I heard N9OHW calling CQ on 18.070 599+ and answered but it turned out Mike was in Mountain View near Moffett Field, about 3 miles from my house! He was on an ICOM-706 MK 3 and a vertical 10 ft up.

I let Mike go chase DX...pretty funny!

Addendum: I heard via e-mail from Mike that he was back on the air today first time after a ten-year hiatus, and had just bought the rig!

- posted by Leigh @ 03:13 z 0 comments

We set up at the the of the hill, and I loaned Bill my SD-20 pole for one end of his 40m dipole and he threw the other end in a tree.

I set up a Pac-12 for 30m and 40m and Bill loaned me some wire to clip onto it, and that got it to load up to about 2:1 on 60M with the 40M coil and Z100. I talked to Alan W6BZQZ, who suggested I try the balun he designed. I did, and at the 50 Ohm (1:1) position it seemed to get a better match, according to the Z100, but there wasn't a big change in the received results according to Alan. He could something at 1 Watt, but we couldn't have a QSO until I used the K5OOR HFPacker Amplifier off of the 9.5AH NiMH cells I got from HamStop, and that worked fine.

I didn't make any contats on 40 or 30...it seemed like 60M was the only band where we could work anybody, though Bill started (but couldn't finish) a couple of QSOs on 7109.

A tarantula came through and caused a bit of excitement; I encouraged it to leave and it did. It was so camouflaged I was afraid we would step on it in a clump of the dry grass.

We packed it up before sunset and headed to a local restaurant.

Here are some pictures that Bill took.

- posted by Leigh @ 00:07 z 0 comments

I talked to Lucio IK6SNR about 200 km from Rome in Central Italy on 14.210. He gave me a 5x5 and I gave him 5x7. I was using the FT-817 and the HFPacker Amp into a G5RV.

- posted by Leigh @ 05:36 z 0 comments

;;;-*-EMACS-LISP-*-

;;;
;;; Routines to calculate 
;;; - Maidenhead Grid Square (QRA, IARU Grid Square) from latitude and longitude
;;; - Latitude and longitude from QRA
;;; - Great Circle distance from grid square to grid square
;;; - Bearing from Grid Square to Grid Square
;;; 
;;; Leigh L. Klotz, Jr. WA5ZNU 
;;; Assembled from various places -- see comments.
;;;


;;; Examples
;;; (qra 37.428833 -122.114667) 
;;; This gives CM87wk which is correct
; (latlon "CM87wk")
; Gives 37.4375 -122.125
;;
; (latlon "CM87wk")

; (haversine-great-circle-distance-miles (latlon "CM87wk") (latlon "QN16ix")) ; 4605 miles
; (haversine-great-circle-distance-miles (latlon "CM87wk") (latlon "JN62vu")) ; 6232 miles

(defun qra-dist (x  y)
  (haversine-great-circle-distance-miles (latlon y) (latlon x)))

(defun latlon-dist (lat lon)
  (haversine-great-circle-distance-miles (latlon "CM87wk") (list lat lon)))

;; Note: All calculations in degrees
;; lo = longitude + 180 (offset origin to -180degrees longitude,)
;; La = latitude + 90 (-90 degrees latitude.)

;; C1 = ASCII CHAR ('IP(lo/20)+65')
;; C2 = ASCII CHAR ('IP(la/10)+65')
;; C3 = ASCII CHAR ('IP(FP(lo/20)*10)+48')    
;; C4 = ASCII CHAR ('IP(FP(la/10)*10)+48')
;; C5 = ASCII CHAR ('IP(FP(lo/2)*24)+65')
;; C6 = ASCII CHAR ('IP(FP(la)*24)+65')
;; QRA Locator = String C1+C2+C3+C4+C5+C6

(defun qra (latitude longitude) 
  (setq longitude (+ longitude 180.0))
  (setq latitude (+ latitude 90.0))
  (format
   "%c%c%c%c%c%c"
   (+ ?A (floor longitude 20.0))
   (+ ?A (floor latitude 10.0))
   (+ ?0 (floor (* 10 (- (/ longitude 20.0) (floor longitude 20.0)))))
   (+ ?0 (floor (* 10 (- (/ latitude 10.0) (floor latitude 10.0)))))
   (+ 32 ?A (floor (* 24 (- (/ longitude 2.0) (floor longitude 2.0)))))
   (+ 32 ?A (floor (* 24 (- latitude (floor latitude)))))))

