On-line CW training

If, like me, your CW is not as good as it could be, then you may want to visit http://lcwo.net/ where you can both train yourself and test yourself. On plain callsigns I could read 22-23wpm on average, but I still made mistakes at much slower speeds. 30 minutes a day on this site and anyone's speed would rapidly improve.

DK7FC/P on 136.8kHz normal CW

DK7FC/P very strong on 136.8kHz CW today

Stefan has been out /P with his 100m long kite antenna, this time on 136.8kHz CW. He was excellent copy here in the UK (JO02dg) with a signal some 20-30dB over the noise floor even when sending fast CW. Attached is a screen shot from Spectran showing him working DF6NM at 1715 this evening. Distance is around 649km.

SAQ (17.2kHz) CW VLF transmission Sunday July 4th

There will be a further transmission from the historic VLF transmitter at Grimeton, Sweden on July 4th at 0900 and 1200 UTC on 17.2kHz CW with tune-up 30 minutes before each transmission. E-mail to: info@alexander.n.se or fax to: +46-340-674195 or via: SM bureau or direct by mail to:

Alexander

Grimeton Veteranradios Vaenner, 

Radiostationen                          

Grimeton 72

SE-430 16 ROLFSTORP, SWEDEN

See: www.alexander.n.se

My 2 year old grandson's CW

My grandson trying his hand at CW - despite being only 2yrs 5 months old!

500kHz CW QSO this evening

For a change I went on 500kHz CW and managed to get a 579 report from Chris G3XIZ. Chris then went on to work PA0WMR although the Dutch station was only about 559 with me. I called him but he did not hear me.

2010 ARRL International DX Contest

Conditions on 15m were good enough for some solid CW QSOs across the pond this afternoon. Worked stations in New Hampshire, Connecticut and Virginia when running 5W QRP. I did also check up on 10m but didn't hear any stations when I listened between 1600-1720z.

Simple 80m CW transceiver

Want to try something really simple?  I am now waiting to have a QSO on 80m CW using my XBM80-2 transceiver that I put together in the week. Pout is 60mW. The only switching between TX and RX is by the morse key. Additional offset can be had with the switch in series with the crystal. Skeds with local stations are being arranged.

Simple 80m rig (not tested on-air yet)

This is the schematic of a little experimental 80m CW transceiver. It puts out about 60mW and is only moderately sensitive, although I have not managed to accurately measure it yet. Offset between RX and TX is about 400Hz but more can be obtained by closing S1. It should be used with a low pass filter really.

40m CW with the Elecraft K1

This evening, for a change, I fired up my little Elecraft K1 4 band QRP CW transceiver that I built a few years ago. Not much doing on 20m or 30m so I went on 40m CW and worked a few stations around Europe. Worst report was 559 and the best 599. It was a change from 500kHz WSPR.

Presentation on CW and other weak signal modes

Andy Talbot G4JNT has put an interesting presentation about weak signal modes onto his website. He gave this talk at a recent Microwave Round Table. See http://g4jnt.com/MartleSham.htm. It is exploring how we can push the boundaries further when working with very weak signals.

More voice powered DX in the USA

Mike Rainey AA1TJ has pushed his DX up to 1329kms on 80m using his Code Talker TX (see left) which uses only the energy derived by shouting into a loudspeaker to power the transmitter - no external DC power sources at all. He worked W4OP at 0133z. Just visible is the tin can used to focus the shouts into the LS cone! I am beginning to think Mike will work some serious DXCC countries in the years to come using his "voice powered" TX. Imagine this rig into a beam on 10m when the sunspots are high.

Mike tells me he is having a go at a 20m version now.

WSPR versus CW - what's the improvement?

As WSPR is so effective I asked Joe, K1JT, what the difference is between WSPR and "ear-and-brain" CW. This is his very helpful reply:

"For an answer to your question about relative sensitivities of CW, WSPR, and some of the other modes implemented in WSJT, let me suggest going to the "References" link on the WSJT web site, http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/refs.html ,
and select reference #11. Table 3 on page 9 gives the information you asked about. The difference given there is about 11 dB, in favor of WSPR over ear-and-brain CW. For most operators, the difference is more like 15 dB."

Morse's birthday

Today is the anniversary of Samuel Morse's birthday. To mark it, Google has its usual banner in Morse rather than letters - a nice touch to remind the world about CW.

QRP - 4 continents today

After a slow start to the year because of family commitments, today saw some QRP CW contacts around the world. These included RV6HA, HB9ANJ, 7X4AN and KA2MGI with QSOs on 14MHz or 7MHz.

With the Elecraft K1 with internal ATU and the random 15m wire strung down the garden I can usually work most of the stations I hear as long as they are not buried in a huge DX pile-up. CW is a very effective mode especially if you are like me and have a simple, unobtrusive wire antenna rather than a huge beam on a large tower.