Tag: qsl cards

Busy In The Shack

WX Station: Yesterday after work I was able to reroute the cable for the wind direction/speed sensor from the radio room over to the garage. This included a quick trip up to the roof. I now need to figure out where I’m going to place the rain gauge. The location is tricky because I don’t want it under trees and it should also be accessible for maintenance/cleaning. Today I need to try and move the webcam from the window ledge outside the radio room to the garage window.

CW contacts: I had two on 80M last night, the first was from MI and the second was from AL. Band conditions were pretty bad. Yesterday at lunch I had a short CW QSO with a Polish station on 20M. I guess that’s my first CW QSO to Europe. The station was sending fast, so I only picked up about half of what was sent.

W4M Memorial Day Special Event Station: in a continued attempt to close out all the loose ends from the W4M special event station, I am now sending out QSL cards to all the remaining contacts that I have not yet sent anything to. These remaining folks never sent me anything, but I’d rather send them the W4M QSL card than hang on to a bunch of extra cards. I’m also including a return SASE for those in the US. I completed 30 last night and would like to do 40 tonight. I just want to get a QSL card out to every contact and then officially close the book on the W4M special event.

W7 QSL Bureau

I received some cards today for my old KD7PJQ callsign from the W7 QSL Bureau. The coolest one was from Senegal – there was also another from Grenada and one from Croatia. A bunch from Germany. After I’ve sent out what’s left of the W4M cards, I am going to consolidate my old KD7PJQ log with my AD7MI log and figure out exactly where I am at towards DXCC. My guess is that I’m still short by about twenty confirmed entities.

Lunch contact

I had a short QSO with Ray, W3YBF during lunch today. After my second call of CQ on 7.114 MHz, Ray came back with a nice 599 signal. He started out sending faster than I could copy, but then slowed down. I wish had had more time for a longer QSO.

I’m also slowing sending out the remainder of the certificates and QSL cards from the W4M Memorial Day special event station. These are to folks who have not sent a SASE (or anything else), but I figured I might as well send out the certificates I’ve printed and the QSL cards that I have.

Lunchtime Update

Crystal Oscillator for the TAPR T-238+: TAPR made good on their promise to send me the missing 32MHz crystal oscillator. I need to stop by Radio Shack on the way home and pick up a 470 ohm resistor (R9) and I should be able to complete the construction of main board tonight. We will see if my kit building success improves.

CW QSO attempt: I was calling CQ on 7110 and received a reply from W8JCR, Larry. His signal started off strong but then he faded into the QRN.

QSL Card: received a QSL card from Jim, W2SY from my Blue Ridge Mountains DXpedition QSO.

W7 QSL Bureau

The Willamette Valley DX Club is also home to the ARRL 7th District Incoming QSL Bureau (http://www.wvdxc.org/buro.php). The Bureau’s manager Ken, K7IFG, brings thousands of cards to our club meeting every other month where they are distributed to the individual letter sorters. Card sorting begins at 6:30, one hour prior to the general meeting.

Note: cards are only sorted in January, March, May, July, September, and November during the low in the sunspot cycle due to fewer cards.

For more information, contact the sorter for your section. The first letter after your call area determines your section. For example, ‘W7AC’ would be in the ‘A’ section.

Unfortunately, not all of the section managers have email addresses. To contact section managers without email addresses, send a letter using the US Mail to the bureau, with a SASE. The address is at the bottom of this page.

Please do not send applications, SASE’s or cash directly to the sorters, please send that via the WVDXC main address.

http://www.wvdxc.org/orderfrm.html

This weekend….

Got to do a recon up to the Misty Mountain Campground where I’ll be headed over Labor Day. The journey should not be too difficult. The campground looks nice. Tucked at the base of the Blue Ridge, it is a shady, quiet place – small pool and shaded areas where the RVs are tethered to their power and water supplies. There was a ham RV in the camp, but I can’t remember his callsign. Nice Class A motorhome with a small vertical antenna mounted on the back.

I got another envelope from the QSL bureau! It had about 4 or 5 QSL cards from Belgium. One had the special “OO” callsign from last year’s anniversary celebration.

Received a letter from Tom, AA4TB, in South Carolina that I asked about setting up a CW sked. A regular CW sked would really help me out and get me on the air practicing CW. I need to reply to him.

