The 2022 Virginia QSO Party took place in early March. Now that the dust has settled, I wanted to post a summary of my planning and activity in the contest. The short summary is that 2022 was a great year to participate in VAQP. Activity levels were high and the Band conditions were mostly favorable.... Continue Reading →
An SO2R Antenna Switching Project using N1MM
I have decided to revive a project that I started over a year ago, but had put on hold. My Station is setup for SO2R operation but I do not have automated antenna switching in place. I have 3 or 4 antennas, depending upon the contest, and manually connect and disconnect them as the contest... Continue Reading →
IC-7300 Spectrum Display with N1MM+
I recently bought an Icom IC-7300 SDR transceiver, and finally got a chance to start looking at it. My hope is to use this as a Mobile rig, although it is a bit large. Not sure how I will mount it in my F-150 yet, but I will give it a try. Since I have... Continue Reading →
Time Out for the Virginia QSO Party
The VA QSO Party will take place next weekend, and I invite you to participate if you have the time and interest. We would love to see the number of participant increase this year. There has been a pretty good turnout recently, and last year it seemed like we had a higher-than-normal number of out-of-state... Continue Reading →
RTTY Transmissions Off-freq with MMTTY
I participated in the NAQP RTTY contest this weekend. I normally use 2 radios in contests. In this one, I setup for RTTY and started the contest. Nobody could hear me with one radio (IC-7600) using an all-band dipole/doublet that normally works quite well for US contacts. The Radio was setup using N1MM+ with the... Continue Reading →
RTTY on the IC-7600 Using N1MM+ and MMTTY
I have been using the IC-7600 on RTTY with N1MM+ and the MMTTY application for a couple of years now. There are some good directions for this in the N1MM+ documentation, so I am not going to go through all the details. Here is a quick summary, and a screenshot of my setup, including all... Continue Reading →
Hints – Using the ICOM IC-7600 on RTTY with N1MM+ and MMTTY
I keep seeing people having trouble with this setup. Every time I go to RTTY Mode, something is not working. It seems that some of the parameters in MMTTY and in the Radio keep resetting themselves. There are some other posts on this blog that may help, but here are a few reminders. Mode -... Continue Reading →
Using N1MM+ Serial (OTRSP) Data for Two-radio Antenna Switching
I have been investigating ways to automatically switch antennas in a 2-Radio (SO2R) station for use in Contesting. Using multiple antennas is nearly a must for HF contesting, including Yagis, Veticals, and any of a variety of wire antennas. When working a Contest, Band Switching is a key time-waster, and steps need to be taken... Continue Reading →
Trying an HF Horizontal Loop Antenna
I was looking for a new antenna to try this weekend. I will be in the NAQP CW Contest and there will be many stations active across the US, Canada, and hopefully some DX. I have been thinking about a Loop antenna for some time. My main use for it initially will be as an... Continue Reading →
R.I.P DX Doubler (Updated 8 Aug 2018)
I recently heard that the DX Doubler (DXD) SO2R Controller by TopTen Devices, has been discontinued. Looking at their Web Site, it has completely vanished, along with the Radio-specific cables, User Manuals, etc. This controller was a great addition to my shack a few years ago. It is a very simple design, with no Microprocessors... Continue Reading →
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