I worked W7T yesterday who was calling “CQ BF” on 20 meters which got me just curious enough to call him back - and then figure out the “BF” was BIGFOOT…
National Sasquatch Awareness Day Special Event Station Oct 15 - Oct 21
The Radio Club of Tacoma cordially invites all amateur radio operators around the world to seek out the elusive “BIGFOOT” to celebrate National Sasquatch Awareness Day on October 20th! We are sure there will be multiple sightings of the BIGFOOT special event stations, but the challenge will be to contact ALL the special event stations W7B, W7I, W7G, W7F, W7O, (stations must work W7O at least twice on 2 different modes, bands, or Zulu days) and W7T to claim the coveted BIG STOMP on the BIGFOOT Certificate! ANYONE can apply for the certificate - even if you only worked one of the stations.
Radio as Art
I’ve been a ham forever. I thought I’d lost interest in radio, but it turned out that I’d only lost interest in post-modern radio. It’s all boring chitchat on over designed, mass-produced toys that are obsolete every 9 months. It’s fun to keep inventing new modes, but a bit of the cutting edge is losing out to cellular phones, which nowadays can do just about anything except slice bread. Radio romance must inevitably shift from the mere doing of radio to doing it as art. It’s already starting, as witness the sudden rush to own any kind of tube radios at all. –Hugh’s Ominous Valve Works
Freeze Warning
Enjoying a steaming cup of Earl Grey with a splash of milk along with a bowl of danish cherry tobacco in a Peterson free-hand pipe this morning. I’ve made an appointment to have the furnace people out for annual maintenance. They can’t get here until November 20th which is okay, the furnace is only two years old. I just like to stay on top of routine maintenance in hopes of avoiding surprises during cold weather. Speaking of, there is a freeze warning here for tonight as the prognosticators are talking about 33F for a low temp. In the meantime, it was only 41F when I got up this morning so the furnace is running.
I failed to mention that among the handful of AZQP contacts made this weekend was one with K7UGA. Senator Goldwater’s call sign is managed by the Central Arizona DX Association (CADXA) and is on the air frequently. This wasn’t the first time I’ve put K7UGA into the log, but I’m always pleased to help keep it alive. By the way, there is a 50th Anniversary K7UGA Special Event scheduled to take place the week of Wednesday, January 1, 2025 through Tuesday, January 7, 2025. Watch the QRZ page for specific details as we get closer to the date.
One particular goal of mine has been working 1,000 unique parks in the POTA program before I quit hunting POTA activators. I mean, enough is enough, right? I’m up to 783 as of today, nearly all of those via CW and I’m getting a little bored with that chase and might not make it to 1,000 after all. Activating parks has become as popular as FT8. Ask any CW op and they will tell you that these park activators and hunters signals comprise at least half of all the Morse on our airwaves. Given that there are so many activators coupled with the wham, bam, thank-you Ma’am nature of the contacts, the fun is quickly fading.
Needing a diversion from that, I’m going back to SKCC for more straight key action. I’d like to be more involved with QRP activities, but these are increasingly few and far between and, do you mind if I whine for a moment? Most QRP clubs have their own mailing lists and I subscribe to several of them, and the increase in traffic about things other than traditional QRP discussions are depressing to me. I die a little inside each time I see a message about a net via DMR and how to set that up, or FT8, FT4, or JS8… I’m a longtime member of one of these clubs and love it dearly, but I muted all messages with any one of those topics and now very rarely receive mail from that list…
That’s why I’m going back to the watering holes where there are still a hundred things yet to be accomplished with manually generated Morse. One of my New Year’s resolutions for ‘25 is going to be learning to use a bug. I have a beautifully restored old Vibroplex bug that’s begging to be put into service, but all previous efforts to master it have failed. To be fair, I never gave it much effort.
Next year will be different.
Columbus Day
Happy Columbus Day - chilly in the Heartland this morning, 44F now headed up to 58F for a high today. Autumn has arrived. Plenty of lawn work left to be done along with gathering of leaves that have been falling rapidly.
I’ve had a hankering for boiled peanuts lately, so this weekend I boiled a pound of goober peas. It’s the only way to get them here in the north country. I was a carpetbagger in a previous life, working all over the south land where boiled peanuts was an easy to find treat sold at endless roadside stands this time of year. I took away an affection for them as well as cheese grits and can’t get either one in Indiana so I make my own. The boiled peanuts were pretty good. Note to self, more salt next batch.
