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K3WWP's Diary SkyDrive pictures and diary archives Email diary feedback NAQCC Web Site Thursday, November 19, 2009 11:00 PM - A rainy day in Kittanning that ended any chance of us setting a record for the driest month in my 50 years of weather record keeping. We had .67 inches of rain today and now are looking at another short dry spell until Wednesday or so. It was a good day for doing things indoors. I spent a good deal of it still processing logs from last evening's NAQCC sprint. We are getting close to a record number of logs submitted for one of our sprints. So far I'm holding on to second place overall with still a couple of folks to report who have a chance of pushing me down a couple more notches. K4BAI is ahead of me now, but it's no disgrace to finish next to him. He is one of the top notch contesters in the World and is my contesting hero. Still if I had been able to complete a QSO with N0TA in CO on 40M, I would be ahead of BAI by 8 points. The logs are still coming in, so I better get to them as it's getting late and near bedtime again. Where do these days go? -30- Wednesday, November 18, 2009 11:59 PM - Actually it's past midnight. I almost forgot about the diary. I've been so busy processing logs from our NAQCC sprint. Conditions were great on 80M here and I wound up with my 2nd most QSO's (46), 2nd most mults (22), and best score (3980) ever in one of our sprints. Still I believe when all logs are in that will only be good enough for 4th or 5th highest score overall in this sprint. The southern stations especially were racking up the QSO's at a very good rate. That's all for now. Time for bed after a couple more things to get done. -30- Tuesday, November 17, 2009 8:10 PM - I guess I have to write my own entry tonight as I've run out of feedback for the time being. Tomorrow evening is our monthly NAQCC sprint. I hope conditions are better than they were last month. They could well be since 80M was very good the past couple evenings, but as we all know, things change very quickly in the world of ham radio propagation. The past couple of years our November sprints fell on Thanksgiving eve if I recall correctly. That didn't really seem to hurt our turnout though. It will be interesting to see what the turnout is this year away from Thanksgiving. Overall, I'm very happy with the turnout in out sprints. If you look at the percentage of our membership that turns out for the sprints, it compares favorably with other club sprints, and is even better than a few of them. That says a lot for the quality of our members, and we appreciate their support of the NAQCC. This has certainly been an unusual November weatherwise. Very mild and very dry. The first 17 days have seen only a total of .02 inches of rain. If that keeps up, we could have the driest month ever in my records that I've been keeping since 1959 - well 1962 for the precipitation records. October 1963 holds the record for now. And I think it will stand as there is an area of rain on the way here that should give us .25 to .50 inches of rain late Wednesday through early Friday. It does look like our mild temperatures will continue though with highs to be in the 50's every day at least for the next 10 days. Without checking my records to be sure, I think every day in November so far has had a high of at least 50 with many days in the 60's and a few in the 70's. It sure would be nice if that continues through the winter until March, then warms up. Very very unlikely though, but we can dream. -30- Monday, November 16, 2009 9:50 PM - Let's use these comments from Bruce WY7N as my diary entry for today. I found them interesting, and I think you will also. I took out a bit of personal info. "Hi John, .....I regularly peruse your diary entries. Once a week or two, I read through them to see what you have been doing lately. I just read your Thursday, 12Nov2009 entry. I too enjoy astronomy. For a while I was infatuated with the equipment. I still fantasize significant telescope access. However, I think I began to enjoy astronomy the most when I simply made myself aware of what is going on in the sky at the moment, and over time. This was prompted by my puzzlement over the Boy Scout Astronomy merit badge requirements. None of them require access to a telescope! I call this QRP astronomy. Notwithstanding the statements of the prior paragraph, I still remember very clearly the surprise I felt when I first took a peek at the Seven Sisters through a glass. WOW indeed! My most recent astronomical activity is to simply learn to locate M31 again. M31 is supposed to be a 'naked eye' object and is an indicator of 'good seeing' conditions. But I had never had the experience of seeing it without the use of tools to enhance my natural light gathering abilities. One dark and moonless night a few months back, I stumbled across my old copy of The Messier Album. It included some of my observation notes, decades old. On impulse I grabbed my binoculars and went outside to find M31. It was harder than I remembered from my youth, but I finally nabbed it. As in prior observations, the view simply didn't measure up to expectations heightened by popular photographs. The word 'disappointing' comes to mind. However, for the first time, I took the time to learn to 'see' it without light gathering assistance. In succeeding months I have continued to practice finding it and observing QRP style. Just a few evenings ago I happened to track it down and take a look. That was the first time it was readily apparent to me how large this object is. I had read that it takes up more space in the sky than the full moon, but that was the first time I had observed this to be true of myself. These 'QRP' observations are still nothing spectacular. I still want to observe M31 through a huge, wide angle, dobsonian. However, pondering the implications of what is being observed does evoke a WOW sensation. This 'object' consists of billions of stars! It is unbelievably distant! Isn't this ultimate QRP DX! I'm tempted to go take another look right now; but alas, I will never be a devoted astronomer. I don't like to let my bed go to sleep without me in it. I feel its gravitational attraction pulling at me right now. 73, Bruce-WY7N" -30- Sunday, November 15, 2009 8:15 PM - Carl N5XE emailed and asked if I keep a record of total QSO's per band. I referred him to a couple pages in the QRP section of my web site. I also just ran a SQL query in my Microsoft Access log that spit out the following stats which include every QSO as KN3WWP and K3WWP since April 3, 1963: Overall - 71,444 QSO's 160M - 3,214 80M - 13,547 40M - 28,039 30M - 2,948 20M - 11,202 17M - 463 15M - 6,336 12M - 234 10M - 5,437 6M - 24 Overall at 5 watts or less - 52,143 160M - 3,214 80M - 9,059 40M - 14,358 30M - 2,705 20M - 10,348 17M - 463 15M - 6,302 12M - 234 10M - 5,437 6M - 23 The difference between the two lists as many of you know is due to my work in the 60's, 70's, and 80's when I did run more than 5 watts output. Also the one errant 6M QSO at 100W that I explained last year in the diary when it happened. But some of those earlier QSO's were technically QRP QSO's as the definition of QRP was different up to a point. I'm not going into that here though. I just wanted to answer Carl's