RTTY RU on PSK is a huge waste of time! Unless of course you think working 2 or 3 guys an hour is fun. Very and I mean VERY few guys use PSK during this contest.

Hello,

Anyone know the PSK 31 freq for Japan on 40 and 80m? Im guessing JA activity on 20, 15, 10, arethe regular PSK freqs.

Hello,


I have heard the terms Near Field and Far Field being used when describing ways to evaluate vertical antennas. I know that "near field" is the ground at the base of your vertical under your radial system, but i'm trying to understand the meaning of "far field" and how to evaluate it for my location. Is far field a certain number of wavelengths from the base of my antenna? i.e. 140 feet or 1 wavelength on 40m, or is it much farther like miles away? How do you evaluate your far field as being poor, good, or excellent? Houses, buildings, hills, mountains that obstruct line of sight to the horizon?


I have a all-band vertical with 50 43' radials and a few more at 55' which should cover my near field as best that I can, i'm just trying to get a grasp on the "far field" term.


thank you

Hello,

While operating CQWW CW this weekend I was thinking it would be pretty cool if there was a way to track my qso's on a map "real time". I know a few general logging programs will draw a line from your QTH to the station worked on a map, but I was wondering if it can be done using a contest logging program such as N1MM and being able to track my qso on another monitor running Google Earth or DX Atlas. When a station is worked it will either put a dot on the map of the DX station using info from QRZ.com, or simply just a dot in the center of the DX country Maybe color coded for band.

Can this be done?

Seriously? This is like creating an propagation strategy from W1 to EA. Whats the point.

Maybe i'm just being an old fart but does anyone else think that PSK31 qso's include too much canned useless information? I enjoy the occassional ragchew, but mostly enjoy working new states and DXCC countries. My exchanges are usually vary efficient and consist of relevant information. However almost all of the exchanges I recieve are filled with a ton of unnecessary information like listing every club, with member #, that they belong too, every single piece of radio equipment they own, even if its in storage somewhere else, the computer they use including the cpu speed,  operating system, moden, and router. I've even had a handful of guys send how many kids and grandkids they have. And almost every qso ends with TU for this bpsk31 qso of date, day, and time. I mean come on, really? Its incradible how different psk31 qso's are from anything I've had on CW, SSB, or RTTY.

I have no problem with long ragchews and exchanging any of this info if the qso goes in that direction. What I dont like is guys just mashing a macro early in the qso which sends a page of all this information that I really don not care about. It's a waste of bandwidth. Also, hasnt everyone heard of LoTW? Alot of people I work on psk31 use it but most do not. Too lazy to set up an account? You do know that eqsl means nothing towards DXCC, right?

Im also amaized at the number of psk31 op's who dont know what CQ DX means and insist on calling. FYI - The definition of CQ DX is not what it is on 11 meters.

Maybe the psk31 crowd is made up of new hams who are just happy to talk to someone so they load up macros with their life story, maybe it's borderline poor operating practice,  I dont know.

That was quick! thank you!! Is this a simple DIY adjustment or do I need to seek professional help. I'm not the most technically savy ham around, lol. Also I didnt see any mention of how to do that in the manual but I will look again. I'm guessing I'll have to choose between 20m and 30m for the 20/30 band position on the amp and wont be able to have both.

I only seem to be getting 125w output on 30m.  Amp runs on 110v.  Currently driving with approx 80w, increasing drive does nothing. Output on all other bands is fine. Output power measured with Power Master meter. Antenna used is a 43' vert using MN-2700 tuner. The lowest swr I can get from tuner is 1.7.

Any suggestions? I just wan to make sure im not damaging my amp.

Forgive the stupid question, but this is my first antenna instalation. How do I install my rotor so it's aligned with North? Can it be done using the control box after it's in the air? Before I install it in the tower should I make sure the rotor is fully CW or CCW? or does it matter?

And lastly, can I use a simple compass to align to North?

Thank you

Thanks for the reply, Tom. I value your opinion. Not exactly what I wanted to hear though I think I was misinformed before starting this vertical project.

I always thought that if you put the time in to install a good radial system under a 43' vertical you could have a solid DX preformer with pretty good low angle, especally on 20-80m. At least better then a dipole. Not just having a "workable" signal. Maybe those writings that I read were from guys using their vertical over salt water.

I dont think I have ever heard of anything with a trap being recommended over non-trap. I guess verticals are different. More efficient?

Maybe I should drill a hole in the top of my vertical and use it for a 43' support for various dipoles. It does have a nice tilt-over feature

I really feel piss weak now, lol

I was running a Ham Cap prediction for 15m into Europe using my 43' vertical. I selected 1/4 vertical on both TX and RX (even though a 43' vert is not a 1/4 wave on 15m, it seemed like the closest choice). Ham Cap showed a mostly dark map indicating a very slim chance for that path. I selected a dipole at 35' for both TX and RX at the same UTC and the map showed lots of light area in Europe indicating a fairly decent opening on that path.

Can it be that my 43' vertical that I spent a week laying down 60 radials is being out preformed by a cheapo diople at 35'?  sigh....

Does anyone know if there's a DX podcast available with the latest DX news, DXing tips and tricks?

I opened it up to check the "Log debugging info" box and it just started working. Hmmm... I think im good to go. Thank you.

Hi Dave,

I tried everything on the list with no luck. I can connect to the telnet node fine, and im seeing the spots roll out on the spot source window. Just nothing on the Spot Collector. The only program of the suite I downloaded is SC. Does it require the other programs to be running for ot to work?

Hello,

I've seen the screen shots of this program and really liked it. I downloaded the Launcher, then downloaded SC. I fired it up, successfully connected via telnet to a spot source. The raw spots are rolling in on the DXCluster window ONLY. There are no spots displayed on the main Spot Collector screen. I tried looking in the config screen for a reason why the spots are not displayed. There are ALOT of options to configure this program, which is a good thing, but im a bit overwelmed. I was hoping it would just work right out of the box and I could mess with the options I wanted later. Does anyone know what I have to do to get the spots to show up?

Thank you