Camping Season 2012

There has been little time for radio as summer season is almost upon us. I have my portable station ready to use while on the road but so far, I have not had the time to break it out. The home shack is nearly closed down for the season but hopefully in the days and weeks ahead, I will have several chances to operate portable or QRP portable. It has been a long cold winter so my blogging and updates will be sporadic as 6 meters but rest assured, I'm never far away from an HF rig no matter where I may be. Summers here are very short and although I'm looking forward to the 2012-2013 contest season, I'm hoping it does not get here to quickly. 

Quest for Georgia interrupted by Funshine!

Spring in Alaska - 2012

I wanted to chase a few of the Georgia QSO Party stations giving a few the Alaska multiplier. There seemed to be a huge turnout and lots of activity from GA. Even with my small station and 100 watts, I was able to snag a few of the mobile stations roaming the state giving out counties. The only mobile that I encountered that I could never work was N4ZZ. Each and every time, the pile-up was just too big for me to make it through. The band (20 Meters) was not that great anyhow so, that made it even more of a challenge to work the mobile and some of the QRP stations.

Once the dust settled, I only worked 22 stations in Georgia this weekend. Of those contacts, the mobiles I worked the most were AD8J, which I worked three times and W1NN, which I worked twice. AD8J was the easiest to work and had the best signal into my part of Alaska. W1NN was a close second. I also snagged the special event callsigns K4F, K4N and N4A. 

I did not have lots of time this weekend as I had plenty to do outdoors. With local temps peaking into the 50's, it's short sleeve weather in these parts. The snow is beginning to fade as the sun and warm temperatures return. Sadly, this means lots of mud but that's the cycle here. We go from winter season, to mud season and from mud season to skeeter season. Arriving about the same time as skeeter season is tourist season. We experience a brief summer season followed by hunting season and then back to winter season or as I like to think of it, CONTEST SEASON! Since we started camping, our summer season is also known as camping season, or portable operating season.

The photo above was taken with my Android phone as we traveled west on the Denali Park Road on Sunday. We took a drive yesterday and encountered several moose along with a large herd of Caribou. It was a beautiful day for a drive and although I wanted to chase many more Georgia stations, the outdoors was calling me louder than any signal from Georgia on 20 meters. As much as I would like to support every contest, there are just those times that one has to wave the white flag and surrender to Mother Nature.  It's been a long and cold winter and this ham is ready to experience once again, some midnight funshine! 

Mixed Bag of Fun Even With Absorption and Wind!

QRP ARCI Contest Rig

This weekend was one of those weekends where I did not have all weekend to play radio but for those hours I did, I wanted to operate in 3 separate contests. The first of the three was the PODXS 070 Club PSK31 Flavors Contest. This was a rolling contest by local time so the contacts I made were all Search & Pounce (S&P). The second contest was the QRP ARCI Spring QSO Party. I was excited about trying to work stations while running QRP (5 Watts). The bands started out pretty rough and I had stations CQ'n in my face however, 20 meters started to become a bit more cooperative as Saturday progressed and I was able to log a few QRP QSO's. My trusty Icom 703Plus (seen pictured above) was set at 5 watts output to my Mosley TA-34-XL 4 element tri-bander. With the exception of non-members, I don't know how much power the other stations were running. Non-members gave their power output rather than the required ARCI membership number. I recently renewed my membership after having it lapse a few months. I've become interested in running QRP and enjoy running it portable as well. Now that the weather is becoming a bit more favorable, I'm looking forward to some portable operating.


My third contest, I wanted to make an appearance in was the SKCC Weekend Sprintathon. I very much enjoy using my Navy Flameproof CW Key and this was a good weekend to blow the dust off of it. Saturday was by far the best day play in this contest as once Sunday arrived, the bands folded due to ionospheric absorption. It just so happened that an incoming weather system started to once again produce winds which created lots of QRN. So between the solar conditions and the wind, Sunday was a bit rough when it came to adding contacts to my logbook. 