question, and I thought maybe a few of you might be interested also. -30- Saturday, November 14, 2009 6:21 PM - I've just posted my new poll for November 15 through December 14. I hope you'll take time to cast your vote. This is somewhat of a repeat poll with the choices a little different than previously. It's also one that will probably have somewhat different results than it did a few years ago with the change in the makeup of the ham population due to ageing. I think you'll know what I'm trying to say when you look at it and cast your vote which I hope you will do. Here's Paul N0NBD's take on the Veterans Day entry (and telescopes as well): "I very much enjoyed your Veterans day entry. I called my Dad and had a visit. He is 84 and a Navy veteran of the South Pacific battles in WWII. I served a Navy hitch starting in 1970. Also I enjoyed the telescope report. I got to look through one YEARS ago and have never pursued getting one, I really should, I think it is fascinating. Have a good one John de Paul N0NBD" Mike made the comment to me when we were observing that if there were such a thing as a time machine, he'd go back to his college years and study astronomy. It really is fascinating, even with the multitude of astronomy pictures available everywhere. Pictures are no substitute to actually seeing the actual object, even though the pictures may be a thousand times clearer having been taken with telescopes many times the size of a backyard scope or even with cameras aboard spacecraft. I guess you could liken it to watching sports on TV versus actually attending a sporting event. -30- Friday, November 13, 2009 9:04 PM - Remember how not too long ago we were wondering how long it had been since we saw the solar flux in the 70's? Well as of today with the exception of 4 days at 69 in early October, the SF has been 70 or above for 56 straight days. There's also what looks like an active region on the sun about to rotate into view in a day or so that could boost the SF back up to the low 80's again. That remains to be seen and is just my own observation. I haven't checked (nor seldom do check) any propagtion forecasts beyond the WWV report. I said I got some good response to my Veterans Day entry. Here's an example from Glenn K3SWZ: "Hi John, Your diary entry was very well put -- thanks!! When people thank me for my service, I am embarrassed, as I didn't do much of anything, at least in my mind... Communications types in the Air Force don't see much action, hi.... I am VP of a Veterans Group in Harrisburg (National Sojourners) that is made up of all veterans who are also members of the Masonic fraternity. We put out flags each year in Harrisburg for Veterans Day, one for each death on the "war on terror" Pix of those are attached.. (see below) This year they numbered 5,100+ It is a somber duty and we find the task very rewarding... Each time you want to grumble about it being cold, damp or my back hurts, you just have to remind yourself what each flag stands for and somehow you keep plugging along... 73 de Glenn, K3SWZ New Cumberland, PA"   Impressive, isn't it. We owe a great debt of thanks to each of the 5,100 servicepersons represented by those flags for keeping our country safe from those bent on destroying it. Hopefully those kind of folks will keep coming forward to continue to defend us from terroristic attacks from without and within our country. -30- Thursday, November 12, 2009 8:31 PM - I received some nice comments on my diary entry for yesterday. Thanks. I had a good time last night. Mike KC2EGL brought his new telescope down here to get some practice using it. Although we had to battle some persistent cirrus clouds, there were enough openings to get in good views of several of my favorite celestial objects. Jupiter was the highlight of the evening as the only easily observed planet available at that time. Those of you familiar with astronomy will say that Neptune is currently near Jupiter and that's right, but with the clouds, we didn't really go searching for any faint objects and just stuck with the brighter easily found ones. When Mike gets more familiar with his scope, then maybe we'll go searching for some faint deep sky objects. Some of the things we did observe included double stars Gamma Arietis, Epsilon Lyrae, and Albireo. We observed M31, the Andromeda galaxy and M57, the ring nebula in Lyra. The Pleiades in Taurus got a WOW from Mike. We also took a look a couple first magnitude stars - Vega and Aldebaran. The brilliant blue-white of Vega contrasted with the reddish Aldebaran nicely. It would have been nicer had the sky been perfectly free of clouds and the temperature a bit warmer, although those two conditions actually oppose each other in the colder months of the year. When it's perfectly clear, it's generally much colder. It was down in the 30's when we decided to call it quits and come inside. I think Mike got himself a really fine telescope and is going to have many great nights of observing with it. He also plans to try astrophotography, something I've never done - at least through my telescope. -30- Wednesday, November 11, 2009 2:42 PM - This week marked two important events in the history of Freedom in the World. Monday marked the 20th anniversary of the destroying of the Berlin Wall and symbolically the Iron Curtain which ultimately led to the downfall of the evils of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Today is Veterans Day which used to be called Armistice Day in honor of the signing of the pact that ended World War I. It's a day I proudly fly the flag that draped my dad's coffin when he passed away some 45 years ago. This is my way of honoring those brave men and women who gave their lives so that much of the World could enjoy the wonderful blessings of Freedom. I could say a lot more about Freedom, but one of my heroes, Newt Gingrich says it much more eloquently than I could in this excerpt from his weekly newsletter to which I subscribe: "This Veterans Day, I am reminded once again of the wonderful line at the end of the movie adaptation of James Michener's The Bridges at Toko Ri. A Navy Admiral is reflecting on the sacrifice of airmen given the mission of destroying a group of heavily defended bridges during the Korean War. The men were successful, but at the cost of their lives, leading the Admiral to famously ask: "Where do we get these men?" Today, the question is "Where do we get these men and women?" and last week, the answer was Killeen, Texas. Answer: Killeen, Texas Killeen is the home of heroes this Veterans Day; men and women who prove that our servicemen and women don't leave their bravery and selflessness behind on the battlefield. Killeen was also the site of terrorism last week; proof that we are not immune from Islamic extremism inside our borders, even on our military bases. Killeen is the home of Sgt. Kimberly Munley, a Department of Defense civilian police officer and an Army veteran. Sgt. Munley was nearby getting her car tuned-up when the 911 call came in. Without waiting for backup, she was the first law enforcement official to arrive on the scene at Fort Hood. "She Fired Until He Dropped. The Killing Ended." Much has been written about Sgt. Munley's heroism, but few have described her behavior in the heat of a confrontation with the Fort Hood