Tag Archives: Ham Radio

My radio activity in 2009

By Ondra OK1CLD | Published: December 31, 2009

Year 2009 is just ending, so I decided to make a little bilance of my radio activity in this year.

I didn’t transmit very much, I made only 715 QSOs and most of them during the last 3 months – before that I participated only in SSB part of CQ WPX Contest.

I made contacts with 101 DXCC countries and 28 CQ zones. I used mostly Phone way, but I made also 146 QSOs on CW (CW part of CQ WW DX) and 72 QSOs by RTTY – actually this year was the first one when I used digimodes.

This year I also started using ARRL’s Logbook of the World – I like it a lot, at the moment I’ve got 94 DXCC countries (6 more needed for DXCC award) and 27 U.S. States confirmed via the system.

Few month ago I also decided that I’ll try to get basic USA-CA award and started keeping list of contacted counties. At the moment I’ve contacted 95 counties (actually probably much more, these are just counties I know about – usually because of confirmation via LoTW or eQSL).

So that’s probably all, and what are my “HAM radio NYE resolutions”? I’d like to make AT LEAST 1000 QSOs, get DXCC award and contact more U.S. counties, so that my “coloring map” (USA-CA Map by NX5Z – http://www.countyhunter.com/) is much less white than at the moment (white = not contacted county; light gray = contacted; dark gray = confirmed by QSL or eQSL)

My contacted US counties (1st Jan 2010; map by NX5Z)

My contacted US counties (1st Jan 2010; map by NX5Z)

All the best to the new year 2010!

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No time for OK DX RTTY Contest 2009 …

By Ondra OK1CLD | Published: December 19, 2009

I’ve had to study for exam in Computer Networks I. Please wish me luck on Monday:-) After the exam I’ll update this post.

UPDATE: As I wrote here 2 days ago, I had no time for contesting since I had to study for an exam. But I still couldn’t resist and made a few QSOs in both OK RTTY Contest and RAC Winter Contest.

Table of contacted DXCC countries:

DXCC entity 3.5 MHz 7 MHz 14 MHz 21 MHz 28 MHz All bands
United States of America 0 0 5 0 0 5
European Russia 0 0 2 0 0 2
Greece 0 0 1 0 0 1
Ukraine 0 0 1 0 0 1

Table of contacted CQ zones:

CQ zone 3.5 MHz 7 MHz 14 MHz 21 MHz 28 MHz All bands
05 – E Z of N. America 0 0 5 0 0 5
16 – E Z of Europe 0 0 3 0 0 3
20 – Balkan Z 0 0 1 0 0 1

Not a lot of QSOs, but I’m still quite pleased… I made a QSO to new U.S. county (PA, Snyder), and on Monday I got an A in Computers Network exam! So the studying (instead of contesting) was worth it:-)

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TARA RTTY Mêlée 2009

By Ondra OK1CLD | Published: December 5, 2009

Today I participated in my first RTTY contest – actually it was also the first time I used digi modes at all.

My equipment:

  • Aerial: 20/15/10m Tribander, 80/40m Inverted VEE
  • RIG: Yaesu FT-897D; PWR: 50 W
  • Interface: G4ZLP Digimaster Pro
  • SW: N1MM + MMTTY

I started on 40 metres, where I made the first (and only) QSO at about 06:28 UTC (btw. thanks to F5OAM for my 1st RTTY QSO!), then I moved to the 20 metres for the rest of contest (except for 1 QSO on 15m).

During the whole contest I made 65 QSOs to 24 DXCC countries, 7 U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces. For all the time I was S&Ping, even though now I regret a little I didn’t try CQing for a while…

I had almost no problem transmitting, most of stations read my “DE OK1CLD OK1CLD OK1CLD” right after 1st calling. However, I lost some of potential QSOs, because quite often I wasn’t able to read CQing station’s callsign. Sometimes it was due to weaker signal, sometimes there was a strong signal close to caller’s freq that “erased” everything around. Maybe it would help if I set up either my radio or MMTTY differently – have to try and find some tips on Internet.

