There has been some talk about playing chess on the air. It was a topic on a forum a while back.

AC2Z went ahead and created a group to start a chess net. This is a way to set up a game to play. Hopefully, after we get enough people, we can set up a sked for a net.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Radiochess/

The mode used is up to those who are playing.

Hope to hear from you soon.

73,
Dan, KA3CTQ

There had been some talk about playing chess on the air. It was a topic on this forum a while back.

AC2Z went ahead and created a group to start a chess net. If you want to find someone to play, you can set up a game thru this group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Radiochess/

It does not necessarily need to be by code, but that is my preference.

Hope to hear from you soon.

73,
Dan, KA3CTQ

Ed,

Get on the air and send a CQ. I hear a few slow speed CQs on the old novice parts of the 40 and 80 meter bands. I also hear slower code in the General parts too.

There are many who are new to code and are not sending greater that 10wpm. There are also some like me who are getting back into CW and are a bit rusty.

If you want to sked a QSO, get on the fists or skcc reflectors and let it be known. You'll be up to your keys in requests.

One other place is on eQSL. You can put in a request for CW on a particular band that way. I put one out on a Friday and by Sunday morning there were 30 responses.

Like I first said, just send out a CQ. It is the simplest way. We will be listening for you.

73,
Dan, KA3CTQ

I have 138 ft of wire that I use for 80 to 10 meters. It works well, not great. It works better if you can get some height which may be my problem

The one thing I did that helped was put a equal length counter-poise(C-P)in the ground. This helped reduce the noise and helped with tuning. You may want to run multiple wires, a length of wire for each band , for C-P's.

I have seen them set up three ways, fed with ladder line, fed with coax(the C-P hooked to the shield), and run directly from a tuner. Some one can comment on whick is better, but I would not recommend from the tuner if it is in the shack.

Mine is hooked to coax with no balum.

The only thing in your post that concerns me is the fact your wire is "un-insulated." Be careful where you put this.

73,
Dan

This thread is becoming a car wreck.

I...just...can't...stop...looking!!

And the trolling goes on.

There is a Yahoo Group dedicated to this mic.

I went to find some a couple of months ago and not alot of offices had them.

When I asked one clerk, he said that they got stuck with a pile of them that they had to throw out July 1st. They didn't plan on ordering new ones until enough people asked for them.

As for the IRCs he threw away, I thought they were still good until Dec 31st.

I went out at lunch to get some IRCs and the post office had them.

It is taking some time, a long time, for them to stock IRCs. We are talking about the Post Office after all. Through wind, rain..etc,etc,etc. They never said it would be fast.

DR1A gave everyone a 59. He does this for speed. If he has to give you a real report, it would take more time. He would have to think about the report and that may cost him a dozen QSO's an hour.

I talked to him and station in a neighboring town. The neighbor was giving real reports. His didn't match DR1A's for many of the contacts. All DR1A gave out was 59's.

Sorry, but I don't use a contest signal report to judge an antenna. But, it is does let me know how far I can reach. As far as distance, your antenna works fairly good to me.

Dan

There are a couple of ways to do this. There are direct drive coupler or use of a pully (or pully system). It depends on how big the peice of wood is.

It also depends on what you are going to do with the wood peice. A little more detail would help.

73,
Dan

Make that the 28th.

OOPS

I didn't read the post until the 29th, so I missed the net.

I am not a big fan of Rand (or any other author for that fact), but I do read alot. Maybe you should think about expanding the list and include other authors. This may attract others to the net and make it a regular book discussion net.

To keep your main focus, the first Wednesday of the month could be a Rand book discussion and the other Wednesdays (depending on how often you want to meet) would be other books.

Dan
KA3CTQ

Here is my question of the day.
 
The set up:
I am going to put up a vertical antenna. It is going up near my property line thru a tree. It is being placed there because it will be un-noticeable by the neighbors (stuck with the covenants of the area).
 
Because of the placement, I cannot put radials all the way around the base. I will be able to get a small fraction better than a half of a circle. Per my understanding and all the reading I have done on verticals, the radials should encircle the base of the antenna.
 
To the question:
How is this set up going to affect the antenna?

I like to play chess.

I have been off the air for a couple of years, so my code is a bit rusty.

Dan
KA3CTQ
ka3ctq@yahoo.com