Category Archives: Contacts

100 DXCC Entities Contacted

Contacts

I was cleaning up the underlying database used by Ham Radio Deluxe. It’s a MS Access database so it can be opened and data edited or queries run directly against the database.  In reviewing the data I realized I have made contact with exactly 100 DXCC entities. Not all confirmed, but hitting 100 is a nice accomplishment!

Logbook of the World shows 54 confirmed right now. Too bad everyone can’t use LOTW.  I have 23 confirmed via QSL cards I’ve received.  Combined (there’s some overlap), I have 59 confirmed via LOTW or received QSL cards.

73,
K2DSL

JARTS RTTY Contest

Contacts, Contests

This past weekend was the JARTS RTTY contest.  I wasn’t able to spend a full 48 hours on the air, but I could put in a few hours Friday night (EDT), a good amount on Saturday, and a couple hours at the end of the contest on Sunday in the late afternoon/early evening.

I ended up with 385 QSOs and 90,597 points. Nothing has popped up yet as odd with any of the QSOs so I’ll wait a few more days and submit in the log.

The highlights from this contest were two more contacts with Alaska, 3 more contacts with Japan stations, a few southern Africa stations and the big one being 3B8GT in Mauritius which is an island off the east coast of Africa. That contact is the farthest I’ve made so far at about 9,300 miles. He was calling CQ and I got through on the first try. Amazing!!

On the local front, I was able to make contacts with operators in all the outstanding states other then Wyoming. All those ops have already uploaded their logs to LOTW so they are confirmed. That leaves me with Wyoming as the only outstanding WAS/WAS RTTY state I need. Today I emailed 2 operators in Wyoming which seem to be into digital and LOTW. We’ll see how that pans out.

I’m very happy with how this contest went for me.  I want to work on tweaking the radio a bit to help in filtering out stations above/below the one I’m trying to tune in.

73,
K2DSL

Local (US) QSL return rate

Contacts

So reading a post on K2DBK’s Blog I decided to look at how things shaped up with my rather new HF/QSL experience.

First, all the Hawaii requests that were sent out were responded to. I just had an Alaska contact this past weekend and I just sent out a direct QSL to AL1G.

I’ve sent out 38 direct QSL cards, where each included a SASE in the envelope. Of those 38, I have received 17 responses. That leaves 21 responses I have not received back. All were sent in August. One of them is to the first HF contact I ever made which was K8HGX/M so I’ll follow up with him via email.  it looks like all the rest are all special event stations so they are probably going to come once they get the cards printed/mailed. Or so I hope.

An interesting tidbit is that of the 21 responses I have not yet received, 18 of them have “QSLed” via eQSL and none via LOTW. Since they are special event stations, that is understandable since LOTW isn’t really setup for temporary reusable call signs many special events use.

So for me, it doesn’t look bad, but I’ve only been sending out QSL cards for about 2 months now. It would be much harder for me to check the return rate on the DX cards sent to US QSL managers as I can’t easily filter that out from the data. I use HRD and I’ve made some requests to get additional options for setting QSL states such as Sent direct, sent direct to QSL manager (almost always US based for me if I send direct), sent via bureau and sent via bureau via QSL manager.

Edit: Well I come home from work just a couple hours after making this post and there is a QSL card from K8HGX waiting for me. A QSL card for my first QSO. Thanks Jack!

73, K2DSL

CQ WW RTTY Contest

Contacts, Contests

Here’s a quick post while I finish getting things cleaned up and processed from the contest. This was my first solo heavy duty contest and it was a blast!

Here’s my stats from N1MM and SH5 (a free sort of stats program that reads N1MMs database):

519 QSOs
250,740 points

Those numbers far exceeded my expectations before I started. I’m still blown away I can get that many contacts on 100watts and a wire strung across my yard. Before the contest, since I’ve started on HF, I’ve had less then 1200 total contacts, including those I’ve had in other smaller contests. So in 1 weekend I did near the equivalent of ½ of all my previous QSOs combined.

