Well I guess it has been long enough since my last post. Lets see what has been happening.
Antenna:
Finally got my 2m/70cm Slim Jim antenna up. It is hanging in a tree in the back yard. I have two of these antennas. I had one for each of my QTHs when I had two houses. So I got a spare.
As far as repeaters, I can only get four from my house. Williamstown, Norwich, Windsor and Bolton. Have made about a half a dozen contacts, mostly on the Bolton repeater.
Operating:
Doing some more CW a little PSK31 and JT65. A new mode I have been using is JT9. Less bandwidth then JT65 and 2db more sensitive then JT65. Here is a link for information on this mode. JT9 info I find that JT65 gets very crowded and it is sometimes very hard to get into a QSO.
My code speed is improving and I am starting to do some coping in my head. But I still write most everything down when I am in a QSO.
This last weekend (Aug 8,9) I was able to get in some WES contacts. 35 in all and 6 cootie contacts for 90 bonus points. I was 71st overall and 53 in the QRO category. I was not able to do June or July due to prior commitments.
Log Book:
I was able to get enough SKCC contacts to get my Tx2. My biggest problem was converting the excel spreadsheet I used for my T to an adif format so I could import it into the SKCC logger program. Which I am using for the rest of the TxN. That took me all day. Basically you convert each cell into the appropriate adif format then save it as a text file. The following link is where I found the basics.
AB2RF Excel-ADIF-conversion link
These are the cell commands I used for my conversion. I am using open office, so the commands are slightly different then from Microsoft excel.
="<eoh>"
="<call:"&LEN(Log.c2)&">"&Log.c2
="<qso_date:8>"&Log.b2
="<state:"&LEN(log.f2)&">"&log.f2
="<NAME:"&len(log.e2)&">"&log.e2
="<COMMENT:"&len(log.d2)&"SKCC:>"&log.d2
="<band:"&LEN(log.G2)&">"&log.G2
="<rst_rcvd:3>"&599
="<rst_sent:3>"&599
="<time_on:4>"&0000
="<mode:2>CW"
="<SKCC:"&len(log.d2)&">"&Log.d2
="<eor>"
The biggest issue I had was getting the date formatted correctly. I ended up making the dates just numbers and then it worked ok using the cell command above for the date. There is probable a better way to do the date, but I am only going to do this once so as long as I get there I am fine.
Kenwood:
Finally got the Kenwood TS-520S back on the air. I have my SpeedX key on it. I hope to learn how to use it.
Better post this now or I will never get done.
73
