May 6, 1400Z-1900Z, Byesville, OH. Cambridge Amateur Radio Association, Inc, W8VP. 5th anniversary from Buckeye Central Scenic RxR Train. 14.260 14.250 7.245 7.235. QSL. Cambridge Amateur Radio Association, PO Box 1804, Cambridge, OH 43725. www.w8vp.org.
May 6, 1500Z-2300Z, Conway, AR. Faulkner County Amateur Radio Club, W5AUU. Toad Suck Daze 25th Anniversary Special Event Station. 21.350 14.260 7.260 146.520. Certificate. Faulkner County ARC, PO Box 324, Conway, AR 72033. www.w5auu.org.
May 6, 0300Z-1200Z, Abilene, TX. Armadillo Intertie, AI5TX. National Radio System of Texas picnic. 21.200 14.230 14.050 7.250. QSL. Bill Lawless, W5WRL, 4000 Crestridge, Midland, TX 79707. www.armadillo.org.
May 6, 1300Z-1800Z, Baltimore, MD. Carroll County Contesters, K3P. Triple Crown Special Event — Kentucky Derby. 21.365 14.265 7.265 3.865. Certificate. Carroll Country Contesters, c/o John F. King, PO Box 64, Hampstead, MD 21074. www.wy3p.net. Special certificate for all three Triple Crown events.
May 6, 1500Z-2300Z, Cookeville, TN. Upper Cumberland Amateur Radio Association, W4W. Cookeville Railroad Rendezvous Street Festival. 14.260 7.260 3.860. QSL. Dennis M. Barrett, 1035 East 6th St, Cookeville, TN 38501. www.ucara.org.
May 6, Baltimore, MD. Carroll County Contesters, K3P. Triple Crown Special Event — Kentucky Derby. 21.365 14.265 7.265 3.865. Certificate. Carroll Country Contesters, c/o John F. King, PO Box 64, Hampstead, MD 21074. www.wy3p.net. Special certificate for all three Triple Crown events.
One tip I received from the Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society guys was to have the ability to spot your lighthouse activation on a DX packet cluster. I was thinking I’d have to bring a laptop and my TNC – which add additional complications to my setup. Then I remembered I have my trusty Kenwood TH-D7A, with a built in TNC. Although most of my packet use with the radio has been APRS related, I’ve used it before to do standard packet work along with an Palm Pilot. So – I think that’s my answer for the next lighthouse activation…. I’ll bring the TH-D7A along with the Palm Pilot and spot myself on the local DX cluster. I need to test it out to make sure I know how to spot to the cluster.
I’ve been looking around for good ideas for a portable HF antenna and finally settled on Robert Johns’ (W3JIP) plan from a QST article (Aug 88). The antenna design is a vertical dipole (6M to 40M), using a loading coil at the base of the vertical with a tap and the other half the dipole is formed with a 1/2 wave length cut of wire. The coil is mounted on a 3/4″ PVC pipe which slips into a 6″ length of aluminum tubing. The tubing then slides into a bracket designed to hold a flag. Mounted on the bracket is a SO-239 with the center pin making contact with the bracket. The main element sitting on top of the coil is 8′, but you can lengthen it to 11′.
On Sunday I headed out to Fort Monroe and activated the Old Point Comfort Lighthouse with limited success. About 4 hours on the air and two contacts. The first contact was Colorado, a loud, booming 59. The next was Virginia Beach…. about 5 miles across the water. I need to come up with a better plan than my hamstick vertical. I’d like to do the next activation during Amateur Radio Military Appreciation Day coming up on Memorial Day weekend.
I got all the various multimedia files to play nice with my Ubuntu installation. To include streaming media… I really enjoy listening to NPR using streaming audio and I’m glad I got that working. I’m reading a new book called Beginning Ubuntu Linux, which is helping quite a bit. I think the next stage is to revive one (or more) of my dead desktops and setup a file server out in the garage.
World Amateur Radio Day, Tuesday, April 18, commemorates the founding of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) in Paris in 1925. The 2006 theme is “Amateur Radio: A gateway to information and communications technologies (ICT) for today’s youth.” With support from PZK, the Polish Amateur Radio Union, MK QTC, the Polish radio amateurs’ journal again will sponsor the World Amateur Radio Day (WARD) certificate. To qualify, stations must complete 10 HF contacts or 5 VHF contacts on April 18 between 0000 and 2400 UTC. To obtain the full-color certificate, send a log extract including the list of QSOs and $6 US (€5) to: The Radio Amateurs’ Journal MK QTC, Suchacz-Zamek – Wielmozy 5b, 82-340 Tolkmicko, Poland, on or before May 31, 2006. The World Amateur Radio Day certificate also is available to SWLs who log the same numbers of reports.