QSO breakdown by band:
80m | 144 QSOs | 70 mults
40m | 98 QSOs   | 72 mults
20m | 277 QSOs | 110 mults

My online time showed as 36 hours in N1MM. I’m not sure if it uses just how long the program is running or some other method for deterring that time. I specifically closed N1MM whenever I stepped away in case that was the case and everyone asks me how much time I spent participating. It’s a pain so if there’s some “switch” in N1MM vs closing it to say I’m not actively contesting, it would be good to know. Of the 12 non-operating hoursI slept a total of 7 of those 12 “off” hours.

I got Alaska (AL1G in Anchorage) for the first time during the contest. When I finished, I ended up with QSOs for 47 of the 50 states (almost WAS in 1 weekend), missing only Vermont, Montana & Wyoming. I saw VT during the contest but never calling CQ or coming back to me when I called CQ.

I got QSOs in 21 CQ zones 1-11, 13-17, 20-21, 31-33 and 38.  SH5 shows a total DXCC count of 68 for the weekend. I got New Zealand again (ZL2BR) and South Africa for the first time (ZS2EZ) who is about as South East as you can get in Africa.

I can’t wait for the next contest!!!

73, K2DSL

CIS RTTY Contest

Contacts, Contests

There was a 24 hour RTTY contest from Sat morning through Sun morning. I forced myself to use N1MM and MMTTY for the whole contest in preparation for next weeks big CQ RTTY contest. I think I’ve gotten the hang of how to best use the combination while searching around for contacts. Staying in 1 place calling CQ worked fine from the start, but I needed to figure out how to work with MMTTY moving around the bands and I think I’m all set now. I still rather use DM780, but until there’s a viable way to do so with N1MM I need to use MMTTY.

I had a bunch of breaks I needed to take throughout the contest and of course a bunch of hours for sleep, but when I was on the air, I did pretty well. I made a total of 85 contacts with 56 on 20m, 23 on 40m and 6 on 80m.  The point total was 7,215 which was helped with a few, but not a lot, of CIS contacts that really help with the points.

The big highlight of the contest for me was my first contact on any band/mode with Japan. It was easy and got through answering his call on the first shot and exchanged reports also on the first shot. Amazing for 100w into a wire antenna strung across my yard!! So thanks to Mitsui – JM1XCW for the QSO.  36 contacts were in the US and 7 were in Canada. The other 42 were primarily towards Europe and Russia with notables in Iceland and Argentina in South America.  Nothing else in South America though except for the 1 station in the very South of the continent. Also OE9R in Austria was contacted on 80m. OE9R is my first 80m contact to date outside North America with the exception of FM5CD in Martinique.

I’m becoming familiar with many of the call signs of folks that I’ve now frequently made contact with in other SSB and RTTY contests.  5C5W/CN8KD from Morocco, some of the folks in the US I always seem to contact in any contest I participate in, SP3GXH in Poland, and on and on.

Can’t wait for next weeks RTTY fest!!!

73, K2DSL

Finding Grid Square Locators

Contacts, Contests, Misc

Note: I have written a page at http://www.levinecentral.com/ham/grid_square.php which does exactly what you might need. Check it out.

When I log a contact (I use HRD) I like to populate the grid square locator so that it shows the approximate distance between me and the contact. There’s a bunch of ways it can get populated and here’s what I use.

1) QRZ.com individual callsign contact data often has the grid square for a contact. If it does, HRD pulls it in. It only needs to be adjusted if the operator isn’t at his home station, such as when I operated from North Carolina.

2) In digital modes like RTTY or PSK, the contact often provides his grid square as part of the contact.

3) I use the QRZ.com GridFinder page at http://www.qrz.com/gridfinder where I have the most luck as long as I have a portion of the address. Most of the time this one site provides what is needed.

4) Next is site which is map based. http://f6fvy.free.fr/qthLocator/fullScreen.php where I can often locate, within reason, the approximate location of the contact. Also good if a contact is mobile and provides you an approximate location. You can then obtain the grid square. An example was a marine mobile station that provided his approx coords and distance off shore.  I just wish this site had a way to enter in a location like Google maps to get you close to a spot quickly.

