Amateur Radio – a hobby where people talk about their hobby using their hobby.
I think very little good comes from social media. When I started teaching, one of the great pieces of advice I got was to get off social media. It is certainly nice using the time you spend on places like Facebook to be more productive.
All that being said, I am going to try Mastodon for a bit.
About twice a month I have the opportunity to scoot out in the morning to a nearby park for an hour or two. I use it as an opportunity to make a few contacts to make sure my mobile setup is still working well. This morning I was out at the Wyandotte County Park.
I was able to make five contacts on 40M. Some interference form shortwave broadcasts, but nothing that fully prevented a QSO. I enjoy using the J-45 leg key – it does not seem like it is a key built for speed. That’s okay for me as I am still somewhere in between 10 and 15 wpm.
When I get home and upload these contacts on to LOTW, I want to make sure that I have the correct location in TrustedQSL before I sign and upload the logs. I found two websites that helped me figure out the grid location for the park. The first is QRZ’s Gridmapper. The second website was a bit more user friendly and also provided the ITU and CQ Zones. After I set up a new station location in TrustedQSL and had transferred the contacts from my pocket notebook to my fldigi logbook, I exported the contacts and then signed and uploaded them via TrustedQSL into LOTW. Victory.
I was able to get flcluster working with my fldigi logging and rig control program.
Easy to download right here.
I believe the original idea behind a DXCluster was that it was run on a local VHF packet network. You could then share DX spots with those in your area as propagation would be similar and the chances of others nearby working the DX higher.
There is access to a packet cluster in Kansas City but it is via telnet, which the flcluster can easily use.
Set up was easy and I was off and running.