QRS CW Net: 03-30-2013 07:00 PM - 07:30 PM

[KE7KUS]

The net was held tonight from my home QTH using the Flex3000 running about 30W into my vertical loop. Sigs all around were excellent, although there was some QRM on the frequency toward the end of the net. We had three check-in's for the net: Brian, KF7ORO, Marty, WB7X, and a newcomer to the CW net...Todd, KF7NLX. Welcome, Todd! Glad you made it, and FB sigs from Phoenix.

After checkin's, we had the weekly announcement, which is that the net will NOT be held next weekend due to Field Day. We will reconvene in two weeks...same time and frequency.

I am glad to say the net recording got everything this time, so I'll upload the audio to the website so you can hear what I was hearing at net control. For net participants, you can get a feel for what your antenna config and power setting is doing to get to northwest Phoenix metro area. After the success of our QRP net last week, I'm thinking that in two weeks, I'd like to deviate a bit from our standard net script and run an interactive net where we gradually dial back our transmit power and see "how low we can go" and still make the contact. More details in a couple weeks.

Great to hear everybody tonight. Thanks again, Todd, for participating. Hope to see you back in two weeks. Let us know what rig/key/power/antenna you were using if you get a chance. 73 to all.

Kurt
KE7KUS

[KF7ORO]

Thanks for running the net again Kurt. I can't believe how much easier it is to copy after just a few weeks of practice. I got just about everything you sent which is pretty good improvement over where I was less than a month ago. I still get lost sometimes when trying to copy people at a legit 13 wpm but even that is getting closer.

I will definitely try to work you guys at Field Day (prob Sat night). I may take the FT-817 with me to work and set up in a good place on the way home for a little while.

Marty, sorry we didn't get to log that QSO again. I tried to give you a call about 15 min before the net and then tried to give you a call again after Kurt and I talked for a few minutes but I guess you had to run or couldn't hear me. Oh well, we'll get it next time.

Here's what I was using tonight...
Rig: Icom IC-7200
Key: Bencher BY-1
Power: 50 watts
Antenna: 120' wire loop laying on my roof, fed by an AH-4 tuner.

[Todd KF7NLX]

Whew!! My very first ever HF transmission and CW to boot! It was a close one though. I was stringing up a OCF dipole in my dad's yard in North Glendale due to limited space at my home QTH and had to contend with dust and wind right before the net. We had it set up around 8 ft. suported between 3 guyed PVC pipes on both ends and middle. It hung in there and I was able to check in. No problems hearing you guys at all and was very pleased to see my sig got out OK. I literally had butterflies when it was time to check in and I think that's what made me rush my sending and definitely hindered my receiving abilities compared to how I typically do when practicing on LCWOL. GREAT fun though!

Kurt - I will be up at the field day sight next weekend early Saturday just for the day. I will have my radio with me along with plenty of questions. I am particularly interested in the SMLA that you built and did a build thread on. Can't wait to see it in person. It looks like it will fit the bill perfectly at my QTH. I have a small yard and an HOA, so this may just be the ticket for NVIS CW work here at home.

My equipment tonight was:
Yeasu FT-857D, 20 watts
MFJ-2010 OCF dipole up 7'9"
Straight Key was from a Heathkit Code Oscillator that I built as a kid 33 years ago... yeah it took me that long to finally get licensed... I'm a slow learner.

Looking forward to the net the weekend after field day!

TNX 73
Todd

[KF7ORO]

Welcome Todd. It was great to have someone new in there. I know the butterflies you're talking about. After a few QSOs they'll be gone though. Your setup sounded good here in Vegas - about 559. Not bad with 20 watts.

Kurt's antenna does seem to work pretty well. I've got HOA restrictions and a small lot too and here's what I use. It's just a big wire loop on the roof of my 2-story house fed by an autotuner. I think Yaesu makes a tuner that's compatible with your radio. I can get on 80-6 meters and changing bands is instant. Maybe another option for you to consider.

[KE7KUS]

Before I put up my 43' vertical down at my other house (no HOA, obviously), I was running a large diameter wire loop on the top of the block fence around my lot and up over the house hung under the eaves. I tuned it with a Yaesu FC-40 tuner. All in all it was about 300 feet of wire and tuned 80-6m. I ran that antenna for about 3 years and it worked well for covering the US and parts of western Europe and eastern Asia. It had some pretty good lobes at the corners, which is where my DX happened with it. I don't think it was quite as good as my SMLA for NVIS work, but it was pretty easy to put up and had zero visual signature.

