Post related to Blogging
I want to thank all our followers and subscribers for making stationproject.blog a useful and popular resource for the Amateur Radio community. We’ve hit a significant milestone of late – we’ve surpassed 1 Million views. We very much appreciate your support for our site!
Fred, AB1OC
Amateur Radio Highlights – our 2014 Readers Around The World
It is again time for our annual 2014 Year Amateur Radio highlights post. First, I’d like to thank our readers for their continued interest in our Blog. Our blog was viewed about 100,00 times in 2014 from 165 countries worldwide. You, our readers, have made 2014 our busiest year yet, and this provides Anita (AB1QB) and me with great encouragement to continue to provide content for our readers.
2014 was a very busy year in Amateur Radio for us. Our activities included a continued focus on station building, contesting, WRTC 2014, special events, providing presentations to help others in the hobby learn about new things, attending several HAM Events, progress on operating awards, and most importantly – time spent on the air operating.
microHAM Station Master Deluxe Antenna Controller
This year, we upgraded our fixed station to include a microHAM Station Automation system. This major project added some nice SO2R capabilities to our Multi-one station and automated the sharing of our antennas between our two SO2R operating positions. More of this project can be found here:
Eggbeater LEO Satellite Antennas And Preamps Systems On Tower
We also added LEO Satellite capabilities to our station with the addition of some new antennas and electronics on our tower. This allowed us to make our first contacts through LEO birds with linear transponders. Our articles on this project include:
Our Mobile HF Station – Screwdriver Antenna
Our final major station-building project was constructing a state-of-the-art mobile HF station in our Ford F-150 pickup truck. We did this project in phases, starting with a simple setup using a 100W radio and HAM Stick antennas through the installation of a Screwdriver Antenna System for the 160m – 10m HF bands and concluding with the installation of an amplifier to enable high-power mobile HF operation. You can view the articles on this project here:
AB1OC Operating In the 2014 CQ WPX SSB
Anita (AB1QB) and I continued to be active in several contests this year. We both continued to develop our skills as contesters and our scores and place in the rankings reflected this. You can read more about our contesting activities and what we learned in the following articles:
WRTC 2014 Hollis Site Competitors, Support Team And Referee
We were also fortunate to host one of the WRTC 2014 competition sites. Along with our friend Scott Anderson, NE1RD, Anita and I acted as site managers for the only WRTC 2014 Competition Site in New Hampshire. You can read more about our WRTC 2014 experiences here.
13 Colonies Special Event QSL Card For K2K New Hampshire
Special event operations were a particularly fun part of our on-air activities in 2014. We operated as K2K, New Hampshire, in the 13 Colonies Special Event, W1AW/1, as part of the ARRL Centennial QSO Party, and as N1FD Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Nashua Area Radio Club. It’s great fun to operate in these events and the experience running the pileups that result continued to help Anita and me to develop our operating and contesting skills.
Introduction To The DXLab Suite
We prioritize devoting a significant amount of our Amateur Radio time to helping others in the hobby learn new things. In addition to writing this Blog, Anita and I try to create and deliver several presentations each year on a variety of topics of interest to the Amateur Radio Community. This year’s presentation included an update of our presentation on Amateur Radio Station Design and Construction and an Introductory Presentation on the DXLab Software Suite. We are always interested in working with Amateur Radio Clubs to deliver the presentation in person, where practical, or over the web.
Anita (AB1QB) and I with Bob Heil (K9EID)
We had the fortune to meet some of the legends in Amateur Radio this past year. Anita and I had the opportunity to get meet Bob Heil, K9EID and to appear on his Ham Nation podcast. Bob is an amazing gentlemen and we feel truly fortunate to have the opportunity to get to know him. We also had the opportunity to meet Fred Lloyd, AA7BQ, the President and Founder of QRZ.com. Fred visited our station and did an article about our station on QRZ.com. Anita and I both learned a great deal about HAM Radio and how it came to be what it is today as a result of the time these fine folks spent with us.
Joe Taylor’s WSJT Presentation At the ARRL Centennial Convention
Amateur Radio Conventions and HAM Fests were a major part of our Amateur Radio fun again this year. We were fortunate to attend and speak at the ARRL Centennial Convention in Hartford, CT USA this year – truly a once in a lifetime Amateur Radio experience. We also attended the Dayton Hamvention in 2014 where we had a chance to see all of the latest and greatest in Amateur Radio Equipment.