Been sampling the Samuel Adams Brewer Patriot Collection. Four 12oz beers come in a box. The flavors are interesting: Traditional Ginger Honey Ale, James Madison™ Dark Wheat Ale, George Washington Porter® and 1790 Root Beer Brew™. Now, understand that I am usually an adventurous beer drinker… but the Root Beer Brew was not good. Tasted like a juniper bush and licorious placed in a vat of otherwise unimpressive beer. The George Washington Porter was pretty good, although I’m not a huge porter fan. I haven’t got to the other two flavors yet… we’ll see.

The rest of today – I need to clean up the shack (… and the rest of the house!).

A few updates from the shack….

Scouts: received my Radio Merit Badge pamphlet in the mail today. Between the pamphlet and web resources, I want to put together a course package for the merit badge. One of the gentlemen I work with has a son who is interested in pursuing the Radio Merit Badge… so I need to get crackin’.

Army MARS: put in an application for Army MARS. The VA state rep told me it will be a couple weeks before I get my MARS callsign and initial training information.

US Army Amateur Radio Society: picked up a few more members. need to make contact with the Iraqi folks to check on the status of the pending YI9 applications.

DX: made contact with one of the newest DXCC entity… Montenegro! The YU6AO Montenegro DXpedition team now has a Web page at http://www.yu6ao.info/ and a log search at http://www.yu6ao.info/log.html … I’m in the log!

eBay: purchased an ASTATIC D-104 microphone. Should be a fun project adapting it for use with my IC-706MKIIG.

Local ham swap: made a deal to purchase a SB-220 Heathkit HF Linear Amplifier! This should give me a little more motivation to improve my antenna situation. Also need to acquire an antenna tuner.

Lighthouse QSL cards: finished my QSL cards for the Bodie Island Lighthouse (USA-062) and the Currituck Beach Lighthouse (USA-212) activations. Some of the Currituck Beach contacts are getting a North Carolina lighthouse key chain/compass/thermometer. Tried to get those to fellow ARLHS members.

W4M Special Event Station QSL cards/certificates: everyone who had sent me a SASE has been sent a QSL card (and certificate if they provided a large envelope).

SkyWarn Net: checked into the Chesapeake Amateur Radio Service (CARS) SkyWarn Net. They had made recent improvements to their repeater and have greatly expanded the coverage.

QSL Bureau

Today I received my first envelope of QSL cards from the QSL Bureau. I sent off money back in January (I think) and was wondering if I’d receive anything. The large envelope contained cards from France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Ukraine, and French Guiana. Unfortunately, none of these were new countries for me, but it was still very cool getting the cards. I need to send more money to the Bureau with my new callsign.

Lazy Sunday

Knocked out some more QSL cards and certificates for the W4M special event station. It’s fun going through all the QSL cards. Two QSL cards stood out from this morning, one from Washington State near Fort Lewis and the other from Sierra Vista, AZ… near Fort Huachuca. Each QSL response has the W4M folded QSL card, the Old Point Comfort Lighthouse (USA 567) QSL card, the W4M US Army Amateur Radio Society special event certificates, and sometimes a picture or two from the actual event.

The US Army Amateur Radio Society is picking up more members. We’ve been able to identify more hams downrange as well as hams getting ready to go – trying to get them their reciprocal licenses as soon as possible. Also identified some folks in Korea, to include a POC to help with licensing. I need to start looking at Germany as well… I’m sure there has to be quite a few Army hams in Germany.

…. and I even had a 40M CW QSO today! Had about a 40 minute ragchew with AA4TB who is down in Summervile, SC (near Charleston). Tommy put up with my horrible CW skills and kept it slow. I need to find the time to do some serious work on my CW. I wish I could find somebody I could establish a regular CW sked with… like two or three times a week. I think this would really help me improve. Plus – on air practice is a lot better than working one of those CW computer programs.

I have grand plans for a new antenna. The Radio Works is a local company and produces quality antennas. I have two Radio Works G5RVs – one of which I bought from a local ham. The antenna was originally purchased back in the 1980s, but unused. I used the antenna for the W4M special event station – still looked like new and worked like a champ. My current antenna is a B&W end fed inverted vee. Although it has omnidirectional properties, it has a N/S orientation. My plan is to put a Radio Works Carolina Windom 160 Special with a E/W orientation. I intend to use it as a flattop, 133′ in length. I have nice pine trees in the front and back yards, I think I can get the Window up about 50′ or more. Just waiting for my CSV17 Pneumatic Antenna Launcher!