Day two with a good propagation to US

Several days ago I was asked if the propagation between NA and VK works in our local late afternoon.  Now I can safely say... yes it works if the US station stay awake for a while...

 

So the answer is YES for sure.

TU all and 73

Patrick

Pleasant surprise - 20 m propagation to US

The local time is 16:30 and I would expect the LP Europe will be booming.  But instead I got few calls from North America... Nice surprise and thanks OMs for the calls.

73 and hope to see you all again.

All Asia CW contest.

On Saturday I found some free time and decided to have some practice in contesting and at the same time to give some numbers out.


        Band    QSOs    Pts  WPX
           7        1            1      1
          14       1            1      1
          21     169        169   79
          28       2            4      2
       Total     173       175    83

       Score : 14,525

Ten meters band was very disappointing... However it was very pleasant to work Japanese stations.. They certainly behave like true gentlemen.

VK2PN Max Rates:

2013-06-15 0330Z - 3.0 per minute  (1 minute(s)), 180 per hour by VK2PN
2013-06-15 0336Z - 1.6 per minute  (10 minute(s)), 96 per hour by VK2PN
2013-06-15 0341Z - 0.9 per minute  (60 minute(s)), 54 per hour by VK2PN

That run at 0.9 QSO per minute sustained for the whole hour was good fun.

Total Time On was 04:17  (257 mins)

Thanks everybody who called me.

The K3 is repaired

Only yesterday I've unpacked the radio(s) from their traveling cases and put them on the bench.
The poor K3 is deaf... I can hear (or see on the P3) the signal but it is way down.  So I've pulled out all the manuals and started reading.  The fault must have been most likely in several PIN diodes switching/routing the signal.  The first diode (D25) took quite while to find but ... hey it was damaged:

 The little bulge on the middle is the spot which left the smoke out.

I was lucky to have another two in stock from previous "accident".  I'm not telling how it happened... it was me being silly and careless.

 Here is the new diode in place... I'm not that proud about the soldering... but it works..

There you see "the happy family" again... The smile on my face is pretty happy too.  It feels good to fix something so important as radio... eh?

Just worked II1TLC Luc 599 both way via  LP.  Life is good again..

The CQ WPX CW is over.

As I'm trying to write this... I'm struggling... The CQ WPX CW just finished and Steve VK3TDX and I VK2PN are very tired but delighted.

         Band    QSOs    Pts      WPX
         3.5      13           70      2
           7       237        1387   41
          14     930        2754   398
          21     674       1952    274
          28     356       1036    115
       Total    2210    7199     830


            Score : 5,975,170

Steve's "magic bullet" the rhombic....  Worked pretty well

The "boys" hard at work

48 hours in the chair with very little rest/sleep.

Coffee is coming

Unfortunately we had Murphy to visit us... My K3 packed in after about 20 hours of operating.  It may have inhaled an unhealthy dose of RF into the front end...  Luckily I had the Little K3 with me and I jerry rigged the station to be able to do the job.

I'd like to thank the Manly Warringah Radio Society (my radio club) for a loan of the traps.  Without those we would not be able to transmit at the same time.

Also thanks Trent VK4TS for the tip of using the sugar free Red Bull drink... Yes it works.

Using the KX3 as a main rig... not bad.

Here is the happy team - operators and support after the contest.

Glass of bubbly to all.

CQ WPX CW contest with Steve VK3TDX

Hi All...

Steve was very gracious to invite me to his QTH for the contest:

 We are both in "pre contest" attitude and practicing.  The computers are set and the anticipation level is high.

I'm sure we are going to have lots of fun.... Please give us a call...

Good luck to all

73

Steve and Patrick

Two exciting QSL cards arrived today

PT0S

 

 

   http://pt0s.com/

XR0YG

http://xr0yg.com/

Apology for the poor quality of photos,   I've used simple camera.