Operating:
Since Mar 26 2017 until Aug 24 2017, I have had 514 CW contacts, 17 JT9 and 2 FT8. FT8 is a fairly new digital mode. It cycles every 15 seconds instead of one minute like JT9 or JT65. Haven't really gotten into it yet but soon. For more information on FT8 go here > New FT8 Mode
BTW I am doing a lot more CQing now QSOs are getting hard to come by these days and, besides, I got to start doing at some point.
I have been using my "cootie" now for eight months and, I must say, it is coming along. Some people can tell I am using one. Beats me how they know. I can never tell who is using one.
Met a gentleman on air that has a blog that he keeps up pretty regularly. He is Mike W9ODX. Here is a link to his blog Adventures in CW Stop by and say hello. I am sure he will appreciate it.
WES:
Let see how many WES have I done since March?
Month QSOs Overall QRO
April 57 30 15
May 0 - -
June 30 62 45
July 56 17 9
Aug 74 14 8
May was a disaster for me. Was not not really motivated to do much of anything, so let's leave it at that. June I only work one day, so not bad for that. August was good. I actually did some CQing in that one. There didn't seem to be too many stations around.
Brags:
For:
April 71
May 11
June 74
July 78
Overall I am in 12th place and 8th place in July. I know it may seem odd to some people, especially those still working on their C, T and S levels, to do this but as you get more awards, needed numbers get rarer. So brags are a way of getting around the "I don't need them" problem, since it starts fresh every month. I have a personal goal of 3 brags a day. Some days I get more and some I don't get any.
Novice Rig Roundup:
Got this certificate in the mail the other day. I was quit surprised to say the least. Thank you Bry AF4K for this. I appreciate it. Visit Bry's web page AF4K Web Site . Not many contacts but had fun with it anyways.
Awards:
Finally got eQSL.cc JT9 on 20m. Finally got NM. so that's in the books. Now what? Who knows.
Flex:
Well version 1.10.16 has a very annoying bug. It will occasionally lockup the radio. So bad, that you have to do a hard reset i.e. press and hold the power button until the radio turns off. Other then that, I am pretty happy with my 6300.
Now for me it has happened about 3 times in 5 months. Not catastrophic but annoying just the same. Some people have it happen every day and sometime multiple times a day! Very annoying for them, especially if you have a 6700 and paid a lot more then me. There was quit a thread on the Flex community forum. It got so intense, that Flex shut down the thread. Basically they said that they know there is a problem, but they can't reproduce it so they don't know when it will be fixed.
Let's just say a lot of people were very upset that FRS was not fixing this issue as quickly as people would have like. I can understand this. These people spent thousands of dollars on these radio, or should I say bricks.
FRS released V2 of SmartSDR a little while ago. I have not installed it. I have no interest in remote operating and that is about the only new feature in version 2. So for me, forking over $200.00 would be a waste of money right now.
Supposedly any performance enhancements of bug fixes will be in the next V1 release. Though I have yet to hear of when that will happen, or as they say "RSN" (Real Soon Now)
SKCC for the intellectually challenged:
So one great idea I have is to write a "book" on how to get the most out of all the tools available for the SKCC along with some simplified explanations of most of the awards and events offered by the SKCC club. I got it started but don't know how long it will take me to get it done, but it will be RSN!! Will keep you posted on progress.
Well that is all I can think of for now. See you next time - 73