Our 2014 QSOs By Callsign
We were quite active on the air making almost 26,000 contacts between the two of us. As you can see from the graphic above, about 45% of our contacts were as part of Special Event Operations. We also made a little over 500 contacts from our mobile station, working over 100 DXCC entities in 2014 from the mobile.
Our 2014 QSOs By Band
We were active on all of the HF bands this year. We made our first contacts on the 60m band, and I was able to focus on the 6m band and earn a VUCC Operating Award (100 grid squares worked and confirmed) on that band. Anita and I made our first DX contacts in Europe on 6m in 2014. Anita took quite an interest in the 160m band, and she is working on a Worked All States Operating Award on this band. Our operating time using weak signal and satellite modes on the 2m and 70cm bands was limited to a few contacts this year. I did make my first contacts through LEO Satellites in 2014.
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Our 2014 QSOs By Mode
We mostly operated in the SSB phone mode in 2014. Anita and I both continue to work on our CW skills, and we managed a little over 800 QSOs using CW in 2014. Anita was very active in the RTTY mode as part of her RTTY contesting efforts.
13 Colonies K2K New Hampshire QSL!
All of this operating resulted in quite a bit of QSL activity. We sent a total of almost 4,200 QSL cards in 2014!
We again made a video showing all of our contacts around the world in 2014. As you can see from the video, we were fortunate to work quite a bit of DX in 2014.
Fred’s 6M VUCC Operating Award
All of this operating helped Anita and me to make some progress on operating awards this year. In addition to earning a 6M VUCC, I completed a Worked All States Award on all 9 HF bands 160m-10m. I was also able to complete several nice regional operating awards (Worked All Europe TOP Plaque, Worked All VK Call Areas, and Worked All Africa) as well as upgrading my DXCC Challenge Award to the 1,500 Band Country level. Anita completed her JARL JCC Award (she worked 100+ Cities in Japan) as well as her Worked All States Triple Play Award (all states on SSB, CW, and Digital via LoTW).
Anita and I had a lot of fun with Amateur Radio in 2014. We look forward to another great year of HAM Radio fun in 2015. We hope to share some of what we learn and our experiences with our readers here on our Blog.
– Fred, AB1OC
Our Readers Around The World
Thanks to support from all of our readers, our blog passed the 100,000 views mark this past week. The material here has seen good interest from HAMs around the world. The map above shows the countries that have viewed the articles and content here.
Top 25 Countries
The table above shows the top 25 Countries that have viewed the information here the most. North America and Europe are the sources of the most interest in our Blog but we are also seeing good interest from several countries in Asia and South America as well. This list probably pretty closely reflects the concentration of Amateur Radio Operators in countries around the world.
We’d like to take thank all of you who read our Blog for you interest. We will continue to publish new content here as our experiences with HAM radio continue and we learn new things about our wonderful hobby.
– Fred (AB1OC)
DXCCs Worked in 2013
Anita and I were quite active on the bands in 2013. Together we made 20,650+ contacts from a combination of our home and mobile stations and we worked a combined 259 DXCC Entities.
Combined 2013 QSOs By Band
We were active on all of the Amateur Bands available in the USA from 160m through 70cm except for the 60m and 1.25m bands. The picture above shows the distribution of our QSOs across the bands in 2013. Both of us participated in quite a few contests in 2013 and this resulted in the 5 major contest bands dominating our operating activity. I did quite a lot of work on the 160m band this year and I participated in several 160m contests to gain experience and to begin working towards a DXCC on this band. We worked a total of 50 DXCC Entities on 160m in 2013. Our 6m, 2m, and 440 MHz (70cm) contacts were made mostly during VHF/UHF contests that I participated in.
Combined 2013 QSOs By Mode
We like to operate using many different modes. Anita (AB1QB) does quite a bit of RTTY contesting and she accounted for the bulk of the activity in the digital modes from our station in 2013. I made it a point to become active using the CW mode this year and I made 1,550+ contacts using CW in 2013 including participation in several CW contests. Operations in SSB Phone mode dominated our activity this year mostly due to our operations in SSB Phone contests and as one of the New Hampshire Stations in the 2013 Colonies Special Event this year where we made a combined total of 6,200+ contacts.
QSL Cards Ready To Mail
We really enjoy sending and receiving QSL cards. We sent 5,800+ QSL cards this year, averaging approximately 110 cards sent each week. We also QSL’ed via eQSL and Logbook Of The World. I am often asked what percentage of our QSL requests are confirmed. For 2013, we received confirmations for 67% of our direct/bureau cards, 31% of the QSOs uploaded to eQSL, and 37% of the QSOs upload to LoTW. These numbers will undoubtedly rise a time goes by.
