Month: December 2012

Keep on listening …

I’ve had a little bit of luck on 10m in the last few days.  I’ve heard a number of stations and was able to work a few.  While they come across as weaker reception for me, most are able to work me.  Best I had was a new contact in Mexico with an S7 reported back – for me on my vertical that’s pretty good.

I started looking around at other options, and reviewed some information in the Antenna books I have.  Pre-builts are not that expensive it seems – such as the G5RV and it’s variants, and even some other verticals like S9 etc.  Some people even sell the telescoping poles which may be of interest at some point – will see which way I lean.

On another front, the local radio group held a meet-up on 652 for those interested in getting their Worked All Winnipeg (WAW) award.  Work 25 local stations direct and get confirmation — so, while I already logged my entries back in the early 90’s, I never did submit them – so I will have to make sure I submit my new entries now.  For those interested, here’s the link:  http://winnipegarc.org/awards.html

I’m very interested in the Canada Winter Contest starting up this Friday – link here:  http://www.rac.ca/en/rac/programmes/contests/files/2012%20Canada%20Winter%20Rules%20French-English.pdf   Will be great to test out changes to the antenna.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and enjoys the season –

73, Dan, ve4drk

Hello world!

Well, it had to happen one day.  I guess.  While I’ve been working with computers since the days of punched cards and reel-to-reel tapes, I’ve never established a personal publishing site.  This being the end-of-days, it seemed quite relevant to start one up just in time. HI HI

I’ve been licenced for over 20 years as a ham radio operator.  I’ve just recently been getting into HF mode, having put up my ground mounted vertical antenna in the backyard, buying more coax, and taking the ol’ trusty FT-101E out of storage and adding the usual bits and pieces to make it all work.

I must say, I am having a fun time with making contacts and talking with other hams.  With my (currently) limited antenna setup, I hear primarily North American stations, western Europe and the odd station from the far east, but I think better antennas are on the way – one day.

I do participate in contests that show up – not for the sake of contesting to make a high score per se, but for the sake of making lots of contacts and seeing how well this old radio/antenna combination of mine will take me.  It seems there are not alot of ve4’s active in the contest arena, so I’ll put my callsign out there for those who would like a contact from this section.

For the last 10m contest I participated in, while I didn’t put in much time, the band conditions were pretty bad (at least for me!).  I worked one station in NWT – and that was only after I rigged up a home-brew 10m dipole – that tells me I really do need to make some upgrades to my current vertical antenna.

Let’s see how well I can keep this blog-type site going… it’s hosted on my own servers – administered by myself and my son (who by the way is also a recent ham graduate!)

Hope to chat with you on the air one day …

73, de Dan ve4drk