6 Meter E season near end " I THINK "

I started a blog page this after noon about the dwindling 6 Meter E season....BUT this evening I checked the reflector and saw some activity, and be darned if we didn't have a small opening from the North West to W6 land.
My past few years of 6M logs tell me that my first E season contacts are in the first week of May and my last of the season are the first week of August. I have not had a 6M E contact past August 5th for the past three years so tonight I passed that by four days.

My past logs also tell me that I have had over 200 6m contacts during the spring/summer E season for the past three years as of tonight I have 195 in the log for the 2014 season. It was lackluster for us in the North West I think at least for me. I caught one opening to the SE working grids in Florida and Georgia, and one opening to the NE where I knocked off my 49th state for 6M WAS.

I worked two JA stations and one KL7 and several XE stations. But all in all most of our openings were to the South AZ, NM, CA, a few to TX and OK and a few to the Mid West stations but the bulk were short skip to the South. I know the East coast had some great openings to Europe and it seems to us up this way the guys in the East get the most action ....Ok I may be jealous a bit.

As most of you know I live with CC&R so the antenna is a 3el beam at 15 feet and I run the standard 100w, the antenna is below the roof line so it can't be seen from the street. I always enjoy any contact on 6 and will not moan about the lack of F skip or the lack of double hop to the East, but next year I will be watching close for DE, my last state for 6 WAS.

I would like to hear from any of you that work 6 and see what you thought of this E season it is fun to compare notes on this crazy band. I have never had any luck with the winter E season, the last few years I have only made four or five contacts in the Dec. and JAN window.

I love 6 but now it is time to move on to DX and contest season for me. Have a great summers end and who knows we may grab a few more on 6 before it is over.

Remember do the best with what you have, get on and have fun, 73 K7JAN

Field Day 2014

Well another Field Day behind us, don't know how you measure FD but it is simple for me good friends, nice scenery and a worthwhile trip. Number of contacts don't seem to matter anymore just that we did it and talked to some other stations.

Our setup was simple FT 897 mounted in Jeep as last year, ran out a hundred feet of wire tuned it from the back rack of the Jeep with a Dentron

Jr. tuner and by darn we made some contacts on 20 and 40 meters. We enjoyed a beautiful day of overwhelming views, a 102 mile Jeep ride and sheep herder coffee over the camp fire. That is what it is all about, hope you had a good FD and enjoyed your day as much as I did. get on have fun with what you have ! 73 K7JAN

Field Day again !

It has been some time for a post busy old guy, grandkids, spring, now summer bla bla bla !

I will be going to Ore. this weekend for FD, last year my pal K7BUY came to Idaho so my turn. It is always great to spend time with old friends and enjoy FD no matter how many contacts you make just as long as you spend it with good company and enjoy the weekend, pleasant surprise old friend K7JD will be flying one of his planes in to meet with us for FD...will be great weekend.

My last post was in March or April after WPX, this is the time of the year my radio interest shifts to 6M and it has done just that. So far it seems like a lack luster year for us trapped in the 6M no mans land of the Pacific North West. I have seen many East coast openings to Europe and S. America, many Mid West stations working JA's but not so much for us. I did hear KH6 and one JA last night but to old and slow to work them !

Worked many SW and So. Cal. stations and a couple of openings to NW and Canada. Worked Fla. once and Mid West a couple of times but still looking for that East coast opening to have a shot at RI. and Del. to finish 6M WAS. But I will admit talking to anyone anywhere on 6M is a fun day.

I have a short video of my rebuilt Yaesu FT-301 ( from the 70's) back in the station line up operating computer generated CW sort of an old meets new story. Have a good FD hope I have a good story to tell after my return home...Get on have fun and enjoy what you have to work with....73 Jim, K7JAN

Sorry Video would not load .....

WPX SSB 2014 "THE VIEW"

Well my trip to Ore. for WPX with old bud K7BUY was again well worth the drive. We had a great time as old friends seem to do and for us we did ok in the contest even with a full blown radio blackout for some hours just more time to visit enjoy a beer and complain about world events.