5) A final shot is at http://www.vhfdx.net/callbook/ where you can look up by call sign and see if it’s listed along with a 6 or 4 digit grid square. I’ve used this when I didn’t have anything but the call sign and there’s not record or no relevant data on QRZ.

With the combination of the above, except in maybe 2 cases so far, I’ve been able to come up with a gris square value for the contact.

Some other references:
http://www.geocities.com/vhfdx2/gridqra.html for printable maps.
http://www.arrl.org/locate/gridinfo.html is ARRL’s reference with some maps.
http://www.g4xgt.co.uk/Grid%20locator.html is another quick responding Google map version.
http://no.nonsense.ee/qthmap/ another Google map locator.
http://ric.cqham.ru/ for looking up grid squares for Russian call signs.

If you are aware of others, post them as a comment.

73, K2DSL

QSL cards start to arrive

Contacts

While away on vacation I filled out many, many QSL cards. I have a large stack to give to our local QSL manager to send off for all “DX” stations that don’t have a local QSL manager.

I filled out many QSL cards for US based (42 cent stamp) contacts. Some were in Hawaii, some were US special event contacts and some were US addresses for QSL managers handling DX stations. I mailed them while on vacation in NC and the day I got home 2 were already waiting. Every day since I’ve been home 2 or 3 cards have been waiting. My daughter usually calls me and asks if she can open them. I’ve also received 2 certificates as QSLs related to special events.

The vast majority of the cards are very nice to look. The only 2 completely generic ones are from 2 Hawaii contest stations. I’m sure they have thousands of cards to send out each year so cost is a big factor. The local QSL managers have so far done a great job in replying and sending out QSL cards.

No complaints and I (and one of my daughters) look forward to see what will continue to come in. In 2 weeks, if not sooner, I’ll deliver a good 2″ stack of cards to get sent off for processing by the bureau. It’ll be months before I see any reply back on those.

Another fun aspect to the hobby.

73 – K2DSL

SARTG RTTY Contest

Contacts, Contests

While away on vacation in North Carolina and using a 20m dipole up 25 ft between 2 trees, I participated in the SARTG RTTY Contest for two of the three 8 hour time slots for the contest. I couldn’t participate in the final slot because I was traveling back to NJ.

I was trying to get N1MM and MMTTY to work with my SignaLink USB but I couldn’t get things to jive in the time I had before the contest started so I used Ham Radio Deluxe and DM-780. It worked well enough even though it’s not a contest platform.I’ll have to work on getting MMTTY to work and I think N1MM will be fine once that is worked out.

So with my 100w TS-2000, my 20m dipole up 25 ft and my SignaLink USB connected to the Internet via my Verizon Blackberry EVDO phone, I made a total of 106 contacts. Besides many in the US and Canada I made contacts in the contest with operators in Algeria, Argentina, Asiatic Russia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Bulgaria, Cape Verde, Cuba, Czech, Germany, France, Hawaii, Italy, Martinique, Mexico, Morocco, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the Ukraine. But the highlight for me was New Zealand (ZL4A) which shows at 8,800 miles from where I was in NC. All that on 100w and a little wire strung between trees. Absolutely amazes me.

This is such fun stuff!!

73, K2DSL

QSLing part 2

Contacts, Misc

In my first post on QSLing I touched on the QSL card I had made and two electronic QSL services – eQSL and LOTW. Here’s some more QSL thoughts on bureaus.

Outgoing QSL Bureau
Besides spelling the word wrong every time I type it, there’s a bit to know about them. First off, at least for me, there’s 2 bureaus – an incoming QSL bureau and an outgoing QSL bureau. Since I’m an ARRL member, I can utilize the ARRL’s outgoing QSL bureau. Cost is fixed based on number or weight of cards. I haven’t done it yet (putting together the first batch now) but from what other local club members told me, out local club picks up that minimal cost for outgoing cards. So I just get the cards to one of my local club QSL managers and they take it from there. Only international cards can go through the bureau while US cards need to be sent direct (postal mail). So for me at least, the outgoing bureau is pretty straight forward and “free” as part of my annual club and ARRL memberships.

