The two FT2 modes battle

 

Pic from VU3DXR's blogsite.

Not that I'm interested in FT2 at all. I think it is way to broadbanded and way too insensitive. It could be used for contesting, if you like such a thing.

I really didn't know but there seems be be kind of a battle going on between two FT2 developers. Read the article on the blog from VU3DXR:

https://vu3dxr.in/the-ft2-schism-when-a-new-digital-mode-split-in-two/

Really, this reminds me of something that happened years ago when Julian G4ILO (SK) had some issues with the ROS/VARA developer. He was forbidden to use the software anymore. For a while I was even "persona non grata" because I agreed with Julian his statement which was about the bandwidth of the ROS mode. Luckily things settled down and I believe the ROS mode still exists, although not sure if it still is in use by anyone. 

Funny that these days you don't need programming skills really. If you know the right AI model and tell it what you wish for it will write your program or website for you. If I open my social media I see a lot of posts about FT2 all made with AI. It tells you how great and fast this mode is and that you need to try it.

Well, my dear blogreaders. Everyone makes their own decisions. My decision is not to use it and keep it as much as possible at CW and SSB. I want to have fun, I don't need 240 QSOs in an hour...

My quest to learn CW (27) CWA Intermediate finished

 

Finally the CW Academy Intermediate course has finished. It was tough at times. If you do this course you need at least exercise for 1 hour a day 8 weeks long. That is a lot of commitment. Besides that you actually need to make some CW QSOs and of course there is a video meeting twice a week. It was not easy to do the hour training every day, especially in the weekends. Other chores are waiting, I'm rebuilding the second floor of the house, have to go to the job through the week. The family does not always understand you need to do homework. The other participants had the same issues of course and it was nice to talk about the progress but also about the things you encounter. We had a nice group of people that followed the course and we decided to stay in contact after the course sharing our CW learning progress. 

Click on the picture to get a readable one.

What I found most difficult is the LCWO random letters/figures. I already did train that for over 2 years but it is still difficult to get it at a good speed. 25/25 wpm is far too fast. I'm now at 25/20 wpm and struggle with about 60-80% score. But I keep on doing that almost every day. Also short stories at 25/18 wpm and higher are too fast for me. I recognize some words but don't know what the story is about. It might be easier if it was in my native language. But some things went very well. Training words with 25/25 wpm is no problem at all, english sentences with 25/22 wpm about 80-100% score and Morserunner at 25 wpm is a lot of fun! Overall I think I made nice progress in the last 2 months and I'm confident that a QSO at about 18 wpm should be no problem. 

Well, I keep on training in this quest to learn morsecode. I wish to thank again PE2V Vincent and PA3GPX Rene for their time and efforts to cheer us up and do exercises at the video meetings. And of course I thank the fellow participants in the intermediate course. Vincent suggested I should take the advanced course, I will think about that. 

Future goals now are:

- Making more CW QSOs. For now that will be "standard" QSOs probabely with a cheat sheet.

- Take a look at the https://morsedx.com/ site to see if this is something for me to improve my speed.

- Continue with my daily LCWO training.

Related link in Dutch:

https://pe2v.nl/cwops-cw-academy-intermediate-klas-week-8-jan-feb2026/

https://pa8e.nl/finished-cw-academy-intermediate/

Meshcore experiments

 While I am not on meshcore all days it is interesting to see some ideas that are developed. One of them is the MC-Radar. A nice website were you can visually see your propagation paths if you send a message on the #mc-radar channel and if it is received by a station that sends the info to their server.

Above all the paths last 24h over the Netherlands. Below my own paths after the first "test" message.

Site can be found here: https://mc-radar.woodwar.com/. You will also find interesting graphs about the network on this site.

