LA8AJA's homepage

K0VXU State #47 on LoTW and last CW state

la8aja — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:57:24 +0000

The past weekend I noticed that Kansas QSO Party was on. Since Kansas was my last state on CW, and one of the missing ones on LoTW, I watched the cluster closely. I noticed several stations spotted, but I just couldn't hear anyone of them. Finally a spot on 20M CW with K0VXU who was calling CQ KSQP. I managed to work him for my last CW state. Today I noticed he had uploaded his log on LoTW, so only 3 LoTW states to go with Idaho, North Dakota and Wyoming.

SCC RTTY Contest was also this weekend. I decided to set up N1MMLogger and have a go at a few contacts. I still needed a few for RTTY LoTW DXCC. The exchange in this one was RST and the year when you first got your licence. I got off to a pretty good run until I station gave me 1982 as a report. N1MM didn't like this at all and would not log it. I ended up logging another year, then edited the qso manually. I didn't connect it at all until my second 1982 station. I was now prepared, so I managed to log that one as well. Then I suddenly got strange crashes, and I got another bug. If I tried to log a dupe or log a station on a second band, N1MM crashed. Luckily, a fix was quickly sent out on the reflector, and it worked out ok. I worked about 200 qsoes in this one. Nothing new, except state 37 with Alabama.

On LoTW I got #100 on RTTY with GW confirmed.

3 new on RTTY with 9M6, HS and VQ9

la8aja — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:46:36 +0000

I noticed this weekend that it was time for the SARTG RTTY contest. I thought I would listen in a little bit to look for some new RTTY DXCC's. On Sunday, I set up N1MM Logger and started listening. 9M6XRO was spotted on 15M. John uses LoTW and I still need a few to get 100 on LoTW RTTY. I called him and after a few minutes, I managed to work him for #197 on RTTY and #226 on 15M. E21YDP followed shortly on 15M for #198 on RTTY. The last new one on RTTY was VQ9LA on 15M RTTY about an hour later. I started calling a bit myself and managed to work about 170 contacts. I got the best run on 20M, and had callers for a couple of hours before I quit. I had several JA stations calling in, and also several USA stations. 9M6XRO and E21YDP called in on 20M for our second band. Among other nice ones were calls from HL, W7 and VE7, and finally I managed 4 new states with DE, KY, VT and WA.

I uploaded the log to LoTW on Sunday evening, and I have gotten plenty of confirmations. I'm just 2 away from LoTW RTTY DXCC. I guess those will come quickly, since I know I worked LoTW users that haven't uploaded the log yet.

#260 on LoTW with FP/K9OT

la8aja — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 06:00:10 +0000

Back in July, I worked FP/K9OT on 30M CW. As he is an LoTW user, I worked him to get FP on LoTW. Last week the log was uploaded, and I got #260 on LoTW. Thank you very much.

Soundclip:

FP/K9OT 30M CW

#259 on LoTW with 3D20CR

la8aja — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:18:27 +0000

I have been catching up on some qsling lately and mailed a lot direct. I have also used a few oqrs (Online Qsl Request System) services. One of the last ones to get confirmed, were 3D20CR Conway Reef. Now I have 324 of the 325 worked confirmed. The card is a beautiful folded card and the scan is attached to this post. A few days after I got the card, I also got the LoTW confirmation which gives me #259 on LoTW.

As for the radio front, I did work a few contacts on 6M aurora last week. I got a new ODX on 6M aurora with EI7IX suddenly calling in. EI7IX is in IO53 and the distance was about 1423km.

LA5UF’s 6M signal at JL8GFB

la8aja — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:23:32 +0000

I happened to find this clip on youtube. Play it and listen to how LA5UF sounded at JL8GFB's station on 6M. This was recorded on July 18th, 2010. LA5UF had a nice JA run. I missed this opening.

9X0TL #267 on 30M and several new iota’s

la8aja — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 06:45:41 +0000

I'm not that much into the IOTA program, but I do work IOTA's from time to time. I have managed to work a few over 300, but since there are over 1000 IOTA's, I have a long way to go. Since we had an IOTA Contest coming up, I noticed plenty of activities. I worked a few new ones before the contest and they were RN1N/P EU-147, OH1K EU-140, IG9/IK2PZC AF-019, KL7RRC/P NA-235 and LZ1BJ/1 EU-181.

