January 2012
Updated Roster
Volunteers
are Needed on WSN
by Allen Rivers, W7QM
by Allen Rivers, W7QM
Volunteers are needed for NCS and RN7 QNB
Stations WSN NCS does have to call the Net AM session at 7:30 AM and
and the WSN/1 session at 6:45 PM.
The RN7 QNB Station does have to QNI on WSN/1 at 6:45 PM and RN7/1 at
7;30 PM and RN7/2 at 9:30 PM.
Anyone who is interested please contact WSN Mgr, Allen W7QM.
Many
Thanks To Don W7WST
by Allen, W7QM
by Allen, W7QM
Don is doing a very nice job at NCS on Thursdays. It was very good of him to take the job and he has been a big help to the WSN Net. Thank you Don and we all want to congratulate you for a great job.
Christmas Surprise
by Allen, W7QM
Their was no WSN Net on
Christmas Day and I have received a lot of thanks from several members
who all said they had many other things to do on Christmas day and
appreciated the time off to take care of them. I also want to express
my thanks to Don W7GB and Pati W7ZIW for suggesting the idea to
take Christmas off for everyone.
Weather and Temperature Map
from David Goodwin VE7DWG
This is the coolest thing! Just move your cursor around the map and see what the current temperatures and weather conditions are in cities all over North America . THANKS VERY MUCH DAVE!
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/zoa/mwmap3.php?map=usa
Antenna Installation Secrets
by Vic Seeberger W7VSE
News From Yelm
by Leroy N7EIE
Minature CW Paddle
by Don K7BFL
WINTER GREETINGS FROM ALLEN
from David Goodwin VE7DWG
This is the coolest thing! Just move your cursor around the map and see what the current temperatures and weather conditions are in cities all over North America . THANKS VERY MUCH DAVE!
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/zoa/mwmap3.php?map=usa
Antenna Installation Secrets
by Vic Seeberger W7VSE
Hi
y'all. Good stuff about antennas. I am a big
lummox about the technical end of electronics. I've tried to be a
good operator all my life and feel like I've had a little success at
it. In my present physical condition (in my 90th year) I like the
idea of low lying antennas. The chances of falling off the roof
while constructing one of those must be very low. (Pun
intended) Hi!
But this discussion about antennas jars my feeble memory banks and maybe I can recall an antenna story that you can enjoy.
When I was getting started with the CAA (Civil Aeronautics Authority) that became the FAA (Federal Aviation Agency) later, I wasn't making enough money to live on, so I worked at several "second" jobs. One of them was TV repairman. This was back in the days of Black and White TVs only and the biggest problem with TVs in those days were the vaccuum tubes. So, I became a "tube jockey." I did this for about 15 years and finally quit about the time color TVs came along. I lived in the SF bay area and made TV service calls in San Bruno, San Mateo, Burlingame and other places on the penninsula south of San Francisco. I lived in San Bruno and Burlingame and worked for the FAA at the SF airport.
I also was a collector for a publishing company. I'd spend about 5 days driving around and collecting one dollar from the housewives who had signed up for magazines and paid one dollar a month. As I was driving in San Mateo, (I think) I passed a house that had the TV antenna and 10 foot mast down on the ground leaning up against the porch and pointing at about 45 degrees in the air. Every time I passed that place, it was still there.
So, one day I stopped and knocked on their door. A guy came to the door and I introduced myself and told him I was a TV repairman and asked if he needed help in putting his antenna on the roof. He told me, NO, and then told me why. He said that one weekend he and his wife decided to install that antenna and he climbed up on the roof with the antenna and he would point it in a direction and holler and ask his wife if the picture was good. She would say NO. and he would try another direction, holler at her again and get another NO.
After about 30 minutes on that roof, he had decided it was not going to work, so he climbed down the ladder and leaned the mast up against the porch. Just then the wife came to the front door and thinking he was still on the roof, she screamed right in his ear, "HOLD IT, RIGHT THERE !" He went inside and the picture was perfect.
He said as far as he was concerned that antenna would lean up against his front porch FOREVER!
But this discussion about antennas jars my feeble memory banks and maybe I can recall an antenna story that you can enjoy.