Incoming QSL Bureau
The other half of the process is the incoming QSL bureau. This is where cards from other contacts are sent, aggregated and delivered. The entire process is much like a private post office. Cards are aggregated, sorted and then sent to various locations throughout the world based on their destinations. For me, the local incoming QSL bureau is the NJ DX Association.  The NJ DX Assoc handles QSL cards for the 2nd call area – any US call sign with a 2 in the call.  From their site, they handle over half a million QSL cards a year. So cards destined for me go throught he QSL process and eventually make it to the NJ DX Assoc where they are then provided to my clubs QSL Manager and delivered to me.

The incoming bureau has a fee. It’s pretty straightforward and with PayPal pretty simple to get going. I pay for postal credits. They estimate about 5 to 7 QSL cards is the equivalent of 1 credit. So for each batch of 5 to 7 cards to be delivered to me, they deduct a credit. NJ DX Assoc allows you to bank $12 as a minimum initial purchase when using PayPal which they equate to 20 credits.  They meet once a month, so unless I’m getting in large batches of cards, that $12 will likely last about 2 years, if not longer. I think that’s pretty darn inexpensive for all the work that occurs.

Now I need to get off my rump and start writing out all the outgoing QSL cards (bureau and direct) and get the process going from my side. I’ve been told it can take 3 months to over 1 year for a card going through the bureau to get from point A to point B. Remember, I’ve made contacts last month I’m about to write out. Then I’ll bring them to my local QSL Manager in about 2 weeks at our next meeting. and then the process really starts.

73, K2DSL

QSLing

Contacts

Being a newer ham, there’s so many things besides just pressing PTT that need to be considered. One area that is much larger then it appears is QSLing. Until I get farther along in the post, I’m not sure if this will be 1 post or multiple. The areas I’d like to post about are QSL Cards, eQSL, LOTW, bureaus, IRC, greenstamps, SASE, incoming, outgoing, etc. Yeah, I don’t think this will be 1 post.

To start, once I got on HF and started making contacts within the US and to DX locations, I figured I needed to get QSL cards. So I started looking. Cards ranged from generic without your call sign, plain with your call sign, and full blown customized. I considered all of them and decided to start with the full blown customized. It’s much more expensive then generic cards but I didn’t consider those for long. Then I considered the more plain QSL cards that had some customization such as call sign and a selection of canned images. I spent a couple days reviewing web sites and thinking about it. I figured if I was going to go through the effort of sending them, and in some cases the expense of sending them, then I might as well send something I felt really good about. So once again I hit the Internet looking for various QSL card companies. I ended up with a short list of 3 or 4 that I felt provided what I wanted at a cost I was willing to pay. I checked out their references on various sites and from posts in forums, etc where folks talked about dealing with the vendors.

I selected http://www.qslworks.com because of all the good reviews/comments I read about them but more so because of the interaction I had with them. Specifically, I dealt with Tami at QSLWorks and it couldn’t have been a better experience. I had an idea of what I wanted and did my own mock up. I sent them the image I wanted to use and Tami sent back an amazing card. After a little back and forth to tweak the back of it, it was all set to go.  Assuming it stays up, the card is visible at http://www.qslworks.com/K2DSL/. Top not service and quality at QSLWorks!

I use Ham Radio Deluxe (HRD) for logging and it automagically updates eQSL, an online QSL site. There’s no charge to sign up and it seems a lot of folks use it, but it’s not an official way if you’re looking at specific awards such as Worked All States (WAS). Regardless, there’s no harm in uploading your contacts to it (HRD does it for you) and seeing contacts confirmed by others. As of 8/7/2008 I am seeing just under 20% of the contacts I made confirmed in eQSL.

Another online QSL site is LOTW (Logbook of the World) which is hosted by the ARRL. Like eQSL, it’s web based and you upload your logs (ADIF files). LOTW, since it’s hosted by ARRL, takes confirmed contacts as the equivalent of physical QSL cards received for use in awards such WAS, DXCC, etc. It’s more cumbersome to use and does require setup time in that postal mailing is involved, but it’s worth it as it’s a recognized QSL platform.

I think that’s it for this post and I’ll finish up some other QSL items in a subsequent post.

73, K2DSL