QSO's Feb. 6th, 2016

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Greeley, CO to Farmersville, TX

Another good CW QSO tonight. I've been lucky with my QRP rig the last few days. 

Hope this keeps up! Thanks Jon.

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 06 FEB 2016 / 0225hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 682 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 137 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.1083 MHz


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Greeley, CO to Seguin, TX

Tonight was apparently destined to be a Texas night. This QSO was great for a few minutes before the QRN took over on my end unfortunately. Hopefully the airwaves will be more cooperative on the next go round. Thanks Art!

 above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 06 FEB 2016 / 0529hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 842 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 168 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.053 MHz


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QSO Feb. 5th, 2016

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It is always a pleasure to copy crystal clear code with a super strong signal. My first QSO from the state that I called home for 8 years. Thanks Tony!

Greeley, CO to Oxnard, CA

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 05 FEB 2016 / 0341hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 903 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 181 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.114 MHz

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4th CW Contact

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This afternoon's QSO came thanks to SKCC's "Elmer" Program.

Thanks SKCC and thanks Dale!

Greeley, CO to Green River WY - Great QSO!

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

Date/Time: 26 Jan 2016 / 2233UTC

Dist: Approx 260 miles. 

Freq: 7.110MHz 

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Pwr < 5w

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole

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3rd CW Contact

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3d QSO tonight. CW - 4W - 738 Miles. Great Fun!

Greeley, CO to Marcell, MN

 above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

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2nd CW Contact

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Made my 2nd ever CW contact tonight as part of the SKCC's January K3Y event. I've found that using the K3UK Sked Page to figure out who is on the air from SKCC at any given time, and the Reverse Beacon site for the 40m band makes it super easy to locate CW signals on the 40m band, in real-time, that I'll be likely to copy. 

Greeley, CO to Buffalo Grove, IL

 above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

Date/Time: 7 Jan 2016 / 0118 UTC

Dist: Approx 877 miles. 

Freq: 7.052MHz 

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Pwr < 5w

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole

K3Y and the K3UK Sked Page

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Despite having achieved my first QSO on December 30th, I was disappointed that I was unable to make contact with my QRP rig during the 24 hour ARRL Straight Key Night. Luckily, there is another Morse code event happening throughout the month of January 2016, which is the SKCC K3Y event.

While reading about this event, I learned about a page that I think I will be using every time I turn on the radio within sight of an internet-connected computer, which is the K3UK Sked Page, where folks from all of the CW groups are letting others know what they are monitoring on the radio spectrum, and what frequencies they're transmitting on. This will be a huge help in setting up skeds outside of contest times.  

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20150809 Sunday 1930hrs UTC

Today I read on a Facebook QRP page that the NJQRP 4th Annual "Skeeter Hunt" was happening and so decided to try out my KD1JV with my old, rusting MFJ Deluxe Versa Tuner II and a 100ft longwire antenna.

I'm planning to trim this wire down to either 86ft or 56ft - based on some articles that I've seen on successful QRP antennas, but for now, I just wanted to give the radio a whirl with a random-length bit of wire to see how that worked out.

Using this long-wire, (#22) simply laid out on the grass in the front yard, I was able to hear CW better than I've been able to in the past with other antennas I've had plugged into the same rig in the past.

At the moment I only have a paddle for CW, and I have not practiced with it at all, so I'm not transmitting today, but it is good to know that the long wire works for listening at least, even when it's just lying down on the ground.

Today I only heard Morse on 20 meters, although I tried listening on 40m and 15m as well. No joy there, but I'll look forward to trying out the Tri-Bander when I'm able to hike up to a higher elevation and actually transmit.

While listening around 14.060 I heard the call "CQ WES" (which I had never noticed before) and, upon looking it up, discovered the SKCC Weekend Sprintathon, which I was also new to me. So now I am aware of another venue to start using CW as soon as I get my straight key up and running.