I will not go into much detail here just that it was a great time and the view is soooo good, the photos will prove that, the photo of the Mountains is what you see from the operating position, who could get tired of that? Get on have fun and spend time with your best friend !

FT5ZM Amsterdam Isl.

The last few DXpedition stations I have worked were almost unbearable due to very poor operating practices and the normal frequency police and the jammers that just want to cause problems for no real reason.
I have been following the FT5ZM operation for some time thinking it would be a nice one to have, a very rare DX entity and about as far from Idaho as you can get. With my pewee antenna farm and 100w I knew it would be tough, but tough is not close to how it was it was painful !

The window of opportunity to work such a location from the PNW is narrow only a few hours a day morning was my best chance so my buddy K7BUY who lives in Ore. decided we would meet VIA text message at 0700 each morning and give it a try. K7BUY runs 100w to a very long wire. Our first morning was on 30m CW it was a mess more later on that, well Larry pulled it off and in the first hour had snagged them very good DX CW op. Well I was not so lucky so for the next 8 days a couple of hours in the morning and a little in the evening which was a very small window I soldered on.

For me this was the hardest fought battle for a new DX country that I had ever had, remember 100w 100 foot random wire and a flag pole vertical that was my tool box. The real problem was not the small station layout but the non stop bad operating and jamming most of the time you could not hear the DX station although much of the time he had a very good signal. For days this went on never in the clear.

It astounds me that most of the offenders that did not grasp the concept of split operation were one by 2 Extra class calls, I am still amazed at how bad it was hard to explain but you know if you worked this one. What does it take? How many of these operations are spoiled by bad operators....many but this was by far the worst ever in my opinion.

Europe was no better jamming, calling on DX freq. never ended, anyway up to day 8, I worked them this morning on 20m SSB first call, no jammers no one calling on Freq. he was in the clear and I could hear him, honestly thought this one may not happen for me.

I hope when we see the articles in the magazines they do not brush this aside, behavior like this is becoming the norm, I do not have the answer but this one reflected very badly on the ham community.

Well you know the ending, make the best of what you have, get on and have fun...and lets all try to set good examples on the air....73

Computers in the SHACK

I am not a computer guy I do not try to talk the talk with guys that are really in the know. A friend of mine once told me you should have at least three good friends one with a pickup truck, one with a hot tub, and one that is a computer tech....makes some sense !

Most all of us today have a computer at our operating position, some are used for simple tasks such as spotting DX, logging , and others are used for everything from rig control to SDR. What ever yours is doing it is no doubt important to your Ham Radio operation. I fall in the middle spotting, logging, RTTY, CW (transmit) and PSK.

But the same computer contains all my everyday stuff too photos, records on line business things and so on....Well where I am going with this is that this week for the first time ever starting with a C64 I had a total system failure...yes a hard drive failure the blue screen of death....I am also a so-so backup guy some things I do often some not so....I guess that is half of us....

Well long story short after some cash layout and much fretting I am up and running with a new hard drive and some improved features to my Dell Windows 7 machine. I was sooo lucky much was saved from my old drive but some was lost forever my bad ! So if you are like me a so-so back up guy change your ways it can happen, and if you are the other guy who has always backed up faithfully good on you I should have listened once again my bad !

So the moral of the story is BACK IT UP I lost some things I will never recover, gone forever so don't be me...Get on have fun and oh yes back up you files....73

160m

Well the WX here in Idaho is bitter cold was -6 this morning so good time for some warm shack time. This weekend was the ARRL 160m CW contest so thought I would give it a try with my 100 foot wire @ 25 feet and 100w ....yeah not so ideal but all I got !

Always surprised that it works at all, my high city noise and bad antenna are just a bugger but the idea is to have some fun and try to do better than last year, Well I had fun and did do better than last year, I ran the new FT-950 for the first time on 160 in high noise conditions, need to do some more setup so back to the book today, but was overall happy with it.

I think the East coast was hearing Europe better than the Western US, as I did hear many working EU stations. So good DX for my pewee station is East coast. Best this year was Alaska NY CT RI NH so that is good for me...I hope you are all planning at least one contest this winter, remember make the best of your situation get on and have some fun.