GQRP Club Winter Sports

The GQRP Club Winter Sports activity is starting at Boxing Day. I will try to be QRV at least for some hours during the upcoming week but my hopes are not high as I only run SSB. The following is copied from the GQRP website:

The G4DQP Trophy (Winter Sports).
The highlight of the year for many operators is the clubs WINTER SPORTS. This is NOT a contest, but more a gathering of like minded souls on the bands on, or around the QRP frequencies.
This all takes place twixt the Christmas pud and the New Years hangover. To be more precise it runs from Boxing Day until New Years Day inclusive. As mentioned this is not a contest as such, none of the "UR 599, name Fred QSL? QRZ" Have a chat, enjoy the bands.
The G4DQP Trophy is awarded annually to the best log submitted of QRP contacts during the clubs Winter Sports. All logs and claims must be sent to Peter G3XJS QTHR by 7th February each year.

Please also note the GQRP club's General Award Rules

My first WSPR

When finally being able to sync the time on my laptop it was time to try some WSPR. I first read about this mode a long time ago but haven't tried it myself until now. The WSPR software is capable of decoding signals not even heard by the human ear and that makes it ideal for QRP communications. As you can see from the map my best DX on 40m was 4X with my 1 watt tx power.

Time sync follow-up

After a busy weekend I finally found some time to look into the time sync issue again last night. As suspected I had to open a port in the firewall in the DSL router provided by my ISP. I'm now ready to WSPR!

Thanks again for all your help and suggestions!

Syncing computer clock

The last weeks I have tried some digi mode QSOs and wanted to try out WSPR. Although I managed to set up the WSPR software I was not able to sync computer time. I tried both Dimension 4 and Internet Time installed with Win 7 but all I receive is a timeout failure. I have played around with firewall and anti virus settings but the problem still persists. Any suggestions?

QSL complications

Last night I was home alone as my wife was attending a meeting and I had planned to get up to date with my outgoing QSL cards.

I installed a piece of software called BV7 QSL Labels on my new laptop and imported my custom QSL templates from my old computer. These templates let me print QSL data directly on my QSL cards so no labels are needed. I exported two QSL files from Logger32, one for LA1TPA operations and one for LA1TPA/P operations. The portable QSOs are all from SOTA activations and I have a QSL template for this only. This template prints SOTA summit reference and "/P" on the cards. I printed a lot of cards and all of them were OK.

When I was done with the SOTA cards I imported the other QSL file and printed 80(!!) cards before I found out I was still using the template I designed for SOTA cards! Obviously I had to throw away 80 cards and as these were my last cards I have to wait for another batch of cards from Gennady at UX5UO print before I can finish the job...

Licenced for five years

On November 4th I had been licenced for five years so I decided to take another look at my electronic log data. I used a software called ADIF Filter by Marek SP7DQR to make the statistics.

• 31% of my QSOs are made in 2010 while only 3.2% in 2006
• 37.2% of my QSOs are on 20m and 29.9% on 40m
• 57.9% of my QSOs are made while operating /Portable
• My QSL return rate is 33.5%
• I have worked 76 DXCCs, all with 5W SSB

Digi QSO!

I received a new USB Soundcard for my laptop in the mail today and decided to have a try on PSK31 tonight. I struggled a bit to get CAT PTT from FLDIGI to work with my K3/10 but after some googling I found a rig.xml from Julian G4ILO that worked. I have a lot of QRM in my shack and only an indoor magnetic loop antenna so I was amazed when I found out I could see a lot of stations in the waterfall. I decided to answer a CQ on 40m from E74QA and was exited when Eno from Cazin in Bosnia-Herzegovina came right back to me. This is actually not my first PSK31 qso as I had two QSOs back in October 2007.

Off to England and Wales

I'm now all packed up and ready to go to England and Wales with LA1ENA, LA1KHA and LA1DNA. We will activate SOTA summits every day from today until Friday and we will attend the GQRP convention Saturday before heading home Sunday.

GQRP Convention

SPRAT arrived here today and I'm now really looking forward to the Rishworth GQRP mini convention. We will arrive Liverpool Tuesday 19 October and activate SOTAs in Wales and the Manchester area Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before the convention Saturday.

Please listen for me around 7.125MHz or 14.285MHz if you want a QSO.

Fighting QRM

This summer I had the pleasure of visiting G4ILOs shack, not the website but the physical one! I was amazed to see how good Julian was able to cancel noise with a MFJ-1026 Noise canceler and a pa0rdt-Mini-Whip active broadband RX antenna. I suffer from a lot of noise myself (S7 - S9) so I have decided to test the same setup here. The MFJ-1026 has already arrived and tonight I have ordered parts to build the pa0rdt-Mini-Whip.