In the contest I worked around 30 contacts, and the new IOTA's were CS2K EU-167, 4O1OTA EU-163, W3DX NA-067 and UW2F/P EU-179. That makes my IOTA total come up to 314.

On July 24th, I managed to work 9X0TL for #267 on 30M.

On July 25th, I noticed JW/OZ1IKY was spotted on 6M. An OZ group was operating from JW5E in JQ78. I have never managed to work this square. After listening for a few hours, he came up strong enough for me to work him. That was square #646 worked on 6M.

#258 on LoTW with YI9PSE

la8aja — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:59:39 +0000

Last week I noticed YI9PSE had uploaded the log on LoTW. That gave me YI confirmed on 3 bands and #258 LoTW only. Thank you very much for the expedition.

It has been pretty quiet on 6M, but did work a few contacts July 22nd. The band was open to G/GU/PA/F and I worked OH0/OH3XR and OH0/DK1MAX on CW. They were both worked on backscatter. G0VJG/P was worked in IN69. I have the grid, but it is pretty rare. On HF I worked VP5/W5CW on 17M.

July 23rd gave me V31BD on 30M CW. He uses LoTW, and will be a new one there. He had a solid signal this morning.

Google Earth and Hamradio 2

la8aja — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:42:44 +0000

I've been using Google Earth quite a lot lately. I liked the pathplots I wrote about earlier, which I also have used in several posts. I made a small how-to on that here. I wrote a post back in 2008 about Google Earth and Hamradio which you can see here. If you haven't heard about Google Earth, it's a free program from Google. Read more and download here.

The reason I'm writing "part 2", is that 9A5CW Patrik pasted a link to a screenshot where he had lots of nice stuff drawn up. I asked him how, and he gave me a link. His screenshot is attached here. The link he gave me, was to live muf by G7RAU. This is very useful for you so you can follow how the muf climbs and maybe predict an ES-opening on VHF. I also use it to quickly show the 6m openings in progress right now. I find it more useful to see the spots drawn up than looking at lots of spots. You need to create a login to get access to some parts of the site. To only see VHF spots and the live muf, there are a few links that doesn't require login. Click to check out G7RAU's site.

Another nice thing was to also show the realtime aurora oval based on data from NOAA. To get that in Google Earth, go here and choose the "automatically updating Aurora viewing map".

If you want to see where the 6M beacons are placed, take a look at OE1SMC's site and grab the kml-file to display in Google Earth.

And finally, the last overlay presented here is the TEC (Total Electron Count) map. The map is useful for studying the radio propagation. Grab the overlay here.

Here are some examples of how my Google Earth looks like with different overlays:

[Show as slideshow]

JI2EVL recording of LA8AJA on 6M

la8aja — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:00:32 +0000

On Saturday, I got an e-mail from JI2EVL, my first JA-contact on 6M. Turns out he too made a recording of our qso on July 19th 2009. It was his first LA on 6M. Listen to the recordings below. Thank you Hiro!

Soundclip:

LA8AJA 6M CW – how I sound like at JI2EVL's station
JI2EVL 6M CW – how Hiro was like at my station

JI2EVL's homepage.

2 new grids on 6M

la8aja — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:36:42 +0000

July 17th we has some openings on 6M again. I managed to work 2 new grids with KN65 and KN74. That makes total grids worked 645. I heard A92IO, but I have worked him before. I called cq dx, and was called by A92GE.

July 18th I would probably have had an opening to JA on 6M, but I was on too late. I noticed LA5UF did work into JA. The only station I heard, was JA9SJI, who I worked last year.

July 21st showed nothing on 6M, so I went to HF. KH7XS was worked on 15M for our fifth band. XU7ACY was worked on 15M CW with a nice signal. KQ7W was staying up late on 17M CW and had a nice signal into Norway this morning. I worked him easily.