This SMLA has been a great antenna for the HOA. I've really been impressed with it's performance given its relatively compact size. I still want to upgrade the tuning stubs to a full motor-driven variable capacitor when I get a chance, but it's been a godsend to date for keeping me out of trouble with the HOA.

[Todd KF7NLX]

GD Kurt and Brian!
Thanks for sharing the antenna input and experiences regarding HOA restrictions. I have a fairly large tri-level house with a really small backyard consisting of mainly a pool and a lot of cool deck. The "cool" part of the cool deck is that there are 3 umbrella mast holes that serve me well doing portable 2 meter ops poolside with various antennas and home brew mast configurations - usually under the cover of darkness. My main dual band antenna for day to day ops is a 1/2 wave mobile antenna up 30 feet on a mast made of (2) 1"dia X 10' sections of metal conduit coupled with a 10 foot length of sched 40 PVC pipe on top. I have the mast inserted over a copper ground rod driven into the ground and then guyed with 550 para-chord. Not to elaborate and very inconspicuous in my side yard. My next door neighbor, a Deputy Sheriff, has absolutely no problems with a discrete antenna between our houses. This setup is working fine hitting local U/VHF repeaters.

My parents have a half acre horse property in N. Glendale, on Marconi Ave, no less, which I find humerously ironic being a HAM raised on a street named after one of the pioneers of wireless. At any rate, there is plenty of space, no HOA and I have the green light from the OM to do whatever I want within reason for antenna experimentation. It was awsome being able to operate CW last night from my old bedroom I had as a kid.

Thanks for the recording, Kurt! It is an excellent practice aid as well as an archiveable record. Great to be able to stop and rewind / replay as needed.
Bravo Zulu, Sir

KF7NLX- Clear

[KF7ORO]

Thanks for another great net Kurt. I learned a lot about filters & how not to use them today . DSP is nice but I had them set so narrow there that I lost a little when you shifted down. Then I lost Marty when I shifted down too. Finally got them set so I could hear you both while getting rid of most of the QRM.

Reducing the power was fun with all the QRM too. Pretty amazing that 5 watts can get through the way it does.

Good to hear you again too Todd. Talk to you all again next week I hope.

[KE7KUS]

OK! Great turnout for the net tonight. We eventually managed to catch all the usual suspects. Thanks to Brian, KF7ORO, Marty, WB7X, and Todd, KF7NLX for checking in. I almost missed Todd, but thanks to Marty's sharp ears we eventually got him checked in. Sorry Marty...I missed what you were trying to tell me the first go round...but got it the second time. We finally picked up Todd in the last round of QNI's. I had to drop down about 200 Hz initially due to some QRM which cleared up about 1/2 way through the net, allowing me to get back on freq.

Tonight was our "How Low Can You Go?" test. Rather than the regular announcement, I decided it would be fun to do a round robin of signal reports with gradually decreasing power. If my copy was correct, Brian started the net running 50W at his station near Las Vegas. Marty was running 75W into his Butternut vertical, and I was pushing 25W into my 5' vertical loop. Using that power, I was able to copy Brian 579, and I had Marty at 559 w/ some QSB. After the initial go around, I asked each station to cut their power in half. Once the power was cut, Brian's signal dropped to a 559, while Marty stayed relatively stable at 549. I then asked each station to go QRP. When Brian dropped to 5W, his signal dropped to about 539, but was easily copyable with a 100Hz filter. When Marty dropped his power, his signal varied from 539 down to in the noise for about 60-70% of the time. When I finally got Todd in there, he was a solid 599 at my place...a little QSB, but it was later in the session, and I imagine the band was shifting somewhat.

Thanks to everybody for checking in...this was a fun one...I always love seeing how much you can turn down the power and still make a contact. It also continued to confirm for me that matching NVIS antenna configurations are a critical element to consistently successful NVIS ops...the one night that Marty had his horizontal 40m antenna up, we had no problems with the QSO, but with his vertical matched up against my loop, the signal doesn't seem quite as consistent, even though both are vertically polarized.

OK, back to the regular script next week, unless someone wants to change things up a bit. I'm always open to suggestions. I have purposely formatted the script for newer ops...i.e. lots of listening, and not much transmitting. If you guys would like to see that changed, don't be afraid to say so.

Also, I'm planning on being out of town on Saturday, July 14th and probably won't have access to a radio like last time. If there's someone else who would like to run the net, I could use the help. Send me a PM or post it up here.

73 to everyone, and thanks again for another great net.

