Harrump! It’s that weekend again. Conditions are not that good. G5W and F5VHY are only mediocre signals here, when they should be 599+. In fact, most of EU is hearable but not workable. Maybe a couple of more hours and 14MHz might be better from here. Activity doesn’t seem to be down any more, so […]
The licence issued by “authorities” define your callsign - it’s always a good idea to read it!
1) If you are running low power you can’t sign AA1AA/QRP
2) If you are 14 years old you can’t sign AA1AA/14
3) If your reciprocal licence says to sign after your call you can’t use VP9/AA1AA
All this extra glorification/gratification adds […]
There’s a theory that it takes 10,000 hours to master something. I think CW might be like that too. Check this article about Malcolm Gladwell’s new book:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/15/malcolm-gladwell-outliers-extract
CW is certainly in demand. As the old timers go SK, many of the islands are devoid of full-time CW operators or those that are there aren’t active enough to satisfy the demand. My visits to Bermuda, I suppose, are misleading because I have a local callsign and folks must wonder why I go inactive […]
Well it’s our fourth week in VP9 and our second op is coming towards an end. Anybody who needs a sked, be it DX on 160m, Windle or WAFOC for FOC Members, please send an e-mail to no address now and I will try to get them organised. Please set times which are suitable for […]
Lots of Gs on the band, very audible. Trouble is, they can’t hear my 100W! Now that lightning has come into range, at least radio range, so I’m getting large crashes. It’ll be quite some hours before the wx really gets here. Was just on 7MHz and it was a mess, lots of QRN from […]
This one is a real mess…. occasionally, when you go over and are typing in the calling station’s callsign, the first character (or is it the first dot or dash?) of the callsign will be sent over the air, meaning that you transmit over the station calling you. You can’t possibly get their complete callsign […]
We have some weather approaching which sounds like it has lightning in it. It won’t arrive by tonight, but it will probably be a factor in the QRN level on 160m tonight. This morning, for the first time, I had electrical QRN on 14MHz which made copying calls pretty hard unless they were a true […]
I was in Ireland Island Clocktower Mall and saw a business card on a wall for QRSBermuda. Looks like that would be pretty good for use at the weekend The JT contest (yawn) is causing QRM which makes it so EU can’t hear my run frequency. Condx were lukewarm this morning, but steadily […]
Yes, conditions on HF have improved since April. HF is pretty good and Top Band after sunset last night (2008-11-11) was stupendous - as good as I’ve ever heard it. Of course, it helps to have almost zero noise from power lines or electrical rubbish. On 2008-11-12 Top Band was even better. On both days […]