It's been a busy few months on the contesting front, both big and small. I'm never going to win anything, but as always, it's the taking part that counts...

CQ WW DX - SSB (as M4F)

Arguably one of the biggest multi-part contests of the year, and myself and Rick M1EAC entered as M4F - the Finningley ARS contest callsign. We had a good turnout from other club members, and managed 1,467 QSOs for a claimed final score of 1,107,072.

WAE DX - RTTY (as MXØHTJ)

Another multi-part contest, this time with RTTY. I had permission from Paul MØTZO to use the HamTests.co.uk club callsign of MXØHTJ for the duration of the contest, and I was joined by my housemate (and fellow radio amateur) Dan 2EØMEH. We suffered from a few technical problems - mostly earthing related, but also a dodgy power lead for the FT-897. Stiil, 284 QSOs gave us a claimed score of 167,580.

EPC PSK63 QSO Party

The European PSK Club's yearly BPSK63 QSO party was next. Due to other commitments, I only managed to work the contest for a couple of hours - late at night on both the Saturday and the Sunday. Because of the operating hours, I was limited to 80 and 40 metres, and to be honest my 80 metre capability is - for want of a better expression - a bit rubbish. A bit of a slog for sure, but I completed 66 QSOs for a claimed score of 20,352.

CQ WW DX - CW

Back to the CQ WW DX contest again, this time for the third - and final - part, which is with CW. I entered this alone, dropping in and out over the course of an otherwise quite busy weekend. 245 QSOs later, and a claimed score of 36,340.

EPC Ukraine DX

The second EPC Ukraine DX Contest. I was again ably assisted by Dan 2EØMEH, and despite some pretty terrible operating by some stations we managed a total of 172 QSOs.

ARRL 10 Meters

Finally, the most recent contest was this very weekend. Due to other factors (okay, alcohol) I only managed to work a couple of hours of the contest, and with it being 10 metres only I was at the mercy of the daylight nature of propagation with this band. Still, it's a mixed contest - both SSB and CW - so once the band started to close I switched to CW, which brought a few more welcome multipliers. In just over 3 hours, I managed 45 SSB contacts and 23 CW contacts - totalling 68 QSOs, and a claimed score of 7,826.

Previous contests

Back in October I posted about the Scandinavian Activity Contest's SSB section, in which I had 213 QSOs for a claimed score of 15,762. The results have now been released, and I was pretty happy (for once!) to see that I managed to only lose 5 QSOs from my submitted log, leaving me with 208 QSOs and a score of 15,392. I came 47th in the European Single-Operator Multi-Band Low-Power section, was the 2nd highest scoring English station, and the 3rd highest scoring UK station.

Roll on next year!

After a somewhat delayed start, it does look like sunspot cycle 24 is coming to life. 10 metres has been on excellent form the past few weeks, and on Saturday I managed to grab a quick video of the KQ2H repeater in New York being received here in the UK:-

I've just received the latest batch of QSL cards from the QSL managers for M6BZT, 2EØVKG and MØVKG, so I thought it was time for me to stop being lazy and scan a load in. They're now online at http://m0vkg.org.uk/gallery/qsl-cards. It's also a good opportunity to reiterate my QSL policy, which is that I'll reply to cards the same way I receive them - cards received via the bureau will be replied to via the bureau, and cards sent direct will be replied to direct. I don't require money, SAEs or international reply coupons - I'm more than happy to pay postage if you've taken the time to do the same! I'm also more than happy to use eQSL.cc, and if I've received a card via eQSL, I won't normally send out a paper one unless it's a station I'd like one back from in return or one has been specifically requested.

As for logbooks, mine is available online (live, updated by HRD Logbook) at http://logbook.m0vkg.org.uk/. This is running the web frontend written by Peter 2EØSQL, which I'm also a sometime developer of. The code is available at https://github.com/magicbug/HRD-Web-Frontend. I also have a much more cut down log at http://log.m0vkg.org.uk/, which is the same one that's embedded here on this site and on my QRZ profile. Again, the source code is available at https://github.com/m0vkg/Logbook.

I've just submitted my log for the 2011 Scandinavian Activity Contest. I managed 213 QSOs, for a claimed score of 15,762. The aim of the contest is for Scandinavian stations (Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark) to work as many non-Scandinavian stations as possible, and vice versa. I worked OJØX (Market Reef) and OHØX (The Åland Islands), both of which are new DXCC entities for me.

It's a good contest, and with the UK being just over the water from Scandinavia, quite easy to work plenty of stations. Roll on next year!

I've put together a quick video of me logging into CRCHAT via GB7SYP and GB7YK. The software I'm using is MixW, which is emulating a TNC as I don't have one handy at the moment.

In the video, I first connect to GB7SYP over RF on 144.850, then I connect to GB7YK via a direct link from GB7SYP, and then on to GB7CIP.

They say you should never play with fire. I'd like to alter that slightly to include other things that are rather hot.

I recently decided to send off my application for a 5MHz NoV (Notice of Variation). NVIS propagation interests me, and with 5MHz being talked about as an interesting band for this in particular, I thought I'd give it a go. In anticipation of being granted the NoV, I decided to do the wideband transmit modification to my FT-897 to give me access to the 5MHz frequencies. Steering well clear of my welding torch that is allegedly a soldering iron, I used one of the proper temperature-controlled irons we have at FARS, that are intended for surface-mount work. This is where I probably should have stopped.

