Challenging conditions on 15M didn’t spoil the fun at Field Day this year. In spite of the extended solar minimum, we made 32 CW contacts and 54 SSB contacts. A good many of the SSB contacts were made by two kids under 18 years of age. The GOTA station has operators in search and pounce mode but I put these two to work calling CQ which generally produces more Q’s per hour spent. I think the boys appreciated actually transmitting more than just scanning around looking for stations to contact.

We were putting out quite a signal on 15M with a 5 element beam on top of a 40 foot Army surplus tower. However, the old saying that it doesn’t matter how big your signal is if there is no one to hear it really played out. We experienced openings to Colorado, Texas, and of course California. My new experience this year was actually going out and turning the beam. In the past, I usually just pointed it East South East and left it.

For me, the really exciting band was 80M. From about 1:30 to 3:30AM local time, the band really opened up and I worked stations nationwide one right after the other. We made 199 CW contacts on 80M that night. The antenna, an inverted Vee with the center at about 80 feet, worked really well. K7MO, being the perfectionist that he is, made sure the SWR was below 1.5 across the CW portion of the band.

Field day was not disappointing at all this year. I really enjoyed the entire weekend and look forward to see what next year will bring. I’ll bet 15M will bring in a few more than this year.

Although my club likes to use N3FJP’s Field Day software, I would rather not. Let me explain. For the most part, I can get along with any software for 24 hours without a problem. I just hate the way Field Day 2.8 handles the Esc key. Here’s my beef: when you hit Esc, the three input fields are erased. The Esc key has another function, it stops whatever CW message is playing at the moment. I’m so accustomed to Esc just stopping the message I sent in error that I hit the key quite frequently. In the mean time, the Q that I have started just goes away. The Esc key in Field Day 2.8 is poison. Last year, I wrote an AutoHotkey script to do some basic Enter Sends Messages (ESM) functions in the program. This year, I enhanced the script by handling the Escape key so that the field contents are saved, the message stops sending, then the fields are put back the way they were. That said… I’m using N1MM if I can get away with it.

To prepare N1MM for field day, create a call history file from last year’s field day entries that are on the ARRL web site. Actually, I just copied the history file already formatted from the N1MM mailing list. You can download my FD history file unless I find that I’m in danger of violating an ARRL copyright. Seems like fair use to me though. Check the N1MM manual for details on importing the history. The procedure only takes a couple of clicks and won’t permanently harm your N1MM set up. If you haven’t pre-loaded a history file, you don’t know what a boon it can be. Once the history file has been imported, when you type in a call that is in the history and hit the space bar the section from last year pops in like magic.

My other N1MM preparation is to create a specialized, partial call database with likely CW operator’s calls. I grabbed the member lists from A1 Ops, NAQCC, FISTS, and SKCC. Using VE3NEA’s master data editor, I opened the latest North America version of the Master.dta file and imported the calls. That should add a few likely field day ops to the list of frequent contesters. You can specify a different master database for any contest in N1MM so I named the database masterFD.dta. No reason for the partial check to hit quite so many calls.

Can’t wait for FD again this year. Like so many other hams, it’s my favorite operating event of the year.

I’m working on a presentation for the W7DK radio club to be presented in July. Here is the draft.

Here is a sound clip of a QSO during the CQ WPX contest. I’m pounding on the bug.

K5TR has some recordings of Dick Norton, N6AA (ex.W6DGH) working the ARRL Sweepstakes CW in 1973. Listening to everything from WA1MZV’s chirpy signal to K4LDR’s clear signal makes me wonder what these OM’s rigs looked like. If I think of it, I need to check the W7DK club QST collection to see what equipment was being advertised in the early 70’s.

UPDATE! Believe it or not, in one of those Sweepstakes recordings I heard my contesting Elmer Rex, K7QQ (ex. W5QQQ/7). Their QSO is about 8 and a half minutes into the second hour recording.

The ARRL posted the results of the 2007 160M contest in their members only contest scores database. I have the second best score in the WWA section for my class and placed 111th out of 525 entries for class B stations. I’ll be looking for my call in a future issue of QST.

There is no way I could have done this well without the very generous help from my friend Nick, K7MO.

I was searching Lulu for ham radio related books when I found a little ham radio ‘zine that I never knew existed called Antentop. The English translation is a little off but not so bad that you can’t understand what is going on. Radio-speak is pretty universal anyway. Go have a look at this tiny key project by Igor Lavroushov, UA6HJQ. I wouldn’t want to call CQ with it for long but for a quick QSO, it would be fine. Fine business Igor and with a part count that low, I predict any ham with a soldering iron will have immediate success with this project.

I bought a bug on ebay this week. Any purchase on ebay involves a good chunk of luck and my fortunes were good. I paid a fair price, not the lowest, not the highest, for a Vibroplex Standard Deluxe. It’s a chrome beauty in decent shape with a little cracking on the dash knob. The serial number dates the key to about 1985 according to the somewhat humorously named, “Date Your Vibroplex” document, the best copy of which is on the Vibroplex web site. Semi-automatic telegraph keys have sort of a cult following that is similar to liking boat anchors, military surplus, or QRP. My bug came with both the large and small weights. I can get the speed down to just less than 20 words per minute but the dits still come pretty fast. My tinkerer friend Pete, KK7QW, has an idea for a dit tamer that might work pretty well. It would be nice to get the speed down to 18 or so. Bugs have a very high tinker factor and I have spent a great deal of time adjusting all the screws on my mine.

I worked a handful of stations during the MI and Ontario QSO parties from the Radio Club of Tacoma, W7DK, clubhouse last Saturday. The club station rig is a TenTec Omni-VI and Rich, KR7W, helped me connect the club’s McElroy S-600 bug to the TenTec. Usually the bug is connected to the club’s ‘Old Oak Rig’ but the old rig is a little under the weather and being crystal controlled, not much good for contesting. Apparently my skill at sending with a bug was sufficient for others to understand, at least by the big contest stations like N8SS. Most stations came back on the first call. My experience on the air just made my bug bug that much worse.

As I write this, I’m working the SKCC sprint-a-thon. I made my first strait key contact with Russ, W0CCA, on 13-APR-2008. I used my Lionel J-38, 100 watts, and a little sweat. I was joking with Nick at the radio club that 80M at Field Day this year would be done with a strait key, a dupe sheet, and paper logs. Well… maybe during the day.