NTC QSO party - finally some success

 

   Last month I wrote about this party and the struggling to make QSOs. Or at least to decode some of the calls and exchanges. Most keying went way too fast for beginners like me. I have the idea a few of those stations did read my post because I had the idea this time I was actually able to decode more of the code.

I have a work around now. If I hear a call I now look for it on qrz.com to get an idea of the station and the name. Then I try to figure out if the name I hear is the same name I read on qrz.com. And of course I try to figure out the NTC number. So far that worked, only not for PI4NTC which is the club call. But after a few overs I figured out the name was THEO. The numbers went quite easy, the only number I had to search for afterwards was the one from PA7F. Luckily there is a list of members on the NTC website. And yes, if you use a contest program like N1MM this could automatically be filled in. But that is what I want to avoid. I really want to do all or most of the decoding with my own brain in this contest.

   The result. 6 contacts on 40m and 2 contacts on 80m. I did only S&P. Of course I know that you can make much QSOs with running. But it was my goal to make just a few more as previous editions. Find the scoring results here: https://pi4ntc.nl/ntcqp/ntcqp-2025-09/ I did not even finished as last ;-).

Thanks to all the ops that made CQs on a reasonable speed for beginners. I did appreciate it. And sorry for any mistakes I made. Overall I think I did pretty good this time and of course this is very encouraging to do better the next time.

#60m St.Pierre & Miquelon worked

Just before going to the job I though I check out 60m for this new on band one. I managed to get a free space in the split pile-up and it took 3 times calling before I got a reply. 3rd new one on 60m in a short period. The fun is that DXing is still possible on this band even when sunspots will go low in the next years.

Harvesting power from our sun

     Last year I wrote about the extension of my solarpanel setup with an additional 11 solarpanels. I estimated that this second setup would give me about 1000 KWh/year. But it became a bit more. I figured out that the first 5 panels would be payed for when I would reach 1705 KWh in total. Today I reached 1706 KWh in about 1 year and 3 months. I also wrote that I thought it would take 3 years to get to a break even point. When next year will be as good as this year I will reach that point in 2,5 years. I'm very happy about it because the rules in the Netherlands will change in 2027. At this moment we get the same price for the electricity we deliver to the grid as the price we have to pay for a KWh. At least extra power you don't use for example at the middle of the day is extracted from the power you use. For example you use 14 Kwh over 24 hours and your solarpower above what you use is 10 KWh in the same time you just have to pay for 4 KWh. So actually the electricity provider is a large remote battery. Of course this gives a lot of problems on the powergrid especially in high populated parts of our country. That's why the government decided this will be over in 2027. So, I was just in time buying these second hand solar panels and have to think what to do in the next year and before 2027. Best thing is to use the solarpower directly. That means use the electricity when the sun is there. I've been thinking about an electrical boiler, actually I already got one for free from my sister. In the Netherlands the most common way of heating your water is with gas which is getting very expensive in the last 10 years. Another option is a way to hold the elctricity in batteries and use it when the sun is not there. Both need to be "charged" when the sun is shining and delivering power of course. There are some smart systems available but a little expensive right now. I'm also thinking about off grid electricity for part of the property, like electricity in the garage, gardenhouse and glasshouse. Secondhand equipment can be bought, just have to find the right gear.

#60m Palestine worked

 

After a first unsuccessful first attempt I managed to make a valid QSO the second attempt. The pile-up was and still is huge. It is a miracle I made the QSO after all.

