K9OZ ham radio blog

This weekend was the CQ 160 meter cw contest. I ran it a little Saturday night and early Saturday and Sunday mornings, finishing with about 170 contacts. Unfortunately, my S9 line noise has not gone away, and even though both the K3 and Icom 756 ProIII have very good filtering and noise reduction that takes most of it out, it is still just a pain in the ear to work through that type of noise. Yesterday three Commonweath Edison trucks pulled up in front of the house, and the workers made their way through my back yard to the power lines. One told me that a "neighbor was having a problem," but that's all I could get out of him. I told him I'd been experiencing very high noise levels the last few weeks, but that didn't seem to register with him. The four workers spent a couple hours working in the area, and I was hoping my neighbor's problem would solve mine. From what I could see and overhear, they didnt' discover or resolve anything, and my line noise is st...

Last weekend was the winter North American QSO Party, CW. I usually operate this contest, but came down and discovered S9 (that's very high for you lay-people out there) line noise on all bands. I've had this intermittent noise since I moved to this house, generally when there is snow and ice on the electric lines, like last weekend. I have good enough radios that I can filter much of it out, but it's still bothersome and keeps you from really hearing well, which is a real disadvantage in a contest. Despite that, I made 388 contacts on 20, 40, 80, and 160 meters, and had a good time. The SSB version of the contest was this weekend, but the line noise is still here, despite the weather warming and ice melting off the lines. I didn't want to battle the noise, so took a pass on the contest. I hope the noise goes away. Otherwise I have to start fighting with Commonwealth Edison again. I've had them even come out here a couple times, but of course, when they come, there ...

My resolution for the new year, be a better blogger. I took some time off over the holidays and spent a lot of time playing with the radios. Mostly, it was nice rag chews on 40 and 80 meters, but I spent some time on the Stew Perry Distance Challenge -- a 160 meter contest -- and running mobile on 40 adn 20 meters over New Year's while driving to Memphis. I enjoyed getting back on CW mobile, but I'm afraid my trusty old Yaeseu FT 857 is seeing its last legs on HF. During a contact on the drive south, I unfortunately had stuffed a coat over the radio while packing the car, and the radio overheated and quit operating. It later cooled down and I got back on the air, but it died on me again part way through a contact. I should have known better, and broke one of the basic rules of mobile operation -- watch the ventilation around your radio. I've been discovering a bunch of IPhone apps for Ham radio. Some are very useful, some I wonder about. I can now practice sending CW with m...