Well, the first post about the Create rotor did actually have more pictures from the Kenpro in it and I should rename it to Kenpro KR600 overhaul, though it all happened in 2006. I received the potmeter for the create rotor and installed everything, it does a fine job. However, since the create needs 6 holes to bolt it to the tower and the Kenpro only 4. Not shure what I will use. I might renew the potmeter in the Kenpro as well and use it again. Selling the create will give me some money to buy other hardware I need for the tower.
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Create RC5-3 rotor overhaul (2)
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30m band magnetic loop test with the W5OLF WSPR VCXO-AXE
I almost forget about the small transmitter I have and built in 2015. The right transmitter to test my magnetic loop in practice. And while setting it up it seems it leads to a solution for a tuning indicator I was writing about before. What about the simple field strength meter I built in 2014?
At first I thought something went wrong as only 2 spots were collected last night. But this evening checking the WSPR watch app on my iphone it seems my 1 watt signal is spotted at least in a 900km radius.
Amateurradio is fun!
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New homemade digimode interface
So I decided to make another modem, a very simple one that use the VOX in the FT817 for TX switching. I'm not the first to try that and there is even a modification for the FT817 to activate the VOX on the backside mini DIN connector which is originally not functioning with VOX, only on the mike input. That mod can be done but you need to remove the complete "motherboard" of the FT817 and I find that too risky. So I use the mini DIN connection for receive and the RJ45 mike input for transmit, this has been done before by others. Just to be shure I would have a clean signal I completely isolated the computer/radio with 1:1 audio transformers and I use small caps to ground to completely remove any RF. To couple the audio I place 2 electrolitic caps in in and output to block any DC. Things should be good that way I thought. Well, it did work when completely on batteries.
But when I connected the laptop power supply the radio goes in constant TX till I switch off the VOX. I really didn't know why in the first place but it then occured to me I forgot to connect ground connections together on both sides. After I soldered some extra wires the problem seems to be solved in the first place, at least on my base antenna. However, I still have issues with the magnetic loop connected. So I changed the RG58 coax into Aircell7. I don't trust RG58 at all and had a lot of problems with it in the past, but this time it didn't solve the problem. Monitoring with my IC-706 let me know that as soon as I touch the power supply connector VOX jumps in and radio transmits even without connecting the laptop to the power supply!!! And when I plug the connector in the laptop I get a very large hum on my audio. It was obviously a power supply problem and solved it by a extra "line filter" made from a large ferrite clamp.After playing with it a while I didn't like the TX volume control, it seems te laptop does have a large output volume and to get a good ALC reading I need at least a very low output volume to actually control it with the potmeter, So I ad a 100K potmeter in series with the 20K potmeter inside to have better control over it.
Below the diagram of the interface if anyone likes to replicate it. Everything is made from scrap parts. I used a housing from a previous interface project, DIN connector with wire from a mouse, RJ45 connector with wire from a old network cable, Jack plugs found in my electronic garbage box, potmeters, knobs and capacitors from a broken CB radio.
I tested on the vertical with WSPR on 20m last sunday and results are promising. However, the main test would be with the loop antenna inside the house or garage or anywhere I want and on battery power as all this is for portable use. Today (a week later!) I had the opportunity to test it again on 20m and with the magnetic loop in a corner of my shack. The results for a few hours in the afternoon:
I was only received in Spain and Italy but I think a RTTY contest was disturbing 20m WSPR receive. However my receive did very well!
The setup: My old laptop with WSJT-X. FT817 with on top my new audio interface and the ZLP electronics CAT modem so I can control the radio with the computer. It works well like this. I tried FT8 on 30m but my computer is just too slow for it. However it looks like FT8 is a better propagation indicator compared to WSPR these days! So unfortunate JT65/JT9 is not as populair as before.
While testing my magloop I was on FT8 with my base station and found the 12m band wide open.
Before attending the 12m band I was looking at 6m and 10m. I threw out a few CQs but nothing came back. However, I was received in Reunion Isl. as you can see on the map (pink spot).
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#cqww with PA6AA
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Fast propagation research with FT8
I think it is now evident FT8 is the most interesting digimode today for research of realtime propagation. And it is fast! Really fast! However for good research you need to receive and to transmit as propagation is not always reciproke. My idea was:
Start at band 10m and first receive 2x 15sec. timeslots to see were you can transmit in the waterfall. Then 3x transmit 15sec and 3x receive 15sec, In total 120sec=2 minutes in total for each band.
