 CQ CQ de G0RIF |  | Hello and welcome! My name is Dean Barnes, I am 44 years old, currently resident in the cathedral city of Lichfield, central England.
I am a licensed amateur radio operator holding the callsign G0RIF, issued in 1991. I love listening to music and going to gigs. My tastes are varied but I do prefer guitar based classic rock & blues.
Through these pages I hope to share a little of what happens in my life, share my thoughts on love, life and good old rock & roll. I will likely bore most of you with details of my amateur radio activities, I may at times amuse one or two of you. I suspect though that it will ultimately do little more than serve to remind me just how quiet my life actually is.
|
Why 'Indigo Foxtrot'? Simple really - it's an in joke between my partner Dulcie and I relating to my amateur radio callsign G0RIF (Golf zero Romeo INDIA FOXTROT).
She has heard me many times over the years trying to break a pile-up on SSB repeatedly giving my callsign. As a consequence she came to refer to my amateur radio operating as 'indigo foxtrot time' which was eventually shortened to just 'indigo foxtrot'.
Despite me telling her that it was actually 'india foxtrot' her version has stuck and it's with great amusement that she now gives up the 'Indigo Foxtrot!' cry whenever I'm trying to break a pile-up!
First things first - I’m not by nature an award chaser. However, entry to the DX Century Club (DXCC) is something I’ve had in mind ever since I was first licensed. It’s the award that most hams will identify with as being the one to work toward.
There are various DXCC awards for the common modes of operation and for stations contacted on any of the individual amateur bands but the most basic of all is the ‘mixed’ award for confirmed contacts with 100 stations across all bands and all modes.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, a few days ago I applied for the DXCC mixed award and the DXCC 20m award…through the ARRL Logbook of The World. I’ve been a LoTW user for about 4 years now and I used only LoTW confirmations when applying for the awards. This is a lot easier than submitting precious QSL cards for checking. Payment is all done online and I hope to receive the certificates before too long.
All being well I’ll soon be in a position to apply for my DXCC RTTY (currently 84 confirmed on LoTW) but beyond that I need to work hard at increasing my CW and SSB totals (currently 80 and 65 respectively). Time to hit the bands and make some contacts! CQ de G0RIF…
Dean Amateur Radio ARRL, CW, DXCC, LoTW, QSL, RTTY, SSB
I’ve seen some reports recently from amateur radio operators around the world that band conditions are improving. Certainly on the higher frequency bands (20m and up) there seems to be some excitement as more DX is worked when this just wasn’t possible in 2009.
Spaceweather.com seems to bear this out. The calculated sunspot number is currently 40 which is as high as I’ve seen it in a long time. Bear in mind that this is about 15 times more than the number of actual visible sunspots (which today stands at three, sunspots 1051, 1052 and 1053). The data also shows that 2010 so far has only 3% spotless days versus 2009 which had over 70% of days with no sunspots.
It does very much look like propagation and band conditions are slowly climbing out of the doldrums as cycle 24 picks up.
Dean Amateur Radio, Totally random propagation, Solar Cycle 24, sunspots
Construction of two prototypes began in February 1965: 001, built by Aerospatiale at Toulouse, and 002, by BAC at Filton, Bristol. Concorde 001 made its first test flight from Toulouse on this day in 1969 piloted by Andre Turcat and first went supersonic on 1 October. The first UK-built Concorde flew from Filton to RAF Fairford on 9 April 1969 piloted by Brian Trubshaw.
|
Orders were received for over 70 aircraft but a combination of factors led to some cancellations - the 1973 oil crisis, financial difficulties of airlines, a crash of the competing Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 at a Paris air show, and environmental concerns such as the sonic boom, noise and pollution. Eventually only 20 aircraft were built of which 14 entered airline service.
Although familiar in British Airways and Air France colours in 1977 Concorde G-BOAD was painted in Singapore Airlines livery (on the port side only) for services between London and Singapore.
|
|
Concorde in Singapore Airlines livery
|
Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, flying these routes at record speeds in less than half the time of other airliners.