#60m Sint Maarten worked

First contact with the straight key

   Thought of calling CQ and making a contact with my straight key this evening. Something I've never done before. After a few CQs on about 15 wpm (I think??) nothing was coming back to me. So I decided to search for someone to QSO with. Then I found EA3PO unmistakingly calling CQ on 20m with a straight key on a speed slow enough that it was readable for me. I decided to key my call but he was not responding. So I tried again slowly EA3PO de PE4BAS K. Now he was coming back to me. Don't know exactly what he was keying but heard my call and a report. I thought I heard his name something like CESG, I was sure it was wrong but that is what I heard. After all it should be CESC short for Fransesc. But that is what I found out after the QSO. I hope he did hear my keying well, I think so because he repeated my name and did say something else which I didn't decode. It is so frustrating that you hear someone "talking" and you want to understand but you don't. Anyway, I did make the contact and that is what counts after all. I think I better concentrate on training words that are common in a QSO. Like TNX FER CALL UR ES RST RPT CALL NAME QTH HW? any other words? I found that many operators send BEST DX when they say goodbye.

TF2MSN Odinn

 So unfortunate that a nice HAMradio operator has died last month. I didn't know him personnally but Odinn was my first ever contact from Iceland back in 1987. We exchanged QSL cards.

Odinn was living on Vestmannaeyjar Isl. back then. This all happened on CB (11m). Contact made in FM with a converted 22 channel radio. This CB radio was modified by myself and had 54 channels, that's why my callsign at that time was DD54. I remember that there was a lot of fading on his signal and I could barely understood what he was saying. It was so special to me that I went to my dad and asked him to listen to a station from Iceland for the first time. My father, as always interested, but not his hobby ;-). Anyway, I had several QSOs with Odinn later on when I had a SSB radio.  And when I became a HAM I really enjoyed working him after I discovered he also went to HAMradio. We always had a chat about the good old CB times. It is sad we lost him. He will be remembered!

CQ WW digi

 Participated in this FT8/FT4 contest for a few hours last weekend till I reached 150 QSOs. Interesting to see that many interesting DXCCs could be worked without much effort. 

Testing the mapping feature from WorldRadioLeague.com. Not perfect, but it looks nice. I only did 10, 15, 20 and 40m. Did not participate over 16 hours like is written on the side of the map. I think that the time between the first and the last QSO is 16 hours. But in between I was off for at least 10 hours to sleep and do other things. On 40m my call was being used by another station. Strange to see your own callsign calling while it is not you. This station even made some QSOs. I don't see what the fun of this is? Same thing happened to one of my hamradio friends on 40m as well. 

My quest to learn CW (21)

 My quest continues.

Try do do my daily CW training but due to circumstances I'm not always able to log in at LCWO. However I do practice everyday some days multiple times.

Concentrating on decoding sentences I do the normal course once a day. Still 25/18 wpm is too fast for me. 80% accuracy is one of the best scores. However when I train plain text training on 26/20 wpm my rate is higher.

The goal is to make QSOs of course, Well, that's another story. I made some QSOs in Sweden as SM/PE4BAS/P. And yes it worked out. But I had help from the CW decoder in the (tr)uSDX. I don't have that with the IC-7300 and I refuse to run a CW decoder on the computer. Without the decoder I have to rely on my own brain and that makes me less confident. Yes, I hear stations calling but am afraid I will not be able to understand what they key as soon as I call them. I also tried to call CQ on 16 wpm to hopefully get an answer with the same speed. But so far this didn't work out. Well, I struggle but that is normal I guess. I just continue with it.... I'm shure at some moment in the future I will get it.

NTCQP again

   I participated once again in the Netherlands Telegraphy Club QSO Party. I really looked forward to it and I had a goal to make more QSOs as last time. But unfortunately it didn't happen. At first I listened on 40m but hardly couldn't decode any call. Some stations I heard were OK2BVX, DF4WX, PI4NTC and PA1HAM(?) and PA3GPX. I couldn't hear a name or NTC number all the keying went way too fast for me. After half an hour I moved down to 80m. Had a short exchange with OG0C. Then back to the NTCQP. I finally heard someone with clear and reasonable speed keying, it was PA3CNI. I got his name and NTC number after a couple of overs and decided to make the call on 16 wpm. He did came back on the same speed and it went smoothly. Confident after this one I was looking for another contact. I heard many strong signals but couldn't decode anything out of it. Some use probably mechanic keys and the way the dots and dashes sound is messing my brains up. In the end I think I heard OK1LO, SF6SSC and PA9X but I'm not sure. 

