Twelve Days of QRZ – 2024
I have been more focused on finishing the Twelve Days of QRZ with as many modes and bands as I can. I hit my goals and added a few more.
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radio
Parks on the Air Notes
Before I forget, I wanted to jot down some notes about the Parks on the Air exercises I just did in Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Final statistics: Iceland: 11 parks activated (9 the first time anyone had), 382 QSOs, 277 confirmed (as of writing) for 41 countries. For the Faroe Islands, 172 QSOs, 121
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Logging Amateur Radio Contacts Accurately Is Complicated
In the seven years since my first radio contacts, I now have a process for logging amateur radio contacts. However, it wasn’t until I started working remotely more that I appreciated how logging amateur radio contacts accurately is complicated. This inaccurate logging was the cause of much frustration during the final throes of my completing
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100 Country CW Club
I had a lot of fun hunting during the first “contest day” of the CW ARRL DX contest last weekend. 10M was wide-open, with runners as 28.160. Not only did I set a personal record for volume of QSOs in a day, enough confirmed for me to blow past the 100 needed for DX CC
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Notes on Field Day 2023
I wrapped up another field day with my friend Paul (W7PEZ) in Eastern Washington. For the two days, I had 204 contacts, broken out roughly as: Paul worked 200 contacts, nearly all CW. Both are personal records. Neither of us were “running,” which would certainly have bumped up the totals, nor did we operate all
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Triple Play
In geocaching, there are a lot of “challenges” published, where in addition to signing the log, you have an alternative logging requirement (“ALR”) to perform some feat. These can be as simple as “find 10 mystery caches” or “find a cache for every letter in the alphabet,” or more complicated. In my 15 years, I’ve
Quieter fans on the Elecraft K4D
My first HF radio, the Elecraft KX3, was air-cooled and got me spoiled to the relatively quiet operation. The K4D, on the other hand, has two fans. Although the “base” ventilation speed has been lowered, there’s also some whining from the bearings. Most hams can’t hear it, I, unfortunately, can and don’t enjoy the sound.
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Parks on the Air
In addition to all of the geocaching I planned, I also thought I’d try activating some parks. Parks on the Air (POTA) is a program inspired by the ARRL National Parks on the Air program in 2016 by Sean Kutzko (KX9X) and Norm Fusaro (W3IZ). The idea is simply “everyday is field day,” that is,