Talking to Yoshiki

“Hi, I am Yoshiki, 9 years old, living in Yokohama Japan.I have JA-call sign (JF1UCV), and QRV in Japan.I am visit KH0 and am enjoying the contesting from AH0BT with my dad/W1FPU.I like contesting, that's very COOL than Nintendo-DS.-------I am planning to join next CQ WPX SSB contest as SOAB Rookie category. Please call me !!!”

That is exactly how he describes himself in QRZ.com. It was a pleasure meet him as KH0UA in the CQ WPX contest last weekend. Personally, I was surprised by his skills dealing with the huge pileups and giving 4 digits numbers. I have a feeling that he will doubtlessly win the Rookie category this year.

Working the test I have to mention the thrill of exchanging numbers with the legendary OH8X, probably the biggest club station in the world!

Good propagation, big numbers!

TEP came back!

I spent last weekend in my second QTH. I am not prepared for 6m band operations there. Shame on me! You can imagine my surprise to hear ZS6NK (Paul) on magic band using my 160m dipole. I worked him as well as ZS6JON (John) with these wires and 50watts. I checked that I could hear them on my mobile antenna too. For a moment I heard Z22JE (Dudley) but not worked him. What a propagation! TEP was missing for years. It seams that it came back for good. If you think how many possibilities has an RF signal to reach your receiver, you can realize that everything is possible.

Schematic taken from http://www.hamqsl.com/solar.html

Spring Ham activities

Last week was too busy. Propagation on upper bands is great recently. What a relief after so may year of quietness. On the other hand a several events and tests took place that are worth to mention. Let start with the QSO between ISS and a Greek school of Athens. I was stacked to 145800 to listen Timothy. J. Creamer KC5WKI speaking to children and replying all their questions. Great signal from the spacecraft up to 59 to a vertical antenna. And great job from RAAG that organized and contribute to make this contact real. These days, Denis (SV8RV), made significant progress in remote transceiver controlling front. He used the TS-480 and the Radio Remote Control 1258MkII by SM2O. The result was totally satisfactory, even with small bandwidth networks. During the test we listened a QSO between VP8LP and SV2KBS in 10m band. This hardware is a really killer product for this type of operation.

Finally my friend Spyros (SV8CS) came back from Montichiari, where he participated in the recent CTU as a lecturer. He has with him his daughter Anna (SW8NAC), who was the younger attendant of the Contest University. More details for the event you can find in this blog. From the left: K3LR and his XYL,IK2QEI YL, SW8NAC and SV8CS.

Vintage taste

This is the oldest device in my shack. It has about the same age with me. It is a signal generator made in fifties by TESTGEAR (ACTON) LTD, a small family business company. (You can find info about them following this link ). It came to me totally unexpectedly. It previously belonged to an Englishman ham who past away recently. A relative of him, who is a good friend of mine, she picked up from his shack and thought to bring it to me as a gift. I have not to say how much I appreciated this gesture. Thank you Moira. It was in a good cosmetic condition but I was curious if it was still working after all these years. So I unscrewed the back to see what it looked inside.  With  a great surprise  I found out that the interior was still in excellent condition too. Shiny tubes and pretty capacitors! Take a look! What a construction? This is the pre-transistor era.

…And finally it is working properly as at the first day out of the box, still producing decent signals. Wow!

Now, there is a real question. What can you do with it when the modern transceivers have a stability of 0.05ppm? Practically nothing. Just admire….