shooter better than the editorial writers at the Las Vegas Review-Sun "Could Sgt. Munley, hit in the wrist and both thighs, really be blamed if she'd ducked for cover? She didn't. From all reports, she stood her ground under fire, calmly reacquiring her sight picture, putting four rounds right where she wanted, in the advancing murderer's center of mass. She fired until he dropped. The killing ended." The Heroes Who Brought Down the Berlin Wall This Veterans Day week also marks the celebration of another set of American heroes: The men and women who put their shoulders to the Berlin Wall and pushed -- until it finally fell 20 years ago this Monday. Where did we get these men and women? From all across America and everywhere freedom and human dignity are valued. For although the revolution in Eastern Europe occurred without a shot being fired, countless Americans -- not to mention Britons, Germans, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians -- sacrificed for that day. Before there was a wall in Berlin, there was the Berlin blockade in 1948, when the Communist regime in Moscow tried to literally starve West Berlin to death. President Harry S. Truman ordered an airlift to feed West Berliners and resist Soviet aggression. Seventy-one American and British servicemen lost their lives. And before there was a victory for freedom, 20 years ago this week, there were unflinching advocates for freedom in Eastern Europe like Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II. These are the heroes we honor today. Washington Seems More at Home with International Dictators Than America and Its Heroes "Hero" is not a word we use a lot these days. We have a media dedicated to destroying, not showcasing, greatness. We have popular culture determined to celebrate victimhood rather than heroism. And we have a regime in Washington that seems more at home with international autocrats and dictators than America and its heroes. But the inescapable fact of America is this: Ours is a country founded and defended, not by conciliation and sophisticated diplomatic gestures, but by honor, bravery and sacrifice. Our heroes are not incidental to our nationhood but an essential part of it. Why? Because America is not, contrary to what our President believes, merely a nation among nations. We are, on our best days, closer to what Ronald Reagan believed: A shining city on a hill. Take the Time Today to Thank a Veteran For His Service The heroes of our city on a hill stretch back from Killeen, Texas, through a bloody 20th Century and a great Civil War, all the way to our founding. They are the men who left a trail of blood in the snow of Northern Pennsylvania on Christmas night, 1776. They are the men and women who serve today in Iraq and Afghanistan. So make sure you take the time today to thank a veteran for his or her service. Take the time to remember and honor a hero. Because in doing so you are answering the Navy Admiral's question at Toko Ri. Where do we get these men and women? From a nation that remains worthy of their sacrifice." AMEN! -30- Tuesday, November 10, 2009 6:58 PM - Yawn!! I think I'll take it easy today and let you, my readers write today's entry. Bob N2SU - "Hi John: I am surprised to see another long-time US soccer fan. I, too go back to the glory days of the NASL, and even before that. My father introduced me to the game when I was about six years old (around 1964) back in the days when soccer was considered an ethnic sport. I can remember watching games on channel 11 in New York when clubs from Europe and South America would compete in something called the International Soccer League from Randall's Island, New York. When the NASL was born in 1968 it was carried on CBS but the league almost folded within a year. It took a while but when Pele signed with the Cosmos in 1975 people finally noticed that the game did exist in this country. Two years later soccer became a happening in these parts. In August of 1977 the Cosmos drew a then-North American attendance record of 77,691 at Giants Stadium for a playoff game against Ft. Lauderdale (and yes, I was there). The atmosphere in the stadium was simply electric that night. They would draw lots of big crowds over the next few years (I was at all of those games) but when Warner Communications lost billions on the Atari video game system, the Cosmos lost all their high-priced players and the league would eventually fold after the 1984 season. You remember the names well. A few others were Dennis Tueart, Steve Hunt, Tony Field, Nelsi Morais and Amercians Bobby Smith and Angelo DiBernardo. If you ever get the chance to see a film called "Once In a Lifetime", I heartily recommend it. It is a documentary on the heyday of the Cosmos and has some very interesting information on the history of the team and how it came to be in 1971. I know you don't have TV, but it has run on ESPN and the local sports networks in NYC. I have broadcast soccer at all levels short of the national team (High school, college, USL and MLS) and follow it closely, but American football and hockey are still my favorites. I wonder how many responses you'll get from Europe. Anyway, thanks for a blast from the past and hope to catch you on the bands." Paul N0NBD - "Hello John, It is neet the dedication of your friend to dig up and bed the trees down each year and I always enjoy the story. I had a neighbor 2 doors west that used to have a plant, "my mother called them elephant ears" Every fall this guy and his brother dug up the root ball, tied it in burlap and dragged it to his basement. The root ball was as big as a double tub. For several years I knew it was officially warm enough when I would see the hole digging to the west. I am not sure if the thing is still going or not as he dug it up and moved away. Have a good week and enjoy the warm wx while we have it de Paul N0NBD" -30- Monday, November 09, 2009 9:13 PM - The weatherman blew it. It wasn't sunny today, but overcast just about all day. Instead of 70, we hit 64 for a high as a result of the clouds. Still that's a pretty good day for getting close to the middle of November, and I did go fishing, but only for about an hour or so. Got a few small bites - not good enough to even try to hook the fish. I'm getting interested in watching some sports again, thanks to the ESPN 360 Internet site which provides many live sports broadcasts along with a ton of replays. Right now I'm in the midst of watching a rugby match between England and New Zealand. Last night I watched the Saskatchewan Roughriders beat the Calgary Stampeders in CFL action. I've also been watching some international soccer matches as well as some MLS soccer. I talked before about my love of Canadian football, but perhaps not about soccer. When the North American Soccer League was flourishing some 30+ years ago, I loved watching those matches, especially ones involving my favorite team, the New York Cosmos. The Cosmos really had a collection of great world-wide players like Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbaur, Carlos Alberto, Vladislaw Bogecevich, and of course Pele. Erol Yasin and American Shep Messing were goalkeepers. Just reeling off those few names from memory (hope the spelling is right) brings back a lot of memories. There were a lot of other great players in