Kurt
KE7KUS

[WB7X]

Flowers to Kurt as well. Good to hear Brian and Todd. Todd was 559 here in Peoria.

I had everything tightened up for QRM, also running heavy noise reduction and noise blanker which was working on my high QRN level. I ditto Brian's remarks about DSP. The phone sigs began about 7:30 and Kurt was tough between that and the path which varied his sigs from S0 to about S3. In the clear, even the S0 was fine.

Yes, I got lazy and didn't work on the wire. I guess I could have put the manual tuner in line but I'd have to dig it out. I have the FC-40 on the Butternut and the internal won't tune the wire since I changed the 9913 to 8X. Just been too hot to mess with. I do have 5 40m hamsticks that I guess that I could make something with.

Anyway great time. TNX TO ALL.

[Todd KF7NLX]

Thanks for all the good signal reports OM's. You guys were coming in great as well. I was operating at my parents house in Glendale once again using the same OCFD up just shy of eight feet. Early on in the net I was having a real tough time with all the noise, but it was a good opportunity to fiddle with my DSP filters. My copy skills were absolutely horrible tonight and it wasn't all due to the QRM. Earlier in the day, I helped my Dad rip out carpet and prep the floor for new tile in their familly room and was physically, and to some degree, mentally smoked by the time the net started. I copied OK until the net went off script and was only able to get some of it. Great net though and I will improve with time no doubt about it.

Kurt - It was great seeing you up on the rim for Field Day last weekend and thanks again for the CW operating exposure and antenna exhibition. You and Steve put on quite the clinic bagging 300+ contacts! Truely inspirational.
73 and GE
Todd

[KE7KUS]

Great job tonight everyone. Net regulars Marty, WB7X and Todd, KF7NLX were our only participants tonight. We missed you Brian; however, I'll get the net audio uploaded to the website shortly so you can catch what you missed. We started at the usual 7.115MHz for the net, but there was some serious QRM there. Sigs were good enough to work over top it; however, we elected to shift up to 7.118MHz and run the net there, which seemed to work fine. All night I was running 35 watts into my loop, with the axis of the loop running mostly E-W. Both Todd and Marty were running low dipoles and sigs into my station were booming all night. Both Todd and Marty were peaking about S9+20db...I had to crank my RF gain way back to keep them from blowing me out of the chair. Marty, especially, was noticeably stronger and had a more consistent signal than when he runs his Butternut vertical.

Post-net I had a nice QSO with Marty, and also worked Todd briefly after we were done with that. Really nice to chat with both of you. Sorry...the fist was a little rough tonight...my timing was off for some reason...I think I had the paddles set too slow and it was throwing me off. I also haven't worked much CW since FD two weekends ago, so that may also have something to do with it.

Brief reminder...I will be out of town next week and away from a radio! I need a guest Net Control to host the net. If you are willing to help in this regard, post up here, or send me a PM and I'll make sure to get you squared away. Really there's nothing to it...follow the script available in the Downloads section of the website and you'll be GTG.

Thanks again to Todd and Marty...as always, I sure enjoyed it. 73 to all and see you back in two weeks.

Kurt
KE7KUS

[KF7ORO]

Sorry I didn't make it home in time for the net. I thought I'd make it but got held up a while.

The QRS net has helped me a lot and I really appreciate you taking the initiative to get it running Kurt. Over the past couple weeks I've actually been able to have a few CW QSO's.

If anyone else is lurking out there and thinking about learning the code, it's a lot of fun and a great fit for off-road or portable with a battery powered rig. I think it was Kurt who threw out lcwo.net as a good place to get started learning. I did that and It's a great way to learn all the basic characters. The QRS net is a great first step onto the air. Once you've got the butterflies under control, I've found around the .050's (at least 7.050 and 14.050) there are lots of (mostly old) guys with great fists who love to work with striaght keys and are more than happy to slow down as much as you want. It's funny, even if you don't hear them you can call CQ slow and they're there.

For next week, I nominate Marty as the Net Control. Seriously, he's probably the more experienced but if you can't do it Marty, I'll give it my best shot. It probably won't be pretty though.

[Todd KF7NLX]

Yep it was noisy at first, but shifting up was the ticket. This is very good experience for newbs like me. I REALLY need to focus on my copying though. I tend to get mind moshed very easily when I get behind or have to think too much about it. It'll come with time and practice. Also, I am going to pre-script some QSO lines so I don't have to send on the fly.

Kurt your signals pretty much sounded like usual and I agree that Marty was a little hotter than usual. I missed a lot, so the recording will really be interesting for me.

