CQ WW SSB CONTEST Nov. 2011

Well, I did not have the entire weekend to devote to the contest, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. No pressure on me, I did what I could, when I could. Things started a bit on the wrong side, with part of my coax line to the Cushcraft MA5B going bad. Might have been just a connecting barrel that fell apart in my hands, the barrel I'll chuck, the coax, I'll check, pun intended of course. Fortunately, I had some spare coax, so I fixed that first thing in the morning.

20 meters was crazier than ever, so I migrated to 15m and 10m were I made most my contacts. Boy, I got to really use the narrow filter on my Icom 756proIII, and it certainly allowed me to separate between close signals. I also decided to try out the low power, single user, assisted category. I sure did enjoy the cluster and the stations appearing on my screen. I think that my days of non-assisted category may be over, as this is a more pleasurable way to search and pounce.

My new rotator worked well, but something is still wrong on the connecting cable so my control box does not show the antenna's direction. I just set a security camera looking towards the antenna and all day long, I could see where it was pointing at. Not so at night, but then I mostly used my wire antenna (difficult to change its direction tough, as the trees refuse to move on my command...)

One of the grand moments in a K9 SAR career

This post also never got publushed, it is also about a year old...

While you might expect the story of a find, or a great training feat, or a superb certification, this story might pale by them, yet it brightened my day and I still relish it a week afterwords and probably will do so for the rest of my life.

The dog, a chocolate Labrador retriever that I barely knew. But I have a very fond place for the chocolate labs, I do understand them quite well. I am also a fan of Cesar Milan. His way with the dogs matches theories I learned in the past, and these have worked for me quite well.

This chocolate lab, a SAR dog in training, was quite hyper about his tennis ball on a rope reward. Let's just say that the yellow cover was coming off the ball and the ball itself was half busted. That lab bit HARD on it and would not let go of it for his handler. The latter had to grab the dog by the harness and wrestle the ball out of its mouth, a real pity.

I approached the dog and claimed my space, which the dog gave me without a second thought. I was calm and assertive and the dog switched to a much calmer way and definitely was submissive. I asked the handler to give me the ball and I immediately threw it to the dog, not 30 feet, not 20, just 5 feet in front of the dog. The dog retrieved it, gave it a bite or two and I extended my hand and asked the dog to give me the ball. The first time, the dog missed my hand, the ball fell on the ground and the dog let me pick it up. Almost immediately, I threw it again, 5 feet away. The dog retrieved, saw my extended hand and put the ball in my hand. We practices a few more throws and the dog had total confidence in me, I could now take the ball, pocket it, pet the dog, talk to the owner, throw the ball, again 5 feet etc. Why 5 feet? The short distance kept the dog calm and focused and this is the mode a reward for SAR ought to be given, clam and focused as not to disturb the learning that just has occurred prior to the reward.

Rita, another now seasoned handler tried it as well, and had the same behavior I did.

Now came the owner's turn, and guess what, when thrown calmly, with expectation to get it delivered back to hand, it happened to him too. The shorter the throw, the better the retrieve and release. It took all of maybe 10 minutes and the handler learned a new way to reward his dog and in so doing, I think there was trust building between the two, something that was sorely missing in that equation.

As for me, I was surprised how quickly the dog gave me his trust. Maybe Stryder, my chocolate lab did talk to that younger dog. Who knows? Fact is, I could get the ball from the dog just by asking and a bit of body language.

AlexLoop Walkham PY1AHD

This is a post from almost a year ago, never got published...

I recently purchased the Alexloop Walkham antenna. Between the weather not cooperating among others, I did not have much time to spend outdoors, playing radio. So I am not going to call this a review of the product, b ut more a bunch of comments by an occasional user.

I got this antenna as I wanted to have a portable antenna that is easy to set up and needs little tweaking between band changes etc. The Alexloop filled those two requirements quite well. Putting it together is a breeze, an untrained monkey could do that. No small parts to lose or fiddle with, no tools required, nothing to measure, no counterpoise wires. It is up in a few seconds and has nothing my dogs or grandchildren will get tangled into.

Being a high-Q antenna, you need to re-tune it between changes in frequency/bands, but turning one knob to the highest reception level, then fine tuning it takes maybe five seconds... I can live with that, especially since the knob is at arm's length from my chair.

The next requirement from an antenna is that it would be a good receiving antenna. Simply, if you can't hear'em, you can't work'em. Well, tha Alexloop Walkham is an excellent receiving antenna. Can I say it is better than a SteppIr on a huge Luso tower? I can't as I have neither of those available, but I can hear stations and hear more of them than I can work. Not only that, with its null, I can cancel noise that otherwise would drown some stations out.

Now my last sentence might sound as it the Alexloop has problems in transmitting. Not so, but there, we have many extra and uncontrolled variables coming into play. Suffice to say that a fellow with that SteppIr, Luso tower and legal limit amplifier will send my 5 watts into smithereens. Not the antenna's fault... And many times the local operator (me) has not tweaked  the SWR well enough, or remembered to switch  the power back up, so my minimum power transmissions are really minimal thus not making it.

OTOH, I've made quite a few contacts in the US, sitting on my deck with the Alexloop. And yesterday, I made my first contact across the Atlantic, to a station in Italy. Not yet the 1000 miles per watt transmission but getting closer to it! Yes, with QRP you need to be lucky and I was as this guy had just started calling CQ so I did not have to break into a pile-up.

I'm happy with the Alexloop Walkham.