The ARRL DX Contest was this past weekend, and I missed most of it. I traveled out of town for a hamfest, and didn't arrive back home until midafternoon Saturday. By the time I was unpacked, I was ready to kick back awhile, contest or no.
This is one of my favorite contests. It has a simple exchange and its a lot of fun. I didn't take time to fire up the computer logging program, but used pencil-and-paper to work a bunch of stations on 15 meters Sunday.
For a low power station (i.e., 100 watts with a dipole), the first 12-24 hours of this contest can be frustrating anyway. Once all the strong stations have worked one another, then its time for the Big Gun DX'ers to take time to listen for the peanut whistles like me.
I worked quite a few stations, but there were a couple of pileups that were pretty tough to crack on 15 meters. One of the toughest pileups are the ones where you can't hear any of the stations calling the DX station. If you can hear them, you can often get an idea of what operating style the DX is responding to.
For example, one DX station I worked only responded to full callsigns. I don't abbreviate my call anymore since I got my 2×1, but in the old 1×3 days I often threw out the Last Two letters of my call in hopes of getting the DX station's attention. Hey, if worked. Sometimes.
Timing is so critical in breaking a pile-up, and without any audible pile-up you're left to fish in the dark and hope you cast a line into the pond.
Overall it was a lot of fun. I didn't try any of the other bands, but I heard several DX stations report openings into the U.S. on 10 meters.
WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK — DX. An interesting little advertising piece arrived today by postal mail — a whistle, of all things.
This isn't an ordinary whistle, but one that was distributed by the Hallcrafters Co. of Chicago to promote its HT-1 transmitter it introduced in 1938.
The HT-1 was Hallicrafters' entry into the transmitter business. The company was well-known by the late 1930s for its amateur and shortwave receivers. The HT-1 was the definitive boat anchor — weighing in at 115 lbs, it was conservatively rated at 100 watts CW and 50 watts AM on 40, 20 or 10 meters.
While I haven't seen an HT-1 for sale on eBay, I recently stumbled across a wooden whistle that was a promotional item for the company's new transmitter.
The whistle is approximately 3-1/2 inches long and an 1-1/2 wide. The body of the whistle is wrapped with a yellow plastic type material that is printed on top with a photo of the HT-1 transmitter. On the bottom of the whistle is the following text:
MIDGET CW TRANSMITTER
OUTPUT: 2 Lung Power
OPERATING RANGE: How hard can you blow?
FREQUENCY: Let your conscience be your guide!
The Hallicrafters, Inc.
2611 Indiana Ave, CHICAGO USA
“Worlds Largest Builders of Amateur Communications Receivers”
The whistle has a rather pleasing tone — not too loud, nor too shrill. If you can control your “keying” (breath) you can send pretty good CW with it. While my 11 year old son isn't a CW op yet, he stopped me after I whistled a couple of CQs because my the last “dah” of my “Qs” were, well, chirpy for lack of a better word.
I realized I wasn't making that last “dah” sharp enough — meaning I wasn't cutting off the airflow quick enough, and the character kinda trailed off into the whistle equivalent of a chirp. I corrected my style and sent another 3×3 CQ, and he nodded his approval. “That sounds a lot better, Daddy.” Damn, I better not let this guy hear my fist, he'll be all over me for my Lake Eire Swing.
I don't have a photo of this thing and I'm not shooting one tonight. I'll post something later. I've got a couple other pieces of Hallicrafters memorabilia I've picked up over the years: an in-store price sign with changeable numbers; a color promotional flyer of their equipment from 1940, and my favorite, a safari-type helmet that was a promotional item given out during the 1948-49 Gatti-Hallicrafters “Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon.” This expedition is worthy of a rambling blog entry on its own and I won't delve into it now.
REFINISH ROUNDUP. Due to the hamfest trip and other responsibilities I haven't had a chance to lay another coat of primer on my Speed-X bug base. In fact, I just found the base again after it turned up missing. My wife decided to clean up our enclosed back porch, and she claims she didn't see this 3 pound cast metal base and the can of primer paint sitting on a large cardboard box that I was using as a stand. All of it ended up as garbage, rescued only after a vigorous workout of my hackles and a random assortment of furrowed brow and gutteral growls.
Fortunately the base was no worse for wear. I need to block sand it before more primer. There were several chips on the edges, and those are very visible. Maybe less so once painted in a wrinkle-textured black finish, but I'm not taking chances. You can't have a good paint job without a good substrate. The hardest work of refinishing anything is the prep work for the final coat. I would love to simply paint it in the next day or so, but I'll try to wait and do it right. I've not used this paint before, so it'll be an interesitng experiment.
That's it for this entry. 73 es CUL …. de KY4Z … dit dit …..