You can scan 10m-160m in 10x2=20 minutes and you got an idea how bands are at that moment.
Well, I can tell those 20 minutes became longer after all when I started this experiment as I used CQ for transmission and got stations back to me on some bands. Besides that I noticed 5T2AI from Mauritania on 20m FT8 with a strong signal which would be a new one for me. So I returned to 20m before I made the screenshots and worked 5T2AI for a second ATNO this year.
A overview from about 18:00 UTC yesterday evening:
All transmissions done with 25W. Except 60m were 15W is the legal limit. Antenna still is the coppertape multiband vertical at 9m agl.
Start at band 10m and first receive 2x 15sec. timeslots to see were you can transmit in the waterfall. Then 3x transmit 15sec and 3x receive 15sec, In total 120sec=2 minutes in total for each band.
You can scan 10m-160m in 10x2=20 minutes and you got an idea how bands are at that moment.
Well, I can tell those 20 minutes became longer after all when I started this experiment as I used CQ for transmission and got stations back to me on some bands. Besides that I noticed 5T2AI from Mauritania on 20m FT8 with a strong signal which would be a new one for me. So I returned to 20m before I made the screenshots and worked 5T2AI for a second ATNO this year.
A overview from about 18:00 UTC yesterday evening:
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| Complete picture all bands |
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| 10m, I immidiatly had response. But no DX propagation. |
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| 12m, nothing at all. PSK reporter comes back with all stations monitoring 12m at that time. |
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| 15m, I didn't hear anything but they heard me! Typical non reciproke propagation. |
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| 17m |
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| 20m looks good but I was here about 30 minutes. |
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| 30m |
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| 40m |
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| 60m |
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| 80m |
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| 160m |
All transmissions done with 25W. Except 60m were 15W is the legal limit. Antenna still is the coppertape multiband vertical at 9m agl.
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#cqww fun with PA6AA
Find our bio at: www.qrz.com/db/pa6aa
Well, actually I didn't have the time to help them really with building the station. The only thing I could do is renting the scaffold from my job and get it to them. Fortunate I had another customer in the area that had to be visited and so I could get there within time for them to set it up. The other guys did the hard work actually. Hopefully I can do some more work in the weekend. Especially contesting of course.
The nice thing is that the house that is rented is very near to the sea and far from any other villages and disturbing interference. It is the open field which is very flat. Only at the north is a 10m high dyke. From experience I know that it will give some attenuation to the north, but since the sea is at the other side that will compensate. The nice thing is that it will give some gain into the other direction. How do I know? Well from experience with a CB radio on my bicycle long long time ago. I've been cycling in the area in the eighties actually and did some tests back then on the dyke and below the dyke. Signals became stronger in the south direction when I cycled below the dyke.
Of course that was on 27MHz, so I don't know for other bands but expect it will be similair.
We will see if this will be in our benefit....
Hope to meet you in the contest!!
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#cqww PA6AA contest report
Event: CQWW DX SSB contest 2017
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Section: HIGH power MULTI TWO
Logger: N1MM+
Station: 2x Elecraft K3 + amplifiers 400W
Antennas: Inverted-L 160m, verticals 80/40m, dipoles 80/40m, FB23. Hex beam, 3 band vertical.
Well, some people think the amateurradio hobby is a bit anti social. Since many are operating from a small room alone, they all do it for their own benefit. However if you do some teamwork, like we did this weekend, it is a nice social event. We had a great team for shure and all experienced radio operators that had fun.
A house was rented at a great location at the northern coast here and about 50m from the dyke and 100m from the sea, the surrounding all flat land with only a few farms as neighbours kilometers away. The house has a nice field which is excellent for wire antenna's like we had.
The rest of the team started friday morning building the antennas, unfortenately I had no time to join them. All antennas were fieldday style, wires and small beams. I attended the team saturdaymorning.
What I especially liked is the free style operating, no time blocks or planning. If you got tired or hungry another operator took your place and that worked very well for us. Same for band switching, we all are experienced operators and know when a band is possible open or not. No planning just common sense and it worked.
The only thing that didn't really work was the extreme weather. Windgusts from about 100 km/h which destroyed the hexbeam and the inverted-L for 160m saturday night. Especially the lost 160m antenna was a loss of points.
When I arrived sundaymorning I already saw the damage and after all we managed to put the FB23 into the scaffold together. Luckely a spare mast saved the inverted-L so we could continue 160m sunday evening. A 3 band vertical was placed as well which actually didn't do a bad job.
