Thursday, February 18, 2021
More on the Yaesu FTDX10
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Radio Omdurman Sudan - Yaesu FTDX10
Some shortwave broadcast DX from Sudan. 7205.0 kHz - 0445 UTC 14-Jan-2021
Saturday, January 9, 2021
FTDX10
So, I did a thing...
First, keep in mind my K3 is #216, it hasn’t had any of the hardware revisions done to the original model, much less the K3S synth upgrade. But it’s still the best receiver I’ve ever used under tough conditions, so much so that I’ve spent most of the last 13 years completely free of rig envy. I did not and still do not need a better radio and am not looking for one; I just wanted a new second 100w rig, and I bought it fully aware of all the important (to me) K3 features the 10 is missing.
I knew it would be a solid performer from reading some of Rob Sherwood’s comments, but I am stunned. I’ve been playing with this thing in the NAQP CW contest, purposely looking for weak signals next to strong ones to test against the K3, and I cannot find any case in which the K3 could hear better than the FTDX10. Mostly the same, but occasionally a few where the 10 really outdid the 3.
Best example: Both radios set as close to identical as possible: bandwidth 300 Hz, APF on, 6dB ATT, preamps off. Weak signal on frequency x, strong signal on x+100Hz. The strong signal was still clearly audible inside the passband of the K3, while there was barely a trace of it on the 10–maybe some light key clicks on signal peaks, but no cw at all, Even when using the 500Hz roofing filter instead of the 300Hz.. No matter what amount of tweaking I did to the K3, I could not remove it from the passband (short of using a notch filter). I think the difference can be attributed to its APF—the 10’s APF is adjustable with three settings (NARR, MED, WIDE; mine is set to NARR), while the K3’s APF only has one which appears to be not quite as sharp as the 10’s. The K3 did not, however, exhibit any noticeable AGC pumping or other degradation to signal quality. This was an extreme case that I deliberately went looking for. Most of the time I couldn’t tell much difference between the two receivers. Bear in mind that I’m just using an end-fed wire, my “real” antenna has been down since my last move in 2016. So there’s not a lot of microvolts present at the antenna connector.
On transmit, T/R relays clickety-clicking isn’t too bad. If I were to use it in a contest, though, I’d probably turn off the full break-in and go semi-. The fan comes on during RX and isn’t exactly whisper quiet. I’m pretty tolerant, I’ve got all sorts of ambient noise in my shack that’s worse, so it’s just another hum.
Noise reduction works nicely on CW. On phone, I typically run the DNR lightly on the K3; on the FTDX10 it introduces a reverb to the signal that I don’t like, but that is pretty much default settings. I haven’t tweaked any of the settings yet. And there are a LOT of settings to set! 😳 I’ve only got a few hours seat time with this thing and have barely cracked the manual.
The panadapter works. First thing I did was turn off the 3D waterfall. I’ll let the fanboys argue about whether the 7300 or 10 has the better fishfinder; to me it’s like Ford and Chevy guys arguing about who has the better radiator. It works as well as or better than my Flex 1500, and that works well enough for me. All but three analog controls are crammed to the right of the screen. There are a lot of them (24) and some of the buttons are in a tight place between protruding knobs. Familiarity will come over time—I spend a lot of time with my finger ready to press or turn something, but not sure where to poke it. Lol! I’m happy to say that they’ve at least got the right analog controls. Nothing that important hidden deep in menus, I don’t think. And the menus are a whole lot easier to navigate through than the K3 by a long shot.
I posted a video of my first 5 or so minutes using the FTDX10 for the first time fresh out of the box...before I even read The Book of Words!:
More to come as I dig into this rig.
