Suffered through July recovering from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (footnote: don’t get this unless you have a month to waste feeling absolutely miserable and enjoy massive doses of antibiotics). My extremely low energy level has kept me from the radio. Haven’t felt like contesting much.
Skipped WAE CW, missed three sessions of Thursday Madness, had work commitment during NAQP CW and not sure would have shown up if I were home. This damned tick stole my mojo!
So I still have a bunch of stuff I need to do in preparation for fall starting with the Tennessee QSO Party. My partial list:
- Wire yagi pointing W for 20 and 10M
– Replace 20M EDZ with 80M dipole with ladder-line feeder.
– Install 40M loop for N/S
– Get something in the air for 160M
– Move station back to spidery basement
– Make up some coaxial stubs for SO2R (manually switched)
Posted in Antenna, Contesting, Operating, Station, Station Log.
Tagged with no mojo, tick poisoning, where's my DEET?.
By WF7T
– 15 August 10
The Dayton Hamvention was good to me. Specifically, the Contest University was very, very good to me. I was the lucky recipient of the Contesting Dinner Drawing Grand Prize: ICOM IC-7600!

Icom IC-7600 and it’s mine!
Continued…
Posted in News.
By WF7T
– 1 August 10
I just submitted my application for DXCC via LoTW. This has been an achievement I have fantasized for my entire time I have been licensed. Thanks to RZ0AF Andrei I submitted my application today.
Continued…
Posted in Operating.
Tagged with 2010, Contesting, DXCC, LoTW, nerd, Operating, Paper Chasing, QSL, QSL Rate.
By WF7T
– 25 April 10
Ran into some difficulties exacerbated by my own stubbornness. Voltages were not good on the NE5532 U4 and U5. Upset, I asked for help on the Yahoo forum. I decided to step away for a week (had work commitments in any case.) Cooled down, heeded advice and got it fixed! Troubleshooting thread follows (tl;dr) …
Continued…
Posted in QRP.
Tagged with 2010, Building QRP Things, Ft. Tuthill 80, Keeping the blue smoke in, McGiver, Solder Smoke.
By WF7T
– 10 April 10
(Happy Spring, by the way)
Used my new awesome AADE L/C meter IIB to match a bunch of .1μF caps to within ±.0.5% and stuffed the board a little. I was stealing time away from work so I did not forge through…as much as I was tempted.
So far this has been a thoroughly enjoyable kit-building experience.

Posted in QRP.
Tagged with 2010, Building QRP Things, Ft. Tuthill 80, Keeping the blue smoke in, nerd, Solder Smoke.
By WF7T
– 22 March 10