Chasing The Germans, Chasing the Lower 48 And The Beginning Our Next Life Chapter

QSO Party & SKCC's WES @ Radio KL8DX

It seems we encountered yet another weekend in which the sun flexed its solar muscle and put a damper on some of the weekend operating. It started out okay and by Saturday, I was thinking we may be safe. As luck would have it, by 0600z on the 14th, the ionosphere got its bell rung by the sun. The impact was reported by spaceweather dot com showing the hit around 2255z on the 13th. But at that time, I was still hearing stations strong and the bands were favorable. I was slightly optimistic that the predicted BIG lower 48 auroral event would not happen. My backup plan was to photograph the aurora (assuming it was going to happen) but even that comes with a challenge these days. I'm a morning person and now that spring is returning to Alaska, we have daylight up through 2200 local. To experience complete darkness, we need to stay up pretty late. I charged the camera battery anyhow, just in case I had insomnia.

5W0M QSO's for KL8DX logged in ClubLog

My activity this weekend was going to be exclusively Search & Pounce (S&P). I was going to chase those in the New Mexico QSO Party, the Georgia QSO Party and finally the Montana QSO Party. I was also going to continue my quest of chasing 5W0M on Samoa. Anything in the Pacific is pretty easy for my little station as there is not much between me and most of the large mass of ocean. Well, one BIG mountain does make a few locations in the pacific tough for me, all 20,320 feet of it! But the Samoa group is sounding great here in the Interior and they are doing a fantastic job as far as DXpeditions go. I wanted to support my fellow SK'ers by getting on and chasing a few SKCC Weekend operators during their monthly WES (Weekend Sprintathon). My Navy Flameproof has felt neglected I'm sure. 

The bands were tough for most of Sunday but by Sunday afternoon, propagation started to return. I stuck pretty much to CW on 20 meters, the only real propagational band for me. The Georgia QSO Party appeared to have the most activity followed by the New Mexico QSO Party. I worked only one station that I found CQ'n in the Montana QSO Party. But, there was a large group of SKCC'ers on so I knew that my limited time on the radio should yield some contacts. I'm dividing my time between a few home projects and radio on the weekends. Auroral events make it much less stressful when trying to decide which to do, radio or work on home improvement projects. 

Secret Weapon at KL8DX. She sniffs out Mults & New Ones

By the time the weekend closed out and the bands feel silent on Sunday afternoon, I added only about 43 QSO's to my logbook. Again, all S&P and when I had a few minutes to park myself in the shack chair. I did have a visitor a few times. When "mom" is gone, she tends to keep me company. She does not mind the sound of CW and I think it actually puts here to sleep. She is 13½, so it does not take much to put here to sleep these days. At times, I will even get a visit from the family feline but that's normally during those very early morning hours when the rest of the household is still asleep. The cat and I are the only ones who normally catch the sunrise. 

©KL8DX Sunrise as seen from my shack window

So, with only a limited number of sunrises left here in Alaska, we begin planning the next chapter of our life. It won't be long now before we begin our journey that will take us over 4,600 road miles east, to our next assignment. That's the beauty of the National Park Service, lots of beautiful places my wife and I would like to experience during the 2nd half of our careers. But don't worry, we have plans of returning to Alaska but for now, our career path takes us across our great country. I have to admit, it will take some time to adjust to traffic, people, driving only a few minutes to the local grocery store and having something I order from HRO (Ham Radio Outlet) delivered to my doorstep. I'm still not tired of the 2 hour drive (one way) to get groceries, to see doctors and get our truck worked on. I have lived the dream and it's a dream I will live again. My activity level will take a short break in the coming weeks but then, my faint signal will once again be heard. The only difference is, there will be a /W1 after my callsign when I'm operating. More on that later but for now, our family beagle has awoke and has decided she wants to venture outdoors. Something tells me she was not dreaming of bass fishing, but I do! What say you, Martin? 

Passing a Hamstone & Painful RTTY QSO's

RTTY Weekend

You might be wondering what a "Hamstone" is and rightfully so. A milestone is defined as a significant accomplishment whereas I'm calling my ham related "significant accomplishment" a hamstone! The hamstone accomplished this past weekend was my 50,000 QSO!  I've blogged previously about approaching this number and wondering who that lucky ham was going to be. It was a RTTY QSO during the Ten-Meter RTTY Contest. Now this is from my main logbook as I have worked many more QSO's than that obviously. I have operated during special events, mobile, at other contest stations and portable. But my main KL8DX logbook achieved QSO number 50,000 on December 2nd, 2012 at 2226z. Yes, I know, by some standards this is a small number and by others, it's a huge number. A BIG contest station can rake in 9,000 to 15,000 QSO's in a contest weekend! Now THAT'S an accomplishment. But for my small station, I think it's a pretty big number.

KL8DX statistics thanks to Clublog

I recently wrote about my venturing into the use of Clublog. It's a very valuable website and it allowed me a very nice visual presentation of my activity from here in Alaska. As the chart to the right shows, it gives a very nice detailed overview of my operation by the three standard modes. I obviously did not get serious about operating until 2007. That just happened to be the year that my Mosley TA-34-XL made it back into the air. Going from a ground mounted vertical to that beam opened up the world to my chasing pleasure. I also became involved with the Alaska contesting group and I for the first time had the confidence to take my contesting to the next level thanks to their help and encouragement. I had always been a Search & Pounce (S&P) contester prior to moving here. That all changed with my first CQ once I got my tri-bander in the air. I actually had to work a pile-up, from the receiving side! I'll be honest, that was a bit intimidating and it can still be stressful! Now with reverse beacons and the like, pile-ups happen instantaneously! So, there was a huge learning curve going from chasing to being chased. Being a double multiplier in contests can sure make things crazy. Anyhow, it's no secret from the chart above what my favorite modes are.