The pa0rdt-Mini-Whip
MFJ-1026

LA1TPA/M

After reading about Steve's project, last night I finally found time and energy to reinstall my trusty FT-857 in the car. I have been QRT for a while after finding a blown fuse on the wires from the battery to the boot where the radio used to be installed. It turned out that the insulation on the wire was destroyed. I have now reinstalled the radio and put the new wires inside a protective rubber sleeve I got from a school mate that used to work in a workshop.

I'm now able to work both HF and VHF/UHF with an ATAS-100 screwdriver antenna and a short 2m/70cm whip from MFJ called MFJ-1724B. And just for the record; my FT-857 is always turned down to 5w on HF...

New weekend for SAC SSB 2010!

According to www.sactest.net the Scandinavian Activity Contest SSB 2010 is moved to the second full weekend of October. I will participate in the Single Operator - All Band - QRP class

The new dates and times are:

SSB: 2010 October 9, 1200 UTC to 2010 October 10, 1200 UTC

"RUSSIAN FIELD" - QRP contest

Valery RW3AI kindly sent me the rules of the Russian Field Contest:

"RUSSIAN FIELD" - QRP contest-game
Founder: RU-QRP Club

Starts: On July, 17th, 2010 at 07:00 UTC
Ends: On July, 17th, 2010 at 11:00 UTC

The purpose of this contest-game is increase of interest to work QRP in field conditions on self-made equipment, and also joint rest with a family.

Power: Only QRP - 5 W CW and Digital, 10 watts SSB.
Bands: 80 meters, 40 meters, 20 meters, 15 meters, 10 meters
Types of modulation: CW, DIGITAL, SSB
Competitions are held in the QRP-frequency.
CW 3560,3577 7030 14060 21060 28060,
SSB 3690 7090 14285 21285 28360

The general call: "CQ RF".

Entry Categories:

- Single Operator QRP
- Multi-Operators QRP

Subgroups:
-  FIELD
-  HOME

Operator changing his position from the "field" to "home" or vice versa,
considered a party to the subgroup "Field".
------------------------------

-------------------- -------------------------------

for field station used alternative power supplies (battery, solar, wind etc)
 and from AC.
"Field" temporary position organised by the operator out of door is considered.

Exchange:

Real RST(RS, RSQ),membership number RU-QRP,(not members of the Club, send NM);
Plus one letter from word F.I.E.L.D.
"HOME" Subgroups stations (and returned back home from "FIELD" position)
send always only one letter "D"
"FIELD" stations - The exchange letter is changed at every tenth QSO using the letters F I E L consecutively. The letter D is reserved only for fixed stations.
So QSOs #1-10 use the letter "F",
QSOs #11-20 the letter "I"
QSOs #21-30 the letter "E"
QSOs #31-40 the letter "L"

So from QSO #41 then goes back to F again. etc.

Example: UR5LAM de RK4FB ur 579/086/i.
Or RK4FB de RX3ALL ur RST 579 my RUQRP nr 79/E

During QSO it is possible to exchange and other information (a name, QTH, working conditions and etc)
Repeated QSO allowed on different bands and different types of modulation
and at the SAME BAND and the SAME TYPE of modulation,
if one station was replaced by the LETTER.
The fact that the letter been changed, you can inform by CQ call (CQ RF/i)
-------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------

 Points:

- 1 point per QSO. The Contest Manager will add 1 point plus if the QSO will confirmed in participants logs.
- For each qso with RU-QRP club member extra 5 points.
- For each complete set of letters F.I.E.L.D. additional 20 points.

During the game, missing letter in a series set F.I.E.L.D
can use  one letter from own a series on 10 QSO, provided it meets
missing letter .

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

.:: RESULT CALCULATION::.

The final result is declared by: total points for QSO + points for RU-QRP members qso  + points for the collected sets F.I.E.L.D.

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

AWARDS.

All participants will receive internet certificates .

Participants in the subgroups of "field" and "home" who rank 1,2,3,4 and 5 th places are awarded special certificates.

Five participants - members of the RU-QRP CLUB, took five top places in the subgroup of "field", awarded prizes.

Mandatory requirement for applicants for the prizes - to place at the Club or send a report the story of competition,
description of the working positions, photographs that reflect the working conditions, the use of antennas, power supply.


