VE7SL - Steve - Amateur Radio Blog: 2025

Wednesday, 16 April 2025

Hooked Early

Originally published in 2015, one of my favorite memories.

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courtesy: http://www.arrl.org/

I still have a vivid memory of the day I discovered (and bought) my first QST magazine. It was in February, 1959, and I had recently turned 11 years of age.

It seems I was doomed from a very tender age and, as it turned out, there was little hope of recovery.

It was a Friday night and I had gone with my parents, as we did every Friday night following dinner, to the Eaton's department store in downtown Vancouver.

courtesy: http://www.thespec.com/

Eaton's had a new and modern supermarket-style grocery store on their bottom floor which stayed open until 9PM. As my parents did the grocery shopping, I would take the escalator to the 4th floor magazine racks and on that particular night, spotted the fate-determining issue hiding beside the Popular Electronics, Radio-TV Experimenter, Electronics Illustrated, Radio News, White's Radio Log and other nefarious radio publications designed, in part, to lure the allowance money from the pockets of wide-eyed youngsters like myself, already beginning to show symptoms of the dreaded radio-bug.

I recall debating to spend my small allowance on the costlier QST (55 cents) or the cheaper (40 cents) Popular Electronics. I found the technical-looking cover too overpowering, bit-the-bullet, and shelled-out for the QST ... that extra 15 cents forever sealing my fate.

As I sat in the back seat of the car (a '53 Chevy Sedan), waiting for my parents to finish their grocery shopping, I browsed through the QST. In truth, I understood very little but was particularly captivated with the station photographs in Rod Newkirk's "How's DX" column. One photograph in particular has remained in my memory through all these years, that of a young-looking "HS1JN" at the operating position from his exotic location in Thailand, along with Newkirk's equally enchanting description ... powerful stuff for a young mind eager to soak-up all of this new 'radio' stuff.

courtesy: http://www.arrl.org/

HS1JN's homespun 40-watt sender and S-40 receiver function faithfully on 20 c.w. in Bangkok where the OM is an officer in the Royal Thai Navy's research lab. After warming up on a fast WAC, HS1JN now aims for WAS and DXCC honors.

A recent internet search turned up snippets of information about the young Naval Researcher, Jamnong Saowanna, now SK, who eventually rose to the rank of Captain in the Thai Navy and was later instrumental in legitimizing amateur radio in Thailand. Apparently, back then, ham radio in Thailand had been unsanctioned and not officially approved by the government. HS1JN's original QSL also shows up, in the collection of K8CX, shown below.

courtesy: http://hamgallery.com/qsl/

Note that it's the same card shown taped to the front panel of HS1JN's homebrew transmitter in 1959. The K8CX card, for a 15m CW QSO with W6FMK in 1969, shows that OM Jamnong was by then running 500 watts along with a Collins KWM-2 ... quite a step up, but not nearly as alluring as his 'homespun 40-watt sender' and Hallicrafters S-40 receiver.

After absorbing as much as I could from my single copy of QST, I began making weekly visits to the downtown library via bus, every Saturday morning, as it was there that I discovered I could peruse their huge bound collection of QST magazines, and borrow the latest issues, just for the asking! As well, they had a stockpile of colorfully-covered Radio Amateur Handbooks that spanned the past two decades ... it couldn't get any better.

It was at this time that I changed my listening interests from the international shortwave broadcasters and began listening to hams on my old General Electric tombstone, particularly on 20m phone on weekend nights, as the band would be open all night long ... monster Cycle 19 had just peaked and propagation was nothing short of amazing.

Between the February QST and the old GE, I never really had a chance.

Monday, 31 March 2025

Catching Up With QSLs

It’s been sometime since I have posted some of my incoming QSLs as I've been waiting arrival of the last one of my 6m winter DX season cards to arrive, which it finally did yesterday!

Unfortunately the peak of Solar Cycle 25 arrived a little ahead of time, peaking in the early fall rather than later or in early winter which is much more favorable for higher F2 MUFs. Nevertheless, some interesting days were to be had if the propagation patterns were followed closely, particularly after a solar event. Hopefully we will see a second peak of the cycle later this fall as most cycles have a double peak … if it comes in this summer, it’s not going to be of much help for 6m fans.

I started the 2024 6m sporadic-E season with a confirmed DXCC total of 110 countries and hoped to add at least one or two new ones via chordal-hop E or via F2 in the fall. My hopes were indeed met but if the cycle had peaked a few weeks later, the fireworks would have been something much more exciting.

The summer chordal-hop E openings to Europe and possible new countries are rare and usually short-lived but I got fortunate on July 8th. My very rare 'CQ DX' on the non-domestic FT8 frequency of 50.323 brought an immediate reply from OH0Z in the Aland Islands in the Baltic Sea for DXCC #111. His was the only signal heard for a long time as his many CQs went unanswered.

Other than a few JA openings that stretched further to South Korea and China, that was the extent of this summer's DX on 6m. It was one of the poorest in many years.

With the early October solar flux in the low 300s, the F2 MUF finally reached 50MHz here on the west coast allowing a QSO with Roberto, YS1RS to be easily completed. Although on FT8, signals were very loud on both ends and a CW or phone contact could have readily been made. Unfortunately, most stations on 6m are now reluctant to change mode in the middle of an opening (including me), as almost all of the good stuff is now firmly entrenched in the FT8 mode. Roberto was 6m DXCC #112. Roberto visited me about 15 years previously and I sent him back to El Salvador with all of the parts needed to build a Paraset and an Ameco AC-1 clone ... which he did. A Paraset to Paraset QSO should be next on our list!

The solar flux began to drop soon after, hitting the 150s at times, but began to pick up once again.

The band continued to produce openings to South America, Japan and the east coast and on November 1st, XT2MD in Burkino Faso was worked with strong signals both ways ... DXCC #113

Soon after, the solar flux began to drop once again, hitting a low 130 before starting to slowly rise once more. One solar rotation after working XT2MD, the flux was back into the low 200s and a short opening to Africa produced DXCC #114 with C5T in The Gambia, demonstrating that November can produce good F2 MUFs without as much flux as in previous earlier fall months.

Other than a few good transcontinental openings into early December, it seemed like most of the fireworks were over as the flux retreated once again. Although there have been spotty openings into March of this year, so far nothing new has shown up. Is that it for Cycle 25? Time will tell.

One all time new DXCC on HF was recorded, earlier in May ... FT4GL on Glorieuses Island in the Indian Ocean northwest of Madagascar, was worked on both 15 and 20m, sadly on FT8 in spite of his strong CW-level signal.

FT4GL was overall DXCC #340 (including a few deleted entities)

A few earlier utility cards that I have not reported yet are shown below, proving there is still life beyond the ham bands and the challenge of QSLing is not yet dead!