If you, by any chance, had a look at cqcontest.net you see we claim place 19 worldwide very close to our biggest concurrent PI4M. Actually we were very close at the start of the contest but in the end they had a few more multipliers and probabely more 3 pointers. PI4M however used a beam on a large tower and a moxon beam on 40m. So we were not surprised...
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Logger: N1MM+
Station: 2x Elecraft K3 + amplifiers 400W
Antennas: Inverted-L 160m, verticals 80/40m, dipoles 80/40m, FB23. Hex beam, 3 band vertical.
Well, some people think the amateurradio hobby is a bit anti social. Since many are operating from a small room alone, they all do it for their own benefit. However if you do some teamwork, like we did this weekend, it is a nice social event. We had a great team for shure and all experienced radio operators that had fun.
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| Contest fieldday style |
The rest of the team started friday morning building the antennas, unfortenately I had no time to join them. All antennas were fieldday style, wires and small beams. I attended the team saturdaymorning.
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| Concentrating.... |
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| Broken hexbeam |
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| Sunrise... |
If you, by any chance, had a look at cqcontest.net you see we claim place 19 worldwide very close to our biggest concurrent PI4M. Actually we were very close at the start of the contest but in the end they had a few more multipliers and probabely more 3 pointers. PI4M however used a beam on a large tower and a moxon beam on 40m. So we were not surprised...
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Ideas accomplished
Well, I managed to accomplish the ideas from my test with the 30m W5OLF WSPR VCXO- AXE. The digital readout has been easy actually, a 5 minute job. The digital readout shows the voltage after the L78S10CV regulator which provides a constant 10V when the source is 12V and higher. However, when the battery is providing lower voltage when it gets empty voltage will stay 2V below input. The transmitter only has 1W when voltage is 10V. There was a power/voltage graph in the building instruction but unfortunately cannot find the instruction here anymore. From what I remember is that power/voltage was almost related. So a indication of 10.0V is 1000mW, 8V would be approx 800mW. It is a nice indication from what output to expect. And it looks nice as well.
Unfortunately the weather doesn't permit me to try the magnetic loop outside. We got a lot of rain these days. However I'm very curious what the difference would be if the magnetic loop is placed in the open air...
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| A piece of electronic art.....destroyed..... |
I had a nice old SWR/Field Strength meter which I bought for a few bucks on a auction. It is almost a pity I use this piece of electronic art as a donor. But it features all the components I need except the 10nF caps which I removed from a old printboard. I used the very simple field strength diagram from KY6R's weblog this time as it seems it is a very sensitive design. The components were soldered together and the whole thing was tested with good result. I build the whole thing into the box with the varicap. It was a little tight but works fine for me.
The only thing I wish to modify is the pickup antenna of the FS meter. The whole thing seems to be having some handeffect. I might attach a plastic knob on the sensivity potmeter as well.
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Old antennatower pictures
I recently found some old photos from previous antenna towers I had. Nice to see what I had in the past. Great to see those old pictures again...
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Not shure which year this was taken but I think it was around 2000. The big cross yagi is for receiving sats on 70cm and worked very well. On the mast is on top the W2000 I still use, below a 70cm/2m horizontal yagi, a 6m HB9CV and a HB9CV for 10m.
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Same mast different antenna. The big one is the 6 elem. log periodic for 10m.
Had several antennas on the mast including a 2 element PDL2 Quad. Unfortenately can't find any photos from that at the moment. I think this one was taken in 2002.
After moving across the street (bought a house after renting the previous one). I already bought the versatower. On top a homemade GP with 1:9 balun for HF, the horizontal dual band 70cm/2m yagi and then the 10m logper. At the side a Diamond X30 for 2m/70cm. Made this photo winter 2006.
The mast at my previous QTH from another point of view...made from a new building which unfortenately blocked my DX path to Japan/New Zealand. Photo made in 2007 just a year before we moved to our previous home.
It could be I have other photos somewhere on a disc. Have to search for it one of these days, months, years ;-)
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2017 goal: antenna tower up again!
Then last sunday I opened the "Electron". Which is the
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Old antenna tower pictures (2)
Found some more pictures...Paul PC4T wish he had a tower like me, but it is big you need room.
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The tower in the garden at my old QTH. It just fitted!
The garden was 6m wide and 20m long. Had the Diamond CP6 still on top which was swapped for a multiband GP later.
