Thursday, December 27, 2007

Recording My Own QSO's on the Computer

I'm improving the ham station capabilities and now find that I am able to record QSO's on my computer. So, as a "first attempt", I recorded my QSO with CE1/K7CA on 160-M tonight. Quite a pile-up on him and he was very "wordy" with his QSO's so the pile sometimes got a bit unruly. I noticed I copied him sending "DN" after he had worked several stations "UP." So, I listened to him make three or four QSO's about a kc BELOW his frequency including a VERY long winded one with a buddy where they talked about a lot of things. But, stations were continuing to call him ON his frequency and a big pile were still calling UP 1 kc. Can I really hear that much better than a lot of other folks?

Anyway, I was pretty shocked when he came right back to me (on about my fourth or fifth try at calling him.) I quickly hit the button to record the QSO on the computer. Then, I edited out the extra stuff and you are left with his last exchange to me. Here is a link to an MP3 file of that audio:

http://www.wvinter.net/~w8tn/CE1-K7CA.mp3

He did seem to have quite a strong signal from Chile on Top Band. At times the S-meter at times was hitting over S-9.

This QSO was country number 77 for me on Top Band. And, it was a NEW Zone as well. I now have 77 countries worked on 160-M (39 confirmed) and 23 Zones worked.

Anyway, this is my first try at recording a QSO. I'll be looking into doing this more in the future. That way I'll be able to capture those exciting radio moments and share them with others along with reliving the excitement myself!

Sunday, December 2, 2007

160-M Worked All Continents Completed!

By staying up all night on Saturday night, I managed to snag an Asia contact to complete my 160-M W.A.C. in just NINE days on the band. Outstanding!

Just after sunrise here I started hearing RWØCWA rather well. At 15 minutes AFTER my sunrise I managed to complete a QSO with him for my last continent for W.A.C., plus my first contact with Asiatic Russia and Zone 19. WOW!

I added 9A - Croatia, KP4 - Puerto Rico, GM - Scotland and KL7 - Alaska to bring my countries worked to 66 and my Zones worked to 20. Not too bad for a piece of wire, huh?