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.

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