that league as well. Trevor Francis from the Detroit team jumps right into my mind. What a great goal scorer he was. I believe it was 7 goals he scored in one game when the Detroit team scored 10 in a game. I'm not going to take time now to look up to see how accurate my memory is. The point is that despite the great players, the USA just wasn't ready for soccer as one of its major sports at that time and the NASL floundered and died. I think now the sport has caught on, and the MLS should continue to flourish and grow. I've always been fascinated by rugby, but never really followed the sport much and still don't understand all the rules of the game. One other sport that used to be featured on ESPN in its early days was Australian Rules Football. That was a wild, crazy, entertaining game. I'll have to check on the Internet and find out if any matches can be seen. -30- Sunday, November 08, 2009 9:07 PM - Nothing like a good hard day's work to make one feel good. Ange and I buried the last 4 (big) fig trees today putting in about 7 hours of solid labor and good exercise doing it. I was thinking that perhaps many of you reading my diary don't know what some of these things I keep referring to without further explanations mean. Fig trees are not native to the Pennsylvania type of climate with its cold winters, and extreme means must be taken to protect them from the cold or quite simply they will die or if they don't die, then they don't produce any figs. The way that Ange and his father before him protect the trees is by burying them for the late fall, winter, and early spring months roughly from early November through early April or so. The burying procedure is best told in pictures so I refer you to my SkyDrive site for that. Go here and click 'Slide Show' to see a slide show of the burial process. I again used the SS to get my daily QSO for the 9th, so that makes a total of 2 QSO's in the SS this year. It is just too nice to be inside in early November with a temperature in the low 70's. I even shed my shirt today while working on the fig trees it was so nice and warm. Tomorrow is to be a repeat of today (without the fig trees to contend with) so I plan on getting in some fishing and definitely some walking. Wednesday evening my friend Mike KC2EGL is going to bring his new telescope down here for a stargazing session. He just emailed me and said he had the scope out for a bit this evening looking at Jupiter, but still needs some lessons and practice using it. So we'll do that Wednesday. -30- Saturday, November 07, 2009 7:57 PM - I was a bit surprised when I tuned in to get my streak QSO from the SS this evening. It seemed to me like activity in the SS was much lower than normal, at least on 80 meters where I was listening. I only stayed long enough to work N2NT to keep the streak going, so maybe I was just listening in a lull period. Although the number he gave me - 276 - seemed low for a big contest station like that so maybe activity was down. As predicted this was a warm dry fall day today. I actually went for two long walks without any jacket or sweater and even started to sweat just a little. The next couple days will be pretty much the same if the predictions are right. I also went for a third long walk this evening, but with a jacket this time. Early in the day Ange and I buried one of the remaining 5 big fig trees. He had to go somewhere so we just had a couple hours to work. Tomorrow the last two big trees in the garden near here and then the two at his house either Monday or maybe Wednesday depending on whether or not he has any substitute teaching assignments. It will be nice to get them done, although I'd sooner it was time to dig them up in the spring as that means good weather is returning. Now the burials just kind of herald the miserable weather of winter. -30- Friday, November 06, 2009 8:01 PM - I spent a good part of the day doing computer work for a friend. It was kind of chilly today so it was a good day to be working inside. However things are going to change this weekend with sunny skies and temperatures in the 60's. I might even get in some fishing, although the water is pretty cold now and I doubt the fish will be all that active. I'll have to get lucky and land the bait on their little 'fish plate' right in front of their mouths or they probably won't go looking for it. I guess you can probably do that if you have a boat and a fish finder, but I have neither. Can't afford them, it's too much work taking care of a boat, and it makes fishing too easy and eliminates a lot of the challenge to fishing. That's how I look at it. This weekend is one of the better contests in which you actually have to copy the exchange rather than just logging 599 and some other small bit of info for each contact. Of course I'm talking about the ARRL Sweepstakes. However with the nice weather coming up, I probably won't do much at all in the contest except maybe use it for my daily QSO. There won't be many more nice days to hang around outside, but there will be other contests coming up this winter when there's a foot of sn*w on the ground and temperatures are well below fre*zing. -30- Thursday, November 05, 2009 7:28 PM - I thought the Weather World program from Penn State University had a clever opening last evening. For those of you not familiar with the program, the two hosts have a little 30-45 second banter between themselves between the intro and the forecast. They said something like it sure is NOvember like today - NO sun - NO warmth - NO leaves. There are a lot of other negatives you can apply to this month - NO light in the evening - NO fishing - NO pleasant walks, and on and on. For anyone suffering from depression, this absolutely has to be one of the worst months with very little positive to be said about it. I guess there are a couple of things to be thankful for, and they deal with giving thanks. On November 11, we thank all the service veterans for fighting to keep our country free. We owe our freedoms in large part to them. Then later in the month it's the feast of Thanksgiving where we again give thanks for our freedom in being able to enjoy the wonderful meals that we do in this country because of our free enterprise system. It's also a time for prayer that we can continue to hold on to our freedoms and not have them taken away from us. -30- Wednesday, November 04, 2009 10:49 PM - I spent most of today getting the list of names of NAQCC members ready for subscribing to our new NAQCC-News mail list. Tomorrow I'll be subscribing the 3,441 names on the list which was compiled from the 8 separate lists that our emailers have been using to send out our NAQCC newsletter announcements. If all goes well tomorrow then we'll have a mail list with which we can send out timely club news items as well as our regular newsletter announcements by simply posting the info to the mail list which will re-distribute it to all signed up members. It will be a nice and needed feature as the NAQCC prepares to reach the 4,000 member mark in another month or so. -30- Tuesday, November 03, 2009 8:57 PM - Here's an exotic way of zero beating sent as a diary comment by Geoffrey AE4RV. "Regarding proper CW tuning, there is a very sophisticated and also very easy way to zero beat a CW frequency visually, by using the waterfall