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
DX - December 2018
Second Op Jack says: "XT2BR is listening for JA stations. Why aren't we calling, Pop? My name starts with JA." |
QRP
Who I've worked in December (KX2 CW @ 5W).- E51DWC South Cook Is. - Worked 17m (12/13)
- H7/RC5A Nicaragua - Worked 20m (12/04) - IOTA NA-013
- H7/N3QQ Nicaragua - Worked 20m (12/04) - IOTA NA-013
- HA8IB Hungary - Worked 20m (12/07)
- PJ2ND Curacao Is. - Worked 20m (12/04)
- V31MA Belize - Worked 80m (12/18)
Medium-Rare Wave
I've been playing with mediumwave DX a lot lately, using the NRD-515 and Kiwa Air-Core MW Loop. It's not very often that I do this, I don't know why. The 515 has a pair of custom Kiwa filters (3.5 kHz and 8.0 kHz bandwidths) that I installed back in the mid-90's when I acquired this radio. This is the first time I've used this gear since moving to Cedar Key. It still rocks. There is still some good stuff on the AM dial late at night!Sunday, December 9, 2018
Friday, November 30, 2018
DX - November 2018
DX I worked in November (all CW).
- 5B4AJC Cyprus - Worked 30m (11/19)
- 8P9AE Barbados - Worked 80m (11/16); 17m (11/17) - QRP DXCC #59
- CT9/DL5AXX Madeira Is. - Worked 17m (11/29)
- CT9/LZ2JE Madeira Is. - Worked 40m (11/23)
- CT9/OM7LW Madeira Is. - Worked 20m (11/21)
- FG/F6ARC Guadeloupe - Worked 20m (11/23)
- H7/Russians Nicaragua - Worked 20m, 17m (11/29) - IOTA NA-013
- HG5DX Hungary - Worked 80m (11/19)
- J8NY Saint Vincent - Worked 20m (11/27) - QRP DXCC #64
- PJ2ND Curacao Is. - Worked 17m (11/29)
- PJ7AA Sint Maarten - Worked 40m (11/23)
- PZ5T Suriname - Worked 30m (11/23) - QRP DXCC #63, New 30m
- TI/KL9A Costa Rica - Worked 20m (11/23)
- TK/S53CC Corsica - Worked 40m (11/23)
- TK/S57K Corsica - Worked 15m (11/21) - QRP DXCC #61
- VP2EJS Anguilla - Worked 15m, 20m (11/21); - QRP DXCC #62
- VP2MUW Montserrat - Worked 20m (11/21)
- VP2V/K6NAO British Virgin Islands - Worked 17m (11/17) - QRP DXCC #60
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Monday, November 19, 2018
Early operations from NA-076
At the moment I'm working on a makeover for the Cedar Key Historical Society's web site, and as I was flipping through old photos I came across this healthy dose of Hallicrafters goodness! Click the photo to enlarge it.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Back again.
Making a few contacts, added a couple of new ones for the QRP DXCC chase (8P9 and VP2V) bringing me up to 60 worked. But damn, it's hard to make Qs! So much easier with the KPA500...
The KX2 is an amazing radio. I'm making this my main rig until I accomplish two goals: get the Tarheel and ground radials installed, and work QRP DXCC. I don't think I'm going to get 40 new ones by the end of the year, but maybe by February and the Orlando fest. The Tarheel screwdriver, though... that would definitely help with the DXCC goal.
The Jackonaut has called dibs on my office/shack, so he's the Second Op now, relieving the Tiny Brown Kitten of those duties.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
New QRP Personal Best: E51DWC (South Cook Islands)
Since South Cook Islands is one that I need on 12m, and since everyone knows QRP phone doesn't work when the DX is buried in the noise, I bumped the K3 output power to 100 watts and called about a dozen times. But no love, he was weak and the QSB was pretty bad, so I decided that this wasn't going to happen.
I reset the K3 to 5 watts... and just as I took my fingers off the Power control and was about to switch bands his signal peaked at around S5. I grabbed my Mike, dropped my call after his CQ, and he came back right away with a "Whiskey Whiskey Two, Whisky Whisky Two?" I repeated my call, he returned with a 59 (yeah, sure...), we exchanged signal reports, and in the log he went! At 5 watts. On a "dead" band.