John MW1CFN noted I could use the tower as one leg of a sloper. I did at that QTH.
A 3 band sloper I believe. At least 80m and 40m, I guess 20m as well?
The shortened 160m band sloper with a coil. I added a cap head later, not really a hat on top but on top of the coil 1m above ground. I won a 160m band contest with this, nr. 1 Netherlands
One last one from the other side of our previous house....
Notice the big owl....it did help to get rid of birds on the beam. Though really brave birds just sat on the CP6 radials.
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Smart spectrum display
In a recent article on the ARRL website something catched my eye:In a related “lightning talk” at the 2017 ARRL-TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC) earlier this year, ARRL Contributing Editor Ward Silver, N0AX, challenged his savvy audience to develop a keyboard-to-keyboard mode “between FT8 and PSK31” that would support casual and competitive operating, be more interference and noise tolerant, and be usable by those with “compromised” stations and antennas. He also challenged his listeners to develop a “smart” spectrum display that would identify signals by mode, so Amateur Radio could move away from the practice of setting aside specific frequencies for digital modes.
And when discussing this on the SIM31 facebook page with SIM programmer Nizar he asked me what they mean with a "smart spectrum display".....so I was thinking what I would like to see in a feature or software like that.
Some of you know that there is already a program called Artemis which allows you compare real-time spectra (from SDR waterfall for example) with those found in archives by comparison of the properties (such as frequency, bandwidth, modulation …) and verifying it through a sample image. A variety of filters allows you to narrow your search, facilitating the identification of unknown signals.
You can find it here: http://markslab.tk/project-artemis/
The above might be the spectrum display that Ward had in mind. But is it smart? What would you like to see or experience, what kind of features do you have in mind?
There are so many digital modes and many are having fixed frequencies. What would be handy is software that detects the mode in realtime and then start the software for a specific detected mode to be able to decode and/or answer a call.
I know that attempts are made with reed solomon identifier like the TXid/RXid you can switch on/off in DM780 digimode program. However, if you don't send a indentifier with your transmission it will not decode or ident anything. What we need is a identifier that decodes a digimode in realtime. But this might be too much a futuristic thing?
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PA-beker 2017 report
Event: PA-beker contestSection: SSB
Logger: N1MM+
Station: Icom IC-706 MK2G 100W
Antenna: Inverted-V apex 12m
Just like last year this is a local contest. So a report in English is not very interesting for most readers. This blogpost will be in Dutch, possibly it can be translated with google.
Het was weer leuk meedoen met de PA-beker contest. Gelukkig hing mijn houtje-touwtje inverted-V nog nadat we afgelopen week flink wat wind gehad hebben. De antenne deed het in het geheel helemaal niet slecht. Alleen de condities op 40m vielen een beetje tegen en daarnaast had ik het idee dat er minder deelnemers waren. De PD stations waren waarschijnlijk meest afgehaakt want op 40m was het bagger. De kritische frequentie voor het terugkaatsen van de radiogolven op korte afstand, zeg maar 400km, kwam niet boven de 6,8 MHz. Tja, en dat was te merken ook. Alle 9 40m QSO die ik maakte gingen erg moeilijk en waarschijnlijk gewoon via grondgolf. CQ roepen had eigenlijk geen zin voor mij, althans ik heb het even gedaan maar er kwam niets terug. Eigenlijk vind ik het knap van de stations die mij uiteindelijk gewerkt hebben op de 40m band want het was niet makkelijk. Op 80m echter ging het als een trein, er werden 74 QSO's gemaakt waarvan 2 dupes. Dat viel eigenlijk niet tegen, de signalen waren ook best hard. Leuk was het even te werken met medeblogger PC4T Paul, uiteraard maakten we even een kort praatje. Het leukste is natuurlijk de regio's te werken in deze contest, liefst allemaal en anders zoveel mogelijk want het zijn wel multipliers. In N1MM+ zit een heel makkelijk schermpje die de gemelde multipliers laat zien. Ik heb zo zeker ook snel een paar multipliers gewerkt tussen het CQ roepen door. Kwestie van klikken op de call - werken - en weer terug naar de CQ frequentie. Dit jaar mis ik regio 5, 12, 16, 22, 25, 27, 32, 38, 39, 47 en 50. Vorig jaar miste ik er ook 11 en nu weer, maar wel weer andere regio's. Het aantal QSO's en punten zijn wel beduidend lager, maar gezien de condities op 40m zal iedereen dat wel hebben.