Participants actuated with 6 members of the RU-QRP Club who are working in "field" conditions, are awarded the diploma "RU-QRP CLUB".
For this purpose, attached to the report accompanying the letter, you must specify the request for the extradition of a diploma.
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Candidates must send an account of the standard connections on the address
E-mail: ru-qrp-club (at) mail.ru

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

REPORTS
Reports in the format Cabrillo  by e-mail

Comments, stories, photo reports are required.

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Logs Submission:
E-mail: ru-qrp-club (at) mail.ru

Home page: http://qrp.ru
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Deadline:
 17 august 2010
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

UBA QRP Foxhunt

E-mail from Jos ON6WJ: 

Dear Foxes and Foxhunters,

In a few weeks time, the second (spring) foxhunt will come to an end and I would like to thank all foxes and hunters for participating. There will be a few weeks of no hunting after June 7. Time to count the bullets, clean up foxholes and service your shotguns.

But the show must go on! Starting on Monday July 5, 2010, we shall be back with a whole new game, with a digital foxhunt aside the "spark" transmissions (tnx Uli DG4SFS). For starters, the digital part will be limited to PSK31, 5 W maximum (other smallband weak signal modes like Hellschreiber may be considered later on). Full details to be published on the foxhunt website soon http://www.on5ex.be/foxhunt . By the way, Johan on5ex reports a ‘soapbox’ page will also be available by then.

Dear QRP friends , this foxhunting game can only be succesfull thanks to the participation of you gentlemen. Please feel free to QSP this message to all your (also QRP-minded) friends and invite them to participate.

73,

Jos ON6WJ

Radio Activity

To bad I wasn't able to work any of you guys from the summit last weekend .

Today I finally made a 10m QSO, the first one this year, with IU3AC. I guess the Sporadic-E is about to arrive here in Norway as well.

And by the way, a QSL card from WP2Z, U.S. Virgin Islands dropped down in my letterbox today.

International SOTA Weekend

The upcoming weekend is the International SOTA Weekend and I plan an overnight activation of the summit Vestre Hoppefjell from Saturday afternoon. I will bring a sleeping bag and camp at the summit.

If you want to work me you could listen for me at the frequencies listed below or look for my spots at sotawatch.

21.285MHz
14.285MHz
7.125MHz
5.928.5MHz
3.660MHz

Worked C36JI in Andorra

Tonight I bagged C36JI in Andorra, a new DXCC for me. My QRP SSB DXCC count is now 73 countries worked and 67 confirmed.

http://ura30anys.blogspot.com/2010/03/presentation-of-special-qsl-diploma.html

Member of RU-QRP Club!

I'm proud to say that I'm now officially a member of the RU-QRP Club!

My membership number is 287.

Iraq worked with QRP SSB

Today I broke the pile up and worked the YI9PSE DXpedition in Iraq on 18MHz! I used my Elecraft K3 at 5w SSB and a 5/8 wavelength vertical antenna designed for 27MHz! This brings my QRP DXCC score to 72 DXCCs worked and 67 confirmed.

http://www.yi9pse.com

Moroz contest 2010 results

Aage LA1ENA has informed me that the results of Moroz Contest 2010 are ready. Thanks to Aage for the information and to RU-QRP club for hosting the contest.

Results

CQ World-Wide WPX SSB Contest 2010

During the CQ World-Wide WPX SSB Contest this weekend I managed to work 3 new countries and 7 new band countries on 21MHz. The new countries were Crete (SV9), Azores Islands (CU) and US Virgin Islands (KP2). I used my Elecraft K3 at 5W and a vertical antenna designed for 27MHz!

http://www.cqwpx.com/

Me on Google Street View

August 29th 2009 me and the XYL visited the annual food festival in our home town Skien. During the day I saw the Google Car passing by and apparently they spotted me as well. You can see us walking in the centre of the image.

Vis større kart

Russian Hunt

The winter season of the "Russian Hunt" is coming up. Sadly my cw is not good enough to participate yet. I have taken up the cw practice again so maybe I will be able to join the summer season in August. I have bought a SW+ 40 kit from Dave at Small Wonder Labs to put some pressure on myself!

Rules for the Russian Hunt

Moroz contest

During the Moroz QRP contest today I was only able to be active for about one hour but I still managed to work 7 stations. My QTH was a wooden shelter just outside my home town Skien. The thermometer showed -3°C. I used a Yaesu FT-817ND, an Elecraft T1 ATU and a W3EDP wire antenna. The highlight of the day was to finally talk to Adam M6RDP on 40m!

Stations worked:
20m: RK3FW, SV2AHT, LA1ENA, LA6GOA, UA3YHG and LZ2RS
40m: M6RDP

Rishworth convention 2010

George Dobbs G3RJV announced on the GQRP reflector today that the Rishworth Convention will be held Saturday 23rd October 2010.

