14. April 2010 by admin.

http://www.marinetelecom.net/LifeafterPeopleOaklandPark/

What to do when you have some free time… I was actually out on a fox hunt, a ham radio term for a transmitter hunt - actually a powerline noise interference hunt. And I had seen this plot of land by the ex-Northridge Hospital before … but was curious why it remains a “Ghost Lot”. Is it *like* radio active or something? For a longggggg time it has remained vacant, although I found out later that for awhile it was used by a company for temporary staging / storage as they were laying new sewer line pipes (or such?). So here goes my foray into investigative reporting. My exclusive … By the way a company related to Holy Cross Hospital killed (bought) North Ridge Hospital … and shut it down. And it still remains a Ghost Hospital for quite a few years as well.

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net - http://www.wifiyacht.net

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

+1 954-683-3426

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14. April 2010 by admin.

I have a new link, something colorful for you to look at:

http://www.marinetelecom.net/AmateurRadioQSLCardsAlanSpicerKA4UDX/

This is a thumnail generated web site containing all of my Amateur Radio QSL cards (and some other misc. related images) from my Ham Radio H.F. / SSB Radio Contacts in the U.S., The Caribbean, Central and South America, Europe, etc. …

Enjoy!

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73 de KA4UDX

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

+1 954-683-3426

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14. April 2010 by admin.

Google Earth - Approximate Location of E71A Amateur Radio Station - reference my radio contact this evening.

Picture from QRZ.COM

E71A

Bosnia and Hercegovina

2nd pic Picture from QRZ.COM

E71A Amateur Radio Station

Another surprise contact tonight with “Emil” in Bosnia and Hercegovina. He was booming in on the 7 Mhz band, a.k.a. 40-Meters … and it was easy pickings to log this contact since when I first got to it there wasn’t much of a DX pileup as described earlier on 20 meters. Unfortunately I didn’t Web Cam record the contact, but I did record a slice of him operating afterwards. I’ll link that in here as soon as I upload that to Youtube.com.

* I’m waiting on the embed code for the video. Meanwhile here is the link. The audio has distortion in it … sorry, this web cam “clips” on highs if the audio it is picking up is above a certain level. I recorded this in a hurry and didn’t check the recording level on the audio. I’ve gotta find a better way to record audio from the rig. The problem is also synchronizing audio with the video if it is recorded seperately. I’ll need a movie CLAP board :-) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9LJ979sHMM

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73 de KA4UDX

Alan Spicer

http://blog.marinetelecom.net - marinetelecom.net - wifiyacht.net

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

+1 954 683 3426

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14. April 2010 by admin.

Click to enlarge:

9Y4D - Trinidad and Tobago - approximate location from Google Earth

http://www.qrz.com/db/9y4d

Unusual radio conditions tonight, maybe it’s the weather. Not that I haven’t worked several other Caribbean stations, I have … but this station is holding in there in the evening on 14 Mhz, 20 meters, which isn’t usually the case. Usually this band becomes pretty dead, as propogation characteristics move on down to 7 Mhz, and then to 3.5 / 4.0 Mhz overnight.

It was quite a “DX Pileup” on 14.240 Mhz with many US and worldwide stations trying to work 9Y4D. It’s difficult with only 100 watts to beat out the high power and Kilowatt stations in the U.S. and elsewhere. It takes a bit of sleuth, and often a bit of time, in this case around 30 minutes of continous trying to get “heard” by him. 5 readability by 7 strength. That’s 7 S-Units from me into Trinidad and Tobago and 5 by 7 from him as well. He’s still in there with a good signal even as I type this. I told him that he was a “Tough Nut to Crack”. Those that don’t think that DX Radio is a sport … likely don’t do DX Ham Radio.

If you have never tried to contact a DX station by Ham Radio in the middle of a “DX Pileup” I would probably describe it as trying to talk to one special person in a large meeting hall with 100’s of people all talking at the exact moment when the special person says “Go!”. The majority of the voices are the same loudness as yours, and several others are closer and or much louder than you. The trick is to find a moment after everyone hollers out their name, then sneak in there and say your name. You’re not going to overpower them, you are not going to be louder than the others… but you cannnnn outsmart a mjority of them. It’s like “trying to find a needle in a haystack made of needles”.

But also my antenna is vertical … a lot of the other operators are running horizontals, and yagi “beams”. A vertical does better in DX. I have my *hard time* when trying to rag chew and everyone has horizontals on 80 meters. Then I get to shine on DX with my vertical. And I like DX.

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73 de KA4UDX

Alan Spicer

http://blog.marinetelecom.net - marinetelecom.net - wifiyacht.net

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

+1 954 683 3426

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