A lost weekend - ARRL 10m contest

  

    A lost weekend, that is what my XYL call it. Not for me it is. But I can imagine for someone that is not interested in a hobby like we have it is of course a lost weekend. I think this contest is a lot of fun. World wide DX can be heard and worked. You hear the signals fading in and out. Signals become stronger when the sun rises and are getting faint when the sun is gone behind the horizon. It is pure magic especially when the propagation is good.

     Unfortunately the propagation was not, what I call, excellent this weekend. But it was still good enough to get a 100W signal heard all over the world. Saturday was a bit better as Sunday. I've been looking in my archives and think this year was my best ARRL 10m contest ever. What helps is my knowledge of CW now. I have to write that I was overwhelmed with the speed of keying and used CWskimmer at first. But I noticed I was barely looking at it since I was decoding with my ears and brain. Not that it is without error but I did my best. I even did some running on CW and that went reasonable well. Highlight of the contest was working fellow blogger VE9KK again, and he was booming in, best ever signal I heard from him. I also worked OQ5M Franki, this time on SSB. I heard  Franki on CW but the pile-up was large so I gave up after a few tries. I had an awful moment when I worked AZ1D, it looks so much like a American call that I asked for a state, but of course it is an alternative Argentinian call. Anyway, I apologized and went on. DX heard but could not be reached were ZM4T, he had a faint signal but was readable, and a PZ5 station who had a huge pile-up. But overall I worked all the DX I could hear.

Purple=SSB&CW Red=CW Green=SSB

     A total of 88 DXCC has been contacted this weekend. Not bad at all. Imagine the participants worldwide all spend their weekend on the 10m band contacting each other to gather points. How useless is that? But it is great fun for all of them. An escape from the daily stress we sometimes encounter.

Will the 10m band be good next year. No one knows. The sun's activity will be lower and we are on the way to the solar minimum. I remember my efforts in this contest in solar minimum years....

Meshtastic progress

    Have been on Meshtastic for a while now, It seems the popularity is still growing. Although at this moment it is very unreliable. Only 50% of messages are delivered, especially when 2 or more hops are desired. With direct contact there is no problem. It also depends on how many signals are on the "band". It seems the little transceivers are not waiting for a empty "space" to transmit. It think that makes it unreliable as well. In the old packetradio days we used digisquelch modules in our modems to avoid these problems. I hope this whole LoRa system will develop in time, we'll see. It's happy experiment time!

Old setup with Heltec V3

I first started with Heltec V3 modules. They are cheap but unreliable and like power, too much current drain for a solar node. The nice thing is you can see some data on the screen. Bluetooth has low range and you need to reset the device regulary. The follow up was a Lilygo TTGO Lora32 V2 module. There is a display but you can't scroll through data like with the Heltec. The Lilygo has excellent Bluetooth, much better as the Heltecs. And I have the idea the receive is also better. But still it likes too much power. So, for that I bought XIAO nRF52840 & Wio-SX1262 modules, they have no displays and as far as I can measure they take only about 8mA of current. 

New setup with XIAO nRF

I exchanged the module in my solar node now. It still is experimental. I want to know if this works better as the setup I used to have. I mounted it again on my flagpole in front of the house, I might put it in my tower next year when the weather gets better. But only if it proves to be reliable.

I already noticed the bluetooth has low range. You can't have it all. So far it receives well. I need to experiment with it for a few days to see how it behaves.

Really small LoRa module...

µPaddle unboxing and first test

  Lately a small problem occured when training CW keying with my paddle in the living room. My XYL likes to watch TV in the evening and after a few days of training she was really annoyed by the clicking sound of the paddle. And I can imagine that. I hear something else in my earphones but she only hears that clicking sound. Since I like to be in our living room and don't want to do all training in my shack I had to find a paddle that doesn't make sound. With other words a paddle without moving mechanical parts, And yes you probabely know the 9A5N solid state paddle, something like that! 9A5N paddles are beautiful and I'm shure they work like a charm. But a standard model cost you at least €250 without postage and probably other costs (tax, customs etc.). So I was looking for something else and finally found an affordable alternative, the µPaddle from RF Guru. I immidiatly ordered one, just in time I guess, it is now sold out. It took about a week to receive it from Belgium. No taxes, no custom costs. Just normal shipping postage. I have to write that the product is excellent. I have to adapt a little to get used to it. You don't need to press the paddles, just touch them is enough. It is really nice and do all training with it so far outside the shack. No clicking sounds anymore...