I have to say that this was a little discouraging. I wanted this so bad but am not able to simply decode morse behind the simple 5NN after 2 years of every day practice. 

But Bas, you make CW QSOs? You did make them from Sweden and others are in your log? Yes, but most of the ones in my log are 5NN contacts. Everyone can make them, even without knowing CW. And in Sweden I was using the decoder built into the (tr)uSDX, it feels like cheating. I really want to do all decoding in my head. It should be possible so I will continue on my difficult path to learn morsecode...

QRV from Sweden

  We took our family vacation for 2 weeks visiting Sweden. First time we were in this country. We rented a house in Djupekas and so we had kind of a base to get back to. Advantage was that I could leave the antennas installed. Besides our daily trips exploring the south of Sweden I had some time for my radio hobby most time in the evening and some time in the morning. I made some skeds with hamradio friends in the Netherlands which went very well. Unfortunatly the setup was not really good for DX. When I packed my station I had just enough room in the backpack for my endfed. So I decided to take both the magnetic loop and the endfed in the end. I'm glad I did because the endfed was the antenna I operated most of the time. 

The focus was to do as much as possible CW. The (tr)uSDX is a real CW radio in my opinion. Although it does a nice job on SSB and digimodes as well. I was glad there is a CW decoder built in because I still have problems following a complete sentence. I do recognize some letters and words but there is no way I can figure out a complete sentence. Luckely the decoder helped me to figure out the complete text keyed. 

In the end I made about 98 QSOs with SSB, CW, FT8, FT4 and VARA on 20m, 30m, 40m and 60m, I also used JS8 but could't find a station to QSO with although my heartbeat has been responded to by many. I learned a lot about the (tr)uSDX functions and in the end I made 19 CW QSOs in total. I have to tell I made a lot of CW CQ calls but there were no stations answering most of the time. In that case I switched over to FT8/FT4 which always easily gives you a lot of contacts. The only DX I could make was with a station on the east-coast of the USA on 20m FT8. Not bad considering my setup. 

Experiments I did:

1. Using VarAC to send an e-mail. I wanted to know if I could send an e-mail with ths setup. It went well in the end but it took some effort to find a station that could hear me.

2. Work DX. As soon as I saw spots of myself on PSKreporter in the USA I tried several stations.  I finally worked W2HCB on 20m FT8 after a while.

3. Worked 60m with a double MLA configuration. I tried CW, did not get any response. I knew PA2S and PG0DX would be on early in the morning. Worked both of them on FT8. I also worked DB6LL who was also /P. And I worked SM0BRF who is near Stockholm,we did an e-mail exchange because he asked my location in Sweden and I was unable to answer that with FT8.

4. Try 80m with the double MLA configuration. I tried hard but could not find a sweet spot. I couldn't get the SWR better as 1:5 . I didn't want to risk a broken (tr)uSDX, So I did not operate 80m. I might think of another antenna setup to be able to do 80m next time.

Setup 60m early in the morning

The (tr)uSDX did a great job on a vacation like this. Although I did try it at home, when operating as my only rig I had to learn some things. Like the use of of TXdelay. You need it when you work CW but when you switch to digital you need to switch it back off. Besides that the best volume for CW is at 11, at least for me. But on digital it is way to loud, best setting for me was 7. At the start I had a lot of problems with CAT control due to incorrect settings. But it went better when I used the settings as described above. Same counts for the laptop in use, at start it was empty withing 45 minutes. But I found there is a way to put it on battery save mode, which didn't affect digital operation. 

Station right after my CW QSO with PE2V.

The (tr)uSDX itself doesn't use much power. In about 12 days of operating it I only once needed to recharge my 12V powerbank which is holding about 5Ah.

