20 Nov 2023
By Jeff, KE9V
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Monday Morning

Ham Radio, , , , , ,

39F with windy, rainy conditions this morning put the kibosh on my walking and any hope for gathering more leaves.

Walking into the shack with the first cup of Joe I hit 40 CW where I copied a couple of stations calling CQ (a rarity!), but couldn’t raise either of them. Signals were weak and then I read today’s propagation report from W3LPL that began, “Propagation crossing low, mid and high latitudes is likely to be mildly degraded through Tuesday November 21st“. I concurred and moved to FT8 on 30 meters where things weren’t quite abysmal, but I copied no DX there unless you count a few VEs. Afterwards, I refilled the coffee and spun the dial up to 7.153 to ride along with the Treasure Coasters for a bit. Signals were down there too, but where propagation was lacking copious amounts of power permitted me to hear most everyone on the net.

A note in today’s Daily DX newsletter informed that OQRS on Club Log is now open for the TX7L operation. I worked them on 10 CW one day last week and could use that confirmation so I made the necessary arrangements.

I received a short-stack of printed cards from the bureau over the weekend: P44X, JA6BDB, IZ2FOS, DA0HQ, DA23WARD, DL2ARD, and SM7PEV.

Confirmations received via LoTW over the last few days included: A25R, YV5JLO, PY5EJ, CO2RQ, G6GLP, LU2BA, GI5RPG, 5W1SA, and P41E.

14 Nov 2023
By Jeff, KE9V
0 Comments

On Injured List

Ham Radio, , , , , ,

The main display on my IC-7610 has developed a problem. A single column of dead pixels running from the top to the bottom about in the center of the display has appeared. It has no impact on the operation of the equipment, but it’s an annoying distraction and, given ICOM’s problems with this particular display, has me concerned it could worsen. Right now I’m trying to get in touch with someone to have them tell me where it needs to be shipped for repair. While the unit is long out of warranty, ICOM has been providing no-cost replacements for displays on 7610’s with certain serial numbers and mine falls in that group.

I guess we will see if the company lives up to that promise.

Because it still functions, I wouldn’t ship it back to the factory until after the upcoming CQ WWDX CW contest. That’s going to be my last best chance of the year to closeout my DX Marathon entry for 2023. Last year I managed to work 123 entities and went into 2023 with high hopes of working at least 150. I never came close as the summer episodes took me off the air for months and now here I sit, a week before Thanksgiving, with only 96 entities worked this year.

At this point I’d be happy with a hundred and look to 2024 for better results.

That cause was helped a little yesterday when I worked TX7L on 10 CW. I was beginning to think I might miss them too, but I got lucky. I understand they are just past the halfway point in their operation so there should be a few more opportunities to get them on other bands and modes though that won’t help me in the 2023 Marathon. I’m going to need a handful of “new” entities in the CQ WW DX contest just to get to a hundred, with maybe a few extra “just in case” entries and then the 7610 will be headed somewhere for repair.

With the main transceiver on the injured list for a month or two, I’ll have to move the IC-705 up in the rotation. I’m a grizzled enough QRPer that I look forward to that low-power challenge and the transceiver is a delight to use, especially with a decent antenna. I used to have an IC-7300 as a backup, but I got rid of it a year or so ago and haven’t looked back.

This temporary juggling of equipment has me thinking that I need to get busy selling off a lot of excess gear that has been idle in the garage for far too long. I hate selling equipment…