A mesh network is nice. But real big reliable distances cannot be made. There is still too much collision of all the packets. It is interesting though and nice to experiment with. If you had it with all these stupid test and other messages you can also take your car and measure meshcore signals while driving. This maps the meshcore network in real time. I did some experiments and have been mapping signals while driving. This is done by this website: https://mapme.sh/

If you want to take part you need a bluetooth enabled browser on your GSM. For my Iphone I use a browser called "BLE link". The website to connect with your meshcore device and upload data can be found here: https://mapme.sh/connect.html

Do you know any more interesting experiments? Or do you know what to do with the meshcore network next. Let me know, I'm always interested. In the mean time I will be on meshcore at times, to read and see how things evolve.

PACC 2026 review

 

27MHz how???

    I decided to participate in the QRP mixed section again but only do CW. I was not able to participate till the end and begun late on Saturday. Stopped early at 9:30 UTC. I did meet my goal of working all the CWA students and advisors in the CWops CWA Intermediate 2026 course here in the Netherlands.

In total I did about 10 hours of contesting. I'm satisfied with the results. However my most important goal was to make less errors. Not shure if that happened. Especially during the late evening and later Sundaymorning I went tired and not as sharp anymore. I remember I had a big problem to copy a S58 station, luckily he kept repeating his call and after at least 6 times I got it. There were also stations that kept keying at high speed. Probabely not realizing this costs time after all because I kept asking for repeats. But overall decoding CW went well I think. I see an big improvement in numbers copy which I do now nearly automatic.

White=several bands Purple=80m Blue=40m Yellow=20m Brown=15m Pink=10m

Some highlights J38TT on 10m and JR6CSY on 15m. I also contacted FR/UR9IDX on 10m but he was probably not in the contest, I worked him anyway. The station in Africa can't be right, SM5XU/5OO repeated his call several times so I put it in the log, strange. I realize I have it wrong. Could it be SM5/UX5OO? Most likely yes, UX5OO is an existing call. I will correct this. It is easy to mix up the X with a slash. Another error is something in the log I can't explain yet. It seems I have made CW QSOs on 27MHz???. Not possible at all....have to check out what this error is. Never had this before...

A total of 47 DXCC were worked. The PACC is not really a DX contest. Most participants are from Europe and Russia. There are a few from USA/Canada but most of them are in the WW RTTY contest which is also running this weekend.

I had a lot of fun again. And doing CW is still a big challenge for me. With morserunner I train to get the call in 1 time. But in reality I have to ask for at least one repeat before I have the whole call. I also am not really fast in typing in the calls. Some stations already made a 3 time repeat before I typed the call and hit enter. For the first time in this (and any other) contest I did 99% running. I did some S&P but this was only to find an empty spot to run. I have to write that I didn't have to call long to get a pile-up. And when someone was spotting me the frequency went crazy. But overall I kept cool and quiet, with some patience I did work everyone who was calling. 

This year was not my best score. But I don't really care. I don't want to have a trophy, I just want  to have fun and relax. Winning this section is not within reach for now. I keep training with CW and hope next year it will get better.

The hunt for KP5 Desecheo Island

   

  In between my busy schedule, learning morsecode with the CWOps CWA intermediate course and many other things in life, I also chased the KP5 DXpedition. After several weeks they would be going QRT at 12 February. I remembered my efforts in 2009 trying to reach the K5D DXpedition. It went the same way. I had no problems to work KP4 stations but KP5 looked like a black hole for my radio signals. Since they are only working with 25W from a solar powered remote controlled "box" and simple verticals it is not easy to receive their signal anyway. But I managed to hear them on 40m CW yesterday and this is what unfortunately happened....

Somehow I got through the pile-up, but they had my call not right PE4DAL went into the log. I tried again and few moments later he heard me again. But still the call not right PE4DAI this time. I went mad of course. But wait, 3 times should be a winner isn't it? Well, I'm shure they had my call correct this time. But what happened third time? I see PE4BAL in the log. Their signal faded and I didn't hear them again...

This was a big disappointment. I had the idea this would end the same as in 2009. But after the PACC contest I had some spare time to try again. Today they organized a special ATNO day. And after about half an hour trying on 20m FT8 I finally managed to make a QSO.

