DL-DX RTTY contest (July 3/4) from our club station ON6CK

by Jurgen

Some of my club members at UBA-KTK wanted to gain some experience using digital modes. So what’s the best way to achieve that? Of course, participate in a contest.

I made a few calls and soon I found 7 operators (ON7USB, ON5HC, ON7TS, ON8AZ, ON4KB, ON4TOP and myself) to do the DL-DX RTTY from the ON6CK-clubstation. There was only one small problem… I was the only one of this crew who ever did a digi contest and some of the crew didn’t even know the difference between a PSK31 and a RTTY signal 🙂

I organised a meeting a few nights before the contest and I gave my friends an introduction in some of the ‘secrets’ of the digi-modes: Continue reading DL-DX RTTY contest (July 3/4) from our club station ON6CK →

Contest selection

by Jurgen

After examining the WA7BNM Contest Calendar for some time and after studying the rules of most of the contests I made a selection of the FOR ME most interesting contests. These were the parameters I used:

  • more than one radio allowed? I hate to watch TV when things get slow AND I own more than one radio AND I own a couple of bandpassfilters
  • 24 hrs or shorter I have a business to run, also on mondays!
  • is there a low power category? I don’t own an amp and I want to keep my neighbours happy
  • is the contest also running on saterday morning? the business interfering again!
  • is it an everyone works everyone contest? I hate to sit at a station calling only one country
  • how much activity is there in this contest? I like lots of activity

Continue reading Contest selection →

So little time, so much to do…

by Jurgen

During our EU-099-trip I really got bitten by the radiovirus again. Of course it was still (more than a little) present otherwise I wouldn’t have accepted the invitation but nevertheless I now want to get more quality time on the air.

That’s why I decided to quit helping in the motorsports-competition to get more time for the radio.

My idea for now is like this: as I hardly have time to get into my shack during weekdays (I have a business to run, remember), I decided to get back into contesting like I did some to many years ago. Lots of work todo before I can really try to be competitive.

One of the ways to be competitive as a SOLP (I don’t own an amp and never used one from my home qth) is SO2R (and it is better to focus on 2 radios than to contest with 1 radio while watching TV). Setting up the station for SO2R in digital and phone modes means I at least need more antennas, some way of switching those antennas and some way of switching the audio between the 2 transceivers.

Moreover it will be impossible for me to compete in every contest every weekend so I thought of a way to select 4 contests per year I really want to participate in, but more about that in a future post!

Scientist ‘infected’ with computer virus

by Jurgen

According to The Telegraph Dr Mark Gasson, a British scientist implanted a chip in his hand which was programmed with a computer virus. He claims other electronic devices could get infected with the same virus after coming into contact with this one.

RFID anyone???

Sooner or later we’ll all have a microchip behind the ear like some of our pets already have. No more need for passports etcetera. But big brother will always know where we are also…
With a well written computer virus suddenly we’ll all be called Michael Jackson 🙂