During my stay in Ecuador, I was able to operate two days under my US Callsign as HC2/AL1O. Special thanks to my host Alberto, HC2AQ who offered me his shack. Within two days, 1700 QSOs found their way into the log.
Read on for pictures, online log & QSL information.
It finally happened… After a decade of reliable service, my Alpha91b amplifier broke. Most likely on its way to Spain one of the tubes broke. During the commissioning at ED1R, fire & smoke shot out of a chimney. The first shock was big, but a few measurements confirmed that just the tubes were broken. In this blog post, I will share the knowledge I gained during debugging, commissioning, and breathing new life into the amplifier.
This year we wanted to seriously compete in CQWW CW from the ED1R contest station. While the station is equipped reasonably on all bands with Yagis and verticals, there were no dedicated receiving antennas available - yet. Out of my former contest participation from other stations, I know that when it comes down to winning a CQWW, dedicated receiving antennas are a must-have. Beverages provide great directivity and reduce the EU clutter significantly.
This year I had to honor to be invited by the Qatar Amateur Radio Society (QARS) to operate the CQ WW SSB contest with them. The station is set up in a field day style on the northern tip of Qatar, about 100km away from the capital Doha. We are directly located at the beach and used almost exclusively vertical antennas. A73A entered in the category Multi Operator / Multi Transmitters, running 6 Stations in parallel. Keep on reading for some pictures and lessons learned.
PowerSDR-UI lifts the FlexRadio experience to a new level. Since the first release of PowerSDR-UI, an avid community is forming its self around the project. I receive now everyday feedback from new users expressing their appreciation. In this post, you will find pictures that have been provided by satisfied PowerSDR-UI users. These pictures shall inspire and help you to set up your DJ Console.
The FiFi SDR is a second generation allband HF receiver. Beside it’s QSD it comes with a onboard soundcard and a powerful ARM Cortex M-3 CPU which leaves a lot of room for experiments. I was glad to win Kai-Uwe, DF3DCB one of the FiFi-SDR founders for an interview.
At the end of last year, I announced the “proof” that Software Defined Radios also can have buttons and knobs. At that stage, the software was still a prototype and not ready for a public release. In the meantime, I was working hard to eliminate bugs and implement further improvements. By today I’m happy to announce the release of the PowerSDR-UI beta. This is a call for beta testing. Please feel free to download the software and participate in the beta testing phase!
