Black Sea Cup RN3F and UW1M

I was going to play on 10m this morning but couldn't be bothered due to the Black Sea Cup contest in full swing. I am a contester myself, so it wasn't that the contest itself was unpleasant, it was the standard of transmissions that immediately turned me off. RN3F was on again with an interesting variation on his previous poor transmission. I'd like to think he's trying to do something about the QRM he causes every contest, as there is a noted difference as shown below.

He now has a 300Hz wide chirp which means he is no longer the worst offender. That title has now got to go to UW1M (top left, above RN3F). He was 594K (actually 59+30dB) and approx 2KHz wide.

I had a look at QRZ for UW1M and he is sitting next to what looks like an IC7700 so it must be the dreaded home-brew amplifier or operator error (ALC or overdriving). No wonder contesters get a bad name.

I normally argue against the non-contest fraternity, that contesters are striving to improve themselves by perfecting all the radio disciplines pertaining to their station before the contest, the contest itself being the result of that hard work. The above station clearly needs to spend more time doing this.

Cheap "Peli" type case for dxpeditioning

1) Case:
Part Num. Line Price. Description. Mfr Part. Mfr Name.
SG32901 23.19 WATERPROOF TOOL BOX D00468 DURATOOL
(not inc. tax and p&p)

Provides maximum shock protection to contents, Waterproof, Can be padlocked for additional security, Built in pressure valve, Corrosion proof, Colour - Black, Depth (external) - 225mm Length - 515mm Width (external) - 435mm
http://cpc.farnell.com/duratool/d00468/waterproof-tool-box/dp/SG32901?Ntt=sg32901

As you can see the case has 4 pressure locking tabs:


2) Packing material:Pick and pluck foam, 5+6 layers, 50mm thick
£36.19 inc. tax & p&p

"Each pack contains 5 pieces of Pick 'n' Pluck Foam size 560 x 350 x 50mm (22" x 13.8" x 2") and 6 pieces of lining foam size 560 x 350 x 12mm (22" x 13.8" x 1/2"). Each side of the removable squares in the grid is 25mm (1")."

http://www.efoam.co.uk/

The finished item with foam interior

Plenty of room for the K3, Small SMPS, laptop, headset and footswitch etc. Weight of case + fully packed foam is 4.5Kg (no equipment added yet). I will blog again when I have finished plucking and packing.

Total cost so far approx £65.

RSGB AFS CW

Lowest score ever, 187Qs. Was it my imagination or was the turnout lower than usual?

I spent the morning taking down my doublet (suspect water ingress after 7 years in the air) and replaced with a dipole. I didn't have time to install it properly so ended up with an inverted V configuration.

Signals certainly were always strong from G throughout the contest but the number seemed down. My Q rate was very poor with occasional answers to my CQ calls. It's annoying to work a really inefficient run station doing all the usual unnecessary chat like CQ AFS, my call DE his call, CFM, GA, GL BK 73s etc only to find on the exchange that his serial is much higher than mine. Oh to have one less letter in the call and live in an area with several large clubs!

Enjoyed the contest but the score is less than helpful for the GMDX team.

Paper QSL cards are dead....long live eQSL and LOTW!

I was in the Apple shop buying a present for someone. The assistant asked if I would like a paper or electronic receipt which would be sent to my email address. It forced me to think about which one would be easier for me. The answer for me was most definately electronic due to the convenience factor. Which would you choose?

It's a very gradual process, but I now know I will live to see a day when paper cards are a thing of the past. The first positive sign of their demise is the absense of hand written contest logs and the benefits this brings to everyone (faster/easier adjudication and results).

Why does this matter to me?
1) I enjoy contesting and the IOTA contest causes me no end of hastle from card collectors whinging on about confirmation for a contact to this island or the other.
2) I have to pay for the QSL bureau as part of my RSGB membership. I'd rather this contribution was used for more pressing matters such as spectrum management.

What harm does paper QSLing do?