When I was getting started with the CAA (Civil Aeronautics Authority) that became the FAA (Federal Aviation Agency) later, I wasn't making enough money to live on, so I worked at several "second" jobs. One of them was TV repairman. This was back in the days of Black and White TVs only and the biggest problem with TVs in those days were the vaccuum tubes. So, I became a "tube jockey." I did this for about 15 years and finally quit about the time color TVs came along. I lived in the SF bay area and made TV service calls in San Bruno, San Mateo, Burlingame and other places on the penninsula south of San Francisco. I lived in San Bruno and Burlingame and worked for the FAA at the SF airport.
I also was a collector for a publishing company. I'd spend about 5 days driving around and collecting one dollar from the housewives who had signed up for magazines and paid one dollar a month. As I was driving in San Mateo, (I think) I passed a house that had the TV antenna and 10 foot mast down on the ground leaning up against the porch and pointing at about 45 degrees in the air. Every time I passed that place, it was still there.
So, one day I stopped and knocked on their door. A guy came to the door and I introduced myself and told him I was a TV repairman and asked if he needed help in putting his antenna on the roof. He told me, NO, and then told me why. He said that one weekend he and his wife decided to install that antenna and he climbed up on the roof with the antenna and he would point it in a direction and holler and ask his wife if the picture was good. She would say NO. and he would try another direction, holler at her again and get another NO.
After about 30 minutes on that roof, he had decided it was not going to work, so he climbed down the ladder and leaned the mast up against the porch. Just then the wife came to the front door and thinking he was still on the roof, she screamed right in his ear, "HOLD IT, RIGHT THERE !" He went inside and the picture was perfect.
He said as far as he was concerned that antenna would lean up against his front porch FOREVER!
News From Yelm
by Leroy N7EIE
A friend of mine, John Harper,
AE5X, just published an article in his blog about my antenna set-up in
my back yard, at http://www.ae5x.com/blog/2012/01/01/a-tree-suspended-yagi/
He also gave me permission to use it in WSN's newsletter.
Also........
2011 CQWWDX PH Contest
About the only thing I more-or-less consistently mention in my blog about ham radio has been my occasional (172) times on the radio in weekend contests. Of those 172 contests, all but a dozen or so have been on CW. Sometimes I operated outside or at the Community Center on Field Day on voice, and most of the mobile VHF contests are also on voice, but at home I only operated CW while Carolyn was alive.
But this time the CQWWDXPH (CQ Magazine’s World-Wide DX Phone) contest occurred on the last weekend of October and I actually paid attention. I did participate for the first time this year, but didn’t do very well: I only got 114 contacts with 7 hours butt-in-the-chair using 75 watts SSB and a frustration level of about 9 out of 10…
The reason it was so frustrating was that I would call them and they would not hear me. If their signal was under s9 or they had anyone else calling them they couldn’t hear me. And this was WITH Jupiter 2 up at 42 feet! How the heck do QRP stations do it with only 5 watts? That would be 15 times more frustrating!
I definitely don’t want to go in the ‘more-frustrated’ direction. I need to hook up my linear. I have one, that W7QM gave me, but the power on this end of the house won’t handle 800 watts out. I would have to gin up a 220 volt extension cord and hook it into my drier outlet. Not that that’s not do-able, eventually, if I enjoyed phone operation. I, um, don’t…
But the main reason I did that contest was the fact that I earned 20,000 points towards the WWDXC’s (Western Washington DX and Contesting Club’s) aggregate 2011 score that counts in a competition between the WWDXC and the Willamette Valley DX Club (in OR) and the British Columbia DX Club for a traveling DX contesting trophy. That’s 20,000 points we would not have earned if I hadn’t operated that contest, frustrating or not.
My rate was only 16 contacts per hour, which was actually high for the hard time I had getting anybody to hear me! At least my Flex 3000 SDR showed me all those S9+ stations across the entire panoramic display of whatever band I am operating on at the time, but alas, there wasn’t all that many. 114.
Maybe next year. Maybe not.
2011 CQWWDX CW Contest
Yes, this is one of my favorite contests all year, and I did ‘quite well’ (read ‘not bad’) in this contest, operating for the first time from someplace other than my station in Yelm.