Two weeks from now there will be OK RTTY Contest (contest rules – scroll down to the bottom of page), so if I have time I’ll try to set up my equipment better and to make more QSOs than today… and I hope to hear you during the contest! :-)

Table of contacted DXCC entities:

DXCC entity 3.5 MHz 7 MHz 14 MHz 21 MHz 28 MHz All bands
France 0 1 7 0 0 8
Finland 0 0 7 0 0 7
United States of America 0 0 7 0 0 7
Netherlands 0 0 6 0 0 6
Ukraine 0 0 5 1 0 6
Belgium 0 0 4 0 0 4
England 0 0 4 0 0 4
European Russia 0 0 3 0 0 3
Canada 0 0 2 0 0 2
Portugal 0 0 2 0 0 2
Romania 0 0 2 0 0 2
Scotland 0 0 2 0 0 2
Asiatic Russia 0 0 1 0 0 1
Bulgaria 0 0 1 0 0 1
Cyprus 0 0 1 0 0 1
Iceland 0 0 1 0 0 1
Italy 0 0 1 0 0 1
Japan 0 0 1 0 0 1
Kazakhstan 0 0 1 0 0 1
Serbia 0 0 1 0 0 1
Spain 0 0 1 0 0 1
Sweden 0 0 1 0 0 1
UK Sov. Base Areas on Cyprus 0 0 1 0 0 1
Wales 0 0 1 0 0 1

Table of contacted U.S. states:

U.S. state 3.5 MHz 7 MHz 14 MHz 21 MHz 28 MHz All bands
Illinois 0 0 1 0 0 1
Maryland 0 0 1 0 0 1
New York 0 0 1 0 0 1
Oklahoma 0 0 1 0 0 1
Pennsylvania 0 0 1 0 0 1
Tennessee 0 0 1 0 0 1
Virginia 0 0 1 0 0 1

Table of contacted Canadian provinces:

Canadian prov. 3.5 MHz 7 MHz 14 MHz 21 MHz 28 MHz All bands
New Brunswick 0 0 1 0 0 1
Quebec 0 0 1 0 0 1

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CQ WW CW DX Contest 2009

By Ondra OK1CLD | Published: November 30, 2009

Last weekend I participated in CW part of CQ WW DX Contest. Since I haven’t used Morse code in last 2 years – and frankly have never been good at it – I didn’t try to reach some high score and just enjoyed the contest.

I turned on my FT-897D on Saturday at 7 AM. I started on 20 m band, found the first strong station and tried to read its callsign. Unfortunately it was 5B/G4IRN – great callsign to hear after 2 years of not using Morse code! :-)

However, after some time I read the callsign and answered the CQ… and 1st station was in my log! And soon a few others were following… I was amazed how well other stations were reading my signals – most of them recognized correctly my call on 1st attempt, which doesn’t happen so often to me in phone contests.

And what was my surprise after about 35 QSOs, when I found out that I was transmitting with just 20 Watts! (I’d been doing some experiments with digimodes the day before and had forgotten to set power back to 100 W)

During the whole contest I made 146 contacts with 33 DXCC countries and 13 CQ zones, most of them on 20 meters band. I was a little disappointed that I made only 11 QSOs on 15 meters – there was quite a strong QRM, sometimes even S7-S8. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by 40 meters band – for 1st time I managed to make contact with U.S. station.

To sum up, I must say I really liked the CW contest and decided to work on my “Morse code reading skills” to be better next time.

Here you can see a table of contacted DXCC entities:

DXCC entity 3.5 MHz 7 MHz 14 MHz 21 MHz 28 MHz All bands
United States of America 0 10 35 1 0 46
European Russia 1 4 12 0 0 17
Asiatic Russia 0 3 4 7 0 14
Spain 1 6 7 0 0 14
Ukraine 0 2 3 0 0 5
Italy 0 2 2 0 0 4
Portugal 0 2 2 0 0 4
Bulgaria 1 1 1 0 0 3
Cyprus 0 0 3 0 0 3
Israel 0 2 1 0 0 3
Canada 0 1 1 0 0 2
Canary Is. 0 2 0 0 0 2
Fed. Rep. of Germany 2 0 0 0 0 2
France 1 0 1 0 0 2
Kazakhstan 0 2 0 0 0 2
Latvia 1 1 0 0 0 2
Lithuania 2 0 0 0 0 2
Serbia 1 1 0 0 0 2
Sweden 0 0 2 0 0 2
Turkey 0 2 0 0 0 2
Armenia 0 0 0 1 0 1
Balearic Is. 0 1 0 0 0 1
Brazil 0 0 1 0 0 1
Croatia 0 0 1 0 0 1
England 0 0 1 0 0 1
Estonia 0 1 0 0 0 1
Georgia 0 0 1 0 0 1
Greece 0 1 0 0 0 1
Hungary 1 0 0 0 0 1
Romania 0 1 0 0 0 1
Sardinia 0 1 0 0 0 1
Sierra Leone 0 0 0 1 0 1
Sudan 0 0 0 1 0 1

