Category Archives: Logbook

Mar 30

Tuesday Morning DX commute

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This morning on my way into work, I went about my normal routine, listening for various NET’s on 80 and 40m. One that I was listening to talked about band openings on 10, 15 and 20m. So I rolled my way down to 10 meter, which I have yet to work mobile and nothing. I then moved up to 15m and then BAM! CO6LC. He has got to be the loudest thing out of Cuba and he’s on the air often! Easily S9+10 to me in the car. After working him and obtaining a 58 report, I moved down the band slightly and worked IZ6BXV from Italy. Tony had a huge signal as well, and provided me a S9+5 report. Not bad for my 100 watts into a screwdriver antenna.

And then there was RL3A, a Radio club centered in Moscow just down the band from the Italian station. Slava, UA4HTT was operating a kilowatt into a 7x7x7 15m stack at his club station, which is probably his signal was so huge and how I got such a great report out of Russia. More information about their station is on their website, http://www.rl3a.ru.

Thanks Ore, Tony and Slava for a fun drive into work this morning.

Jul 03

ISO: Logging Software

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With Field Day 2009 having ended almost 2 weeks ago, and the IARU contest next weekend, I’m finding myself in search of a new logging software.

Since my start in HF back in March, I’ve been using the first logger I started with, EasyLog 5. It’s a good clean program with alot if features, although having used WB3W’s Field Day logger, I’ve gotten a little used to the large text and simplified operation.

When it comes to contesting, it’s all about speed. So I was on the search for a logging software that had a clean interface that was stable and pretty to look at. Kind of what you find in a relationship.. :) I also wanted something that did a lookup on the operator details when their callsign was entered. My eventual selection would also have to pull frequency from the radio as well.

I’m happy to say, I’ve found the logger that best suites my needs; N3FJP’s Amateur Contact Log v3.0. ACL (for short) is light, clean and fully customizable. Within minutes I had it polling frequency from my radio, resolving callsigns from the QRZ internet service and fully customized colors, input fields and the log view. It also has DX cluster with alerting built in as well. By browsing around a bit in the software, their appears to be a voice keyer as well as CW keyer with winkey support as well as an interface for Logbook Of The World (LoTW). For the $19 USD he’s asking for registering, I believe the software is well worth it.

In addition to the ACL, N3FJP also has an IARU logger which I will use next weekend.