2011 ARRL JUNE VHF QSO PARTY

I have just participated on a VHF contest:

      2011 ARRL June VHF QSO Party

Nice .. the only problem was that my recent medication affects my vocal chords, so that I kept loosing my voice after every 3rd QSO or so. What a nightmare in a contest with 50MHz band wide open! Good thing that I am actually a CW operator, so I was able to make some nice QSOs and even got myself some new DXCC entities, such as CO (Cuba) on 6m!

I have used my old FT-847 (50W) and antennas as shown on this picture (yes, that includes the 50-144-432 vertical):

      AF4JF VHF antennas

Submitted a log with 1053 points. Better than nothing ;)

New PIC Microchip For My Projects

I have used various PIC microchips in the past and I have always run into limitations, such as "not enough memory", "no UART", "not enough ports for analog inputs" etc. etc.

My future projects will be based on 16F877 (serial) or 18F4550 (USB) chips. I have spent some time with 16F877 and finally managed to display some text on attached LCD display in 4-bit mode. Look at the red board on the picture - although LCD is already connected, there are still many more pins left for other use!

Not Much Activity These Days

I am a little too busy with my job, not much time left for hobby these days. However, I still collect morse keys and I keep thinking about my new 24GHz transverter.

Newest addition to my morsekey collection:

  
Progress made on my 24GHz transverter - managed to program this ELCOM synthesizer to generate nice clean signal on 11.88GHz .. that, multiplied x2 and mixed with 432MHz, should get me there:

Microwave SPRINT Contest

Well, another contest is behind us. SPRINT Microwave was just a short one. In addition to that, conditions were as poor as Hepburn propagation charts were black. One CW QSO from EM48 to EM49. My 3rd grid for the YMCA location in EM48sq, good!

I have tested my new Netbook for weak signal detection. It worked well, actually displayed a signal (-17dB) below threshold of audibility. Used WSJT waterfall, planning on WinRad soon.

Attached screenshot shows our local FSK beacon on 10 368.9 MHz. Signal is way over S9, which is why the traces are doubled on the screen (see week copies to the right).

Morsekey Collection

This is the latest addition to my modest collection. Actually, I like this one so much that I connected it to my HF station!

Some more pictures of my collection are here.

SPRINT contests - Spring 2011

First SPRINT contest of this season takes place tomorrow, Monday Apr. 11, 2011 from 7 to 11 pm local time.

Some info here.

I am going to participate after coming from work, hope to make some QSOs. I currently have 2x12 el. Yagi and bare FT-847. I am NOT going to use Internet or phone during the contest, so don't try to call.

73!

Next SLAMS Meeting

Once again is our SLAMS group going to meet for breakfast at Panera Bread restaurant at 8:30am on Sunday April 10. We are going to discuss our plans for the upcoming contest season, for SPRINT contest starts just ahead, on following Monday 04/11.

We have several contests to attend, which makes scheduling of our meetings a little difficult. Next SLAMS meeting after this one will therefore take place on Sunday 05/08, just one day after Microwave section of the SPRINT contest. That's actually very important event and I am looking forward for it; we have had lots of fun and made many 10GHz contacts between us, as reported here or here. Will see how it goes this time. I intend to submit my log from this ROVER operation this time.

My contest plans, schedule and locations, phone number etc. will always be published here on this blog.