Well, this certainly was a hard one! Personally I really hope I can get the busted call on 40m be corrected. Will report about that later hopefully!

Update 4 March 2026: The QSL manager corrected my call in the log for 40m. That also means the first ATNO of this year has been made with CW.

Dutch PACC contest 2026 this weekend

 The famous Dutch (PACC) contest is on this weekend. Of course this is the contest to do as Dutch hamradio operator, since everyone is calling for the Netherlands. The exchange is the province abbreviation. For me that will be GR. Last year I became third in the SO QRP section which is always a mixed mode section. I earned a trophy for that as you can see in the picture.

First of all I cannot take part the whole contest since I have family obligations. Not shure when I will be having time to be on the radio. But at least I will take part for as much as I possible can. I don't need a high place in the QRP section again. So I'm not shure if I will take part in the QRP section at all. I might take part in the SO LOW CW. 

My goals are different from other years. Because of my ongoing CW training I will do only CW this time. My biggest goal is to make less errors, that will not be an easy task. Another goal is to work all the participants in the (dutch) CWA intermediate course. PE2V Vincent, PA3GPX Rene, PA3KL Kees, PA8E Jim and PA1DI Dick. I see them every week at the video meeting and hope to finally work them on air. 

Below the map of the Netherlands with the province abbreviations. I'm located at the right upper corner of the country right at the coast. My call will not be PE4BAS but I will use my contestcall PA6G.

If you as reader likes to take part, you're welcome. Info here

https://pacc.veron.nl

A strange special notice about the 60m band

 

??? Why? Because US stations can only use 15W EIRP (9,15W ERP)? So they think you cannot DX with 9,15W only? We hear/see New Zealand stations on 60m every day. And they are on the other side of the world from here. They use only 15W like most stations are allowed to use in most countries were 60m is allowed. The difference between 15W and 100W is not that much. I think something like 1,5 S-unit.

Really, 5371,5 KHz is outside international regulation frequencies in most countries. Why would a DXpedition bother to work split just for the US? 15W is enough to still make DX, although you need some good propagation. Well, I wish my American 60m DX friends good luck!

I've made many DX contacts on 60m with just 15W FT8 like I'm allowed to. I have also used far less power and still make contacts on 60m CW and FT8. So I encourage my US amateurradio friends to just try with the allowed power output.

Fun with AI

 A lot of pictures on social media made with AI lately. I really have my doubts about AI. But sometimes it is really funny. My XYL made these with chatGPT on her Iphone.

I don't look like this really. But as a cartoon it is very nice. And since my call is on the t-shirt it has to be me!

How about our house. We had a lot of snow lately, most of it gone now. This was a few weeks ago. It looks very cozy. However I hope spring will arrive soon.

From HamClock to OpenHamClock

 

Old HamClock style setting

An alternative for the much used HamClock can be found online now here:

https://openhamclock.up.railway.app/

New modern HamClock setting

Forget my fun fast project from 1,5 years ago. I can now use the Pi Zero2W for something else. I found the old HamClock via WiFi not really reliable as well. I had to restart the Pi every week to keep HamClock running. This open hamclock is much easier and online. You just need a computer and a browser. Which OS is not important, if you got internet it runs. And I like the amount of info you get on "modern" setting. Actually I find it much more usable in my shack.

Update 4-Feb-2026:

I see the openhamclock can now be reached on https://openhamclock.com/

So far I see updates every day. Currently already version V3.12.0

My quest to learn CW (26) CWA Intermediate progress

 Since LCWO is a huge part of the CWA course I still do my everyday training on LCWO. Minimum is 1x code groups and 5x Plain Text training. Sometimes callsign training and word training as an extra. Personally I have most "difficulties" with the code groups. I train at 25/18 wpm now and score is only about 80-85% and it doesn't matter how many times I do it on a day. It stays on 80-85%. I do Plain Text Training at 25/20 wpm and I score about the same 70-100% depending on the words used and the length of the sentence. Words and callsigns are done at 25/25 and because you can ask for a repeat I most times have only 0-2 faults. I see some progress but not for the code group training.