The fastest transatlantic flight was from London Heathrow to New York JFK on 7 February 1996 by British Airways’ G-BOAD in 2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds from takeoff to touchdown.
Thirty-seven years after her first test flight, Concorde was announced the winner of the Great British Design Quest organised by the BBC and the Design Museum. A total of 212,000 votes were cast with Concorde beating design icons such as the Mini, mini skirt, Jaguar E-type, Tube map and the Supermarine Spitfire.
I was fortunate enough to see Concorde fly on several occasions and I consider it unlikely there will be anything to replace her in my lifetime. As someone said on the final aircraft being withdrawn from service, “today the world has become a bigger place”. She is and will be sadly missed by many.
Dean Blog, Pictures, Totally random Concorde, history, maiden flight
Following on from my ST2AR contact on Friday night (all time new one #172) I worked another new one on Sunday evening, this time it was Tajikistan in central Asia worked on 40m CW. Two new ones in three days but two very different situations.
The Republic of Tajikistan in central Asia
|
|
Further to my previous comments about pile-ups - this was very much the calling until blue in the face type scenario rather than the ‘getting lucky’ type scenario (see below, ST2AR recently worked).
Ken (K4ZW) is in Tajikistan for a little over two weeks and operations commenced on the 27th so it’s no real surprise that the pile-up was pretty intense last night (it being Day 1 of Ken’s operations as EY8/K4ZW).
Signals were up and down but he was peaking over S9 with me and working stations at a good rate at the bottom end of 40m, listening 1-2KHz up (more at times if you believe some of the DX cluster spots - pinch of salt works for me). |
Having listened up the band to see where other stations were calling I found what seemed to be a relatively quiet spot and started calling, commencing about 22:20 UTC. Ken had a good rhythm and he did seem to be tuning up the band repeatedly working stations before dipping back down to his stated UP 1 listen frequency. I spent a while at +1.5KHz and heard him work many stations close to my frequency but for whatever reason he wasn’t hearing me - either too weak or just overwhelmed by bigger signals.
At times I tried my luck just below the pile, around 950Hz up but this was also unsuccessful. As time wore on he did at times ask EU and Asian stations to stand by while he worked a run of NA & SA stations and I could again hear stations being worked but nothing below his stated 1KHz up.
During one of these NA/SA periods I found what appeared to be a relatively quiet spot around 1.25KHz up and waited. When next Ken started working any station I still seemed to be in a pretty clear spot so with fingers crossed (at was getting late and bedtime was looming) I began calling again and around 55 minutes after joining the pile I heard Ken come back to me with a G0RIF 599 - I replied with R TU 599 73 and that was that, another all time new one in the log.
Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures CW, DXCC, G0RIF, K4ZW, Tajikistan
Worked this evening, 30m CW around 10.105MHz (split). I’d heard him loud and clear (with some QSB) earlier as I tuned up 15m in the SSB section of the band - he was running quite a pile-up and I called many times with no luck. He eventually moved to working exclusively west coast US stations and gradually faded into the noise. I resigned myself to not logging Sudan today and set about doing other things.
Having done those other things and then decided to see what there might be of interest on 30m and 40m I noticed ST2AR spotted on 30m CW on the DX clusters. I had a listen and he was good copy with me peaking a good solid S9 so I decided it was worth trying for a QSO. He was working split so I set my TX frequency about 500Hz up and sent my call.
I must have had a lucky guess because he came straight back with “IF 599″ so I sent my call again and he came back with “G0RIF 599″. I replied with a quick “599 tu” and that was it, another all time new one in the log! It just goes to show that sometimes you can call until blue in the face and not get the QSO when at other times you just get lucky in the pile-up and drop your call in exactly the right place, just where the DX happens to be listening. Of course it’s not always just luck…but that’s a whole other discussion.
Dean Amateur Radio CW, DXCC, ST2AR
Operating as E4X the Palestine 2010 DXpedition (by the Tifariti Gang) should be on the air from May 28th to June 6th.
