First TEP of the year!

That old man is my first TEP of the year on 6m. His call ZS6A and we are about 7500Km apart. South Africa is the usual suspect for TEP propagation on the picks of sun cycles. So nothing extraordinary but it always gives me good feelings when it starts. It is something like ham swallows, sort of speaking. Spring is coming!

eDxNetManager: The evolution

The DxNetManager evolved! It got an e in front of it. Its creator (SV2AGW) had the brilliant idea to exploit cloud computing and that  is exactly what e means. The whole database is located to a server somewhere in Mississippi, USA. So it can be shared by anybody who is online. You can see all the nets that are actually active  and join your favorite one. For the time being it is working only for Greek nets in any HF frequency. Click the link to download and enjoy.

Get it from here.

Update: Now there is also a web version available if you like. There is no need of installation for this one. The URL is: http://edxnet.sv2agw.com 

Real Vintage

This is a forgotten snap taken back in 1985. We are sorry for the guys who have no call signs. The picture came to light again after a deep digging in SV8CS’s archive. All these black hair are grey or white right now but still active and operational.

HNY to all of you…

Breaking News

Yaesu splits from Motorola!!

At least all the Amateur radio division comes back to the original owner. The news goes around the world. I paste here from RRRL pages the following:

“After four years under the Motorola umbrella, Yaesu has split from that company. According to Vertex Standard President and Chief Executive Officer Jun Hasegawa, effective January1, 2012, Motorola will keep the Vertex Standard Land-Mobile Division, while the amateur, marine and air-band will be under the Yaesu Musen banner. The new company will be known as Yaesu USA here in the US.

“This reorganization will allow us to concentrate in amateur, marine and air-band business, which will better leverage and align the strengths of our entire business operation,” Hasegawa said in a press release dated December 27. “We believe that there is an exciting opportunity to evolve our organization to meet the needs of the Amateur Radio, Marine equipment and air band telecommunication industries by continuing to provide specialized services and the highest quality products.”

Hasegawa explained that the new company’s name will be Yaesu Musen, “a name our business partners have been familiar with for over 50 years. We are delighted to bring you the legacy of trust, quality and solid customer service that has always been associated with the Yaesu Musen company name.”

While Yaesu Musen will have a new Japanese address, the address and phone numbers -- as well as the US operations and sales organization -- for Yaesu USA will not change. Dennis Motschenbacher, K7BV, will remain in charge of Yaesu USA’s sales division.”

2012 will be a different year for sure…..

MD200 DUAL CORE

This is my MD 200 microphone recently modified by SV8YM, adding a new  FET electret mic element to it, suggested by W2ENY. (You can see in the picture the small element installed on the top of the original one). So in the same microphone I have two options now. The only thing I have to do now is to change position on the small switch located on the base of MD 200A8X in order to have modulation A or B. The tests of new element are very promising, delivering a very decent audio. The whole modification is quite easy and inexpensive. I have to give my compliments to YAESU that had this nice idea in the first place adding this option to their top quality microphone.

Have a Happy and prosperous dx New Year.

Running CQ WW SSB 2011

It was a really busy week end. The propagation was extremely good, especially on the upper bands. But the 40 meters gave us good openings too. So we enjoyed a very interesting contest, recalling the good old times. The 10 meters was my favorite band, where many exotic calls were heard. Till the next meeting, I wish to all contest community to have a nice time.

Here is a picture of my shack just before the contest began…

*Update: After running already two CQ WW contests with FTDX 5000D I do not regret at all the money I spent on it.

Here comes the sun…

The end of September is always marked by the CQ WW RTTY contest. It is a test that I usually participate. This year we enjoy  an excellent propagation condition with the SFI up to 190. The 10m band was open all day long. I was lucky to work many exotic call signs. At last our star delivers enough energy to have descent propagation. Yesterday I worked NH7O on 28450 ssb!

As we just passed the fall solstice, the 6m band is alive again for long distance TEP contacts. I worked several stations from Africa like 5N7M (Ivan), TR8CA (Alain) and ZS6CCY (Bill). Bill is actually a beacon to me. I hear him every TEP season. You can hear him too.