As with all our prior QSOs, Milan uploaded to ClubLog very quickly so I have proof I wasn't imagining it all.
According to Google maps, Rarotonga is a bit over 6,175 miles from Cedar Key, or 1,235 miles per watt. This crushes my previous personal best QRP DX record, TX6G Austral Is. from West, TX (5,093 miles, 1,018 miles per watt) by about 25%.
I'm starting to wonder whether I really need that KPA500 after all.
VOACAP shows that I was indeed at the right place at the right time -- 12m is strong to E51 in our (local) late afternoons and early evenings; my 10m contact with E51DWC was at around 2100 UTC, which fits this model as well. Good to know.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
March 2017 and into April... plus some thoughts on QSLing.
And while I'm on the subject of confirmations... I've had a bit of a shift in my opinion on the whole concept of "countries confirmed." For the couple of decades as a radio amateur I held the belief that a QSO only "counts" when you have a card in your hand. This made sense at the time because that was the only way of knowing whether the DX didn't blow your call (or vice versa). Then along came Logbook of the World; now we had a second "official" metric for determining whether you had a DXCC entity confirmed. All well and good. At this time these are the only two methods acceptable to the ARRL to qualify for their awards, and since it is their award they get to make the rules. But while you can have a card in hand or an LOTW confirmation in your account, even then it doesn't officially "count" until you pay the ARRL a fee. This is where I call BS.
The fact is, I know that I worked a station if, 1.) The contact is in my log; and 2.) I have a card or an LOTW confirmation. If I decide not to pay the ARRL to get the credit applied to my DXCC account, does that mean I don't have a confirmed contact? Of course not. It only means that I can't use that contact for an award that, for the most part, is meaningless to me. I reject the notion that I need to pay the League (or anyone else) in order to have my achievement validated.
Then comes the matter of other, alternate methods of confirmation. We have several online resources -- eQSL.cc, ClubLog, HRDLog.net, QRZ, and all the online logs of individual stations and DXpeditions -- that can be used to match one's log entries with those of a DX station. These don't count for the ARRL's DXCC award, of course, but if ClubLog, for example, shows a QSO match between my log and the DX station's log, that's all the confirmation I need to know that the QSO was good. Whether or not the ARRL accepts it as a "real" confirmation is irrelevant unless I want their fancy piece of paper to hang on the wall.
At this moment in time, I actually have that fancy piece of paper hanging on my wall. It's there only because I long dreamed of earning DXCC since I was a kid. It took me many years of intermittent operation to achieve it, but sometime in 2013 I finally got 100 entities confirmed on LOTW, I entered my credit card info on the ARRL web site to pay for the 100 credits needed to get the DXCC Mixed award. A few weeks later I received my cardboard tube in the mail, dutifully put the certificate in a nice big frame and hung it on the wall of my shack where it remains to impress all who enter. Meaning, of course, only myself.
Since getting my DXCC Mixed award I have received more LOTW confirmations (a lot more, in fact) and many more paper cards, but I have never paid to apply these credits to my account. I currently have 210 countries "confirmed" to my satisfaction through one or more of the methods listed above. However, even though I can easily qualify for several additional DXCC awards and endorsements for individual modes and bands, according to the ARRL I only have 100 countries confirmed because that's all I paid them for. So who do I believe, the ARRL or my own very meticulous records? Thanks, but my own word is good enough for me. I'll keep the $125 or so bucks and pass on the wallpaper for now.
So while I used to believe "it only counts if you have the card," technology today allows me to revise that opinion to mean "it only counts if you can prove you're in the other station's log." Because, when you boil it all down, that's really all the card did in the first place. Thankfully, we can do that now through several different online systems with far less expense and delay. If someone thinks a QSL doesn't count because I didn't pay the League, tough cookies. I just don't care.
