The Illinois QSO Party will be October 19th from 12:00 noon until 8:00 PM CDST 160 through 2 meters. I will be on from N9JF's using the special event call of K9L.
K9L was issued as part of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in Quincy. If you work K9L, a certificate is available. Send your QSL and $1.00 (no ...

Well, I haven't given up on Linux yet, but for the short term I have a DX Spider node running on an older Windows laptop. Not completely painless but not all that hard either. Our local DX Cluster node has been off the air due to a forced remodeling project at the shack of the host, so I thought I would put one on the air to fill the void. One nice ...

What does everyone else do to get their wire antennas up when you don't have a tower for a support?
I have heard of wrist rockets, potato guns, bottles filled with water and bows and arrows. My personal choice is a 45 lb. recurve bow, a heavy fish arrow and a rod and reel with 20 lb. test line. I can easily and fairly accurately put a line up ...

I am looking for Linux users that wouldn't mind helping this old man getting his feet wet in the Linux world. I hope to put a DX-Spider cluster on and the fist step is learning something about Linux.
if you are so inclined, drop me an email at ng9r@ng9r.com and I would love to hear from you!

NG9R

The 6 meter band is alway interesting, but especially so this summer so far. Opening to Europe are common and the have been several days that Japan stations have been worked. I estimate that form my qth, there has been some form of opening 25 of the past 30 days. If you haven't been on 6, you are missing a lot. Now if I only could catch South Dakot ...

Just curious, why do so few hams have personal web sites? This site certainly makes it easy to do and the only expense is voluntary. Then, to make it worse, almost half of the sites on here have no information on them. I can understand not wanting to post too many personal details, but if your going to the trouble of registering with this site, ca ...

Why is it when anyone sells equipment for a family of a silent key, they have to make sure everyone knows it is a silent key? It it to generate sympathy so the prices will be higher? Is it to advertise the fact everything is sold as is, no returns?
Just curious.....

NG9R

I an somewhat antenna limited at home. Actually, I am not supposed to have any antennas up, but my landlord looks the other way with my attempts at skyhooks, or at least he has so far.
Most of my HF antennas are wire, hung across trees and do not generally live very long. In an moment of what must have been temporary insanity, I purchased a co ...

I don't know who all uses packet for spotting DX stations or contesting, but there is a debate going on among the contesters about spotting being used by stations claiming not to use packet.
A new method of spotting for CW operators is a recently introduced software package called CW Skimmer. What CW Skimmer does is listen to and decode all th ...

Well, I know most of you aren't close enough to have any interest in what our local club does, but last night we had out annual dinner meeting. What made this special was the speaker, Ralph, K9ZO. Ralph is an enthusiastic ambassador for Ham Radio, an avid DXer and contester, a great speaker and a really personable guy. Ralph provided is with a slid ...

The 2007 Illinois QSO Party results are ready and can be found at

http://www.w9awe.org/2007ScoreFinaToWeb.pdf

Thanks to all those who participated and congratulations to all the winners!

NG9R

Well, it can't be much worse. We have had several weeks with almost no sunspots and it can only improve from here. I would have say we are clearly at the bottom of the cycle, the issue is how soon do we start seeing and upturn in sun activity? Even at the low of the sunspots, there still have been several DX contacts worked on 10 and 12 meters rece ...

Who all uses Anderson Powerpole connectors for their DC connections?
If you don't I would suggest you look into them. They are a simple design and many accessories are available that use them. I am amazed the new radios do not use them instead of the old Molex style connectors.
I have used power distribution fuse panels for several the us ...

There oughta be a law…

My second trip as a county line portable didn’t fare any better than the first one, but part of that was lack of preparation on my part. This year, I went by myself and decided there was no reason to drag the trailer out for just one station and antenna. I thought this ought to be a walk in the park after last ye ...

Since the club I am president of this year, Western Illinois ARC, sponsors the Illinois QSO Party, I thought I would take time to put in a plug for it. The Illinois QSO Party is held on the Sunday of the third full weekend of October. This year it falls on October 21st. Operating time is only 8 hours, from noon to 8 PM local time (CDST). The object ...

I am not talking about making your own beer but making your own ham equipment. The internet has made it so much easier to find the parts, just not much cheaper!
Who has made any of their own station equipment? Antennas? Coax switches? Keyers and paddles? Antenna tuner? Amplifier?
We talk about the "dumbing down" of amateur radio ...

I have seen several conversions using the Dentron MLA 2500 on the internet, but none are a simple as one I currently have on my desk.
The MLA 2500 originally used Eimac 8875 tubes that have become worth their weight in gold, if you can find them. I have seen many conversions to use other tubes, most requiring gutting the entire chassis and bui ...

I guess I have developed a fascination with logging programs in the last few years. I started many years ago with a DOS machine using CT. It was several years later before I tried again and since then I have used WinEQF, TRLog, Writelog and recently settled on VQLog for my main logging program and N1MMLogger for contesting. I sure wish someone woul ...

If you haven't tried it, take a look at WSJT for weak signal work on VHF. WSJT started as a high speed meteor scatter mode and has evolved into an EME, tropo and recently seeing use on HF.
On VHF, it is a real addiction to be able to work stations 500 to 1200 miles on 6 and 2 meters without an real propagation enhancement, just the normal junk ...