display on a computer set up for digi-modes. Just tune the radio until the signal you want to work is on your sidetone frequency, visually. It takes about 1.2 seconds. Particularly useful for the tone-deaf or lazy, I suppose, but if one has the setup available, it is really convenient. I usually do it by ear but I am not above throwing the technology at hand at a problem. I realize this might be a controversial method to a CW-only op, and that wide-band digi-modes can be a real nuisance, but a lot of hams have sound card interfaces and can easily use this method to aid CW tuning..... I am interested in your ongoing zero-beat/rig experiment...please be sure and report back." Oh I will. I want to get a lot more data first though. Other than voting and burying a couple more fig trees (six down and six to go now), nothing much out of the ordinary to mention about today. It's depressing to see it getting dark so early now with standard time back in effect. However in just a month and 4 days now we will have the earliest sunset of the year here near the 40th parallel north. So that's something to look forward to, even though the gain of evening light the first month or so after that date doesn't amount to much. It is going in the right direction though. -30- Monday, November 02, 2009 9:06 PM - As I said a couple weeks ago when writing about zero beating, I was going to keep track of the rigs I work and how far off zb they were. So far I've gathered 17 reports. Of the 17, only 7 were close enough to be called zero beat. That is probably within 20 Hz or so of my frequency. Farthest off was 570 Hz high in freq, and ranged down to 290 Hz low in frequency. Oddly enough both extremes came from ICOM rigs, a 756P2 and a 706. The zb's came from a variety of rigs including a rather old TS-520. I also kept track of drift direction, down, up, or stable in frequency. That started off with two that drifted low, and after that, the last 15 were stable in frequency. That's just a quick summary. I plan to gather a lot more stats to give a better analysis to see if any conclusion can be drawn as to whether non-zb is a fault of the rig, op, or both. Of course I'll never get a large enough sample to produce completely accurate results, but I think it will nevertheless prove interesting. Along with tracking rig data, I'm also starting work on our November NAQCC Challenge, as usual an alphabet challenge dealing with words relating to Thanksgiving. I just finished posting all our NAQCC challenge rules for January through December 2010. We have some traditional ones and some newly conceived ones for 2010, thanks to our NAQCC President Tom WY3H who has taken over managing the challenges now. One thing that is very rewarding to me is working someone, telling them about the NAQCC, and then finding their application in my email shortly after the QSO is over. That happened tonight with Phil, WA1JHV, whose application I'll be processing shortly, following a very nice rag chew on 80M. I'm looking forward to the day not too far off now when I'll be assigning #4000 to someone. Only about 55 to go now. -30- Sunday, November 01, 2009 7:57 PM - Every once in a while I hear that there is a lot of discussion on this Internet forum, or on this mail list, or other such types of communication about how ham radio seems to be dying out, and the participants are complaining about the dying out over and over again. Well...DUH!! If they'd get up off their ***es and fire up their rigs and get on the air, ham radio would be alive and well. There is entirely to much potential air time being wasted in other pursuits. Some of them are legitimate pursuits, but I can't see wasting time in an Internet chat room as being one of them, especially if the purpose of being in the chat room is to complain about the death of amateur radio. It just boggles my mind. It also makes me glad to be associated with the NAQCC. We do not encourage our members to waste time by having a forum, chat room, mail reflector or any such nonsense. We encourage our members who wish to communicate, to do it via amateur radio, and more specifically via Morse Code. Of course we do have a web site, but it is more just like what clubs had in the past. It's an information packet and newsletter, not a place to hang out and waste time. You go to the web site briefly to check on a piece of information, then get back on the air again. Sorry for getting on the soapbox, but that irritates me. I'll get down now. I'm going to make up my work sheet now for our NAQCC November Thanksgiving Alphabet challege. Oh, that's another way we encourage our members to get on the air and help preserve ham radio. These monthly challenges we have are designed solely for that purpose. Those of you who regularly follow this diary know that I do not have television in my house here. That's just another time waster. However I have been able to watch a couple sporting events on ESPN 360. That's a really nice web site. I watched the opening MSL playoff game between Houston and Seattle. A lot of the events are on a delay basis, but some are live as well. So that will give me something to do (in addition to more ham radio) this winter when I'm more or less snowed in here. -30- Saturday, October 31, 2009 9:30 PM - Another month is in the books, as the saying goes, but in reality, not yet. I've got just about all my end of month/beginning of month updates yet to do on the web site, the NAQCC, and life in general. So I'm not going to take much time for this entry. It was a typical middle-of-fall day here. Cloudy, light rain, breezy, and chilly. I did manage a couple of walks, but it was not as pleasant as the warm summer walks. I also raked some leaves. I don't have any decidious trees, but get more than my share of leaves from the trees next door. They really need trimming back, but that's another story. I wonder just why folks say they're running QRP and then say their power is 10, 13, 15 or so watts. I'm getting more and more of that, it seems. I think I went into that before about QRP and its definition. In one sense it has come to mean 5 watts power output or less, while the classic definition as a Q signal simply means to reduce power. So if you go from 1,000 watts to 800 watts that is QRP by that definition. Still I think the folks who say they are QRP at 13 watts aren't saying that because they just reduced power from 20 watts. Actually the whole list of Q signals have evolved in meaning as has much of the English language for that matter. And again that's another story. I wish my friend from my WPIT days could be here saying, "but, that's another story!" Tom McGough had his own unique way of putting real meaning into that phase, but that's yet another story. HI. -30- Friday, October 30, 2009 7:16 PM - Doom and a carrier - topics for this entry. Since I last wrote about Doom, I've played two more complete 30 level wads. Plutonia 2 is a very involved wad with huge levels and intricate switching systems. Activating a door is something like travelling from NYC to Chicage to throw a switch that opens a door back in NYC. There's a lot of backtracking. Game play is very good though and it's very challenging overall. It took a lot of time to figure out some of the intricacies in some of the levels. Scythe is similar in one way to the original