The endfed was too low the first day. I couldn't get a good SWR on 40m. I bought a spool of  plastic laundry wire at the local supermarket to get the antenna higher into the nearest tree. I was lucky there were rocks all around so I attached on to the line and threw it over a high branch. It went easy actually. SWR on 40 was a lot better, 1:1,3 on 7100 KHz, The SWR meter in the (tr)uSDX is a great function. 

QSOs approx. made, some might miss.

Of course radio is not the only thing in life. We did a lot of sightseeing. And enjoyed the beautiful nature of Sweden. 

The baltic sea just 200m from the summerhouse.

My quest to learn CW (20)

Daily practice continues...

 

I try to be on air with CW as much as possible. Did make some 5NN contacts with DX stations. But would like so much to exhange more as 5NN. However I'm still unable to follow a complete transmission. I do a lot of QSO practice listening on the CWops training page with 25/15wpm. But even that can only be copied about 50%. As you can see above I train random letters/numbers with 25/18wpm, copy about 70-90% as you can see it is mostly 80-85%. My brain is just not fast enough. Some letters are easy but have some trouble with a few. I did read it is normal and according to this PDF from WZ8C it could be wise to just train the alphabet again for ICR. For ICR training I found another interesting app for Android or Iphone/Ipad users called Morse Maven. Haven't used it much yet but will do on vacation. I also tried calling CQ randomly with 15wpm. Unfortunatly the stations that come back to me have a higher speed and I'm lost in copying, it is a little discouraging. Anyway, I'm keeping up doing my daily training sessions and will persevere...

Final preparation

 I made my decision, I take the magloop with me on vacation. One final test this evening on 60m FT8 convinced me that it is the most versatile antenna. It covers all the bands the (tr)uSDX has and has a small footprint. Tuning for every new frequency is a disadavantage but for digimodes it is not important, once tuned it is ok.

I made a FT8 contact with a station in Germany over a distance of 273km with the setup as showed on the photo. From inside the shack with about 4W. For 60m I need a double loop which should be inefficient. But I got a report of -8dB which is not even weak.

Unfortunatly I lost CAT control two times. Not shure what causes this. It is not RFI since it was happening when receiving. May be the poll time is too high? I figure it out...

The (tr)uSDX is not the most reliable radio but it does the job. I don't bother that I have to reset the radio at times or reconnect the USB cable to get things working again. At least it is possible to make contacts with it.

Now to pack everything in the rucksack and wait for the day that we can finally go...

Antenna stress of choice

 What antenna to bring with me on vacation? I have 3 choices. But as always everything has pros and cons. The same counts for antennas.

Choice 1: 3 Band endfed made by PE1BVQ (SK). Advantage: reliable, has proven itself, light, broadband, small to carry. Disadvantage: Pre-tuned, large (you cannot hang it everywhere), only 3 bands. Using the (tr)uSDX it means I can only use 40m and 20m.

Endfed attached to a gutter

Choice 2: Magnetic loop. Advantage: reliable, small footprint, can be use inside a house or shed, all bands 80-70cm, fast setup, directivity. Disadvantage: Tuning box is relatively heavy and big, difficult to tune, very small bandwidth (retune every new frequency). 

The MLA package

MLA deployed

Choice 3:  Superantenna MP-1 Advantage: Broadbanded, DX antenna (proven), light, small to carry,  has larger bandwidth as MLA, easy setup. Disadvantage: It is relatively large (long radials) when deployed, it doesn't always tune well, very sensitive to surrounding. 

MP-1 Package

MP-1 package

MP-1 deployed

It's a hard choice. I had good results with the MLA from Germany were I had not much space for an antenna. But the MLA on a tripod fitted in and did well. The MP-1 has been my antenna a few times when active from Denmark with good results. I never brought the endfed with me on vacation, the endfed does well on my 12m glassfiber mast. However there is no room in the car for the mast. Overall there will be limited room in the car. So I can't have it all. I have no idea if I have room for an antenna at our destination but so far I can see that there is a small garden behind the summerhouse we rented. I don't want to give more details. But I can reveal that my prefix will be SM/,,,

(tr)uSDX headache

 I hope this post will help solving problems with the (tr)uSDX and connecting the computer with one USB cable for CAT and audio. It is also written for myself as reminder. Let's asume everything was working well. But for some reason, nothing works the next day. 

