That Time Of Year Again

Meaning the CQ WW DX Contest,and for once the Gods favored us with decent propagation,well on 10 meters at least cause that's all I have here LOL.
Right from the get go things were buzzing on 10,loads of big signals and of course tremendous QRM,but in so saying it was great to hear the band alive again.I did not make a serious effort here,cause as you all know I'm antenna challenged here,living as I do in a 3rd floor Apartment,I do fortunately have a deck that I can put up an antenna of sorts,all be it in a fixed location.At present it consists of a 2 element wire yagi for 10 meters in a U configuration.I must say though it works like a charm and matches pretty much the whole 10 meter band pretty flat swr in the SSB portion rising slightly at band edges but workable without a tuner over the whole band.Of course running QRP helps in that respect (5 watts).
         As I said I dabbled a bit during the contest and thoroughly enjoyed myself,I didn't work a lot of stations (about 50) in all but made some reasonably good DX with my QRP.In all I worked 25 countries with the best dx being New Zealand (ZM4T for a distance of 8,217 miles not bad for 5 watts and a wire yagi. Also had a couple of Japanese stations, lots of Europeans various Islands and Equador HC1HC at 6,394 miles .
        It was the first contest I'd participated in from this side of the pond and as I said I had a blast .My thanks to all the stations that had the patience to work my QRP station I hope they all had a great contest.

73's for now
Derek KD0PNP

Second Hand Ham Radio

Hi again,
How many of you can remember when Ham Radio was a really friendly & social hobby,when you heard of a new guy in the neighborhood who was a Ham you popped over and said Hi and offered a hand in welcome and maybe even help install the station.How things have changed,the welcome mat is alas no more or at best rarely seen anymore.Remember going to Hamfests where you could be sure the items you bought were working ok when you got them home and if there was a problem you called the seller and it got sorted out.Plus things were cheaper second hand,look at ebay these days and you would wonder,things like an old FT101 going for $500 plus Heathkit qrp rigs fetching $200 ridiculous prices and strangely enough more fools ready to part with their cash to buy them.I laughed so hard the other night when I came across a glorified CB radio Base Station converted to ten meters with a $400 price tag, come on people get real ,how about some realistic pricing for a change ,not this  " let's see how much money I can screw out of people " for this 40 year old Radio .I look at this kinda thing and honestly I just despair,money these days seems to be the be all and end all of everything. If I were to add up the current value of my radio gear here it wouldn't amass to more than $250 all in, and you know what ?. It works just fine.

Rant over !!!!!!!

Derek KD0PNP

QSL & Radio Website Design

Hi All,
        I do a lot of design related things in my day to day work,so I thought I'd avail my services to others who may not be as adept at design and offer to design their QSL cards or Radio Related Website for a minimal fee.Web design & Card design can be expensive and you know it really need not be so.
       With modern photo techniques and software it takes very little time to put together a passable design.To these ends I offer to do a full color QSL card design within 24 hours of your request,a website takes a little longer though but I can guarantee a working design within 7 working days.
        For full details and samples visit my website at Ham-Art QSL and Radio Website Design for a fast ,efficent ans affordable service.

Find Below Some

Free Generic Radio QSL Designs

For You Download and Use.

All 5 Cards can be downloaded at once

DOWNLOAD HERE

Free United States of America

State Flag Cards Series.

DOWNLOAD ALL STATES HERE

10 Meters Springs to Life

As in the previous post 10 Meters this weekend has been to say the least fantastic,here in Minnesota 10 meters is normally pretty quiet but this weekend it was hard at times to find a clear frequency to call CQ. Stations were booming in from all over, Europe,South America, Mexico,Japan,Greenland, Cayman Is, Puerto Rico ,Cuba,Canary Is, North Africa,with stations from the East Coast USA, West Coast USA & Canada all heard from this location on Sunday alone.Pile ups were the order of the day and many were heard here. Not having the power or the antenna to break them I mainly listened to the traffic.But I did manage a few QSO's with my 5 watts. I had YT1HA, S52NR,IZ5EBL & IZ5HPQ all on SSB.Not staggering DX I know but it keeps me happy just working a few here and there.
        I got a surprise via E-QSL yesterday too,I received my first SWL report for my USA Call from a n SWL   ( DL-1213867  Peter from Eulenbis in Germany ) I really appreciated that and immediately confirmed it for him.