1) I believe card collectors are selfishly causing the demise of the hobby for rare and desirable stations. They don't think about the station that they are demanding a card from. If everyone hunts him for a QSLs card for every contact he makes, surely he will be forced to QRT. When last did you hear a rare station calling CQ on a regular basis?

2) The environment, just think of all the millions of unwanted QSL cards that have been dumped since the beginning. What a waste!

3) I have been present in meetings where a dxpedition has not been sponsored on the basis of not providing paper QSLs. I was angry with myself for not piping up and questioning this, but it probably wouldn't have made any difference as I was outnumbered by old fuddyduddies.

With a view to speeding this process, please can someone tell me what a paper card gives you that eQSL and LOTW combined doesn't already provide?

Also consider why the majority of card collectors/award hunters for the last 10-50 years wouldn't want progress to electronic means.

Please consider what this global cash wastage would be better spent on.

Reverse Beacon Network Aggregator 1.4 setup

Thought I'd blog some of my setup problems and their solutions here:

1) Problem : No connection from new aggregator to RBNserver.
Solution : In the setup menu in cw skimmer under the "Telnet" tab, "Allow SKIMMER commands" check box must be ticked.

2) Problem : No connection to local user on port 7550.
Solution : The aggregator application must be located in an unprotected area on the c: drive. I run Windows Vista and had the aggregator application in the same director as skimmer under the program files directory. It wasn't until I moved the aggregator application to a folder directly under the c: drive that I was able to connect as a local user on port 7550.

Hopefully these tips will help someone else trying to contribute to the RBN collective.

Elecraft K3 band-select and quadripple band-stacking

Reading eham reviews you would think the K3 has none of the above features. The people who have made these remarks haven't RTFM. Band Select: To select the (10/12/15/17/20/30/40/80/160)m band I do the following: M>V and then press the appropriate keypad key (1/9/5/7/2/3/4/8/0) configurable. Band stacking: To select any portion/mode (cw/data/beacon/ssb) within any band I do the following: M>V and then press the appropriate memory key (M1/M2/M3/M4) configurable. In this way I can get to any band portion within 4 key presses. In some ways the Elecraft system is better than Yaesu/Icom/Kenwood as instead of scrolling round bandstacking registers with continual key presses of the band button, with the Elecraft system you select exactly which portion to jump to. Unfortunately the above system isn't implemented in the default menu settings of the K3, so the ops that give up too easily or that can't use menus don't get the benefit of these essential features. Pressing the band and mode up/down buttons is for appliance operators only :-).

Thanks eQSL

Some people have dedicated 50+ years collecting paper QSLs for awards, pleasure etc. They have spent hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on cards, postage and storage over that period and then there's all that valuable time spent writing them out and cataloguing them. It doesn't matter how good eQSL is, some of these people will always regard eQSL as the devil's spawn, as it brought up the thorny question of 'was all this time and effort for nothing?'. Some who have considered this question, have pushed the unthinkable answer away by decrying eQSL and making sure eQSLs are not valid for awards etc. A quick look on QRZ.com will readily identify these people who normally state "no eQSL". eQSL is simple, effortless and automatic, what possible reason could their be for this statement, other than it being soley based on the principal of it. Another criticism is that eQSL lacks the security and validity of other systems that followed on from eQSL. With regards these other systems, please let us all remember that this only a hobby and people that cheat are only cheating themselves. In my opinion, additional levels of security are only necessary for the people that have forgotten that this is a hobby and want to protect their achievement whilst cheapening others achievements at the same time. eQSL was the perfect solution for radio hams to keep card collectors off their backs, now the next threat to using eQSL are award chasers. Why not petition the award organiser itself for not accepting eQSL instead of the pestering the eQSL user?
Anyway I'd like to personally thank eQSL and my logging program DXLAB for shielding me from most of the QSL nonsense for many years without me having to invest any of my own valuable radio time.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you eQSL.