UPDATE-  finally found time to read more about this expedition and turns out there are two christmas islands! This one and one more famous, also its own DXCC! Kiribati christmas Island is part of the Line islands!Different DXCC. So now i know!!

Apple and Steve

 A lot has already been said about Steve Jobs and I'd like to just thank him and Apple,inc for making My life easier,richer and more interesting with the many products they provided. I've owned an Apple IIe before switching to IBM PC compatibles. The company I work for has utilized both and for many years used Mac's before ultimately chosing IBM PC compatible machines. I'm currently an iPhone user and My kids started Our Apple craze with iPod nano's, then iPod Touch's.
 Apple products are not only fun to use but very practical and easy to use. "He knew what We wanted before We did" is a quote I've heard several times. How true-- here's to You Steve Jobs-- Thanks!!

  On the ham Radio side-- added another DXCC in LOTW! Lithuania ( LY5E) From some of the reflectors I have seen several Dxpeditions I've missed not being in the Ham shack-- bummer! That's all for now--
  73---Tim
Apple logo from Internet --thanks to ABC News!

Contest DXCC Confirmed!

 Every Contest I participate in I hope to add more DXCC entities and the CQ WW RTTY contest from last weekend was no exception.Conditions were great and the only limiting factor was My lack of BIC ( but in chair) or as I like to call it-- "barely in chair" --LOL! Fortunately I was able to snag some contacts with not only new DXCC 's but LOTW participants. Several Countries I've logged many times but eventually this contest I logged stations who happened to be LOTW also!
  According to My general logging program I now have 86 unconfirmed and LOTW shows 58 confirmed DXCC's. Several just happened to  be added from several DXpeditions I chased-- Cameroon ( TJ9PF) and Revillagigedo ( 4A4A) along with the Contest additions of Czech  Republic,Columbia,Hungary,Italy,Northern Ireland,Norway,Saint Kitts & Nevis,Scotland ,Slovenia and Wales. Many of these show multiple times in My logs over the years but they were not LOTW members and since I don't actively pursue them I receive no credit towards any DXCC award. I suppose I need to eventually use a Buro service or try direct QSL but  for now I patiently watch as the confirmations slowly increase!
  73--Tim
 Entire contest used Ground mounted Butternut Vertical except for 75m -- used My big dipole! All at 50w!