Well, the initiative for a DX Code of Conduct seems to have drifted rapidly away from the originators. This was started by FOC, under the leadership of G3PJT. However, it now seems to have found an entirely different home at http://www.dx-code.org/. The concept is somewhat damaged by a poorly organised web site which also includes numerous errors (like the page title tags being gibberish). Amateur radio doesn’t mean that presentation should be amateurish….
We were back in Bermuda from 14-28 April, 2010.
Conditions weren’t great. The Sun had gone back into its bad mode 
Going very well - lots of JA callers and I’ve broken through the 10,000 QSO mark.
Hope to see you on Saturday 2009-11-14 for the FOC BW QSO Party! Left on 18th November.
OK. Here we go. I’m building a remote base station without any PC involved.
First hardware to arrive is a nice Netgear FS-105 ethernet hub (5 port). This is cool because it is in a metal case, it’s tiny and it only cost $9.95! However, there is a new model with the same part number in a bigger, plastic case which takes away the advantage, so be careful!
On order is a Lantronix USB server (Ubox 2100) which remotes 2 USB ports over the internet. This will be used to send direct data to/from a remote K1EL WK-USB keyer.
I have most of the rest of the hardware at hand. I will be ordering a Web Remote Power Switch shortly. Full details of the station build will be coming soon. The target is to have ONLY a keyer and the rig front panel here and to have the rest remote. Again, no PC required at either end…..
It doesn’t happen very often (in fact, it has been exactly TWO years since the last reboot of the server!), but my server got re-booted. It coincided with (almost) the switch of my FOC site at w4.vp9kf.com and the new FOC Members’ site at http://firstclasscw.org/members/ . Just one of those things I would like to avoid, but was told about 4 days before the change. Ugh!
Doing my 2 week stint in Bermuda. Awful condx to begin with. Now looking up and running pile ups of about 230/hr. Using the K1EL with the good old Bencher. Should have brought the Begali, but it’s too pretty! CU on the bands - 14MHz and down, not been much on anything higher here except for a run of southern Italians on 21MHz one day.
I have my Begali. It is made very well. I have to say that, unfortunately, it doesn’t fix my problems with the K1EL keyer. More of that soon…..
I ordered a new Begali Simplex Mono, Palladium and with Red no-slotted finger pieces. Hopefully this will get away from problems with the newer iambic keyers that I make more mistakes with than before they “grew” microprocessors inside. With a single lever, it can’t fool you! So, now I await it’s arrival…..
Oh dear. Since the turn of the year the SoHO sunspot image has gone nuts. Boy, if we only had that many spots! It looks like all of the spots for 2008 have been dropped onto the image, although I haven’t gone back and checked for the oldest number shown [I have now and the oldest spot was 2008-01-04]. Hopefully, soon that image will be back to normal. Er, blank, that is.
At the same time all of the latest STEREO image data has gone offline too. Tap, tap, tap… “hello NASA are you awake?”.
Group 11009 has shown on the Sun. It looks like the SSN may be as high as 23 by the end of the day, if that second group right behind gets counted (or keeps growing). The only downside is a big Coronal Hole straight on axis at Earth, which may put a damper on things.
P.S. On 2009-01-10 Venus should be aligned between STEREO Behind and the Sun. I don’t know if this eclipse event will be well enough aligned to witness, but it’ll be interesting to monitor the images and see…..
P.P.S. Doesn’t look like the group will warrant being called a spot, except on SoHO MDI (where it has all day). After that, for the next 3 days, minimum, there’s nothing lurking around the corner or looking like it will develop. Back to nil points (for you EuroVision Song Contest fans!).