Thanks again OM's and have a good safe trip Kurt and hopefully you won't have RF withdrawls.

Todd
KF7NLX

[KF7ORO]

Todd, I know what you're talking about on the copying. I have the same problem and I assume that's pretty normal. I forgot to throw out something that's helped me with that a little. I downloaded a bunch of the ARRL code practice MP3's and I'm still listening to them on the drive to work and back. One thing I don't like about them is they don't use the Farnsworth method. The 5 WPMs are really 5 WPM with really long dits and dahs and no extra space in between. I think Farnsworth is easier with faster characters and more space (like the QRS net). Anyway, if you use them, once you get up to 10 or 13 WPM there's probably not a huge difference. Keeping up with those MP3's in my head really helped me rewire some synapses. When I started, I was doing well to hear 2 or 3 characters in a row. Now I'm starting to hit the point where sometimes I can just hear the words and if I miss a letter or two, I can pick up pretty quickly and probably at least get the gist at 13 WPM. The great part is that now when I have a pen and paper, I have a much easier time copying someone because I don't have to keep a 10 character word in my head. I can just get one letter at a time. Hope that helps.

[WB7X]

Sorry I didn't make it home in time for the net. I thought I'd make it but got held up a while.

The QRS net has helped me a lot and I really appreciate you taking the initiative to get it running Kurt. Over the past couple weeks I've actually been able to have a few CW QSO's.

If anyone else is lurking out there and thinking about learning the code, it's a lot of fun and a great fit for off-road or portable with a battery powered rig. I think it was Kurt who threw out lcwo.net as a good place to get started learning. I did that and It's a great way to learn all the basic characters. The QRS net is a great first step onto the air. Once you've got the butterflies under control, I've found around the .050's (at least 7.050 and 14.050) there are lots of (mostly old) guys with great fists who love to work with striaght keys and are more than happy to slow down as much as you want. It's funny, even if you don't hear them you can call CQ slow and they're there.

For next week, I nominate Marty as the Net Control. Seriously, he's probably the more experienced but if you can't do it Marty, I'll give it my best shot. It probably won't be pretty though.

Howdy All,
Sorry I missed this, but I'm guilty of only reading from the "Recent Posts" on the homepage.

Thanks for the nomination but this Sat I probably won't be available even to check in. More than an even chance that I won't be home in time.

Have fun. Dit Dit.

[KF7ORO]

Well it looks like we may be having thunderstorms around net time anyway. It's clouding up now. Not sure how it is in Phoenix but I'm guessing about the same. We'll see how the weather is I guess.

[KF7ORO]

Well it wasn't storming here yet. Looks like t-storms all around Vegas but clear here. So I tried to kick off the net and didn't hear any checkins. Not sure if it was conditions or just nobody there.

After that bit of disappointment, I tuned around on 20m and realized there was a CW contest going on. I've never tried contesting at all, much less on CW. Did a little searching and found it's the IARU contest so I figured out the exchange and listened to some people making contacts. Those guys all send wicked fast but I was usually able to get the callsign of the guy calling CQ after 4 or 5 times. Once I felt pretty comfortable I could make the exchange, I turned the keyer up to 20wpm and threw my callsign out there. 20wpm still sounded a lot slower than them but it seemed to work ok. I only made about 5 contacts and then decided to quit at least until the kid's in bed. I'm not sure I'll be much of a contester but it was good practice.

[KF7ORO]

Not sure if there was no net tonight or I just couldn't hear it. I did hear one very faint signal on the freq. Didn't get much more than the call - N7HRK. That doesn't sound familiar though.

[KE7KUS]

The net was held tonight as scheduled. Weather here was very poor...many storms to the east side of Phoenix...which caused a significant amount of QRN on the band. I thought I copied one check-in...N7HRK from Libby, Montana. I copied his call, but when I went back to get his name and QTH, he was gone in the noise. I may have heard others light in the noise, but not enough to pick out. Sorry I missed you, Brian...I'm surprised...this is the first time the path to Las Vegas was out for the net. I'll post up the audio when I get it converted, but not much came across...just too much noise. We'll try it again next week!

[WB7X]

Didn't make it tonight. Coax disconnected.

Was fighting the computer in the aftermath of the "HDD Failure" virus/trojan from Thursday. Thought everything was OK and discovered all of my D drive files were "missing". Folders were there, showed contents in MBs, but no data. Turns out the virus/trojan checks the Hide Files box. Interesting that it only happened on the D drive and not the C also. Fortunately.

The 6m band was lousy today for the CQWW.