Doom. There are some very easy levels at the beginning which progress to harder levels as the game goes along. Level 30 is absolutely awesome. There's no shooting rockets at the "devil's head" to end the game as in many wads. You 'just' have to kill over 800 monsters to win the level. Many of the monsters are cyberdemons, and there is an abundance of archviles to bring back to life many of the monsters you already killed. I played the level in God mode. I really don't see how any normal person could make it through that level without 'cheating' unless they are a supreme expert doom player. NAQCC President Tom WY3H has been in contact with the ARRL about the mystery strong carrier that has been showing up on 40 meters around 7039.5 kHz. As a result, the ARRL has filed a complaint with the FCC. Here's what the ARRL had to say in an email to Tom: "Good morning Tom, Nothing specific yet, I did ask the FCC to check it out and they opened a case on it. Other later reports indicate some type of modulation is being heard, primarily digital, someone suggested WSJT and that it could be hams making normal QSOs but due to the constant nature of most reports, that doesn't seem likely. Here is a light-hearted look at the mode. http://www.pe2pe.eu/WSJT_on_HF.htm. It's possible there are two different signals being heard on or near the frequency. 73, Chuck Skolaut, K0BOG Field & Regulatory Correspondent ARRL, The national association for Amateur Radio" Let's hope that something can be done about this interference to CW near the 40M QRP frequency. Soon the digital crap will be taking over the whole CW areas of the ham bands. -30- Thursday, October 29, 2009 2:24 PM - I'm just sitting here at the computer getting some odds and ends caught up on, and thought I'd get my diary entry written early since I might go and watch the Halloween parade this evening. It's a nice late October day, although a bit cool at just around the low 50's. The sun is just breaking out so that may warm it up a bit. Right now, I think I'll go for a walk and stop off at the grocery store to get a sales flyer to see what I can buy on sale this coming week. Grocery prices are really skyrocketing the past few months now. One example is oyster crackers. They went from just over a dollar to $1.69 a package now, and I bet the package is a little smaller. That's just for the generic brand too. The name brand is $3.69 for a similar sized package. Whew! If that keeps up, how are people going to eat? I have to make use of sale items and coupons to get by here. I don't foresee things getting any better either. I think I've moved up a step in my relationship with Joe. Yesterday afternoon, Bruce was holding him on their swing when I came out on our porch. Joe looked over at me and Bruce said he started trembling. He often does that when he gets excited at seeing Bruce or Nancy after they've been away for a little bit. But I think that's the first time he's done that for me. He has always seemed glad to see me, but no trembling till yesterday that I know of. -30- Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:21 AM - I got good response about Sara's video I posted the other day. Well, today is the 45th anniversary of a wonderful campaign speech by one of my heroes for another of my heroes who incidentally was a ham with the call of K7UGA. Aha, now you know I'm speaking about Barry Goldwater who ran for president in 1964 and unfortunately lost. Who was the speaker? A former actor who did win the presidential election in 1980 and 1984. That's right, Ronald Reagan. I'm listening to that speech right now and it's scary how closely it still applies today. Should you want to listen to this 30 minute speech sometime, it's here -30- Tuesday, October 27, 2009 9:23 PM - Today was a busy day working on a friend's computer and printer. That took up a good part of the afternoon, but we made good progress, and that was important. Actually that was part one of her problem we solved - getting a new printer hooked up to her new computer. I had some trouble getting the install program to finish, but finally traced it to Norton Anti-virus/Firewall. When I temporarily disabled that, it installed like a dream. That took some time, so transferring some software from her old to new computer had to wait for another day. Her computer runs Windows Vista, and that was the first time I've really used Vista. Like all Windows versions before it, Vista works like a dream, and has a lot of great features not found on XP. I know Vista is a pretty old system now, but I never upgrade until Microsoft comes out with at least one full service pack for a new operating system. If you think about it with the millions of computers active in the world today, there is no possible way for Microsoft to test their software on the literally millions of different configurations those millions of computers represent. I prefer to wait until any software has been thoroughly field tested to the point of a service pack being issued before I will upgrade. In this case however, I felt that, just like ME and 2000 between 98 and XP, Vista was a system put out like ME and 2000 to fill a gap while Windows 7 was being developed. I think that the series 98, XP, and 7 is the route to go in upgrading operating systems. So my next new computer will probably be purchased when SP-1 for 7 comes out. The sun hasn't pushed the snooze button yet. The SF remained above 80 again today. Since tomorrow is supposed to be rainy here and I don't have any other big projects that I know of, perhaps I'll just check the higher bands and see what this latest little flurry of solar activity has done to them, if anything. -30- Monday, October 26, 2009 9:55 PM - From Carl N5XE, "Just checked...Solar Flux up to 81 with 28 sunspots! Come on sun...". Yup, we're still going up the SF scale. Can this be the real awakening, or will the Sun press the snooze button again. Stay tuned to this station for the exciting next episode of 'As the Sun Turns'. Not only the solar weather is looking good, but the weather in this corner of the Earth is likewise looking good. Another mostly sunny day with temperatures in the upper 60's. I went over the 10 mile mark in walking for something like 5 of the last 6 days now. Also did some more outside work around the house. Of course spent some time with Joe also. I didn't go fishing though as I was kind of discouraged by my last three trips with virtually no bites at all. As I've said before, I don't mind if they bite and I don't catch them, but when they don't even bite, that gets to be boring. I love keeping busy, and when they don't bite, that's hard to do. Then I tend to start picking up rocks and tossing them at pop cans or something like that. I could never make a good 'couch potato' by any means. Conditions on 80M continue good. Wish they had been this good for our NAQCC anniversary celebration week. Only took a very few CQ's to get my streak QSO this evening from N2CHI in NY. -30- Sunday, October 25, 2009 8:48 PM - Well, it took Paul N0NBD about 75 milliseconds after I posted yesterday's diary entry to email and say the last time the SF was at 76 was back on April 8 this year. Tnx Paul. And you know what? It's 76 again today. Now when's the last time it was 76 or higher two days in a row? HI. Maybe that same time? Anyway 