Portable operating and Hamsats

Added a couple new books (that are not ARRL Handbooks!) to the collection.

Portable Operating for Amateur Radio was one I’d been wanting to get for a few months now to support my portable operating ambitions, and I happened to find a copy on the shelves at a used bookstore. Seems like a pretty good book with some useful information for different styles of portable and mobile operating.

Front cover of Portable Operating for Amateur Radio by Stuart Thomas KB1HQS. The cover features a man kneeling on a mountain top summit holding a microphone connected to a radio on a metal frame backpack.

A copy of Amsats and Hamsats (an RSGB publication) also happened to be on the shelf too, so I thought I’d pick that one up too. Aside from listening to the ISS repeater when it goes overhead, I haven’t looked into doing much with amateur radio satellites yet but I’ve always thought it would be interesting and fun. This book seems like it’s got a decent collection of information in it.

The front cover of Amsats and Hamsats by Andrew Barron ZL3DW

CQ WPX (SSB) 2024

I started to play a little bit in the CQ WPX (SSB) contest this past weekend (March 30-31 2024) using the 10m antenna in the attic over the garage. There was a decent amount of activity on the band, mostly from the Caribbean and South America, with a smattering of European stations.

I had logged 6 contacts when I learned that I was making the light on the garage door opener turn on and off.

I’ll have to find some ferrites to put on the wires going into the garage door opener to see if that helps.

Contest: CQWPXSSB
 Band     QSOs     Pts  WPX  Pt/Q
    28       6      16    6   2.7
 Total       6      16    6   2.7
Score: 96
1 Mult = 1.0 Q's

ARRL DX (SSB) Contest 2024

Spent a bit of time dabbling in the ARRL DX (SSB) contest this past weekend using the 10m dipole in the attic. In the process, I also discovered that the 30 or so meters of coax running from the shack to the outside, coiled up and hanging on the side of the house, also receives on 10m although not very well.

I was tuning around the band, hearing a few intelligible but faint signals, when I realized I had the radio on the wrong antenna input. When I switched over to the antenna input the 10m attic dipole was connected to, everything got much much louder.

I was hearing lots of DX activity on the band over the weekend. Most of my contacts ended up being on Sunday morning when I managed to work a few EU stations. Tuning around the band and working a few stations in between doing other things got me a total of 14 QSOs.

Not bad for a couple pieces of wire hanging from the rafters. Now I know the dipole works reasonably well.

Contest: ARRLDXSSB
 Band     QSOs     Pts  Cty  Pt/Q
    28      14      42   14   3.0
 Total      14      42   14   3.0
Score: 588
1 Mult = 1.0 Q's

NC QSO Party 2024

Got W4BXC on the air again for part of the NC QSO party. Band conditions were about the same as yesterday, although didn’t hear quite as much DX on 10m today as I was hearing yesterday.

As usual, 40m was about the only band I could hear NC stations on. Toward the end of the contest, I started hearing one or two up on 20m, but none I hadn’t already worked on 40m. Did pretty well this year with 58 QSOs, including 4 out of the 6 bonus stations, and 38 counties.

Contest: NC QSOPARTY
 Band     QSOs     Pts  Mul  Pt/Q
     7      58     116   38   2.0
 Total      58     116   38   2.0
Score: 4,458
1 Mult = 1.5 Q's

SC QSO Party 2024

The 2024 edition of the SC QSO Party was a pretty fun time. Had some friends over to put W4BXC on the air for the QSO party and we managed to get a few pileups going, which was a lot of fun.

Band conditions seemed pretty decent, and I was hearing a lot of DX on 10m from as far away as Czechia and Slovenia. There was even a ZS1 station that I heard (first time I’ve heard anything from that part of the world from here), but he went QRT before I was able to try for a contact.

Ended the day with 119 contacts in the log (41 more than last year) including the three bonus stations: W4CAE, WW4SF, and K4YTZ. Changes to the scoring means scores will be a lot higher this year than in previous years.

Contest: SC QSOPARTY
 Band     QSOs     Pts  Mul  Mt2  Pt/Q
     7      95     274   47    1   2.9
    14      19      76   11    0   4.0
    28       5      20    2    0   4.0
 Total     119     370   60    1   3.1
Score: 26,370
1 Mult = 2.0 Q's

Not sure if the N1MM+ score is accurate but going by the QSO points and multipliers it’s showing, we should have (370*60) + 850 = 23050 points. I’ll have to wait until the official scores are out in a few months.

Kudos to the bonus stations and the mobile/expedition operators who went out to activate multiple counties.