Again, this is one of the contests in which the aggregate score counts for the WWDXC towards the Northwestern traveling DX trophy at the end of the year.
I had met Chuck, N7BV, at a WWDXC meeting and helped him during the Salmon Run Sunday operating W7DX. I did well enough on CW that he invited me back for this last contest. I was not sure at first, but finally reasoned I could earn more WWDXC points from his station as a member of a (as it turns out 3-man) team at a competitive station than at my ‘casual contesting’ station. I wuz rite.
I went to Thanksgiving dinner with the family at Eatonville, then headed home that evening, because I knew the contest started at 1600 Pacific time the next day. I got a good night’s sleep, packed up the mini-van for 3 days camping, then made it out by 1000 Friday morning.
Got to N7BV’s QTH in Port Angeles, WA, by 1430 or so. The other op of the three of us, Rob, AE7EG, got there a few minutes after I did.
At 1600 the bands came alive, and all three of us hunkered down for the next 48 solid hours.
We did take breaks, for meals and sleeping, but after all the dust had settled after the contest I figured I had about 10 hours sleep in that 48 hour period. The rest of the time I was either on the radio or on a short break. We ate some of our meals at the radios, but some were at their dining room table. Karen, N7BV’s XYL, put on a helluva spread at every meal!
Our hosts did have a guest room, but I let Rob have that for his room since I slept in my mini-van. Camping, no problem! I loved it!
The entire 48 hours is now a blur. I was making contacts on the radio for about 16-18 hours a day for 2 solid days. I hardly ever worked that hard even full-time in the Navy!
And I haven’t had an actual job outside the home since I worked part-time at VSE from 1990-1995. But I never put all that much time on the radio except for casual contesting. In this contest last year, for instance, I put in a TOTAL of 11.25 hours butt-in-the-chair time over the entire 48 hour period, garnering 222 contacts and a score of 68640, but that was when Carolyn was alive… This year I didn’t have that restriction so I went on the road as a guest operator.
Final results of the 2011 CQWWDXCW contest operation from N7BV:
Band (MHZ) QSOs Pts Cty ZN
1.8 24 43 9 10
3.5 278 688 33 19
7 311 858 86 29
14 284 777 89 32
21 561 1564 88 36
28 333 888 72 29
Total 1791 4818 377 155
Score: 2,563,176
Of those 1791 contacts, it broke down in the following manner:
AE7EG: 778
N7EIE: 537
N7BV: 476
From what I remember, that is pretty close to the actual (proportional) time on the radios for each of us. Rob couldn’t get enough of operating that exceptional station, and I don’t blame him. Chuck let us operate whenever we wanted. He was an outstanding host.
I do remember 10 meters was wide open on both days, something I hadn’t seen since 2003. And I particularly remember an awesome CQ run on 15 meters Saturday afternoon, with the beam pointed northwest, when I was running JA’s as fast as I could type! There were several times where the pile-up I was working was 3 to 6 stations deep!!! That’s as much fun as you can have with your clothes on! ;-)
Overall, I had a great time. The only bad part was the 3 hour drive there, and then the 3 hour drive back after the contest. Such is life. My share of that 2.53 million points earned in that contest was over 768K, ELEVEN times what I could have made at home.
Leroy
N7EIE
He also gave me permission to use it in WSN's newsletter.
Also........
2011 CQWWDX PH Contest
About the only thing I more-or-less consistently mention in my blog about ham radio has been my occasional (172) times on the radio in weekend contests. Of those 172 contests, all but a dozen or so have been on CW. Sometimes I operated outside or at the Community Center on Field Day on voice, and most of the mobile VHF contests are also on voice, but at home I only operated CW while Carolyn was alive.
But this time the CQWWDXPH (CQ Magazine’s World-Wide DX Phone) contest occurred on the last weekend of October and I actually paid attention. I did participate for the first time this year, but didn’t do very well: I only got 114 contacts with 7 hours butt-in-the-chair using 75 watts SSB and a frustration level of about 9 out of 10…
The reason it was so frustrating was that I would call them and they would not hear me. If their signal was under s9 or they had anyone else calling them they couldn’t hear me. And this was WITH Jupiter 2 up at 42 feet! How the heck do QRP stations do it with only 5 watts? That would be 15 times more frustrating!