Volgende week de Friese 11 steden contest op 40m. Vorig jaar werkte dat totaal niet omdat de condities ons in de steek lieten. Dit jaar voorzie ik helaas het zelfde. Ook al ben ik 1 van de stations die juist een voorstander was van het gebruik van 40m voor deze contest om zo de novice stations ook mee te laten doen. Misschien moet de organisatie eens nadenken over het gebruik van zowel de 40m als 80m band zoals bij de PA-beker contest?
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#FT8 puzzles me?
Yes, it puzzles me? I really don't understand two things. First of all it occurs to me lately that even with 30W output I don't see a lot of "good" signal reports. At least not what I expect? And even when a station is above 0dB (that's really, really strong in FT8) they doesn't seem to see me? Take a look at the reports from 2 QSO on the picture and compare my received report with the given report from TA4SO and SV5DKL. I'm transmitting 30W not really QRP, antenna is my vertical which is always doing fine. However I give SV5DKL a incredible report of +14dB and he's giving me only -19dB? I really don't understand why the difference is so big? Is my receive that great and/or does he have so much noise and QRM?
And no, it is not consistent, I get good reports when I look on received reports at HamSpots. At that same time I worked the stations in the picture above I get a -07dB report from a station in the USA and from DX stations as far as PY (Brazil) and CX (Chili) more then 10K km away I even get reasonable reports. No, the difference in signal reports puzzles me??Second, it looks like many stations are applying a narrow filter when they are calling. I cannot forbid that, and I really understand why when the band is crowded with signals. But many FT8 users forget that it really doesn't matter where you reply on a CQ in the waterfall. You should not necessarily reply on exact same frequency. It is even not desirable! If two or three or even more stations reply on the same frequency at the same time the CQ giving station will not decode anything. However, it seems that most FT8 users don't understand and apply a narrow filter so they only see signals in the vicinity of their own. In the newest version of WSJT-X the RX/TX is not linked anymore. However you could link them by using the shift key together with were you point the mouse in the waterfall (or clicking on a CQ). I really shouldn't tell that but anyway people seem to be consistent in replying on the same frequency you call. Well, I do understand....or actually do I. I am confused. Hopefully more and more stations will understand and will change their FT8 habits.
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FT8 with portable station
Setup of the station was done in about 5 minutes, after finishing it took about 5 minutes again to get everything in the bag. Still 2 things are limited but to change this would take some investment I can't affort at the moment. The 7Ah SLAB battery is too heavy and should be exchanged for lighter Li-Ion batteries. The laptop is too slow and the battery is weak, I should think about a replacement.
I did this experiment as well to see if I could bring this station with me when I do a talk about DXing with the weak signal modes like FT8 on HF at our monthly clubmeeting. It would be nice to set it up so I can show what can be received on FT8 while I do the talk.
Next experiment would be a phone QSO with my portable station...
Here is the video:
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Early end Frysian 11 cities contest
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| MUF elke 5 minuten in België |
Dez post is voor archief doeleinden. Eigenlijk had ik na vorig jaar niet verwacht dat de organisatie van de Friese 11 steden contest weer 40m zou kiezen als contest band. Maar aan de andere kant mag je niet op 1 jaar afgaan als het een experiment betreft. Helaas waren de condities dit jaar nog slechter vergeleken met vorig jaar. Constant werd de MUF in de gaten gehouden maar rond 11:40 UTC ben ik toch maar gestopt. Het had geen zin om door te gaan. Had ik nog 10-20 minuten door gegaan had ik misschien nog een kleine opleving gezien maar de kans dat ik nog een multiplier in Friesland zou werken was gering...
Uiteindelijk werden er 12 stations gewerkt waarvan 2 uit Engeland en 1 uit Duitsland. PA3CWN uit Dokkum werd als enige multiplier gewerkt en had dus ook eigenlijk geen enkele meerwaarde.
Volgend jaar hoop ik een terugkeer naar 80m te zien, of nog mooier zou zijn een mix van 80m en 40m zoals bij de PA-beker contest. Zo kunnen eventueel PD stations ook meedoen.
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Kenpro overhaul and another final test
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| PSKreporter 12 UTC |
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| PSKreporter 19:30UTC |
I think the demonstration station will do well, however there is one thing I have a issue with and that is the WiFi connection with my telephone to update the computer's time. Still try to solve that....