The above message was given loading the (tr)uSDX driver, which you should load before starting a digimode software program like WSJT-X or others. What is happening here, it was working yesterday? What should do? I removed all drivers, restarted the computer, installed the driver again. Still the same message. I even installed a new VB-cable version. Still the same. Suddenly it occured to me that the VB-cable could be in use by another program or device. And yes, it was. Right click on your soundsymbol reveals what source is used. In my case the VB-cable. It should be the normal internal soundcard.

Above is what it should look like. If the VB-cable is chosen the (tr)uSDX driver will not load correctly.

Above what you see when the everything is allright!

Next problem. VARA-HF which is used for Winlink and VarAC. Settings are correct. Both VB-cables are choosen in audiosettings. Transmit audio is correct (verified with another radio). But there is no RX audio. 

So far my solution is to plug in a microphone into the computer, in my case a headset. Then restart the (tr)uSDX driver and then start VARA-HF. It does receive now. After that I start VarAC which will try to start another instance of VARA-HF, ignore that. It is working now...

I guess it's the same problem with Windows assigning the VB-cable to be used by the computer instead of the (tr)uSDX driver just like with the soundcard problem I wrote above. I guess there is a better solution but my knowledge of Windows is just too limited.

VarAC decentralized e-mail system

    It has been a while I wrote about VarAC. This digital communication system is getting more advanced. It now features a decentralized e-mail system. Not a same system like Winlink but another opportunity to send and receive e-mail. No need to register in a network system but just e-mail everyone you like with your radio and the VarAC software.

More info and a comparisation with Winlink can be found on a dedicated VarAC e-mail gateway page:

https://www.varac-hamradio.com/varac-email-gateway

It is a nice feature. But does it work? I wrote myself an e-mail and used HB9AVK's e-mail gateway. Since it is "live" I just waited for the e-mail to arrive and replied to my e-mail right away. The reply was received instantly and this is how it looks:

On the e-mail side it looks like this. There is even a notice that my reply e-mail has been delivered over the radio.

Of course there are advantages and disadvantages. Since not all gateways are on air all the time there is a risk that you will not get a answer on your e-mail right away. There is a warning system as soon as you will send out a beacon you will get a notice from the gateway system if there is a mail waiting for you to pick up. You need to connect to the same gateway station to retrieve you e-mail. In Winlink you can retrieve your e-mail or message from any Winlink station around the world. I think this is the biggest difference between the two systems.

Anyway, I think it is a nice system and a very good addition to the HAMradio community. If you need to send an e-mail and Winlink is not working or you can't reach a Winlink station you can always try VarAC. It is good to have multiple systems available.

You probabely think now why would I need something like this. Well there are still places on earth without internet or cellphone access. Not everyone has a satphone or satellite link available. If you are a HAMradio operator this can be a life saving tool.

(tr)uSDX

 So many things have been written about this little radio. I bought one a while ago. The goal is to bring it with me on vacation. It is not as big and heavy as my FT817 (compared!). It doesn't cover all bands but at the end...what do you need?

I can write a lot of things on how to make a setup. Various firmwares. What you can or cannot do with this radio. But I don't. One thing is for shure: don't have too high expectations. It is a very low priced shortwave transceiver that does what it does. You can certainly make contacts but you need patience.

Advantage is that you can do CW, SSB and digimode. You don't need a external mike, it is already inside. You don't need a digimodem, only a USB cable is enough. 

I don't want to be surprised when on my vacation address so I wanted to be shure everything works as it should be. When you buy this radio it has standard firmware in it. You can upload two types of firmware to the radio. The standard and the beta. Each has it's own features. You need the beta version (2.00x) to work digimodes with a single USB cable.