I have already updated my calendar!

http://gqrp.com/rishworth.htm

10m opening and computer trouble

10m was open in Europe today and I managed to work F5IEP, ON5BW, HA6NY, DF2QC, DO6SD and ON3DM from the shack of our local radio club.

I have spent some of the day rescuing data from my shack computer. The computer will no longer start due to mother board failure and is also out of warranty. This is the second time the mother board fails on this computer and I don't bother replacing it this time. I bought one of those USB 2.0 HDD trays so I could connect the SATA disk to my laptop via USB.

I managed to save most of the data but I could not find a way to rescue my LoTW certificates! I have requested a new certificate from ARRL and I will send the required documentation by mail tomorrow.

Two lost QSLs

Early summer 2009 I worked RK2FWA and PY5QW, both stations new DXCCs for me. I was rather eager to get the QSOs confirmed so I sent both of them a direct QSL card with SAE and IRC.

Yesterday I found out that both the return cards has been in my own home since August! My wife is subscribing to a women's magazine and somehow the envelopes got stuck between the pages of the magazine in the mail. By coincidence the magazine was never read but put away and forgotten until yesterday. When my wife grabbed it, the two unopened envelopes were revealed!

Weekend trip with portable operatons in the snow

Yesterday Aage LA1ENA and I returned from a weekend trip to the Sveinsbu cabin and the nearby summit Sveinsbuvarden. It took us nearly two hours by skis to reach the summit. We erected two HF antennas, a 88ft doublet and a wire vertical, and tried to make it comfortable in the snow while calling CQ SOTA. I worked 12 stations on 40m, 20m, 80m and 60m SSB and Aage worked about 20 on 40m and 30m CW.

Although it was windy and a few degrees bellow zero it was raining! The rain froze instantly on our clothing and all of our gear. At the end my hands were to numb to operate the cellphone so I couldn't selfspot my last QSYs on sotawatch. We had planned a long activation but after a while we were freezing so we decided to head for the cabin.

When we arrived the cabin it was -8°C inside. We lighted the oven and a lot of candles and after some hours it was almost too hot inside! We erected a temporary random wire antenna outside the cabin but the result was rather poor. Best DX from the cabin was 5B4AIF on 40m SSB worked with 5w.

On our way back to the parking place Sunday we stopped at the summit and did some calls on 2m. I worked LA5OGA on 145.550MHz before we headed home.

Portable operations this weekend

This weekend Aage LA1ENA and I will visit one of the cabins owned by the Norwegian Trekking Association. The trip to the cabin will probably take us 1 - 1.5 hours by skis. We plan to activate the nearby SOTA summit on both Saturday and Sunday and will also try to be QRV from the cabin Saturday night.

Aage normally starts on 7.032MHz cw and I will probably try the following frequencies: 7.118MHz ssb, 5.398.5MHz ssb, 3.660MHz ssb, 14.285MHz ssb and 145.550MHz fm

We will announce our activities on sotawatch

Photo by DNT

Call for assistance on 2m

On my way home from work today I was called by my friend Aage LA1ENA over the LA5GR 2m repeater. He was stuck with a flat car battery after accidentally leaving the headlights on while he was operating portable from a local hill called Vestre Vealøs (SOTA ref: LA/TM-013). There is no cell phone coverage on the parking spot but fortunately he was carrying his Yaesu VX-6 and was able to call for assistance on 2m.

 I was only 10 minutes away so I was able to help him to jump start the car. Nils Cato LA4AFA heard our qso and offered to lend us his jump leads but I am carrying my own leads so we didn't need them.The temperature was about -10°C at the place.

Photo shows Aage and his Mazda 4x4 pickup

QSL from South Korea!

In October I was operating portable from a local hill called Holtankollen (SOTA ref. LA/TM-049) and worked 16 stations on 20m and 40m. All of them with my trusty FT-817ND at 5w and a 88ft doublet 5m above the ground and SSB. When typing my log into Logger32 back home I found that I had worked HL4RBR from South Korea! I didn't notice during the mini pileup, I guess I mixed the HL suffix with the HG suffix of Hungary. And he was answering my CQ!

I sent him my QSL card by mail the very same day and today HL4RBRs QSL card dropped down in my letterbox, confirming the QSO! Thanks Yoon!

MOROZ (Red Nose) qrp contest

Here the other day my friend Aage LA1ENA forwarded me an e-mail from Valery RW3AI. It contained the updated rules for the MOROZ (Red Nose) qrp contest hosted by RU-QRP Club. I hope to join the contest in the SOQRP - Field - SSB category.

