V44KF

The 80 meter band was very noisy last night and no contact was established with 2E0KXD. We will be more scientific about making the next contact. Scientific because one has to ensure that everything is in place to support the contact between two stations so far apart like over the ocean. Just down the road say 500 miles it is no problem, that is only 8 degrees away, and most likely still in the same time zone. I am no big time DXer, but I suspect that most hams with a little seriousness about working DX, on another continent, would have a copy of the Sunrise Sunset book and tables. My copy is by ON4UN / AA401 - 1987, and I consult it occasionally. This puts you right on the money, but still does not guarantee that you will have a contact, but it puts you squarely in the game. Other tools like the clusters also help the bottom line. According to the SS SR table the UK SS is around 20.40 and the V4 SS is about 22.46. The UK SR is at 03.39 and the V4 SR is at 09.37. I know historically th...

At my sunset, in the next few hours, I am going to be looking for my ham buddy 2E0KXD on the other side of the Atlantic, to see whether or not we can make a contact with his GAP antenna on 80 meters. I know that in times past before the sun drops over my horizon in the West I can drop an R5S9 signal into Europe. After the sun sinks over the horizon some signal improvement to S9+20 is the norm. Most time signals are stronger on my receiver, but I find that most EU hams may be transmitting at their legal limit. I have not found any reason to go to my legal limit here as yet. I have not used my 80-meter antenna for a while and had to effect some emergency repairs to be ready for tonight. My antenna is positioned above my chain link fence. The parasitic vines running on the fence always project appendages to entangle the bottom loading wire running parallel to the fence at a height of about 1-foot above it. Above the perimeter fence seems like the most unobtrusive place to place a top and ...

A vertical antenna is the easiest of antennas to make and install. You only need one point above the ground from which to let it hang down, or one point on the ground from which to let it stick up in the air. Wire is used for the hanging vertical and self supporting aluminum tubing for the other. With any other antenna material between these two extremes, of flexible wire and hard tubing, I believe that you will be on your own. Of course, I am addressing the home brewer who is going to use 'junk yard' material to fabricate a vertical antenna that will rival the ready made product in performance. Price is not even considered here, because the cost of the shipping alone may exceed the cost of the locally found raw materials used. In an earlier blog I mentioned that antenna grade aluminun tubing is usually unavailable on the island and nobocy is making any effort to import the tubing that they need. However at the end of the day the verticals are built from materials available loc...

I have just realized that some hams have a morbid fear of embracing the new technology. I am so busy doing my own thing that I somehow missed this, not that it would have any impact on how or what I do in respect to my own embracing of the technology. Fortunately for me I was forced into this embracing and appreciating the technology as a Switching Technician / Engineer in the Telecoms industry back in 1983, when we moved from mechanical telephone switching to Digital switching. Working in and with digital technology 24/7 grows on you, and together we become like one, and practically inseparable after 20+ years. So tech is like a way of life and it is sometimes difficult to appreciate that other people may not feel it like you do. However having retired I have made a clean break and do not wish to see another switch ... but that is just idle talk, because the tech is in the bones and really pervades every cell of the body. Other hams who have not been engulfed, absorbed or involved wit...

Hurricane Season 2009 is with us, or maybe more correctly, we are with it. It is the way of Nature. "We come meet it and we will go leave it", as the old people have a way of saying. This season means something different to everyone, and I may take the liberty to say, that it may not mean the exact same thing to everyone, something like fingerprint. Some of us look forward to experiencing the high winds blowing, some the water falling and ghauts running, some the calm before and after the storm, and some to the after effect, the mitigation and restoration in the wake. I believe that most of us would prefer that the weather just stayed over the sea and went away early. There is nothing we can do about storms and hurricane, but Pray before and after. History has shown that praying can work, but it seems that we only pray for storms to come. We provide names which determine the category and intensity, and we even go so far as to suggest to Nature the quantity of storms that we w...

I do not play the Caribbean Lotto, but I feel that I may win it very soon. I am spending a little time determining how I will spend, or maybe more correctly, invest some of the winnings on improving the quality of my hobbies. Of course, being retired on a hot and sunny Caribbean island I only have to Eat, Sleep, Bicycle / Exercise, Ham Radio, Photography, Pray, Go Fishing and Blog, in addition to the natural body functions. This is really the simple LIFE, and after working in the "non hassle free" Telecoms industry for almost 40 years, I can finally appreciate and enjoy the liming lifestyle of the islands, without having to party, fete and drink coconut rum, on the beach 24/7, like some of our tourists and visitors. What they come here to enjoy in a week or two is a way of Life for most of us, without the hefty price tag. The V4 island is so large that no one can live any further than 4 miles away from the sea. I believe the widest point of the island is about 8 miles, but no...

Ham radio is alive and well in V4 land, moving forward, but maybe slower than some of us would like. All hams are not unemployed like I am. Don't for a moment assume that this means that I can sit in front of the radio 24/7, because I wish, but that never happens. The XYL has been around for the last 36 years so she know the Ham schedules and I can't use that excuse to escape any chores. Besides that she enjoys the hobby just as much as I do, and now that the license is 'no code' I expect that she will go after that ham ticket soon. Then, after all these years, I may finally be able to get a rig in the bedroom. The between blogs activity was fast and furious. I installed a 20-meter top and bottom loaded vertical dipole antenna, but have not tested it on any DX as yet. Someone left me a nine [9] foot piece of air conditioning copper tubing in my garbage bin. I hope that the person has more copper tubing to throw away and remembers the address of my garbage bin again. May...