SeaPac 2010 Photos

Nerd Heaven!  Great cars with antennas galore, booths, sales, classes, fellowship, hobnobbing with the famous and the ordinary Joe Ham.  What a great time!

Look carefully and you may see Randy K7AGE and Budd Drummond W3FF as well as AD7QQ and KI7WP

A Little Pacific Beach San Diego, CA Portable QRP

I was on Pacific Beach in San Diego, CA for a conference, and took some time to set up a little sand based station for some QRP action! The waves were up, the weather was beautiful, and the Florida stations were booming in! I was using my main QRP rig, an Icom 703 (not plus), with an off market battery and a modified MP1 SuperAntenna with a 12 foot whip (here shown only up about 6 feet). I used my antenna tuner to optimize the settup for 20 meters and only laid out 2 long radials. Seemed to work well. I had the power down to 5 watts for true QRP.

Some kids came by and asked what I was doing. I briefly explained about Ham radio, and they seemed interested, but were disappointed that I wasn't trying to contact UFO's or aliens. I told them I'd talk to whoever answered! Hopefully Stephen Hawking wasn't listening in, as he probably wouldn't approve.

73

AD7QQ

Woah, time has really gone by

This is a picture of my indoor shack. I haven't had too many qrp adventures yet this year (just some back pack in the snow near by home), but will be traveling in late April to California and plan to take the Icom 703 with me for some portable QRP!!!! Very exciting. I will take my Acer Netbook with me and try to do some Beach Pedestrian PSK and Olivia.

If you click on the picture it will enlarge. From the top: box of QSL cards, stamps and envelopes ready to go. Several Ham radio theme hats to help set the mood.

Second Row Down: Yaesu FT-450AT and a stack of manuals

Third Row Down: QSL folder, automatic LDG antenna tuner (not currently in use), 300 watt rectangular air cooled dummy antenna, SignaLink USB interface, an ancient inherited coax switch, and an antenna tuner by MFJ.

Bottom Row: Oscilloscope, IMD meter, MFJ antenna analyser, stack of "to be read" books, some mail, more manuals, Yaesu power supply, old Toshiba Satellite Laptop (now replaced with the small and speedy Acer Netbook, and an Alinco DX-70 from the car brought in for testing (works great). To the right is a box of miscellaneous antenna parts, etc.

73

AD7QQ

160 meters: It's ALIVE!!!!!

This Saturday I had the opportunity to get on the air and play with PSK and Olivia. However when I went to 14.070 MHz I found the area was occupied with odd signals. They sounded like fast morse code and looked like railroad tracks on the waterfall. I quickly cycled through various digital modalities and discovered they were RTTY! A new (for me) digital mode! I listened to a few conversations and found that there was a contest going on. The exchanges were simple; the other call, your call, and your state. After watching until I felt confident I wouldn't frustrate any experienced operators, I ventured in and had 4 quick RTTY contacts. You have to type very fast to keep up with RTTY. Next time I'll make some macros.

After this I had to do some other activities and so came back to the rig after dark. I decided to see what was going on in the 160 meter band during the grayline time. To my surprise the digital parts of 160 meters were alive with SSB phone transmissions. I changed my settings from USB Data to LSB, increased power to 100 watts and listened in. Now usually 160 meters is the haunt of old timers chatting with their friends, and not too welcoming to strangers. I have never heard anyone call "CQ" on 160 meters, and never had anyone answer my calls. That night it was like the band had been taken over by a huge flock of squawking birds calling "CQ Contest". Up and down the band it was wall to wall signals. I dove in and answered some of these calls, and within about 45 minutes had 16 contacts on 160 meter SSB phone! Unfortunately I had come upon the contest late, and at 2200 PST the band suddenly went dead. I thought I had disconnected my antenna coax or something, but then I heard a lone "CQ Contest" and tuned in on him. He had a reply, which informed him that the contest was over. Very disappointing.

I did learn from the experience that 160 meters has some distant communication potential, even for a low antenna (10 meters up dipole) and low power (100 watts) station like mine. I could hear and communicate with Mexico, Ontario, Florida, Mississippi, and etc. It is too bad that it is so hard to get a QSO going on 160 meters when contests are not filling the band. I think I will have to find a net, or maybe try to convince some of the old timers to let a young whipper snapper into their roundtable conversations so I can explore the low band further.

73

AD7QQ