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Symbiotic HAMradio hobby
Although the biologic meaning of symbiotic strictly refers to "living together", regardless of the nature of the relationship, in casual speech the word typically implies a beneficial relationship. When analyzing the problem I have connecting the laptop to my phone for a shared internet connection I was thinking of this. When you use digimode these days you need a time keeping device, a symbiotic device you can say. Most weak signal modes now have time slots which you need to be in within a few seconds otherwise there is nothing decoded. I described a GPS time keeping device earlier this year. However it is reliable only in the field as, at least my device, is not working well inside a building. That's why I use my phone. And what is in all these devices? Right, a radio transmitter, transceiver or receiver. I finally solved my laptop to phone connection with a bleutooth connection via a PAN (Personal Area Network). Strange enough my laptop would not connect to my phone via WiFi although I see it in my list it keeps trying to ask for network configuration. With PAN via bluetooth it was all solved and at least I can keep the time steady on my ancient XP laptop.
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#FT8 tips by ZL2IFB and 3Y0Z band plan
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| Standard messages |
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| Alternative messages |
This way a QSO is considerable shorter and you can move to the next caller. Now, there seems to be QSO purists that stick to the (old) QSO rules and don't want to validate a QSO that was not answered by the QTH locator and RRR or 73. Well, all I can say....look into the future and don't look back. At least I don't care if someone doesn't send me a QSL for a digimode contact that has not been going on according the old rules. As long as reports are exchanged and I get a message that my report has been received by a R or a 73 it's fine for me.
A how to can be found on ZL2IFB's page at tip number 25:
http://www.g4ifb.com/html/digimodes.html#JT65
I just discovered that the Bouvet Island DXpedition will be on FT8 sporadically but not on the official FT8 frequencies. Oh yes, I like that and find it a very good decision. This way small QRP stations with a antenna inside a building have a chance to catch this very very rare DX.
See: http://www.bouvetdx.org/band-plan-frequencies/
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#cqww CW 2017 80m
Event: CQWW CW 2017
Section: Single Operator unassisted QRP 80M
Logger: N1MM+ newest version
Station: Icom IC-706 MK2G 5W
Antenna: Inverted-V apex 12m + multiband vertical
CW decoder: FLdigi newest version
Well, a few hours of participation time early in the morning and late in the evening resulted in only 60 QSOs. No DX, only European stations. I certainly miss my 80m horizontal loop in a contest like this. The inverted-V was not doing well, I guess it is because of the wet ladderline feeding the antenna giving me some loss. The vertical did sometimes better although it is very ineffective (too short) for 80m. When starting the contest Saturday morning my FLdigi was mysteriously disappeared? Had to install a new one and redirect N1MM+ to it before I could decode CW. After that it was no problem, although I had to finetune a bit till I got best decodes. Still, I had the idea the old FLdigi did a better job. Of course CWskimmer would be the best, I've been experimenting with it in 2015. I still hope for a free good CW decoder like CWskimmer one day. But when you are QRP it is not really important as most of the weaker signals are not able to copy you at all. For a new dutch record I switched off the telnet connection for a DXcluster to be unassisted. Actually in previous years the DXcluster didn't help me at all as spots are on the right frequency on CW but not for MCW in USB mode.
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| SOA low/qrp dutch records |
Section: Single Operator unassisted QRP 80M
Logger: N1MM+ newest version
Station: Icom IC-706 MK2G 5W
Antenna: Inverted-V apex 12m + multiband vertical
CW decoder: FLdigi newest version
Well, a few hours of participation time early in the morning and late in the evening resulted in only 60 QSOs. No DX, only European stations. I certainly miss my 80m horizontal loop in a contest like this. The inverted-V was not doing well, I guess it is because of the wet ladderline feeding the antenna giving me some loss. The vertical did sometimes better although it is very ineffective (too short) for 80m. When starting the contest Saturday morning my FLdigi was mysteriously disappeared? Had to install a new one and redirect N1MM+ to it before I could decode CW. After that it was no problem, although I had to finetune a bit till I got best decodes. Still, I had the idea the old FLdigi did a better job. Of course CWskimmer would be the best, I've been experimenting with it in 2015. I still hope for a free good CW decoder like CWskimmer one day. But when you are QRP it is not really important as most of the weaker signals are not able to copy you at all. For a new dutch record I switched off the telnet connection for a DXcluster to be unassisted. Actually in previous years the DXcluster didn't help me at all as spots are on the right frequency on CW but not for MCW in USB mode.
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