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WAECW propagation / N1MM / 6M open to Brasil

Besides enjoying the Olympic games  with its fantastic opening and closing ceremony
A fantastic performance by the U.K.!

I did some contesting  this weekend.


Finally a real contest this weekend the WAECW   nice contest  only outside Europe QSO's  allowed!
That is the type contests I like.
Propagation not bad at all! SF 135 or so
21MHz    even long path open to ZM1A  and ZL3IO  21:22 21:35
Most QSO on 21  some  28 to far east  and a few 20 40 80.


I heard D64K  good at 3502kHz  early morning  but my 80 vertical would not cooperate.
Gave "ARC"   tried to fix it in the night the  vertical  line did touch another wire of the 40/30m dipole.
I could not even use it with low power.
I replace a suspect plug , no result  had I listen better to my XYL  that would not have been  necessary.. She said something about the wires hanging strange earlier when it was still light outside..
Even tested the cable  with a dummy-load the outside cable was okay...
Wasted  time on that...

When I got it fixed finally  D64K was  QRX, I never heard them back again.
Well it was a very nice quiet night  clear star sky   I wanted to check for the PerseĆÆds  meteorites shower anyway but did not see a single meteorite during my night operation  with headlamp..

The wires  I use are standard PVC Insulated  0.75mm² wires.It seems the PVC Insulation is degrading a lot outside.
I use stand off Insulator tubes to keep the 160m vertical clear from the antenna's    


Working in the WAECW   using N1MM V12.8.0

Again an annoying  delay when confirming /logging a contact. There is a delay  between 0.5 - 1.5 seconds after confirming with enter before the report is logged and send.

I had  that delay problem before  but during the PACC  everything worked nice.
I thought  that it was caused by the Telnet / cluster connection with many spots and reverse beacon  set on  but closing Telnet did no help.

Then I went back to  V12.7.1  this version behaves different the bandmap is different and the delay seems gone?  It looks like there are major changes in the last versions?
I have to test more to be sure.
I have to go to the N1MM reflector Yahoo group for this kind of troubles

Could be caused by using the Notebook  instead of the standard logging PC that is crashed and is laying in pieces on the workbench.
The Notepad has W7pro32  dual-Core 1.2G
The N1MM PC  miniTower  has XP and CORE2 1.84GHz .
I could not repair this yet.
I suspect the CORE-2 Processor is broken the processor gets hot very quick in 10-30seconds when trying to boot the system.
Processor failure are rare  but I can not find other faults like the low Voltage Cap's at the main-board that was an Dell issue before.Those suspected Cap's  6,3V 1500uF  are already replaced by other brand.  Need an other Core2 processor to check it out.
The Notepad is doing a good job in WSPR mode low power and processor speed  high enough to decode even the most difficult trace salad.
It is very difficult to know what a processor is so busy with this Lenovo Laptop with its i7 4 core  is getting quit hot. But the processor load shows only  a few percent?  Firefox  takes most .
Will it start a BBQ  when the processor gets100% ?
MS task manager only shows 3th party software load  Windows and other MS programs never load the PC.....


I tried TR4W shortly in this WAECW  but I could not run a single QSO with this good looking logger.  CW keying  seems very quick responding  compared to N1MM   at first glance.
I am still waiting to meet he firsts HAM  using TR4W ?
That will not be easy since I do not know any contester close to me...
We suppose to have a communication hobby...  in fact I have no communication at all.

Back to N1MM  did not try  dare to start QTC traffic   in CW   high speed exchanging  log entries .
The WAECW clearly needs some study and training for QTC work.
Z  starts QTC mode.  Once  someone ask QTC?  you should switch to QTC mode Z  
I did that but the confusing thing is entering  Z will send QTC?  back to the QSO partner  it should be " QRV "     
And then the partner starts a with the QTC  serial header data I fill that in and  TX  "r"  by hand?
Then the other starts a bombardment  of 10 log entries.. with 35wpm...
That is something else then only getting the call and serial..   it needs some training
Only receiving QTC's  seems possible?  I'm  still investigating how to send.
In RTTY it is easier since a window shows the 10 log entries  ready to send. 
Also I did not practice much contest CW since the PACC February.
 
