K9OZ ham radio blog

I had a good time this wekend with the ARRL DX contest. We've had sunspots the last month, so it appears propogation is finally improving. I managed to make contacts on 15, 20, 40, 80 and even three on 160 last night. As a result, I wound up with over 400 contacts in about 10 hours of operating. I had a great time. With a DX contest such as this, you work different parts of the world on different bands at different times. There is enough activity, that you can really hear the propogation changing and get a better understanding of where in the world a band is open to at a particular time. You use your knowledge of how the bands are, to pick the right bands at the right time. If it all works, it's great. The contest also sold me on the K3. It is just the nicest contest and DX radio I've ever used. I switched to the Icom 756 Pro III for a short period last night, but soon went back to the K3. On another note, the line noise that has plauged me most of the winter seems to have ...

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 ...