N8YXR

Call: N8YXR Operator(s): N8YXR, KC0RBV Station: N8YXR Class: Mult-single LP QTH: MI Operating Time (hrs): 23 Summary:   Band  QSOs  Sec ------------------------------    160:     80: 193  27     40: 141  26     20: 72  26     15: 16  4     10: ------------------------------ Total: 422  83 Total Score =70,052 Club: Mad River Radio Club Comments: Ok, the goal was only 300 QSOs. WOW! The Inverted-L seems to really cook for us. Never thought I would see that many QSOs on 80M. First time making a clean sweep since graduate school. Jennie's first time ever. VERY COOL!!! Last section was Ontario North of all places. Hopefully, this helped the club. I'm pretty sure without our big guns on this weekend OH won. If you did, good job guys. Worked several of the school clubs. It seems their participation is up. It will be interesting to see the results. Wo...

Call: N8YXR Operator(s): N8YXR, KC0RBV Station: N8YXR Class: Mult-single LP QTH: MI Operating Time (hrs): 27 Summary:   Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries ------------------------------    160:     80: 32     12    24     40: 32     12    18     20: 172   22    67     15: 63    15     37     10: 17    5       9 ------------------------------ Total: 316 66 155  Total Score = 193,375 Club: Mad River Radio Club Comments: Normally, I hate this contest. Always seems rough on us. Not sure it was better, but I don't feel like I was in a bar fight. Much better score than we have ever done. Due to a work event all Saturday morning and cub scouts tonight, we didn't max out operating time at all. The new 80m antenna worked okay. I had a lot of noise so eventually, I n...

Back in 2016, my wife and I were becoming more serious contesters. We had a station on the air, but wanted to become more competitive. I also wanted to improve my DXing. I had earned DXCC using our 5 band Hustler trapped vertical, but desired more entities. Reading a lot of others it seemed the biggest bang for your buck always tends to be antennas. We already owned a K3S so there was also not much more to improve on that. While benchmarking, I realized we would need a tower and a directional antenna.Thus, the summer of the tower was born! Examining what to buy and what to do took a lot of time. I asked questions and opinions from Mad River Radio Club members to understand their experiences. I read the ARRL Antenna Book and the Antenna Towers for the Radio Amateur book. The list of variables was bewildering. Like a normal engineer, I found I needed to use a process to help me decide what I wanted. Initially, I started with some goals. Improve DXing contest scores Increase my co...

 Call: N8YXR Operators: KC0RBV N8YXR Station: N8YXR Class: Muti-Single Low Power QTH: Michigan Operating Time (hrs): 15 Summary:  Band     QSOs      7      61     14     284     21      20  Total     365 Mult: 87 Score: 67,251 Nice to do some contesting mid-summer. My major goal was to get better at finding and running. Had a good two hour run towards the beginning of the contest with a rate peaking at one point of 180/hr. Jennie (KC0RBV) did a good job keeping that run going. We were spotted during that and another run so that was good. First time to be spotted multiple times. Didn't work many WRTC stations. It looks like they were mostly doing CW. I need to start operating that mode.

Modern transceivers frequently allow you to set your receive and transmit equalizer settings. Setting the receive is fairly easy since you just have to listen to your own speakers. On the transmit levels, I'm sure other hams have had the same problem I have. How do you pick? Initially, I set them according to the settings recommended by Heil Sound , the makers of my microphones.Now, that seemed better than my K3S's default of no modification. All seemed well, but I still had problems. Frequently, I had to repeat the Yankee portion of my call. My wife, KC0RBV, also had problems with the same portion of the call. Watching the SWR meeting while my daughter talked on Kid's Day really gave me a shock. Her voice was able to keep the meter pegged at 80 watts almost the entire time. Her voice appears to be made for SSB. Then, I wanted to improve my setup and maybe use the equalizer (EQ) settings to improve my transmitted power and ineligibility. So I read up on cardoid micro...

This past Sunday, I worked the 13 Colonies special event stations. Normally, I just work a few stations and call it good. This year, I decided that I wanted to work a clean sweep. I was able to do it in a single day. What a rush! Moreover, I spent time listening to the pileups and how the guys were working them. I have to say those guys are good! Each one was pretty cool and just concentrated on trying to make as many contacts as possible. Even the weaker special events stations attempted to stay focused. These stations are all on the air this week. Try to work them. It's fun for both. And if the pileup is a little slow, don't forget to thank them! If you are one of the guys or gals putting these on the air, THANK YOU!!!!!

NOTE: This was originally posted on my old blog that has been taken down. It was originally posted in 2016. I recently have begun rebuilding the shack. The family has really gotten into contesting and the kids often help me log. Because of that we are now working on expanding the station and improving it for multi-single contesting. The current operating station was created from a small desk we had laying around. As you can see, it was good as a starter station, but very cramped. We started by looking at our needs, which were more comfort, additional space, an ability to provide long term station growth, and ease of use. Another item was to have space for the kids to be with us, but perhaps do something else. Finally, we eventually want to host others for contests at our station so it needs to be flexible to fit many different operators. The first step was to find a new desk. In talking with my wife, KC0RBV, she said we could rearrange things and provide more space. We decid...

This blog is on my adventures in amateur radio. It covers contesting, dxing, and station construction. My hope for this blog is to give back a little to the hobby by including what I have learned.