They plan to be active from 6 to 160 meters (include WARC bands) on CW, SSB and RTTY modes with at least 3 stations on the air at any time on different bands and modes.
For full details and regular updates on plans and progress visit their website at http://www.dxfriends.com/e4x/plans.php
Dean Amateur Radio dxpedition, E4X, Palestine
The recent WPX RTTY contest resulted not only in an all time new DXCC entity worked but also in a new US state being worked in the form of in KR7X in Washington county, Oregon.
This brings to 41 the number of states worked towards the ARRL WAS (Worked All States) award. Of the 41 states already logged the current QSL position is that I have 37 of them confirmed (see map below).
WAS position as at February 2010 - 41 states logged with 37 confirmed
The states still needed for WAS are: Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures Oregon, QSL, RTTY, WAS
The IRAQ 2010 DXpedition has been issued the call sign of YI9PSE by the Iraqi Ministry of Telecom and is planning a multi-national operation to Northern Iraq (Kurdistan) in April of 2010.
Plans are for an impressive 5 stations on air concurrently (CW x2, SSB x2 and digimodes (RTTY) x1) from 10 to 160 meters (include WARC bands).
From the YI9PSE website - “The YI9PSE team has received the approval and blessing of the Kurdistan Regional Government to conduct the first DXpedition from Kurdistan. The YI9PSE team has been invited to demonstrate amateur radio to the Kurdistan Regional Government Ministry of Interior officials, who will visit and observe the YI9PSE DXpedition team in action.”
For full details and regular updates visit their website at http://www.yi9pse.com/index.html.
Dean Amateur Radio dxpedition, Iraq, YI9PSE
It’s always a nice surprise when a batch of cards arrive from the bureau, as much as anything because there doesn’t seem to be any particular kind of schedule that’s adhered to. They just arrive unannounced 2 or 3 times a year, about 70 or 80 cards a batch spread over three envelopes in my case.
This collage shows a selection of the cards received. Of particular note are those confirming new ones for me, V51XG (Namibia) and 3A/DL3OCH (Monaco). This brings to 159 the number of DXCC entities now confirmed by QSL card (of 171 worked).
some of the QSL cards received from the bureau recently
These and other cards are also shown in the QSL picture pages linked from the menu above.
Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures bureau, DXCC, QSL
A little over a week ago I wrote that I was hoping to get on the bands for this contest. The only requirement was that I’d need to fix my wind damaged antenna. Well that was done and I did enjoy several hours giving away points seeing how many countries I could rack-up during a bit of casual operating.
Conditions (on the bands I used, 40/20/15m) seemed to me to be better than for the CQWW CW contest last November with 15m in particular showing increased activity (with only 1 contact there in the CW contest).
My 107 contacts yielded 46 DXCC entities which are shown in this table:-
WPX RTTY Feb. 2010. 46 countries worked (36 on 40m, 21 on 20m and 11 on 15m)
I adopted my usual (for now) contest approach of seeing how many countries I could work while giving away points to those who are looking to compile a competitive score. I reckon on 50 countries being a sensible target given my compromise antenna and to that end I am pleased with 46 countries worked in what amounted to some 5 or 6 hours operating over the 48 hour contest period.
Quite unexpectedly the highlight of my operating occurred within the first 5 minutes of my first stint early on Saturday morning. I’d popped outside to [quite literally] lash the far end of the antenna (which remember is a random length sloping end fed Zepp) to the back fence and then fired up the rig (Yaesu FT-950) on 40m, which just happened to be tuned around 7.080MHz, higher in the band than I’d usually go looking for RTTY signals, and there he was, PJ4R (Bonaire & Curacao) calling CQ WPX. I worked him within a few calls for one of the easier new ones of recent years. Having not been on the bands previously this year (due in part to the broken antenna) this was also the very first log entry of 2010. What a way to kick-start the year!
WPX RTTY Feb. 2010. Geographic spread of the 46 countries worked,.
Dean Amateur Radio antenna, contest, DXCC, FT-950, RTTY, WPX, Yaesu