I played around a little in several State QP’s this weekend. Mostly in the AZQP as propagation was best there though I also worked a few in the SDQP and the NVQP, a mix of CW and SSB on 20, 15, and even 10 meters. The classic modes are my refuge as I shun sound card amateur radio and am now 37 day free of FT8.
This is getting embarrassing - it happened again. Confusion over what time a ham radio event was to begin spawned copious amounts of mailing list madness. You would think licensed radio enthusiasts could figure out what time it is, but no, this seems a to have become a mystery around the time we got rid of hands on the clock face. The problem is the conversion from UTC, a problem that wouldn’t exist if we used UTC and nothing else. Many hams have a difficult time grasping the concept that UTC Thursday starts on Wednesday evening EST. And with daylight savings time set to end soon, it’s only gonna get worse. I’ve long said that “time” conversion questions should appear on all amateur radio tests because hams generally underperform when it comes to knowing what time it is. Good grief!
Lost in Space
Old Sol has been spewing some of its angry energy towards Earth again with the result being yet another Northern Light show here in parts south of the normal viewing areas. While not spectacular in Indiana, we did get a glimpse last night and the heavenly performance didn’t disappoint. Of course, the HF bands are suffering from the after shocks and 40 meters was in poor enough condition this morning I decided to make this a radio “free” day.
Here in the 21st century we better understand the cause of the aurora borealis and can even predict its appearance in advance of the actual event. I remember watching this same kind of sky show as a ten year-old with my grandmother who was born in 1895. When I asked her what caused the lights she explained to me, matter of factly, that the colored lights in the sky were the result of sunlight reflecting off ice at the north pole.
Silly, sure, but this explanation probably seemed reasonable to those born in a world where knowledge wasn’t available via a mouse-click. Given that information was scarce, and more than half the population couldn’t read anyway, it’s understandable how this sort of thing might be handed down from one generation to the next to become a simple explanation for this sort of natural event.
What’s more difficult to explain is how in the 21st century there is a woman in Georgia, a member of Congress, no less, who claims the government can control the weather and is creating powerful storms and hurricanes and directing them towards Conservative districts. Laugh at my Grandma if you like, I’m laughing at the ignorant voters in Georgia who keep re-electing this damaged specimen.
Day of Discovery
We have been enjoying the nice autumn weather in these parts. 70 degree days, dry with very low humidity, endless sunshine, and 40 degree nights. It doesn’t get much better than that. The farmer’s have been taking full advantage as harvest time is well underway with all the fields being gleaned. It’s the most wonderful time of the year in the Heartland.
I’m still exploring the Elecraft K4, discovering its many features, while usually running a whopping five watts up the wire. I worked about a dozen stations that way yesterday. One of those was WB0RLJ who I have worked eight previous times according to my log. In this case, Jim was activating the Chalco Hills State Recreation Area (US-4011), a little southwest of Omaha, Nebraska.
What I didn’t know at the time was that he was activating the park using his handheld Elecraft KH1 transceiver with whip antenna. I discovered that later when I watched his video of that activation. It’s rather interesting hearing/seeing your signal being received on the other end of the lash-up.
Thanks to this video, I also discovered there is an ADIF utility from VE2ZDX that apparently parses a log file to find specific call signs in a YouTube video. At least that’s what it appears to do. I don’t make videos so you will have to work that one out for yourself, but if you look in the expanded “more” section of this video you will see the call sign of everyone Jim worked during this activation with a URL pointer directly to each specific QSO time in the video.
67th International Airstream Rally
Tuning on 20 meters this morning looking for weather traffic related to the hurricane set to make landfall in Florida, I caught special event station W1A celebrating the 67th International Airstream Rally in Sedalia, Missouri:
Welcome to W1A. The purpose of this special event station is celebrating the 67th Annual International Rally of the Airstream Club International. We’re operating portable from the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia Missouri. We will have multiple operators and multiple radios.
The special event will be on the air from 5 October to 10 October 2024
The Amateur Radio Club was formed in 1963 by Earl Johnston W0ICV, as the “Airstream Net”. At that time its membership consisted of hams who owned Airstream travel trailers and were members of the trailer club which was formed by and named after Wally Byam, the originator of the Airstream travel trailer. The club has in recent years reorganized and expanded its operations in order to serve all amateurs interested in Recreational Vehicles and in travel.