The updated rules:

Founder: RU-QRP Club

Starts: January 23, 2010 at 07:00 UTC
Ends: January 23, 2010 at 11:00 UTC
Power: Only QRP - 5 W CW and Digital, 10 watts SSB.
Bands: 80 meters, 40 meters, 20 meters, 15 meters, 10 meters
Types of modulation: CW, DIGITAL, SSB
Competitions are held in the QRP-frequency.
CW 3560,3577 7030 14060 21060 28060,
SSB 3690 7090 14285 21285 28360

The general call: "CQ MOROZ".

Attention! It's just amusing game for your enjoyment, not competition for survival.
Do not forget about the possibility of frostbite. Please be careful.
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Entry Categories:

- Single Operator QRP 
- Multi-Operator 

Subgroups:
-  field
-  home

Operator changing his position from the "field" to "home" or vice versa,
considered a party to the subgroup "Field".
-------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------

for field station used alternative power supplies (battery, solar, wind etc)
 and from AC.
-------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------

Exchange:
  
Real RST(RS, RSQ),membership number RU-QRP,(not members of the Club, send NM);
Identifier temperatures at a working position at the time of the qso - F.R.O.S.T. according to the table:

F - below -10C
R - from  -3C to -10C
O - from  -3C to +3C
S - from  +3C to +10C
T - above +10C

* Example: * UR5LAM de RK4FB ur 579/086/T. RK4FB de RX3ALL ur RST 579 my RUQRP nr 79/F

During a QSO can be exchanged and other information (the exact t, name, QTH, working conditions, etc.).

The identifier can vary, depending on the changing conditions on the position
or positions in general.

Repeated QSO allowed on different bands and different types of modulation
and at the same band and the same type of modulation, if one station was replaced by the identifier.

The fact that the identifier been changed, you can inform by CQ call (CQ MOROZ /S)
-------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------

Points:

- 1 point per QSO. The Contest Manager will add 1 point plus if the QSO will confirmed in participants logs.
- For each new membership number of RU-QRP club extra 5 points, regardless of the band and mode
- For each complete set of letters F.R.O.S.T. additional 20 points.

During the game, missing letter in a series set F.R.O.S.T
can use  the letter of its working position, provided it meets
missing letter and held not less than 10 qso precisely with this letter. 
 
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Points are awarded for each QSO in accordance with the identifier on your working position:

F - below  -10C         +4 points
R - from   -3C to -10C  +3 points
O - from   -3C to +3C   +2 points
S - from   +3C to +10C  +1 point
T - above  +10C          0 points

The final result is declared by: (total points for QSO + points for members nr of RU-QRP + points for the collected sets FROST + points for the temperature at the position.

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

AWARDS.
 
All participants will receive internet certificates .

Participants in the subgroups of "field" and "home" who rank 1,2,3,4 and 5 th places are awarded special certificates.
 
Five participants - members of the RU-QRP CLUB, took five top places in the subgroup of "field", awarded prizes.

For applicants for the awards, change the Identifier temperatures and the relevant working positions should be fixed in the photostory.

Mandatory requirement for applicants for the prizes - to place at the Club or send a report the story of competition,
description of the working positions, photographs that reflect the working conditions, the use of antennas, power supply,
the temperature at the working position.

Participants actuated with 6 members of the RU-QRP Club who are working in "field" conditions, are awarded the diploma "RU-QRP CLUB".
For this purpose, attached to the report accompanying the letter, you must specify the request for the extradition of a diploma.
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Candidates must send an account of the standard connections on the address
E-mail: ru-qrp-club (at) mail.ru

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

REPORTS
Reports in the format Cabrillo  by e-mail
In the line of the report SOAPBOX: specify the actual temperature of the corresponding
applicable identifiers (for example: F-19C, S +7 C).
Comments, stories, photo reports are required.

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Logs Submission: 
E-mail: ru-qrp-club (at) mail.ru
 
Home page: http://qrp.ru/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticle&artid=47
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

Deadline:
 23 February 2010
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

COMMENTS
Attention! It's just amusing game for your enjoyment, not competition for survival. Do not forget about the possibility of frostbite. Please be careful.

QRP on 80m

Because of the cold weather I decided to visit our cabin in Tokke in the western part of Telemark to check that everything was OK. It was +4°C inside the cabin when I arrived and -23°C outside. Tonight it is -27°C outside!

 I brought my Elecraft K3 and have done some casual operating on 80m tonight. So far I have worked ON, G and ES, all of them with 5w SSB and a W3DZZ trap dipole.