Actually updating the radio with firmware was a breeze. It was easy. Setting up the radio takes some patience and practice but can be done with some tinkering. Digimode connection takes some tinkering as well. Probably you need to assign another COM port number to the port that connects the radio. And in WSJT-X or JTDX you need to set polling rate at 80 seconds because the CAT connection is interfering with the virtual audio. You can find everything you need on this on DL2MAN's (tr)uSDX homepage. It takes some time but it can be done.

First of all I wanted to know if my signal has been received on CW. At first I transmitted CQ TEST PE4BAS K with my paddle. Nothing seen... even not after a few times. From my own experience I know how bad software CW decoders decode human made CW. So I programmed the same text in the internal auto keyer. After 3 times transmitting the same text I was spotted on RBN.

Next was SSB. You can read everywhere that SSB modulation is a thing with this little radio. Although you see a lot of YT videos from people that actually make SSB contacts. I made a recording with my IC-7300 and discovered that best modulation can be made talking reasonable loud about 10cm in front of the internal mike. 

Now, digital modes with my experimental 3 band halo. I was really surprised how easy it was to make contacts with only 4W from this little radio. It was really a matter of calling a few times and 2 or 3 stations were calling me back at the same time. I'm not shure but I have the impression that JTDX receives a lot more as the WSJT-X software with this rig.

Digimode test with the (tr)uSDX. ODX 15714km. 

You can be heard. But can you make contacts? Luckily the IARU contest is on. So I set a goal to work a SSB and CW station on both 20m and 40m. The antenna is an endfed which is the most used antenna on portable operations. I might bring my magloop on vacation but am not shure about this. With the endfed I can only transmit on 20/40m. I don't know what to expect on vacation so I decided to hang the endfed from gutter to gutter, about 3m above the ground. The worst antenna setup you can image :-). I was operating outside behind the house, my shack is upstairs (the 2 windows). At first I tested SWR. It was reasonable on 20m 1:1,5. On 40m it was reasonable till 7100 KHz. Unfortunately my earbuds fell and one of the earpieces broke. Ah well, this will happen on vacation as well. With this setup I worked RW3DU on 20 SSB, 9A0HQ on 20 CW, OE0HQ on 40 SSB and II4HQ on 40 CW. Yes, it works well.

My test operating position. Need a longer power supply cord because you need to hold the radio near your mouth for SSB. I also ordered a BNC to PL connector. The one I use now is, BNC to N to PL which makes it long and heavy.

This is probably what I bring with me. (tr)uSDX, battery with charger, minipaddle with retractable cord, compass, USB cable microUSB for digimode, USB cable for iphone charging, dummyload optional.

Tuner maintenance

 My Palstar tuner had a broken lightbulb for quite a while. I was a little irritated that it wouldn't turn on so I decided to change the original light for a green LED I had in my junkbox. Since I had to open the tuner also cleaned the interior and the coil/coil wheel/wheel shaft. All parts were certainly very dirty and I had to clean everything multiple times.

The interior after cleaning.

The wheel that makes contact with the coil was almost black inside. Don\t know what causes this?

LED install with a 2K VR.

Original lightbulb old skool. I had to magnify to see the break.

At first the LED was too bright. I was glad I installed a VR to dim the light.

Does anyone have a good idea to refurbish to lettering around the antennaswitch? It comes off unfortunately. It already did after a year or so. If I knew this would happen I had certainly made precautions and would protect it.

My quest to learn CW (19)

 

I don't do much with lessons anymore. The focus is to do plain text training every day. At the moment I train with 25/18 wpm. I can't get everything but I read that that is not important. You just go on with the next word or letter and don't think about what you missed. I think I slowly get it.

I don't make much CW QSOs right now. I don't have time to be in the shack in front of the radio. Besides that it is way too hot there. CWops helps me to go on to the next level. But at this moment I stopped the homework. I will pick it up later.