Category: Ham radio

RAC Winter Contest 2014

Spent a few hours at the radio this weekend playing in the RAC Winter contest. Finished out the contest with 26 contacts and 3000 points, including 3 RAC stations (VO1RAC, VA2RAC, and VE4RAC). Covered 3 bands (10, 20 and 40m) with most of my contacts happening on 20m.

I was using the new N1MM+ logger for the first time, and I have to say, it’s pretty good. As a contest logger, it’s hard to beat N1MM or N1MM+ for simplicity.

It was a pretty good time on the radio and I enjoyed hunting around the bands.

Radio fun for Skywarn Recognition Day 2014

Had a good time playing radio as WX4CHS yesterday morning for Skywarn Recognition Day. The Charleston NWS office seems like a pretty neat place.

Tom/AJ4UQ brought along his radio and setup for digital radio, and we spent the morning operating WX4CHS on 40m and 20m PSK as well as monitoring the local VHF repeaters. Made just under 30 PSK contacts and one repeater contact.

Tom/AJ4UQ doing some PSK for Skywarn Recognition Day 2014
Tom/AJ4UQ doing some PSK for Skywarn Recognition Day 2014


For SKYWARN Recognition Day, WX4CHS is working 40M at 7.070 frequency. Looking forward to making contact! #SRDay14 pic.twitter.com/7ydRnSiA7d
— NWS Charleston, SC (@NWSCharlestonSC) December 6, 2014

This was my first time doing an event like this, and it was a lot of fun. Had a great time playing radio there, and the staff at NWS Charleston were great hosts.

VA6BUG wallpaper

My dad forwarded my Canadian amateur radio certificate to me, and it arrived in the mail today. Looks pretty spiffy. Now I need to get a frame for it.

Canadian amateur radio certificate VA6BUG
Canadian amateur radio certificate VA6BUG

I’m quite pleased and proud of this accomplishment.

Canadian Ham

I was able to take both the Canadian Amateur Radio Basic and Advanced certification tests this morning, and much to my surprise, managed to pass both of them.

I was pretty sure I’d pass the Basic test with at least Honours (80%+). The Advanced test I was a little less optimistic about since I didn’t have as much time to prepare for it as I had wanted. Fortunately I managed to score high enough to pass both tests, so now I have my Basic with Honours and Advanced qualifications!

Less than 30 minutes after the examiner left, I was already able to apply for my call sign through the Industry Canada website (wasn’t expecting to be able to do that for another day or two based on what the examiner told me). Hopefully that will go through by the weekend and then I’ll be official!

Update: My new Canadian call sign is active! VA6BUG