Anyone who's been inside an FT-897 before is probably familiar with the surface-mount jumpers that control which frequencies the radio has access to. I'd previously modified the same radio to give me access to the airband frequencies (receive only, obviously), and that was straightforward enough - although that only involved removing one of the jumpers. For this modification, you need to remove a further two, and solder one in on a previously-unused pair of pads.

I successfully removed the two jumpers, and started to solder in place the third, when I applied too much heat to one of the sets of pads, and watched in horror as the pads lifted off the board, exposing the middle layer of the board. Attempts to make some kind of reconnection were unsuccessful, and at this point I called it quits and decided to see if the radio would still work.

I re-assembled the radio, applied power and to my suprise (and short-lived joy) it powered up. A quick scan through the bands showed that all I'd lost was the previously-gained air band, which I wasn't too fussed about as long as I still had a radio that worked. Next step was to pop it all back together and give it a proper test, so I pulled the power out of the back...

Uh-oh.

A *click* *click* *click* sound is never a good thing, and this was confirmed by plugging the power back in and being met with what we here in Yorkshire refer to as 'nowt'. Desperate poking and prodding yielded even more 'nowt', and it looked like the poor FT-897 was toast.

That was two weeks ago. It's now in the capable hands of another club member who can hopefully nurse it back to life. For my part, it's made me realise that surface mount work is something that you can never get enough of, so I've spent two whole evenings down at the club practicing surface mount work.

It could still turn out to be an expensive lesson, so if you're thinking of doing similar please - for your sanity's sake - practice first. Preferably not on a £700 radio.

It's been a few weeks since I updated this, and there's plenty going on.

New HF and VHF antennas

First came the VHF antenna - a Diamond X30A that was sat unused at the club. This has replaced my home-brew 2 metre antenna, with the additional benefit of also working on 70 centimetres.

The HF antenna is a Diamond CP-6 vertical, courtesy of another club member, and which I've yet to pay for! First impressions are what you'd expect from a vertical - better DX working than my long wire, but not as great at working European stations. I've not had chance to properly tune the radials, so at the moment I've still got the ATU inline.

First VK contacts

First up came Ian VK3MO, who I worked on SSB on 20 metres, with 59 reports both ways being given. The second was a JT65 contact with John VK7XX, and I received a lovely e-mail from John afterwards confirming the contact and telling me that my callsign reminded him of his time in the New South Wales police, as their headquarters' callsign was VKG. John is my best DX to date, and I'm looking forward to working both him and Ian again in the future.

APRS station back from the dead, with added functionality

I've spent some time again playing with APRS, and the MØVKG APRS station is now back up and running, and is working as an RX-only IGATE. When I'm in the shack, I can flip the switch to allow it to act as a digipeater too. It's got a connection into APRS-IS, so all the commands available over the air are also available via the internet. I'm working on some new scripts for UI-View32, and one that is up and running already is the repeater database - just send "?RPT" followed by the repeater name, and details of the repeater will be sent back.

I've also managed to get Rick M1EAC interested in APRS, so he's dusted off his Tiny-2 and is also running a similar setup - albeit with a much larger antenna!

Two more DXCC entities this evening - doing well this week! First was Norman 5B4AIF in Cyprus with RTTY on 20m, and second was Laura 3A2MD in Monaco in SSB on 20m.

Still been trying to work BV100 in Taiwan - spotted this evening working RTTY on 20m but still not been able to work them. Will keep trying...

Just a short one, but I've gotten two new DXCC entities in the log this evening, both on 20m - 9H (Malta) and CN (Morocco). The Maltese contact was first, working Jason 9H4JX on the Maltese island of Gozo (IOTA EU-023), quickly followed by Richard CN2RN in Khenifra.

I also copied Francisco LU3OE in Argentina, but despite my best efforts was unable to work him. There's always next time, though!

I've heard sporadic E described as an 'equaliser', in that it seems to allow people with modest setups work well in comparison to what you'd expect. Friday evening was a fine example of it, and resulted in a number of firsts for me.

I put the FT-897 on 10 metres about 8pm, and almost straight away heard a Norwegian station mid-QSO. My antenna for HF is a long wire, and so I don't normally expect much from 10m, especially at that time in the evening. Sensing that sporadic E was the cause of the enhanced conditions, I moved up to 6 metres to have a listen around. That turned out to be a good move, and straight away I worked LA2XPA, followed by LA5YJ and LA9MW. Being new to 6 metres, Norway is a new DXCC entity on the band for me, so that was the first 'first' of the evening. I then had a listen around 50.250 and heard PSK31 transmissions, so I fired up DM780, called CQ a few times and worked Finland, Sweden and Faroe Islands. I then put out a few USB CQ calls on 50.140, and almost immediately had 4 stations coming back at once. 6 more Norwegian, 2 Swedish and an Estonian station later, I then worked G7CDI, who - being a fellow Doncastrian - is a bit closer to home!

Dinner and housework interrupted the fun, however I managed to wrap up the evening by working LA7GNA on 10 metres at just gone midnight.

All in all, it was a lot of fun, and it's added to my existing curiosity of the VHF bands. I was particularly pleased with the PSK31 contacts, and it was nice - if a little strange! - to be on the receiving end of multiple stations calling at once. It also demostrated clearly that when there's sporadic E about, that piece of wire strung across the garden can produce some real suprises!