Thursday, March 13, 2008

RDXC Contest

I'm getting ready again to join RDXC contest, year by year this contest getting bigger and bigger and i really enjoy working in this contest, The fun part is that you can work both mode (MIX) CW & SSB which specially that we are in the bottom of the solar cycle so the activity level is very low so you hardly can find some one you can work with, so when the qso rate drop in SSB move to CW and work the same guys again which will count as new contact. So see you in the contest.

for more info about this contest visit their web site http://www.rdxc.org

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Low Band DXing

Since I'm back from my Thailand trip I really enjoyed the Jet Lag, I waked up almost every day around 4 am and for sure the only thing came to my mind at this time is 80m!! WOW it is fun. The condition to the US is great specially the east coast with some opening to the west cost also. But for sure this will not last for ever (I mean my jet lag... hihi), I'm back to my normal life after maybe 1 month of waking up at 4 to 5 am, So now it is your turn I found that at my sunset (and west Coast sunrise) around 13:30z the condition is great in the Long Path to the west coast of North America. So turn your beam and enjoy working some DX from the Middle East.

9K2HN in Thailand


I went to Thailand for the first time on 29 Nov 2007 with my XYL, I really liked the country and the people there. I landed in Bangkok and for two hours then took another flight to south Thailand to and Island name Koh Samui, Stayed there for 5 days. While I was there relaxing I remember Ham Radio and my radio friends, so immediately graped my laptop and sent a quick email to the first Thai Radio ham came to my mind... for sure this is Champ E21EIC i told him that i will be in bangkok after two day so if it is possible to show me around and meet some radio friend. to make it short he came and picked me up from where i was staying (Amari Watergate Hotel) and he asked my if i want to operate as HS80A and for sure i replied.... YES!!!! so he drove to E21YDP station and i operated there for an hour or so, for sure the conditions was not so good, but to be honest till date i have never operated from any place have a better conditions than Kuwait....40m was very noisy due to the Chinese Radar. I made around 60+ qso mainly with EU.

Then Champ took for a Thai Dinner which i enjoyed very much.


Thank you Champ for the hospitality.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

9K2HN Log is added to LOTW

Just want to let every one know that I have uploaded my whole log (193,000 qso) to LOTW yesterday, it took around 3 hours to complete the the process, I hope I made the right thing by uploading it.

So far so good many confirmation received



Monday, November 5, 2007

Culture Change on DX Cluster?

John & List,

I was thinking to write about the same topic after the contest but then i thought why i have to open a subject which many will not understand it the way i meant it. I will write only about the contest topic issue and nothing else, I do participate in all major contests and i know exactly what does it mean when i'm spotted in the DX cluster it clearly means more qso's, Just to give a bit of history, the guys at the our local club started to help me by spotting me when every they HEAR me on any frequency during any major contest just to show their support, after few years there were a list made for those who have suspicious spots and i was listed among them, because i'm spotted from the same ip address for more than once or twice (sure it is a club!!) after this and because i want to be very clean i asked every one in the local club few 4 or 5 years back DO NOT SPOT ME let the others do it, I ended up with much lower qso number than or stations in my area, OK tell me now if i'm a DX from a semi rare country, and i don't belong to a country with high ham population and my own people are not allowed to spot me i will always end up with much lower qso numbers which mean less score!!

I'm sure that if i was a member of one country with high ham population they will keep spotting me all the time. and now i can say i'm sure that most of these spot are not real!! YES SIR.... tell me now if i'm the only one from 9K in all band (except 20m this year) and based on the comments i get on the air i do have a good signal why i'm not getting spots like the others? which they are operating from a country with many hams and many of them joined the contest as full time? and specially they are spotted after each band change.....

Think?

de 9K2HN
Hamad

On Nov 1, 2007 12:46 PM, John Warren <nt5c@texas.net> wrote:
I think I detect the start of a culture change on the DX cluster. You
may not care about it, or - more likely - you'll deplore it, but I
think it's happening anyway, and probably can't be reversed.

It's self-spotting. In most contests it's illegal, but not at other
times, and for many less experienced, and often less powerful DX
stations, especially outside North America, putting one's own
callsign on the cluster is becoming a definite aid to CQing on the
bands.

Under certain circumstances, I don't look at it quite as negatively
as some purists. It's useful for "priming the pump" for unusual
openings, when you alert people to turn their beams to unconventional
directions. For example, 10M long path when (if?) the sunspots come
back, or 10M side-scatter in the summer.

What say you?

John, NT5C.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

GAME OVER

The Game is Over... CQWW DX SSB my best contest is over for this year, now we have to wait till 25 Oct 2008 for the next CQWW.

Anyhow it was big fun we had great time all the guys was great, every thing went as expected no hardware problem what so ever, anyhow we made around 5,000 qso and a score of 10.5M which looks fine for the current propagation status (Bottom of the solar cycle) .

as promised in my earlier post i have recorded the whole contest in to mp3 format files each 41mb in size to download them go to http://www.9k2hn.com and click on audio recording link.


Please let me what do you think, and also you can find your qso with me and see hos you sounded in the side, this recording was only in the Run station so if the qso is made from the mult station it is not recorded.


Enjoy

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Audio Recording (whole contest)

Yesterday I spent few hours looking in the internet for software enable me to record the whole CQWW contest in audio format and store it (or share it) in my pc, finally I found a great software which can record very easily and the audio file will not take much space on the HD and it is recording directly in MP3 format, the software name is RecAll-pro.

I have connected my radio IC-756 pro III from the rear audio jack and i found out that it is not recording my own voice... UMM i want to know what I have said also this is the main idea, so i had to buy a Y connector and plugged it in the front jack and in this way I can record both the transmitted audio plus the received one, by doing so the project is completed the most important thing is to press the record button in the beginning of the contest otherwise it will be waste of time and effort.


So when i'm done i will post a link where you can download the audio clip.