(defun latlon (qra) 
  (let ((c1 (upcase (aref qra 0)))
 (c2 (upcase (aref qra 1)))
 (c3 (aref qra 2))
 (c4 (aref qra 3))
 (c5 (if (> (length qra) 4) (upcase (aref qra 4)) 0))
 (c6 (if (> (length qra) 5) (upcase (aref qra 5)) 0)))
    (list
     ;; Latitude
     (- (+ (* (- c2 ?A) 10.0)
    (* (- c4 ?0) 1.0)
    (/ (+ 0.5 (- c6 ?A)) 24.0))
 90)
     ;; Longitude
     (- (+ (* (- c1 ?A) 20.0)
    (* (- c3 ?0) 2.0)
    (/ (+ 0.5 (- c5 ?A)) 12.0)) 180))))

;;;
;;; Great Circle distance and bearing based on Haversine formula 
;; (from R.W. Sinnott, "Virtues of the Haversine", Sky and Telescope, vol. 68, no. 2, 1984, p. 159): 
;; as described by N9SSA in
;;; http://www.qsl.net/n9ssa/mpwnotes.html

(defun haversine-great-circle-distance-km (latlon1 latlon2)
  (let* ((k (/ 180.0 pi))
  (lat1r (/ (car latlon1) k))
  (lon1r (/ (cadr latlon1) k))
  (lat2r (/ (car latlon2) k))
  (lon2r (/ (cadr latlon2) k))
  (R 6367000.0)
  (dlonr (- lon2r lon1r))
  (dlatr (- lat2r lat1r))
  (a (+ (* (sin (/ dlatr 2.0)) (sin (/ dlatr 2.0)))
        (* (cos lat1r) (cos lat2r) (sin (/ dlonr 2.0)) (sin (/ dlonr 2.0)))))
  (c (* 2 (atan2 (sqrt a) (sqrt (- 1.0 a)))))
  (d (* R c)))
    (/ d 1000.0)))

(defun haversine-great-circle-distance-miles (latlon1 latlon2)
  (* (haversine-great-circle-distance-km latlon1 latlon2) 0.621371192))

(defun atan2 (y x)
  (if (or (= x 0) (= y 0))
      (if (>= y 0.0)
   (/ pi 2.0)
 (- (/ pi 2.0)))
    (if (< x 0.0) 
 (if (>= y 0.0)
     (- pi (atan (- (/ y x))))
   (+ (- pi) (atan (/ y x))))
      (if (> y 0)
   (atan(/ y x))
 (- (atan (- (/ y x))))))))

- posted by Leigh @ 03:03 z 0 comments

On the way back tonight we stopped at my sister's (Ex-WN5UOE) in San Luis Obispo, and I got out my KX1 and 10 NiMH AA's and threw a 16ft wire on the floor and a 28ft wire across a few pieces of wrought-iron furniture, out the window, and into a tree. Around 0600z I worked ES5MC Arvo in Estonia on 14.030...he was a fluttery 559 and gave me a 519 on the 3rd call but considering my antenna I was quite pleased.

(haversine-great-circle-distance-miles (latlon "KO37mt") (latlon "CM95qg")) is 5733, divided by 4.5W is 1274 miles per watt.

- posted by Leigh @ 06:45 z 0 comments

I worked Rob KB7PWJ from the Queen Mary as W6RO/MM using an FT-1000 to a 40-20-17-15-10 vertical on 14.0396...

Rob was using his OHR rig again. Rob gets a QSL card from the club station and I get a "guest operator" certificate...

- posted by Leigh @ 17:54 z 0 comments

I hooked up the PAC-12, KX1, and Alan's Balun in the 12 ohm position on 40m at the elementary school and heard a few CQ's and answered N6VOH Barry from Los Angeles. Barry just bought an ICOM-703 for under $400 at HRO in Anaheim and was running it to a Windom at 35ft. He was happy with the new rig and said the sale was still on.

I had trouble with the 18ft LMR100 cable I made with the crimp-on connectors from Eua-Am. I guess I have to buy either a crimp tool for them or spend $5 for each one for a clamp on... So I used a 1ft RG-58/U cable from Pasternak I got at a flea market instead and sat in the grass.

- posted by Leigh @ 02:13 z 0 comments