KL8DX DXCC totals from Clublog

Even with all that operating I've only worked 203 entities, actually 202, but one has since been deleted. And I've not been actively chasing entities either. I was working hard toward the Honor Roll when I lived in Ohio and had around 306 approved by the ARRL prior to leaving. Quite honestly, I don't have the desire or finances to chase that again. I started all over after moving to Alaska. So, I take em as they come and when I can, I will chase DXpeditions landing a few new ones from time to time. And to top it off, I have yet work all Zones from here! I'm still missing Zones 22 & 34! I did not realize most of this data until I uploaded my logbook into Clublog. If you use it, please consider donating and if you have not, you really should give it a try. When I uploaded my entire log, it was surprising how many of my entities were incorrect in my logbook. I think most of this was due to contest logs & software misidentifying the entity and it fed into Ham Radio Deluxe incorrectly. Either way, I've corrected all the wrong data and I feel statistically refreshed!

A hamstone is not nearly as painful as other stones, like gallstone or kidneystone, but it does require passing lots of time on your Keyster (actually spelled keister, but I think my spelling is more ham appropriate). It can be painful dealing with the hours of "Butt Glue" that is required to stay in the seat and operate. Extreme stationary Gluteus Maximus for Contestmania.  It can also have painful family consequences as many contests are 48 hours in length and take up an entire weekend. But I have a secret weapon! I've never shared this before but my numbers are directly associated to this one thing. That secret is...Arctic Winters! It also helps with the large amount of QSL requests that are directly related to this stationary operating position. I literally had to get a larger Post Office Box at a second Post Office (my Denali did not have a large box available) to accommodate the hundreds of direct requests not to mention the bursting bureau envelopes! 

Arctic Winters are long and cold and with all the Alaska shows on TV, I don't think that's a secret! Even though I live a nice jaunt from the Arctic Circle, at times I would not know it with the temperatures and weather we experience here. Our winter actually begins in late September when our first snow normally arrives and it runs through basically mid May. What is there to do outdoors when the outdoor temperature is -40F or colder? Well, to many who live here, the cold does not stop them. People camp, ski, snowmachine and more when it's that cold. Yes, I have spent plenty of time outdoors at those temperatures but I prefer to enjoy the warm confines of my igloo. It just so happens that Arctic Winter Season corresponds to Contest Season!! With that said, I find it very easy to spend hours at a time in my shack working contest weekends. My activity drops dramatically during the summer months (almost NIL) as most Alaskan's are outdoors enjoying 24 hours of daylight and temperatures that are 125 degrees warmer than their coldest winter day! Do you blame us?

High Ground

Okay, enough about Alaska and my hamstone, time to get back to the weekend activities. I played around a bit in the Tara RTTY Melee but I had my heart set on the 10-Meter RTTY Contest. Let me tell you, 10 Meters was extremely disappointing and painful this past weekend. The indexes did not support propagation at all and I only ended being able to make 55 QSO's! From those 55 contacts, 9 were unique State & Provinces and I managed 4 DXCC entities! It left me wondering what we can expect for the upcoming ARRL 10 Meter Contest next weekend? I can only hope that conditions are much better next weekend. The photo above shows where I had parked and called CQ. The band was so rough with so much QSB, I did not want to interfere with anyone so I ended up in what I like to call the nosebleed section. I had a handful of JA's call in Saturday night with respectable signals but Sunday was a bust for the most part. Some welcome surprises were LT0H, LW5ER and HC2UB. But my path to Central and South America is actually pretty good here often times opening before I hear the lower 48. 

So much talk of the Fiscal Cliff in Washington but it appears like I will be purchasing 4 new tires for our truck in the next few weeks approaching my own Fiscal Cliff. They have a 2-3 week delivery time so I've decided I won't have them installed until after December 21st. No reason to pay for them if the world might end, right? So, assuming we are all here and survive that weekend, I expect to once again be broker than broke after having to purchase tires and all the Christmas presents that will have to be shipped. Hopefully the gifts will arrive 3,000+ miles to their destination before Christmas. And if 10 Meters does not come back to life this coming weekend, I will begin to think we are feeling the effects of a Propagation Cliff. Maybe the Solar Cycle peaked last year and we didn't know it, catching us by surprise.   I'm already experiencing my Twitter Cliff as of late. I'm following so many people on Twitter that I can't keep up with the timeline! 

Hopefully things will settle in Washington and propagation will return. Ham radio is a great escape from what seems to be endless bad news coming from media outlets. Thankfully, I've found the ham community world wide is very friendly and it's a great escape from our daily grind. I'm thankful for all that I have, all that I've done and for all those that have made it possible. 

Oh, and in case you are wondering, NG6S gets the prized #50,000 QSL card for our RTTY contact in the 10-Meter RTTY Contest. I know there won't be a 100,000 from this QTH but I've sure enjoyed each and everyone I have had so far and looking forward to many more.