With the Easter holiday, the bands were quieter than normal. We received thee inches of fresh snow on Friday so we are not out of the woods yet for winter weather. April will usually produce a good snow storm or two but once May gets here, it will be time to defrost the camper and get ready for summer fun! I also need to complete my HF radio install in our truck! Antenna has arrived and just a few more small parts are needed and I can begin that creative project. Thankfully, I have an understanding wife and I don't have to "Lobby for the Hobby." 

Propagation Returns - Slowly

JT65A

It was very nice this morning to hear European signals once again on 20 meters. I fired up JT65HF this morning and made a handful of contacts. I'm still having issues with this program shutting down when it's attempting to decode multiple signals. I've even set it at a higher priority and still have the issue. The original version I had never experienced this problem but the last few versions have seen the same problem on my XP machine. I can call CQ and sit on a frequency for hours without a shutdown as long as Enable Multi is unchecked. I don't experience this issue with any of my other multitude of programs I run, thankfully.


The sun is returning and the days are getting longer here in Alaska. Temperatures the last few days have reached near the freezing mark, sitting nicely in the mid 30's! March has not been an active month for me on the radio due to propagation and personal obligations. As summer approaches, the rig and shack will fall silent as activities will be moved outdoors. Not that I don't enjoy ham radio but I love summer! As the contest season wraps up, the summer season begins. You will never hear me complain about the midnight sun!

QSL's From Years Gone By

With the latest round of solar activity that has left the bands mostly quiet here in my part of the world, I have been scrolling through old QSL cards. I have wanted to preserve a few of these cards from years gone by. I have nearly every QSL card received, from my very first QSO to current day. In my nearly 24 years as a ham radio operator and mostly a DXer, I've chased those rare ones like so many others. I proudly hang my DXCC certificates on my shack wall and the one I'm most proud of displays my last DXCC endorsement sticker received, number 300. I have a CW only DXCC certificate which displays my last endorsement sticker received, that being number 275.

 I have more money invested in these cards than I care to think. From the purchase of my personal QSL cards, to airmail envelopes, to return airmail envelopes, not to mention the postage and green stamps or IRC's it took to get them. To the normal person, they are only a post card with some unknown information written on them. But for me, it represents my ham radio timeline. It also represents hundreds of hours spent tuning the bands and participating in often crazy pile-ups and contests. Many times, the easiest part was working the station. The hardest part was obtaining the QSL card or cards.

Remembering the days of stocking the New York phonebook sized Radio Amateur Callbook, using it to look up callsigns to send for QSL cards. I have, which I believe is the last printed copy from 1997, at a cost then of $39.95 for the International edition. There were normally two editions printed, one being the International and the other being the North American. There was no electronic QSL card confirmation process then, so you did it the old fashioned way. It was always exciting to send off QSL cards for new countries and even more exciting when the return envelopes showed up!

QSL Cards Received From Years Gone By

I have so many QSL cards it would take me weeks to scan them all so I have been picking a small handful from my collection to scan and archive. I've also been uploading them to my facebook account, sharing them with my other ham friends. If a ham has been around for a few years, many of these QSL cards will probably look familiar. I've been having fun just looking through, re-reading the information and comments. It's been fun remembering things like Box 88, Moscow, East and West Germany, or the Russian Woodpecker tapping across the bands. Using packet to connect to the local 2 meter BBS to read the bulletins in hopes of getting DX or QSL information. Like a photo which freezes a moment in time forever, a QSL card does the same for ham radio contacts. And like many of my old photos, my QSL cards are kept in a large box tucked in the back of the closet. These QSL cards represent where I've been, propagationally speaking of course, and my contacts with those many countries all around the world. 


Recently the DX World received sad news regarding the passing of Ron Wright, ZL1AMO. Ron may be a Silent Key but his memory lives on through this great hobby, helping many hams like me obtain new countries for our DXCC award. Ron is one of many who I've chased on the bands over the years and for his efforts, like many others, I will be forever grateful.