I definitely don’t want to go in the ‘more-frustrated’ direction. I need to hook up my linear. I have one, that W7QM gave me, but the power on this end of the house won’t handle 800 watts out. I would have to gin up a 220 volt extension cord and hook it into my drier outlet. Not that that’s not do-able, eventually, if I enjoyed phone operation. I, um, don’t…
But the main reason I did that contest was the fact that I earned 20,000 points towards the WWDXC’s (Western Washington DX and Contesting Club’s) aggregate 2011 score that counts in a competition between the WWDXC and the Willamette Valley DX Club (in OR) and the British Columbia DX Club for a traveling DX contesting trophy. That’s 20,000 points we would not have earned if I hadn’t operated that contest, frustrating or not.
My rate was only 16 contacts per hour, which was actually high for the hard time I had getting anybody to hear me! At least my Flex 3000 SDR showed me all those S9+ stations across the entire panoramic display of whatever band I am operating on at the time, but alas, there wasn’t all that many. 114.
Maybe next year. Maybe not.
2011 CQWWDX CW Contest
Yes, this is one of my favorite contests all year, and I did ‘quite well’ (read ‘not bad’) in this contest, operating for the first time from someplace other than my station in Yelm.
Again, this is one of the contests in which the aggregate score counts for the WWDXC towards the Northwestern traveling DX trophy at the end of the year.
I had met Chuck, N7BV, at a WWDXC meeting and helped him during the Salmon Run Sunday operating W7DX. I did well enough on CW that he invited me back for this last contest. I was not sure at first, but finally reasoned I could earn more WWDXC points from his station as a member of a (as it turns out 3-man) team at a competitive station than at my ‘casual contesting’ station. I wuz rite.
I went to Thanksgiving dinner with the family at Eatonville, then headed home that evening, because I knew the contest started at 1600 Pacific time the next day. I got a good night’s sleep, packed up the mini-van for 3 days camping, then made it out by 1000 Friday morning.
Got to N7BV’s QTH in Port Angeles, WA, by 1430 or so. The other op of the three of us, Rob, AE7EG, got there a few minutes after I did.
At 1600 the bands came alive, and all three of us hunkered down for the next 48 solid hours.
We did take breaks, for meals and sleeping, but after all the dust had settled after the contest I figured I had about 10 hours sleep in that 48 hour period. The rest of the time I was either on the radio or on a short break. We ate some of our meals at the radios, but some were at their dining room table. Karen, N7BV’s XYL, put on a helluva spread at every meal!
Our hosts did have a guest room, but I let Rob have that for his room since I slept in my mini-van. Camping, no problem! I loved it!
The entire 48 hours is now a blur. I was making contacts on the radio for about 16-18 hours a day for 2 solid days. I hardly ever worked that hard even full-time in the Navy!
And I haven’t had an actual job outside the home since I worked part-time at VSE from 1990-1995. But I never put all that much time on the radio except for casual contesting. In this contest last year, for instance, I put in a TOTAL of 11.25 hours butt-in-the-chair time over the entire 48 hour period, garnering 222 contacts and a score of 68640, but that was when Carolyn was alive… This year I didn’t have that restriction so I went on the road as a guest operator.
Final results of the 2011 CQWWDXCW contest operation from N7BV:
Band (MHZ) QSOs Pts Cty ZN
1.8 24 43 9 10
3.5 278 688 33 19
7 311 858 86 29
14 284 777 89 32
21 561 1564 88 36
28 333 888 72 29
Total 1791 4818 377 155
Score: 2,563,176
Of those 1791 contacts, it broke down in the following manner:
AE7EG: 778
N7EIE: 537
N7BV: 476
From what I remember, that is pretty close to the actual (proportional) time on the radios for each of us. Rob couldn’t get enough of operating that exceptional station, and I don’t blame him. Chuck let us operate whenever we wanted. He was an outstanding host.