And here is table of contacted CQ zones:

CQ zone 3.5 MHz 7 MHz 14 MHz 21 MHz 28 MHz All bands
05 – E Z of N. America 0 10 27 1 0 38
14 – W Z of Europe 4 8 12 0 0 24
16 – E Z of Europe 1 6 15 2 0 24
15 – Central European Z 5 5 3 0 0 13
20 – Balkan Z 1 7 5 0 0 13
17 – W Z of Siberia 0 4 2 5 0 11
04 – Central Z of N. America 0 1 9 0 0 10
33 – NW Z of Africa 0 4 1 0 0 5
18 – Central Siberian Z 0 1 2 0 0 3
21 – SW Z of Asia 0 0 1 1 0 2
11 – Central Z of S. America 0 0 1 0 0 1
34 – NE Z of Africa 0 0 0 1 0 1
35 – Central Z of Africa 0 0 0 1 0 1

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SOTA expedition nr. 1 – OK/KR-008 and OK/KR-069

By Ondra OK1CLD | Published: November 21, 2009

Today I successfully activated two hills in Orlické hory mountain range – OK/KR-008 Velká Deštná and OK/KR-069 Šerlich.

I went to the “expedition” together with my Dad (he, as always, was helping me carrying equipment and setting up my station) and my Mum (she joint us because trip to Velká Deštná is very nice and was taking care of us :-)) and last but not least our expedition mascot, Dandy:-)

Our Golden Retriever, Dandy

Our Golden Retriever, Dandy

At 12:00 CET we parked our car in a col/saddle between Šerlich and Malá Deštná hills and set out for a short trip to OK/KR-008 Velká Deštná, 1115 m ASL. We got there about 40 minutes later and started setting up the station. We erected cca. 7 meters high mast with vertical aerial for 145 MHz. My RIG was an old 5W FM hand-held CT-22 Midland powered by 12V/7Ah SLAB. At 12:55 everything was set up and I started calling CQ on 145.450 MHz.

Velká Deštná (1115 m ASL)

Velká Deštná (1115 m ASL)

The first station called me after about five minutes of CQing – it was Erwin OE5PEN/P from SOTA OE/OO-061 Pfannstein! His power was also just 5 Watts, distance between us 320 km… not bad QSO on 145 MHz FM! :-)

During next 20 minutes I managed to make three more QSOs, so the activation of Velká Deštná was successful and we started returning back to the saddle. But it still wasn’t the end of our expedition since we went to one more hill – OK/KR-069 Šerlich, 1027 m ASL.

Setting up a station was a little easier there, we used a triangulation shaft on the top to hold the mast – however, since the shaft was a little slanted, my aerial really wasn’t in ideal position. I’m even a little ashamed for the following photo:-) Making 4 necessary QSOs took me a little longer, but finally I succeeded.

Šerlich (1027 m ASL)

Šerlich (1027 m ASL)

Finally I’d like to thank a lot to all stations that called me – to OK1DVP, OK1UTX, OK2UMM/P, OK1VEL, OK1VRW, OK2JSX, OK1VOC and especially to OE5PEN/P for my first SOTA QSO and for my first Summit-to-Summit QSO.

Dandy, tired after the trip

Dandy, tired after the trip

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Welcome to my blog!

By Ondra OK1CLD | Published: November 20, 2009

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I founded this blog to publish here reports from my SOTA expeditions.

I’ve been planning my 1st SOTA activation for tomorrow, I’d like to activate two hills in Orlické hory mountain range – OK/KR-008 Velká Deštná and OK/KR-069 Šerlich. However, my equipment is not too good – just 2m FM hand-held and vertical aerial – so I’m not sure if I manage to make 4 necessary QSOs.

So wish me luck and I hope to hear you on the band sometimes.

73! Ondra, OK1CLD

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