CWA Intermediate

Click on the picture to get a readable one.

I keep track of my homework in the CWops CWA Intermediate. We have had 8 CWA sessions in Teams now. I really enjoy the interaction with the others. Keying and decoding in teams is a challenge since soundcards are not made to let those morsebeeps through. And, this might be a personal experience, it is completely different from training. But it helps not to get uncertain about all the challenges you encounter. It is great to get advice from both PE2V Vincent and PA3GPX Rene. At the course we are at 25/15 wpm but it will soon get faster. I really like training with Morserunner and I'm now training with 22 wpm with success. My goal for CW contests is to be accurate and if I'm not certain I call again for a callsign or a number. Another fun training at the teams session last time was "The Wild Weasel", one of the ops will key at a higher speed and the others have to decode. How fast can you go? We discussed it and I remembered I did one LCWO session with words that ended at 54 wpm. 

Anyway, fast CW is fun but is not my goal. CW contesting is fun but is part of the goal. What I want is to be able to ragchew. Normal QSOs at reasonable speed. 25/25 wpm would be ok for me. Will I get to this speed at the end of this year? Time will learn...

Aurora

 

Not the Flex Aurora but the real thing. Finally we saw the northern lights here, even with my own eyes. Pulsating green is not very common. The last time I saw it was over 30 years ago and then it was pulsating red. The Potsdam Kp index suddenly went to a Kp of 8+ which is very high.

And this is what it looked like through a Iphone camera:

Putikeeg CW trainer and some issues I have

 

  The CWops CW Academy team meeting has its own challenges. I ran into some issues I was not prepared for. First of all it has to do with the keyer. I first thought of using the internal keyer from the IC-7300. But the problem is that you can't shut down receive noise in between using the keyer. So I thought of a solution by buying a cheap Putikeeg CW trainer. 

I did read some reviews, saw a youtube video about it and decided it was just what I needed. Not really for the training but just to act as a keyer. However in the last meeting I couldn't get the letter "Y" out of it, and also the letter "R" was an issue. At first I thought it was a paddle issue, so during the meeting I switched to my touchpaddle. Unfortunate for me I ran into the same issues. Very annoying and after the meeting I tried both the letters again. From the 10 times I keyed the letter "Y" only two were ok. I key in iambic mode so for the Y I press the right paddle and hold it while after the first dash I press a short time with my thumb on the left paddle. Well you know how it works. But the Putikeeg keyer does not react all the time. That's a big issue for me. This CW trainer is not usable for me,. I'd better save some money to buy a good one. 

Second issue on the teams meeting is my use of a headset, or actually they are earbuds and the mike is in a small block were the wire splits. This mike is not really sensitive and although I had maximum input and even +30db amplification it was still not good. Luckily I still have my USB microphone I used for FreeDV on my desktop. I use it now and it seems my modulation is fine now. 

Well the keyer is still something I have to solve. Next time I will use the IC-7300 again I think. I got an old Winkeyer K12 from Gerard PA3BCB (SK) but don't know yet if that's something I can use? 

No other issues, except for one computer shutdown which I cannot declare? I really enjoy the interaction with other HAMs in the meetings. Something I was really looking for. Homework goes well but will soon be more difficult I guess.

2025 highlights & statistics, 2026 goals

   Normally a post I do at the end of December. Looking back at 2025 and forward to 2026. Completely with graphs and a logbook breakdown. I will not do it this time. Other things are on my path and I have to spread my time. After I finished a new attic on the 3rd floor I'm still busy building a new second floor bedroom which is not easy as I'm not a carpenter. Besides that I have to go to my job of course which is as busy as it is. But if possible I take some time for the radiohobby. Anyway, here am I looking back at my hobby in 2025 and forward in the new year.