I do remember 10 meters was wide open on both days, something I hadn’t seen since 2003. And I particularly remember an awesome CQ run on 15 meters Saturday afternoon, with the beam pointed northwest, when I was running JA’s as fast as I could type! There were several times where the pile-up I was working was 3 to 6 stations deep!!! That’s as much fun as you can have with your clothes on! ;-)
Overall, I had a great time. The only bad part was the 3 hour drive there, and then the 3 hour drive back after the contest. Such is life. My share of that 2.53 million points earned in that contest was over 768K, ELEVEN times what I could have made at home.
Leroy
N7EIE
Minature CW Paddle
by Don K7BFL
This is the paddle I
use for portable operation. I have made several over
the years. The components are a suitable plug for the rig, 3
conductor wire, and two spring loaded "lever" type micro switches (SPST
or SPDT).
I usually get the switches from Radio Shack.
The construction procedure is to first glue the switches together with Super Glue. Note the lateral offset between the switches. This is so the wiring connections do not interfer with your sending "throw". Be careful to not use too much glue, or it will go into some vent holes in each switch and keep the switches from working.
Next solder the dit, dah, and common connections to the switches.
The last step is to attach a piece of tape to the "top" of the paddle, so that you can get your dits and dahs synced correctly!
To operate the paddle, just hold the top and bottom of the paddle between your thumb and index finger of one hand; then use your other hand to do the keying. Simple and Nice! 20 wpm is easy.
If you want to get fancy, glue a piece of velcro to the bottom, to use a a Leg Strap. If this is done, it is best to add a small spacer (1/8 inch) between the paddle and the leg strap. This will prevent the levers from hanging up on the velcro strap.
The construction procedure is to first glue the switches together with Super Glue. Note the lateral offset between the switches. This is so the wiring connections do not interfer with your sending "throw". Be careful to not use too much glue, or it will go into some vent holes in each switch and keep the switches from working.
Next solder the dit, dah, and common connections to the switches.
The last step is to attach a piece of tape to the "top" of the paddle, so that you can get your dits and dahs synced correctly!
To operate the paddle, just hold the top and bottom of the paddle between your thumb and index finger of one hand; then use your other hand to do the keying. Simple and Nice! 20 wpm is easy.
If you want to get fancy, glue a piece of velcro to the bottom, to use a a Leg Strap. If this is done, it is best to add a small spacer (1/8 inch) between the paddle and the leg strap. This will prevent the levers from hanging up on the velcro strap.
WINTER GREETINGS FROM ALLEN
My XYL Beverly and I were both in the
Hospital Early in 2011, I was in Twice and Bev was in once. Fortunately
we both recovered and have been doing very well since then. We had a
very nice Thanksgiving and Christmas with family members.We don’t travel as much as we did when we were younger and we do miss it, however we still go up to the Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island and stay in the Navy Lodge on the Base in Oak Harbor. We enjoy going to the Chief Petty Officers Club for dinner or lunch. We enjoy visiting with all the Navy Retired Folks about when we were in the Navy and all our exploits and different ships we were on.
We also enjoy going to the old shops that have the history of the Island. Deception Pass and Coupeville are two very interesting places to visit. The Naval Air Station was the best duty I had in the Navy.
Daylight Savings Time will begin Sunday March 11, 2012. I for one hope that propagation might be a little better so we wont have to have the Net at 5:30 PM again but I’m probably dreaming Hi Hi
Allen W7QM
WSN TRAFFIC
October 2011: W7QM 29, K7BFL 10, VE7DWG 7, N7EIE 20, W7GB 24, W7LG 9, KE7LKW 2, WA7OJI 2, W7WST 7, W7ZIW 15, KA7ZUR 2
NOVEMBER 2011: W7QM, 17, K7BFL 6, VE7DWG 2, N7EIE 17, W7GB 5, W7LG 5, W7WST 8, N7YRT 14, KA7ZUR 2
DECEMBER 2011:W7QM 16, K7BFL 19, VE7DWG 7, N7EIE 6, W7GB 37, W7LG 7,<> KA7OJI 1, W7WST 9, N7YRT 3, W7ZIW 2, N7CM 1, W7IZ 4
Activity Report
| October | November |
December |
|
| QNI |
504 |
477 |
453 |
| Traffic |
167 |
91 |
113 |
| Sessions |
62 |
60 |
60 |
Birthdays
No Birthdays for January, February, or March!
Pati W7ZIW WSN Assistant Manager
