To OLIVIA, With Love

I just love dabbling in digital modes. Some I find to be boring, some too fast for my hand, and some just utterly confusing. Last night, I tried OLIVIA for the first time. We went over to visit Daddy, and he was playing around with DM780 and had OLIVIA all set up. He was really wanting someone to try it, and being the brave soul that I am... I gave it a shot.

I probably called CQ for nearly 45 minutes before anyone came back. Apparently, there's not a lot of Hams working it -- or maybe it was just a bad night for it. I was on 80m around 3.577 and, FINALLY, I got a response. Thanks goes out to Gary, WB8ROL, for making that my first OLIVIA contact. Gary was very nice, and taught me a few things I needed to know. Being as slow as it is, it took us nearly an hour to complete our conversation, but I had fun nonetheless!

I really really like how I can type everything out (I'm a quick typer -- nearly 70 wpm) while I'm reading their response back to me, and then hit Auto-Send and get up -- stretch, have a break, go to see "John", etc... all the while, transmitting my response. I really had fun "talking" with OLIVIA.

Tim gave it a try, too. I'm sure he'll blog about it over in his neck of the woods, if you're curious. He's usually more thorough and technical about things than I am. HAHA I hear there is a nice article about OLIVIA in December's QST magazine. So, if you're interested, check it out!

It's slow, but it's tons of fun!

New Dances and W4H Update

If you read this blog, then you know, each and every personal achievement deserves a special dance.

This weekend, I was finally able to sport the "I Contacted Japan!" dance -- not once, but twice. I just hope I can get confirmation, since they were both contesters. Thanks to JR5VHU and JH4UYB (btw, that's a station!) for the excellent signal reports and the contact on 20m!

Additionally, I hit another milestone, requiring another dance: the "I'm over 1,000 lookups" dance!
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We did some work on the dipoles this past weekend. Now that the leaves were falling off the trees, we could see where the wind had blown the balun around and got it all stuck in a branch -- a branch that Tim hacked down...

He's so good, he can cut down that limb with his eyes closed!

We also did some W4H Special Event cq'ing on 80m. I worked it for almost an hour, had a pile-up that sounded like a hornet's nest, got spotted on the DX Cluster, and made 46 speedy contacts. I was starting to lose my voice though, and had to pass it to Tim. I did make one very interesting contact... I pulled out a call at one point, N3FJP, and as I was writing it down I was thinking to myself how familiar that call sounded... you know that feeling when you hear a call and you know you've seen it before but can't place it. About that time, Tim piped up, "Hey, He's the guy that wrote this program." That's right folks. Another example of how small this world is. Scott, N3FJP, wrote the logging program that we use, the Amateur Contact Log. We've only been using it for about 2 weeks, but it is AWESOME! We're going to be sending him a check soon... this one is well worth paying $19.00 for folks!

Lastly, I just want to remind everyone that may have contacted me during the W4H special event. Since there are multiple operators in many places, we are all doing our own QSL'ing. We have had special QSL cards printed for this event, and if you want one, send your S.A.S.E. (or S.A.E. & 1 green stamp/1 IRC) to me directly. I'm good on QRZ.

Anyway... just thought I'd post that brief little update. Take care everyone and I'll "see" you down the log!

1 QSO, 4 Minutes, 5 DX

I have a habit of writing about my AR firsts. This is one of them. Last Friday, while Dad (KU4ME), Tim (AJ4JD), and I were running up and down the band, (they were looking for Rt. 66 contacts) we spotted an Irish station in the dx window on 80 meters. I wasn't up for much talking, but I couldn't resist getting Ireland. Dad tuned me up (I've still yet to learn how to work those things confidently), and I sat down to make contact with Ireland when I noticed that there was another station in there wanting to make contacts as well. This wasn't new to me... I'd heard two stations working together before. I kept listening, jotting down the info for the log, when I heard there was another station, then another, and then another! Five stations working together... I had to get them.

So I threw my call out a couple times, and finally broke through the pileup on about the third time around. By then, I had everyone's names and calls written down.

I first made contact with G0KPW (whose name I wasn't sure about, but think it might have been Jerry) in England. Then EI6S (George) from Ireland, GI0VJE (Chris) from Ireland, GW4RIB (Wyn) in Wales, and lastly G4AMN (Chris) in England.

All I've got to say was, that was really cool! Glad to have got to make their aquaintence.