Does this mean I'll never apply for additional DXCC credits again? No... I really want a 5-Band DXCC plaque (also a childhood dream), and the DXCC Challenge appeals to me as well, so when either or both of those requirements are met I'll most likely pony up the dough for those awards, and also catch up with all the other awards and endorsements I qualify for at the same time while I'm at it. But for now if someone asks me how many countries I have confirmed, my answer will be "210," regardless of what anyone else thinks. Because it's true.
Saturday, March 18, 2017
The road to DXCC on 80m is long and slow...
That makes it a total of 26 now confirmed on 80. Since 1988. Sigh. Maybe I need an antenna longer than 24'.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
DXCC #226: TU7C Cote d'Ivoire (and a new band slot: 9G5X Ghana on 17m)
Two more from Africa on 17m...
TU7C Cote d'Ivoire finally came back to me with the correct call after several exchanges of "WA2PT 5NN." Good signal around 1530. ClubLog upload followed after about an hour. Great operation! DXCC #226 in the log!
Bands have been quiet (possibly too quiet...) the past few days, with SFI around 70 and SN at 0. My 24' end-fed and 100W is not giving me much love on any of the lower bands, at least not in the general direction of Africa. Even on 20m it is difficult to copy 5U5R, 9G5X, and TU7C; it seems like 17m is this antenna's sweet spot. That's cool, I need to concentrate on filling in some band slots on 17 anyway, though I sure miss busting pileups on 40m with the KPA500.
Update 16-Mar: LOTW from 9G5X is in!
Friday, March 10, 2017
DXCC #225: 5U5R Niger
DXCC #224: J5UAP Guinea-Bissau
Sunday, March 5, 2017
2017 ARRL International DX Contest (SSB)
Thursday, March 2, 2017
DXCC #223: VP6EU Pitcairn Island
Right off the bat I easily worked VE3VSM/HR9 Honduras (Roatan Is.) on 20m, PJ7AA Sint Maarten on 17m, and ON4UN Belgium on 40m. Okay, all working. The hunt for VP6EU was on.
I kept my eye on the cluster until I saw VP6EU spotted on 17m just after local noon. He wasn't terribly strong but above the noise level by an S-unit or so. Dropped my call once and got him. No. 223 in the log!
Among the other current DXpeditions that I've been able to check off the list today is TX5T Austral Island on 15m. I had Austral on all bands 80-10 from the TX6G operation a few years back while I was in TX, but this is another new one for my Cedar Key QTH. Also worked 5K0N on San Andres Island on 17m this morning.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
PJ2ND 40m CW QRP
Monday, February 20, 2017
2017 ARRL International DX Contest (CW)
New DXCC: 0
New Band Slots: 3
Category: SOAB-L Unlimited
I started out on 40m around 0230 Saturday, immediately started working into Europe, as well as Madiera Is. and the usual Caribbean big guns (and a few little guns) Eventually got KH6LC in Hawaii, the only Pacific station worked during the test. Only put in four hours, picking through the cluster. Since I wasn't after a big score I chose not to work any country twice per band. Went to bed with 19 countries in the log.
Saturday afternoon I spent an hour and change making 5 QSOs on 15m and one on 20m before running around town. Back in the shack that evening (UTC Sunday morning) and got TA3D Turkey right off the bat, then a bunch more Europeans. Later on I tried 80m and managed to work some more Caribbeans (US V.I., Aruba, Bonaire, Turks & Caicos, and Curacao) and France.
Sunday afternoon and evening (local) between 1945 and the end of the contest was mostly spent in and out of the shack, bouncing between 10m, 15m, and 20m before ending on 40m. At this point I was pretty surprised to have made more than a handful of contacts, so I set myself a goal of working 30 countries. Then 40 countries. Then 60 QSOs. Then 10,0000 points. Then 12,000 points.
Ended the weekend with 65 QSOs for 44 Countries, 65 mults, and 12,675 points. Not bad for 100w into a 24' piece of wire inside a house with a metal roof. 😎