N5YT

Well I guess I feel like updating my blog today.  Here are some videos of some contacts I have made.

EA1ABT on 15 meters

Here is ON7CD in Belgium

This is a friend of mine in Miami that operates remote base from his condo to his station which is located at his job.

Well its getting summer time again here in Mississippi. That means horrendous static crashes on the lower bands as distant thunderstorms move across the south.  Last night however I had a blast for about 30 minutes or so on 40 meter SSB.  I have been spending the past few nights cleaning my hamshack and finally finished on Wednesday night.  I turned my rig on and tuned around and heard a few strong stations talking but most signals I heard were only around S6-S8. I then found a clearing around 7.190 and started calling CQ.  You would have thought I was some rare DX station as many people started calling back.  I worked about 10 stations in that 30 minute time span and received several 20-30db over S9 signal reports from stations in Florida.  This is with a 500w linear and a low multiband delta loop antenna fed with 450 Ω ladderline.    I think I will get on again tonight and maybe record a little so I can make a youtube video and upload.

So if you are just looking for some fun…give 40 meters a try.  Now that the big broadcast stations are gone below 7.200MHz, there is plenty of room to make new friends or find old ones.

I got my Livestream setup going the other day. I have the player embedded on my blog and also on my qrz page. This is an awesome tool. Many times guys wonder how they sound on the other end of the QSO and this gives them an opportunity to hear how their signal sounds on the receiving end. Right now I have the cam aimed directly at my rig so they can also see the signal strength.
The Livestream player also has a chat feature so listeners can also send messages to me while I am broadcasting.

On Saturday I went to the local Radioshack and picked up a pair of 1:1 isolation transfomers and a few 1/8th inch stereo plugs. I already ordered a CAT cable for my FT-100 on eBay a few months ago and have been using it with Ham Radio Deluxe for rig control.

After I got my audio cables finished, I plugged everything into the FT-100 and tuned to 14.070 USB. After making a few contacts on 20meters, I QSY’d to 40 meters and worked several EA stations during their PSK31 contest. I had a blast. This is a fun mode and you can even copy stations that are very weak, by watching the “waterfall”. I tuned into some RTTY stations and copied them but never transmitted.

Right now the software that I am using is the DM780 that is included in Ham Radio Deluxe. It took some figuring on how to get it setup but I have it working. If now I can figure out how to get the DM780 log to write into my HRD log. I talked to several locals who use PSK31 and really like MixW and Digipan. I will be trying those out to see how I like them.

Hope to catch you on the waterfall!

73,
N5yt

Well I operated almost the entire 12 hours of the Mississippi QSO Party. I mainly operated 20M and 40M with results that I was happy with. I made a total of 302 contacts. I started the morning out on 20M SSB and made about 30 or so contacts but things were slow for me. I then moved to 40M CW. Thats when things picked up for me. I made QSO after QSO on 40 using CW. I then moved back to 20M CW and had success there as well. Before I headed to the low bands, I checked out 10M where I worked a PY2 and VP2. (I hope that band picks up).
When the sun began to go down, I moved to 80M and made a couple of SSB contacts before
moving on to CW.
I had a wonderful time operating the contest and can’t wait to get my log turned in and scored to see how I came out. I looked online for past MS QSO Party results but didn’t have any luck finding any. If anyone comes across some, please forward the link to me.

Well I sent my radio to HamRepair.com on February 3rd. Cal Fischer, NF5P did an excellent job on my rig. He repaired a VHF/UHF connector on the LPF unit, installed a grounding mod, and performed a complete alignment on the rig. I received an invoice on the 16th and got my rig back on the 19th. 16 days from shipping to receiving it back! Thats fast!
Well i made several DX contacts with the FT-100 during the ARRL DX Contest this weekend. I worked the contest for about an hour and a half total time. I worked 31 countries and a total of 42 contacts. I also worked K5D on 15meters, 40meters, and 80meters on SSB with the rig.
I made a few contacts on some of the local repeaters running 10 watts into a J-pole.
Overall I am very pleased with the repair job that Cal performed on my rig. Now I have to make the decision to put the rig back in my mobile or continue to use it on my base. The only advantages to using it on my base is the Full Break-in QSK and the receiver has DSP filtering which my FT-840 does not.
Until next time,
de N5YT
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I operated a few hours of the North America QSO Party on Saturday. I worked 99 stations and around 35 states. It was fun, I think I will have a serious attempt at a contest in the future. But first I think I will try to get my antenna to perform a little better. It does ok, but I think there is room for improvement.

Well I have been working some good DX stations the past few days. To begin with I worked the ZD8UW operation on 40 meter CW. That wound up being the only contact I made with them. At least I got them.
The TS7C operation from Tunisia was good. So far I have worked them on 40 CW and sSB, and 80 SSB. I was off from work today and looked for them on 20 and 17 but never heard them, I will try again in the morning.
Another new country for me was Malawi. I worked 7Q7BP on 40 meter CW. I also worded ZB2FK on 40 meter CW. If you haven’t noticed, you can find a lot of DX to work in the CW portions of the bands. I have found out that DX is easier to work using CW than SSB.
All of these stations were worked with 500w or less using a 360 foot delta loop fed with 450 ohm ladder line.

I am anxiously awaiting for the sunspots to pick up so I can really do some DXing. Get on the air and work some DX!!!

Well my FT-100 has started acting a little silly. Power output on 80 meters is not stable and it is impossible to match to my antenna on any band above 20 meters. Also it recently quit on 2m and 440Mhz. I found a shop out in Texas @ www.hamrepair.com that services this rig. This guy has lots of positive review on eham.net and he has very decent rates. Hopefully this will be a simple (and inexpensive) fix.
While its down, I have been pondering the thought of upgrading rigs. Right now I am thinking about a Ten-Tec Jupiter, Kenwood TS-480 or TS-2000. I have heard that the receiver in the Ten-Tec rig is very good. Also heard good reports from the Kenwood rigs. Hopefully the FT-100 will come back with a clean bill of health and I can delay the purchase of a new rig until next year sometime.

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N5YT