        Well as I said the weekend was totally enjoyable DX wise and I hope this bodes well for this winter,and the DX continues.

         Till next time 73's gd DX
         Derek KD-0-PNP

Hi All,
Been a good week here for us 10 meter operators,the band has been open nearly every day,offering good propagation into Europe in the early morning and running into the evening with good South American  propagation.Even some Japan & Australia have been heard at this location,that's pretty amazing considering the antenna here is only a 10 meter wire loop strung up on our balcony.

All the stations above were worked from here using only 5 watts and the 10 meter loop.Good to see 10 meters open again and we hope it continues during the Winter months.When the band is open you can find me around 28.420 on SSB  if you hear me feel free to call I'd appreciate the contact.

Magnum 257 RF Limited

  Hi All

I Just recently took possession of a Magnum 257  (non High Power) by Rf Limited and having read a lot of reviews about this transceiver I was eager to try it for myself. The radio was not new only new to me but well looked after second hand.It's one of the older versions brought out in 1999 and therefore only has the reset pads and 2 conversion points as opposed to the new versions that have a reset button and 4 conversion points. This small difference does not however take away from the performance of this little radio.

       Out of the box the radio covers 10 meters only from 28.000 to 29.699 AM/FM/SSB a little let down that it didn't have CW facility but that's a minor issue. To expand the radio's coverage is a breeze open the rig find the reset board move the jumper from one position to another ans with power off (off course) short out the reset pads momentarily. Put the covers on and power up the Radio,as usual it powers up on 29.300 (the Japansese FM calling channel) why I don't know as over here it's 29.600 mhz. Press function button and hold,then press call button for approx 3 seconds and wallah you now cover from 25.165 to 29.699 .

      I use it as a base unit hooked up to my 10 meter loop antenna on my balcony (3rd floor apartment) and it works pretty well indeed.This model (or mine anyway) is conservatively tuned to deliver approx 28 watts SSB / FM & 15 watts on AM this suits me just fine as I'm a keen QRP operator anyway.The receiver is pretty hot but a tad noisy radio really benefits from an external speaker something a little more widebanded frequency response wise than the built in speaker.On the CB part of things it can suffer a little from strong signal overload (backing off the RF gain here helps a little) but on the 10 Meter side this is not as noticeable.

       Ease of use (well I found my way around it) in about 3 mins flat without reading the manual,so yes it's pretty user friendly.I found it hearing weak signals pretty well and it picked up 10 meter beacons better than my FT301d did. I worked a few PY stations on it yesterday and it performed flawlessy .

      In my humble opinion it's better than the HTX 10 from Radio Shack (I've used both) so if you can pick one up for under $150 grab one they really are a nice little rig to have around.

Derek   KD-0-PNP

QSL Designs

The final courtesy of every QSO is a QSL so they say,in my opinion it's always nice to receive a card from a fellow Ham ,these days though it could be either an actual real card or possibly an electronic one sent via e-mail or one of the QSL services like E-QSL etc.

Cards these days are much easier to fabricate,in days gone by a Ham used to have to design his card and then take it to a Printing Shop and have it manufactured for him.Often this was a very expensive venture especially if you required full color printing.Nowadays though with the advent of the home computer making and printing your own cards could not be easier.No need to make them 1000 cards in advance anymore just produce what you need when you need it.Plus you can change the design foe every card if you so wish,making each one a unique reminder of that particular QSO thus making them more collectable  as well.You are limited only by your imagination so off you go start creating.!!!!!