28MHz this morning  VK7 VK3  propagation again early morning.
not bad it improved the last days

Also 80m  4 days in a row 1 decode by VK7DIK  ( with the twisted vertical)
Just one decode around 19 UTC 4 days in a row .. WSPR is no competition  but it is nice to see
4 days  in a row in the "top list" like this  DK4XI has far better reports and decodes but 35km closer
And 80m was not that good that it got further west to G with extra 500km.

 2012-08-12 19:54  PA0O  3.594136  -25  0  JO33hg  5  VK7DIK  QE28sf  16731  84 
 2012-08-12 19:54  DK4XI  3.594117  -17  0  JN39qe  5  VK7DIK  QE28sf  16696  92 
 2012-08-12 22:28  VK6WS  3.594122  -19  0  OF76vk  5  DK4XI  JN39qe  14032  310 

Pity I missed the Friday 50MHz TEP to D64K   I had already written off 6M and did not check the band. And have no app that warns me for such things..

But tonight I checked 50MHz  and the band really opened.
D64K was reported  not far south of me at 50103 I did not get them here.
But heard ZD7VC/B  IH74  and FY7THF/B  GJ35 !  long time ago I heard those beacons last time.
Could work PY1RO PY1NX PY2OE
ZD7VC_FY7THF.mp3
PY_12aug12.mp3
 I am still impressed by the small 7ele 3 bander  here  the F/B is good with its 2 elements.
I can only compare with in memory of the 7ele LFA  and the 9ele  and the 7ele DK7ZB  and I think the F/B  is the same with this small antenna. Only the gain will be 1 S unit less?
Could be / must be but   propagation  is the major factor besides being QRV  at the right time.




WSPR Sundaymorning 
 2012-08-12 06:18  PA0O  28.126135  -28  0  JO33hg  5  VK7AB  QE37ne  16905  84 
 2012-08-12 06:30  PA0O  28.126151  -25  0  JO33hg  5  VK3SMC  QF22oc  16435  78 
 2012-08-12 06:38  VK3SMC  28.126128  -23  0  QF22oc  5  PA0O  JO33hg  16435  312 
 2012-08-12 06:28  VK2KRR  28.126147  -8  0  QF34mr  5  PA0O  JO33hg  16351  316 
 2012-08-12 07:14  VK2KRR  28.126148  -13  0  QF34mr  5  PA0O  JO33hg  16351  316 
 2012-08-12 06:52  VK2KRR  28.126146  -6  0  QF34mr  5  PA0O  JO33hg  16351  316 
 2012-08-12 06:54  PA0O  28.126150  -16  0  JO33hg  5  VK2KRR  QF34mr  16351  73 
 2012-08-12 07:18  PA0O  28.126149  -15  0  JO33hg  5  VK2KRR  QF34mr  16351  73 
 2012-08-12 07:10  PA0O  28.126150  -25  0  JO33hg  5  VK2KRR  QF34mr  16351  73 
 2012-08-12 06:30  PA0O  28.126150  -24  0  JO33hg  5  VK2KRR  QF34mr  16351  73 
 2012-08-12 06:58  PA0O  28.126150  -24  0  JO33hg  5  VK2KRR  QF34mr  16351  73 
 2012-08-12 07:22  PA0O  28.126149  -13  0  JO33hg  5  VK2KRR  QF34mr  16351  73 
 2012-08-12 07:10  PA0O  28.126131  -24  0  JO33hg  5  VK5PJ  PF95mk  15778  80 
 2012-08-12 05:50  PA0O  28.126151  -14  0  JO33hg  5  A45WT  LL93co  5403  107 



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