The International RV Service Net is sponsored by the Wally Byam Caravan Club International Amateur Radio Club, WBCCI ARC, an intra-club of Airstream Club International.
Marsh Island NA-120
I heard K5M calling CQ yesterday on 20 CW and returned the call. Turns out a small operation was taking place on Marsh Island thanks to AD5A, AB5EB and K0AP. According to QRZ, they intend to be there again today so I haven’t yet emailed to ask who I worked, but the entry has hit Clublog.
Marsh Island is an island off the coast of southern Louisiana in the United States. There is no permanent human population at the time of the 2000 census. The entire island is a wildlife sanctuary managed by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries as the Marsh Island Wildlife Refuge. Wikipedia
Marsh Island is recognized as IOTA NA-120 and as the Marsh Island Wildlife Refuge, POTA reference US-9769. Kind of a ‘twofer’ in my log. I look forward to learning a few details about this operation after the guys have a chance to get back home - which I hope is soon given Hurricane Milton is quickly building in the Gulf.
C21MM Expedition to Nauru
Our team (T2C in 2023 and P29RO in 2022 and other activities in the years before COVID) has decided to announce its next DXpedition. We will return to the pacific and travel to Nauru (C2) in October 2024. We are planning to operate with 5 stations, 24/7 from 160 to 6 m in CW, SSB, FT8 and RTTY.
News and updates available on the main web site.
On October 7, the first six team members will leave Germany and plan to arrive on Nauru on October 10, after an overnight stay in Brisbane, Australia. After their arrival there are still some things to organize, so limited operation (high bands only) will take place. Full operation with 5 stations 24/7 can be expected starting October 15 in the evening (local time, UTC +12). We will pay special attention to our sunrise and sunset for low band openings.
Help the team out by making a donation here.
QSL Cards - Let's Fix This
Having convinced myself that QSL cards are indeed an important detail in our daily amateur radio lives, the question becomes how can this practice be saved and restored? Assuming the cost of a printed QSL card purchased in bulk is around 30 cents each, and an optional envelope 20 cents, we’re looking at roughly 50 cents before postage. First-class postage these days costs 73 cents though post card stamps are 56 cents so there are a few options for savings.
But these numbers aren’t static. The rise in postal rates has been steady and frequent and there’s no reason to believe that might slow down. The current worst case situation for QSLs is sending a card, in an envelope, with an SASE inside. That comes to $2.16 per QSL at today’s rate. Send 500 of those a year and you’re out more than a thousand dollars, an expensive proposition for any of us.
That’s the main reason why “free” Logbook of the World confirmations seemed like such a good deal. And it is, if your interest is only collecting ARRL awards. But LoTW provides only a check mark on a big spreadsheet intended for ARRL awards. There’s no place for photos, personal notes, equipment, antenna or how much power was used, etc. And as we have seen this last summer, LoTW comes with the possibility of problems. We know now the original system, which is still in use today, was assembled with baling wire and duct tape twenty years ago and there is apparently nothing to replace it on the immediate horizon. It’s free, for now, but rumblings and rumors persist that ARRL will one day assign a fee to use it.
We need a completely new service, and it’s probably best if it’s not from ARRL, that permits storage and retrieval of QSL card images. These could be from a static image that could be edited to add pertinent QSO data along with comments, etc. Someone would log into the system, see that they have waiting QSLs that hadn’t been viewed, and have the option of downloading those images or simply viewing them online. It would be nearly the same as traditional QSLing, but without the postal burden - or the actual paper card.
Of course the ARRL (and others) won’t accept these confirmations for award credit, but who cares if you aren’t interested in ARRL credit? And if you are, you can continue to use LoTW too. No harm, no foul. A system like this would provide an option to inexpensively send a reasonable facsimile of an actual QSL card complete with photo, comments, and everything that makes a QSL card special.
While there are services now that allow these to be sent via email, I think it best that whatever comes next be a service where retrieval is optional and doesn’t come via unsolicited email. I simply want to log-in on occasion, and download whatever is available for me. I’d be willing to pay $20-$30 a year for such a service so I think there is a potential business opportunity here for someone, doesn’t matter where, to jump on and build something fresh and new.
Let’s fix this and resume the quaint, cozy practice of collecting QSL cards.