Best Laid Plans...

Built a Super-Sloper this weekend aimed at VK/ZL Land. First two QSO's? Germany and France, to the west? zzzzzzzz! Either all the local power/phone/cabletv lines are distorting the pattern, or I screwed up or its really loooong path HIHI! 73 de Rob

Over The Top

DL1IAL "Beaming over North Pole" 59/57 nothing like a little auroral buzz to make a pissweaker's day! Also did a proper hookup for an lightning ground, no more moving gator clips, now I got a big honking copper knife switch with wire running every which way.
73 Rob

Counting the Cost

It was a bad Monday for WV, my grandfather went into the mines, my wife's uncles went into the mines, my brother-in-law worked at that mine in the past and people I work with lost friends, one counseler cried most of the day but wouldn't go home. http://wvgazette.com/News/201004060805

Q Codes?

Heard an OM today pronounce that Q Codes were for CW only. Funny when a SS OM began calling CQ on an occupied frequency, a "QRL OM QSY por favor" worked. Yeah he might have understood enough English to do it anyway and my tired Miami Spanish may have gotten it across but we didn't need to try. Q Codes were an effort to reduce the number of characters in a message but also provided a mutually comprehensible language. I'm QRT.

73 de Rob

But Is It Ham Radio?

I was reading the mail, listening to a VK work a JA with S-6 or better signals until they ID'ed. Low and behold; The VK was remotely operating station in the Carib. via VOIP and the JA the same with a station in the Southwest. It reminded me of the April Fool thread on QRZ-more importantly is it DX.? Yeah its techno whiz but not the same as working Uruguay Sporadic-E on 6M at 10W or three new countries QRP HF in an afternoon. The issue is dependence on infrastructure, we loose track of what happens inside the magic box(s). No I can't build my HF transceiver but I can build and understand a simple CW Xmitter and DC receiver and in a pinch could rely on it to make some contacts-admittedly slow and sloppy.
Distance wise maybe DX. I consider CO6LC DX but not if I E-Mailed him.
If the intention is to advance the art OK, I can understand that. But when radio becomes just one element in the data path, then its not DX. But what do I know.

73 de Rob