Here is a unboxing and first test video I made:

VarAC Superstation beta contest

Took part in the first beta contest held from 17-Nov. till 30-Nov. Log has been sent. This is a screenshot of my score:

I unlocked  the maximum score by rolling the dice 29 times. I guess I was lucky. The best DX was a QSO with a south African station on 20m. As reward you get this max score image:

If you like, there is a youtube playlist with videos about Superstation:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdfV94nWP4BLfGRd4c_MY8peLVAaj6bAT

Superstation is a whole different contest compared to the contesting we know today. 

Ended 7th place in this beta "betta" contest

#CQWW DX CW 2025 review

At least my antennas were visible

   So you probabely thought I was participating in the contest the whole weekend. Actually I didn't, during daylight I had other things to do. I spend most of the weekend finishing the roof insulation of our house. Since the price for energy is going up fast we really need to do things to reduce the use of gas and electricity. I was planning insulating the roof years ago but didn't have the money and the time to do it. I finally completed the insulation now last Sunday. The roof is now insulated with a layer of 14cm (5,5 inch) rockwool. 

   What I didn't want to tell earlier is that I made a attempt to beat the Dutch record on 80m QRP Assisted which is held by PF5T Frank. I met Frank last May of this year. He told me he was not really busy with the hobby, I hope he will in the future. Hopefully he will not be mad at me when I get this new Dutch record ;-). So how did it go?

   I was up early at Saturday. Propagation on DX was great. But with QRP 5W it's very difficult to work the DX with just an inverted-V doublet as antenna. You need to wait for the greyline and besides that you need luck. Best DX was fellow blogger VE3VN Ron. He receives on beverages and you can tell that as he was able to get my tiny QRP signal out of the noise. Yes I heard the other big conteststations like W3LPL and a few others but I didn't make it in their log. I went on and made about 35 QSOs that morning. I did continue Saturday evening and I believe I made it till about 100 QSOs, not enough yet for the record breaking score. Like always some stations have a great signal but a bad receive. I don't spend much time calling them. Actually I have been running a few times but this didn't work out well. Have I ever written that QRP takes a lot of patience and time?

   I was up early again Sundaymorning. Propagation at first only Europe. With the greyline approaching DX was coming in strong. I worked few big USA contest stations but didn't get my signal out to other DX. And yes I heard them, nothing wrong with my receive. FY5KE, ZF5T and ZF1A among them had great signals but didn't hear my tiny signal. When the DX faded I started to run and it worked out, I was even called by stations from zone 18 and 17 which I tried to call unsuccessfully before. This has probabely something to do with the change of propagation angle around the greyline. 

   During daylight 80m is closed and I did some S&P for nice DX and fellow bloggers / friends. Chasing PJ5C, VE3VN, VE9KK and OQ5M. In the few hours I was on at daylight I worked them all. PJ5C Peter/Ad on 40, 20, 15 and 10m. VE3VN Ron on 20, 15 and 10m, VE9KK Mike after a long chase on 20m and unexpected OQ5M Franki on 10m. Note that I had RBN on and chased VE9KK both days, I couldn't hear him on 10m. I received him weak on 15m and finally when I thought it wouldn't happen I heard his call on 20m and we made the QSO. OQ5M was answered using my Begali paddle, I messed up completely of course. But Franki probabely understood what I was trying ;-). During the evening 80m was full of signals and I managed to make it till 235 QSOs. It is enough to break to previous record, although I don't know if another station from the Netherlands participated in this section?

   Wow, this was a lot of CW training. Although I'm still not able to decode most of the calls at once, depending on how fast they key and what the length and letter of the call are. Some stations have really difficult calls for CW. It went better on Sunday evening. I had a lot of fun and look forward to the next big CW contest. Now the next contest will be the 10m ARRL contest. A contest I really love to do. It is easier since I have a great antenna for 10m. Hopefully the propagation will be great again, although I have more fun chasing faint signals that are fading just above the noise. That's the kind of magic I'm looking for.

80m QSO map. Remember this is 80m QRP 5W.