MØMCX

Amateur Radio Operator


AFS 80m SSB Contest

AFS starts soon. I’m here early setting up for it. I can’t hear much, are the bands open? N1MM is working OK but my voice keyer is making nasty noisy QRN from the computer and it’s horrible so I’ve ditched it whilst I consider what to do. This means more fluids (to keep voice in working order!) = more toilet. Last CQWW I used a bucket so I wouldn’t lose my frequency. I’ll just have to cross my legs this time!

I’m logged into the Wythall chat room and waiting for people to join. I love these club activity contests. The anticipation kills me!

         

At 45 minutes before the off, I am holding 3.697 MHz and calling CQ, speaking with MU0FAL (Colin), M3NSQ (Steve in Hornsea), M1EBV (Bristol) and G0ICJ (David from Wythall Club) and I stay on that freq at the off, gradually moving up to 3.698 MHz until 16:21pm with 213 QSOs in the bag. Over the next 100 minutes, I only scored another 45 QSOs, mainly because I lost my frequency through stupidity by deciding I could score more doing some single VFO work, cruising from the bottom of the band through to the top, then I realised what a fabulous frequency I had!

I ran full UK legal power (400 watts) though my FT100Mp Mk5 and my Ameritron 811 amp almost on tickover using a turned-down Class A from the 1000 as the driver for the linear amp. Anyway, finished on 259 which is about 20 QSOs better than last year.

Wythall Chatroom:

15:28:56 [ChrisG1VDP] I am stuck between 2 very loud and wide stations on my running freq…
15:29:24 [g6kmq] m0mcx one of them?
15:45:16 [g0mtn] we’re finished now - time for shopping
15:45:56 [m0mcx] Shopping? Loser
15:46:32 [g0mtn] 133 first hour though. can’t complain
16:50:43 [g7ugc] You swine Chris pinchinf my QSO
16:51:02 [g6kmq] who me?
16:52:21 [g0mtn] back from shopping. now starting cooking… (!)
16:52:26 [g0mtn] scores on the doors so far ?
16:52:44 [g7ugc] 53
16:52:49 [g6kmq] 54
16:52:51 [g0eyo] 54
16:53:24 [ChrisG1VDP] 66
16:54:43 [m0mcx] 234
17:40:54 [m0mcx] Last year: http://www.contesting.co.uk/hfcc/results/2006/afsssb2006.shtml
17:51:23 [g0mtn] remember: fivers to me after the contest
17:54:08 [g0mtn] just received my first log  not even finished yet
17:56:07 [m0mcx] Got called by DL16XXV - sounds like a post code!
18:00:49 [ChrisG1VDP] Do we send the logs to lee to enter the contest?
18:00:58 [g0mtn] yes please.
18:01:24 [g0mtn] i will then send them to myself
18:02:12 [g0mtn] qsy dinner
18:02:53 g0eyo exits from this room
18:03:06 [m0mcx] Me too !

January 20th, 2007 Posted by callum | Club | no comments

Gallery up and running

It’s uploading now as I speak. I used a program called PhotoResize400 to resize every photograph to 800 pixels wide (default is 400 pixels, you change it by changing the program name to PhoResize800, how cool is that?). Check it out at http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize. My 500Mb of antenna projects came down to 17Mb.

Then I discover that all the spaces in my file names can’t be used with PHPwebGallery, so I found another utility to change all spaces to underscores: http://cerebralsynergy.com/download.php?view.55. You would think finding a simple utility to do this would be easy but like all small utilities, there’s rather a lot of false starts. The first two I downloaded were littered with bugs and/or cripple-ware. How am I supposed to test out a recursive utility if I’m restricted to 30 files? Software authors need to get in the minds of users.

January 20th, 2007 Posted by callum | QRO | no comments

Phew - PhotoBlog working

PHPGallery is working here: http://www.m0mcx.co.uk/gallery/ but integrating it with WordPress utilising the plugin “Photon” is proving complicated and error prone, I may junk the integration :(

Time for bed.

January 20th, 2007 Posted by callum | QRO | no comments