2025 Highlights

Looking through my own archive lots of things happened. Of course we were on the top of the 11 year solarcycle with excellent propagation on the bands. Huge steps were made with CW training at the start of the year. And compared to 2024 I had much improved. The speed I trained with in January 2025 was already 30/20 wpm. That is fast, too fast. I have other insights now and think training with a speed like that is too fast for a beginner. About that in another post. I did my daily CW training for sure and I learned a lot. The yearly PACC contest was a success, I even got a third place which was not expected. This is for the most difficult section QRP mixed. I rebuilt my experimental halo antenna in March and it is still doing fine. DXing was going on as well although expected F2 propagation on 6m was not really there unfortunately. On 60m I worked 8 new ones, on 6m I worked 3 new ones with the best one TZ4AM on CW, On 4m I worked 3 new ones and only 2 all time new DXCC this year. It brings my total on 300 worked DXCC. According to clublog I got 253 DXCC confirmed by LotW and QSL but actually I don't really care. I know what I worked and don't have the need to proof it. 

 What is more interesting is the mode ratio. See how my CW contacts have been going up against digimode. By the way, this is only the QSOs made with the PE4BAS call. PA6G is not involved. Well, overall when I look back most of my posts were about morsecode. I made my first straight key QSO in September. I took part in several CW contests. It looks like.....I was only having CW in my mind. But besides that I did some other experiments with the interesting digimode software VarAC. I even did appear on FreeDV mode digital voice which was very interesting. And I did setup some Meshcore devices for a free on air legal network which is forming well in our area. At the end of the year I decided to take part in a CWops CW Academy Intermediate course to improve my morsecode skills which are not yet what they should be. 

2026 Goals

What was my goal for 2025? You can read it here. I did well, I did make more CW QSOs and did some CW contests. I am improving my morsecode skills but still not where I want to be. Hopefully the CWA course will help me to make a huge step forward. For my blog readers this means that I have to spend even more time training the next months and will have less time to write blogposts. One thing will continue, the "Quest to learn CW" posts will keep you informed at the end of the month. Another thing that will be on my mind is improving the Meshcore equipment. It will be completely off grid, electricity from the sun. I already have plans. I still have 3 solarpanels waiting for another off grid project as well. I might combine things. 

My dear blogreaders I hope you still like the posts I make. Although my interests at the moment are much into the direction of morsecode. This blog is at the first place an archive for myself. But of course over the years I wrote things that are interesting for others as well. 

The importance of morsecode in the modern world

 Even in today's world we still need people that are able to know morsecode. Because when all things fail we will go back to the basics. Morsecode is that basic thing in communication. You can do it with very simple equipment or no equipment at all as long as you know the language.

This video is showing a great antenna and a way of direction finding at the cold war era. It also features the importance of morsecode in the military even today. Although the video is 5 years old it still is relevant today.

Agenda 2026

 Happy new year my dear blog readers! 

   Here is my agenda for 2026 as always. Some things never change. How boring ;-)

   What changed last year was the call I use for contesting. It is and will be PA6G also in 2026. I managed to get a LotW certificate and will upload all logs for those that want to have the QSO confirmed.

Here are my personal dates:

14/15 Feb. 12-12 UTC 24 hrs PACC 2026 contest (SOAB QRP)

28/29 Mar. 00-24 UTC 48 hrs CQWW WPX SSB 2026 contest

30/31 May 00-24 UTC 48 hrs CQWW WPX CW 2026 contest

30 May Beetsterzwaag radiorally

24/25 Okt. 00-24 UTC 48 hrs CQWW DX SSB 2026 contest

14/15 Nov. 10-12:30 local time PA-beker contest CW / SSB section 2026

22 Nov. 11-14 local time Friese 11 steden contest 2026

28/29 Nov. 00-24 UTC 48 hrs CQWW DX CW 2026 contest

12/13 Dec. 00-24 UTC 48 hrs 10m ARRL 2026 contest