UKEICC 80m contest this evening

If all goes well I will participate in the 1 hour (20:00-21:00 UTC)  UKEICC 80m SSB contest this evening.
Anthony EI2KC wrote about this contest before. It is a totally different kind of contesting. Aim is high quality operating where each operator can balance speed against logging accuracy. Greatest distances will be rewarded with extra points. There is no RST exchange. The exchange will be only the 4 digit main square grid locator. Logs have to be send in cabrillo within one hour after the contest is finished. Contest results will be on the website a.s.a.p. after 22:00 UTC.

Rules: http://www.ukeicc.com/which-contest/contest-rules/ukeicc-80m-contests-rules

Contest frequency is limited from 3700-3775 KHz SSB.

Hope to meet some of you readers...

Dancing powerlines, think about a alternative power source

At the moment we have a unusual weather situation in the north eastern part of Netherlands. It is raining, freezing and we had a large wind from the east. Cold arriving from Russia ;-).  It is causing a phenomenon called "powerline dancing". The results do appear on the main electricity as sometimes the light is flickering and short breaks. Worst is that lights are shining brighter sometimes and that means voltage peaks which are not good for electronics. Just to be shure I left my shack off the grid. Luckely no damage to other household appliances yet. Here a video that appeared on the local TV to clarify the story (courtesy rtvnoord.nl).

This brings me back on my ideas to power my entire radioshack with alternative power. Powering the complete house is just too expensive right now. Part of my station is already on solarpower since 2012. I want to be independent from the electrical grid. What happened now is something that we as ham radio operators should think about. We are very much depending with almost everything we use in daily life from electricity that we buy from providers. But what if extreme weather, disasters, war or whatever you can think off is wiping out the electricity, what would you do? People will trust in you because you're a radio operator that is able to communicate in case of emergency. Oh yes, you can....but not without....electricity.

What would you use for a alternative power source in case of emergency? Or in preparation for a power outage?

Kidsday 2016

Kidsday, perfect weather for such a event. It was cold and the windows were blinded with ice. What else to do then playing, watching TV and......make a radio transmission. You're never young enough to start HAMradio ;-). It is only 5 years ago my daughter Anneli was born. And today she made her first 3 QSOs on Kidsday. We announced ourselves at Facebook, Twitter and DXcluster with success. We first made a QSO with PE1RIK Bart with Hugo on the mike, 9 years old. Then we had a QSO with ON6HE Eddy and the last QSO was made with DN4DIY Pierre who was 13 years old. I made a video from all 3 QSOs but they have quite a length, so I decided to publish only the first QSO as this was in my opinion the most interesting. Since english is difficult for small kids it is all in the dutch language.