80M which shouldn't really be affected by a high SF that much, sure sounded good this evening. I had a 2XQRP/599 QSO with Tim K3XI in VA and heard another QRPer with a solid 599 signal from PA. Tom WY3H told me he worked Colombia on 17M late this afternoon. Are these all signs of better things to come on the bands? I sure hope so, as with the miserable winter weather coming, I'll be outside less and looking for things to do indoors. Working the ham bands would be one of the nicer things to be doing. -30- Saturday, October 24, 2009 9:24 PM - Another somewhat rainy day today with strong breezes later in the day. Enough good breaks to go over the 10 mile mark walking and enjoying the beautiful fall colors which are right at their peak now. I took quite a few pictures, and if time ever permits, I'll post some of them on my SkyDrive site. Some feedback on the Sara video from yesterday from Paul N0NBD, who writes, "Hello John, I am about to leave for a short fishing day but just listened to the young lady's speech. She makes some VERY good points. There is some hope after all. CUl de Paul N0NBD." Yes, there is hope for sure with young people like her still around. Another thing I did today was set up a Mail List for our NAQCC on QTH.net. It still needs fine tuning before we use it, but I think it will be very useful in disseminating news about QRP/CW to our nearly 4,000 members. It also will serve to remind members of the posting of our twice monthly NAQCC newsletter. I also spent some good time with Joe today, and also with Nancy's twin 7 year old grandkids. I hadn't seen them for a while now. So looking back on what I wrote, it was a pretty nice day here. Well, I had this all ready to post, but when I went to update my propagation page, I noticed the SF today was 76!!! Can anybody remember the last time it was that high? I can't without looking it up which I'm not going to do now, but maybe for tomorrow's entry unless one of you beats me to it and lets me know. -30- Friday, October 23, 2009 10:00 PM - This was kind of a dull drab day today with overcast skies and light rain a good deal of the time. The temperatures were not bad with a high of 63 though. I really didn't do much of anything out of the ordinary today worth talking about, so I'm going to share a short video with you that a friend of mine pointed out to me. I was very moved by it, and am glad that there are young folks like this 11 year old girl named Sara who know what America is all about. As my friend pointed out, she didn't use a teleprompter for her speech and it doesn't look like she was even reading a script. What she said came straight from her heart. Watch it here! -30- Thursday, October 22, 2009 9:03 PM - Another nice day here. A high temperature of 74 is not bad for this time of year here in Western PA. The clouds were on the increase all day and it looks like we're in for a rainy weekend. So I did some more yard cleanup work today and got in several walks. I'm just short of 12 miles for the day right now. The bands sure have been empty the past few evenings and it's taken me quite a while to get my daily QSO. Just about 25 minutes of calling CQ this evening before I got any decent response. One station did call me, I think. He sent only his call slightly off frequency, and when I turned it back to him after my first round, I never heard a trace of him again. So maybe he wasn't calling me, but just fooling around. I was kind of discouraged by the lack of biting by the fish the past couple days, so I decided not to go today. Maybe if we get a break in the rain the next couple days, I'll give it a try to see if the rainfall got them going again. Not much time left in my fishing season now, so I'll probably wind up in the 120's for the number of fish caught which will be only my 13th best year since 1992. -30- Wednesday, October 21, 2009 9:58 PM - If you look at my QSO of the day table, that's not a mistake. The same station KD8JRB answered my CQ yesterday and today. Our first QSO suffered from a lot of QSB and QRN. The one tonight was better and he had an interesting story to tell. He was a USCG radio op back in 1963 and of course used CW then. It took a long time, but he got back to CW just about a year ago when his son helped him get a ham license. As I told him, it's always nice when a newcomer to ham radio uses CW. Today was pretty much a copy of yesterday in more ways than the QSO also. So I won't bother listing all the details again. Actually about the only thing I did today that I didn't do yesterday was to get rid of the Siberian tomato plant I had brought indoors. It just didn't make it. So that means my total of tomatoes for the year was 208 plus the 4 left on the Siberian plant. Looking ahead to tomorrow, it might be another day pretty much like today, and that's good, because these last couple days have had beautiful weather and quite a bit of relaxation for me. Oh, one other difference today - I got shut out fishing. They were biting lightly on my peanut butter bread, but I couldn't hook them. Absolutely nothing touched my night crawler. As I said, the water is very cold now, and I'm sure that has slowed down the activity of the fish quite a bit. So if you don't throw the bait near to them, they don't do much searching around for it. -30- Tuesday, October 20, 2009 10:34 PM - This was a fairly relaxing day for a change. I walked Joe with Bruce early this morning, had some brunch, then Bruce came over to do some computer work. Joe came along and seemed to enjoy his visit over here. He seemed to be more relaxed than he had been in previous visits. After that, I went fishing for about 2 1/2 hours, and caught a 22 inch carpsucker just as I was getting ready to leave with a shutout. Next it was helping Ange clean up the garden getting ready for winter. Gee, it was hard to type that word. I hate to see it coming. I'd sooner be planting in the spring. A supper, then a walk in the park. Home again and over to see Joe who was alone with Nancy and Bruce going out for a dinner. I walked Joe for about 15 minutes, and then we sat on my porch just watching things go by, what little there was of that on this dead end street. I guess we sat there about 45 minutes or so. Then I took Joe over home, and came back here for another quick walk down to the park and back, had a snack, got my daily QSO, and am now doing some computer work including typing this entry, obviously. Not a bad day after all the hectic ones lately, and tomorrow should be more of the same. Oh, my computer work for the afternoon today was cancelled, hence the fishing. -30- Monday, October 19, 2009 6:13 PM - Things have quieted down nicely today after the big stressful week with the NAQCC 5th Anniversary celebration and a myriad of other things. I even had time now to log my eQSL's and LotW matches that had accumulated for a couple weeks. I'm now over the 10,000 mark in LotW matches at 10,015 at the moment. It was a beautiful day weatherwise for a change and there's a couple more even nicer days to follow. Just a tad too chilly with a breeze today to go fishing. However I did help a friend harvest some grapes and also sat out on the porch with Bruce and Joe, something I haven't done for a while because of the cold weather. I hope to squeeze in some fishing the next couple days although