MInnesota QSO Party 2024

 I had not planned to participate in this contest, but My schedule ended up being open, so I did participate for a short time. This contest starts at 8:00 am CST and ends at 6:00Pm. I have never operated the full 10 hours but usually lots longer than this year. 

 My first band was 80m and that ended up not being very productive, so I switched to 40m and this band produced QSOs up and down the band. I also checked 15 and 10m but was not much activity. The 20m band would have been a good choice if I wanted to try running but I was in and out of the shack too much, so I stayed mostly on 40m. 

  I usually have more contacts during this contest but since I only devoted short intervals to operating, I ended up with just over 50 contacts, majority on 40m. This contest also made me aware of some antenna issues on 80m which I have repaired and now both my vertical and dipole are tuning nicely.

73---Tim

CenturyLink DSL repair

 

I started to notice a problem with our internet connection dropping and slower connect speeds. This seemed to be happening mostly early morning and clearing up later in the day. This started several weeks ago. It finally was bothersome enough I did a test with the CenturyLink App on My iPhone and it did show an issue. I did an online chat with the repair people and they also verified a problem and set a time for an onsite visit.

 Close to the scheduled time of course the problem cleared up but the technician did see the problem we were experiencing from earlier. After some onsite checks He decided to add a filter/splitter to the incoming line. I looked it up on the internet and its a NID-01VTj. A simple device but effective so far. We have three analog phones with DSL filters at the phone jack but this will help the DSL modem to not "see" the phones and associated wiring. This fix has actually improved our connect speed and we are no longer experiencing retrains. 

  I wonder if the extra wiring to feed the three phones around the house acted like antennas and were picking up some interference--we see. Very happy to have a solid internet connection and again I've had another good CenturyLink repair experience!

 73--Tim