Category Archives: Special Events

Apr 12

ARRL Trip – 2011

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On Monday a number of us from DLARC (Delaware-Lehigh Amateur Radio Club) took a field trip to the ARRL Headquarters in Newington, CT and also work the W1AW station.

During the 4 hour trip, I worked a number of DX stations on 17 and 20m including Russia and Belgium. Having HF in the car definitely makes the time go quick, but logging becomes the difficult and hazardous part.

Once on-site, our tour guide took us around league headquarters where we visited the Logbook of the world (LoTW) and certificate department as well as Product Test Lab, Marketing & Advertising, and VEC departments. While there Laurie (KB3SIK) was able to find out the status to her recent upgrade, which happened to arrive in the mail that day. In the outgoing QSL card bureau, we found cards destined for NE3F, the local contest station in Reading, PA, which I found rather funny.

We also had a tour of the ARRL employee station, W1HQ which had a decent amount of gear including a SteppIR beam and 6 meter King Conversion amplifier. I’ll be adding W1HQ to my rare DX list.

It was nice to be put faces and names to the ARRL and see what they do from their perspective. They do alot with what they have and make use of every piece of equipment they have; Something quite apparent in the Lab and Art departments.
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After lunch at a local pizza place, we put in some operating time at W1AW, their visitor operator station. W1AW is also the station that provides the on-air ARRL bulletins as well as qualifying Morse code runs. I ended up running their Yaesu FTDX-9000D on 15m for a bit. The station has alot of different gear and operates a number of modes.
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The remainder of the photos and video can be found here.

Mar 28

Timonium hamfest 2011 and antenna work

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Another Timonium hamfest has come and gone.
Buyer turnout seemed pretty good, vendor turnout was slightly thinner than last year, although there seems to have been more tailgating than years past. Most likely due to better weather. I didn’t see too many capital expenses being made although I heard someone talking on the local repeater net saying he sold an entire silent key’s vintage Collins station. Laurie got a chance to use her new HT, which I was sure she really enjoyed keeping up with everyone. No large purchases this year, simple odds and ends and new antennas for our HT’s, but we got a chance to meet up with the 1900 guys from as far out as Pittsburgh and South NJ. Overall another successful hamfest! Can’t wait till next year![simage=464,576,n,center,][simage=465,576,n,center,]

The following day, Laurie and I made some adjustments to our 2 meter stack by adding a tilt-over base which allowed me to change the polarity on the cubical quad. Now I can get into N2KEJ’s repeater in South Jersey.[simage=463,576,n,center,][simage=462,576,n,center,]

Feb 09

’tis the season..

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..for DXpeditions!

It seems that the greatest of DXpeditions occurs at the start of the year. 2 years ago when I acquired my General class ticket, K5D was underway on Desecheo Island. Unfortunately my newbie status and still having to suffix my already long callsign with /AG would cause me to miss out on making a QSO with them.

Long call = (KB3ELT/AG)
Kilo Bravo Three Echo Lima Tango Slope Alpha Gulf.

Two days ago, The Microlite Penguins finished up a nice DXPedition to the South Orkey Islands (VP8ORK) off the Southern tip of South America. I was able to work them on 40m CW, but unfortunately my call may have been logged error as I don’t appear in their final logbook. I’ll end up sending a QSL card anyways with a note attached.

From February 4th to the 17th, 2011. There is a DXPedition to São Tomé & Príncipe – IOTA AF023 – using the call S9DX. Fortunately I’m in their logbook both on 20m CW and 15m Phone.

Check out http://www.dailydx.com/ for scheduled DXPeditions and their locations. They have a email digest that you can subscribe to for updates in the schedule.