tomorrow I have to do some computer work for a friend in the afternoon. The Siberian tomato plant I brought indoors isn't doing too well. I probably should have brought it in sooner, I guess. -30- Sunday, October 18, 2009 9:01 PM - Working a quick QSO with N9LAH in the IL QP extended the streak to its 5555th day. I like that number. I got some feedback on the zero beat entries. First from Chuck W8LQ who reads the diary every day. He says, "The advice you gave to your N#A operators about using the RIT was exactly right. My old Corsair front panel has the paint scratched off from my left index fingernail working the RIT Knob. My Omni VI+ RIT knob sticks out from the panel and doesn't suffer from that problem. I take umbrage at your shot at us old geezers, though. Rather than lack of zero beat being a sign of advanced senility, stupidity or tone deafness consider the fact that rigs from the analog days did not transmit on the display frequency, but were purposely offset in the alignment process for a CW frequency about 700 cps (alright...Hz!) +/- the display. The newer (not necessarily better) synthesized or digital rigs transmit on the display frequency and depend on the I.F.passband being +/- the proper amount to receive signals. Just for fun I set up my Corsair (good old L-C oscillator that I had aligned for 700 cycles CW key down offset, per the instruction book) and my Omni (synthesized but not digital main oscillator) so I can transmit or receive on either one on the bench, receiving or transmitting on the other as appropriate. I set both displays at 7000.00 and observed: Omni as Tx, had to RIT the Corsair + 700 cps to get thru a 250 Hz filter Corsair as TX, HAD TO RIT the Omni -700 cps for proper tone thru the 250 Hz filter. Leaving both displays at 7000.0, no RIT, 250 Hz filters: Corsair xmit....Omni received signal out of the pass band; Omni xmit.....Corsair had a zero beat signal. So maybe it's not us old crabby guys, it might be (in some cases) old but still sweet equipment. Except for the L-C oscillator drift my Corsair is just as good as my Omni, and has a a heck of a lot better received audio than the Omni. The Omni might be marginally better on our favorite mode...CW. I do work SSB twice a week for schedules on 40 fone with my old pals back in Niagara Falls, as well as my son, (would you believe W2WOE?!!) in Delaware. (He's working on his Morse code. I gave him my old J-38 key and built him a code practice oscillator!)" As always, Chuck comes up with some very good points. Before I address that though, I should say Chuck and I have been ham friends since way back in the 1960's. Chuck's reference to his son having the W2WOE call struck me as very believable. You see, that used to be Chuck's call way back when. It's nice his son could get it now. That's one of only a very few positive features of the vanity call sign program. Otherwise... well that's another story. Yes, I suppose old rigs also contribute to the lack of zero beating today, although when you used a separate transmitter and receiver, it was easy to truly zero beat someone to within a few Hz. All you did then was feed a low level signal from the xmtr into the rcvr with the BFO turned off, and tuned the xmtr till the beat note got lower and lower, then disappeared (or went to zero Hz leading to the term zero beat). Then when transceivers came along, there were many different ways of managing the transmit and receive frequencies within the unit until the system of matching the receive offset frequency to the sidetone monitor arrived. So when you tuned in a signal to produce the exact same pitch as the sidetone, you were perfectly zero beat. Best of all, in many units, you can adjust the sidetone to a pleasing tone for you to listen to, and the rcve offset will match whatever tone you set it to. That is still hard to do for folks who are tone deaf whereas at the other extreme, those with perfect pitch can match the frequencies to a few Hz or better by ear. There is a neat unit that can do the matching for you described in my CW section on the Zero Beat Ckt page. The designer of that circuit is now a SK, but my friend Elwood WB0OEW has built the unit and uses it regularly to precisely zero beat the stations he works. His unit is pictured on the page also. I've never built nor used the unit myself, so if you have any questions about it, perhaps Elwood can answer anything you may ask me. Going back to Chuck's info now. I told him I think I'll keep track (after things wind down from one of my most hectic weeks ever) of the stations I work, noting their rig and how far off freq they are. Then I'll compile a list, without mentioning names or calls, of the various rigs and how far off frequency they are. So look for that a few months down the road when I build up a large enough database to perhaps show if it is old rigs at fault or operators. HI. -30- Saturday, October 17, 2009 7:48 PM - Tune in tomorrow for zero beat info. Th-th-th-that's all folks. This has been probably one of the most hectic weeks of my life with our NAQCC anniversary celebration, our sprint, etc. on top of a lot of other things I won't go into here. Hopefully by tomorrow evening things will start to ease off a bit and I will have a quiet week to recover. -30- Friday, October 16, 2009 11:03 AM - I've had complaints from a couple of our N#A stations about folks not knowing how to zero beat. Those are valid complaints. Let me elaborate by copying an email I sent to one of the N#A ops. "The most used button/knob on both my 570 and 480 is the RIT control. I would say that less than half my QSO's are with stations who zero beat my CQ's. I routinely work folks up to as much as 750 Hz or more off frequency. Without that valuable RIT knob, I would not have nearly as many QSO's as I do. After every CQ I have to spin that RIT knob up and down 500 Hz or so to search for answers, and even then I don't catch some who are further off frequency than that. And it's not only newcomers to ham radio who don't know how to zero beat. Old-timers have either forgotten how, or are newcomers to the CW mode. I think far too many CW newcomers come from an atmosphere that is geared to channelized operation, that is the VHF/UHF world of repeaters. They just tune their HF rig dials to a certain frequency, whether or not it is near to the station they are trying to work. They think the QRP frequency on 80, for example is 3560.00000 and use that to answer anyone they can hear in their probably too wide passband from 3559 to 3561. Another factor is that many CW hams are old and perhaps getting tone deaf. They are incapable of matching the audio tone of a received CW signal to that of their sidetone monitor tone which in the vast majority of modern rigs will produce a zero beat signal. Also many hams along with folks in general are 'dumbed down' to the point where it is virtually impossible to teach them anything more complicated than how to wake up in the morning. And teaching zero beating is somewhat complicated although the actual process of zero beating is easy enough to do, once learned." I'd be remiss in stating the problem without offering a solution, so in a future entry, perhaps tomorrow, I'll offer some tips on how to zero beat correctly, although as I said it is a bit hard to explain to some folks. -30- |