AB1OC Operating Awards
All of this operating allowed us to complete a number of operating awards this year. Fred completed his DXCC Challenge, 8-Band DXCC, and CQ WPX Award of Excellence Awards as well as a DXCC Awards in CW mode and a DXCC QRP (5 watts).
AB1QB Japan Century Cities Award
Anita has held a DXCC for some time and has been focusing on a number of JARL Awards. She completed her Japan Century Cities Award for confirming contacts with 100 cities in Japan in 2013.
AB1QB Operating In The BARTG RTTY Contest
Contesting was a big part of the operations from our station this year. I was active in several major SSB and CW contests this year and Anita was active in quite a few major RTTY and phone contests as well. We are both licensed for less that 3 years and have been competing in the Rookie or Novice categories in most contests and we have been doing quite well. Anita took 5th place in the world in the 2013 BARTG RTTY Contest and she has placed 1st in our call area in several of the 2013 ARRL Rookie Roundups in both SSB Phone and RTTY.
2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Certificate
I placed 1st in North America/2nd in the World in the 2013 CQ WPX SSB Contest (Rookie High Power) and 1st in North America/2nd in the World in the 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest (Rookie High Power). Contests have provided us a great deal of operating experience and have contributed greatly to our completion of several operating awards.
Mobile Installation In Ford F-150
Station Building was a big part of our Amateur Radio experience again in 2013. We installed a mobile HF setup in our truck and did quite a bit of mobile HF operating. We made 165 contacts from our mobile station in 2013 and worked 41 DXCC entities.
WSJT EME QSO – Waterfall
I also made my first Earth-Moon-Earth Contacts on 2m in 2013. I made 30 contacts on 2m using the moon as a reflector, working a total of 16 DXCC Entities this way.
AB1QB Operating The Flex-3000 Software Defined Radio
We added a Flex-3000 Software Defined Radio (SDR) to our station in 2013 and have been using it to learn about this new technology. The performance and operating capabilities of SDR are making SDR a big part of the future of Amateur Radio in our opinion.
8-Circle Receive Array System Diagram
Antenna projects were also a part of our station building work in 2013. We installed an 8-Circle Receive Array System for 160m – 40m and this new antenna system helped us a great deal with DX’ing and contesting on 160m and 80m. We also began the reinstallation of our BigIR Vertical Antenna but the onset of winter here in New Hampshire caused us to delay the completion of this project until spring. Finally, we made the switch to the excellent DXLab logging and DX’ing software suite. DXLab helped us a great deal with QSL’ing and tracking our progress toward operating awards.
2013 Field Day CW Station Operations
We were part of the 2013 Field Day team at our local radio Club (PART in Westford, MA). We provided and managed the digital station as well as the setup of a portion of the antenna systems for our club’s field day operations.
ARRL At Dayton 2013
Anita and I attended the Dayton Hamvention again in 2013. The Dayton event is always a great opportunity to see the latest in Amateur Radio equipment. We attended the 2013 Contest University which was held as part of the Dayton Event and used the information that we learned there to continue to improve our contesting skills.
Fred Lloyd AA7BQ, Founder Of QRZ.com
The internet was a big part of our Amateur Radio experience again in 2013. We met Fred Lloyd, AA7BQ who visited us to do an article on QRZ.com on our station. We learned a great deal from Fred during the time that we spent with him as part of this project. We published 47 new articles here on our blog in 2013 and have received over 45,000 views from our readers in 152 countries around the world. We really appreciate the interest from the HAM community and we will continue to publish new articles here in 2014.
As you can tell from this article, 2013 has been a very active year for Anita and I. I’ve created the video above to give you some idea of the contacts that we have been fortunate enough to make around the world in 2013. We hope you enjoy it and we want to thank everyone who has taken the time to work us, to end us a QSL card or to read the articles that we have written here.
– Fred (AB1OC)
Our Readers From 152 Countries Around The World
Our Blog reached another milestone this past weekend – 50,000 views! We have gotten to this point in a little over 1 year since we started our Blog. It was our goal from the onset to create a blog that was interesting and useful to the HAM community everywhere and I am happy to see that there is interest in our Blog worldwide. While the bulk of the activity on our Blog comes from North America and Western Europe, our readers call some 152 countries around the world home.
Anita and I would like to thank you, our readers for making our Blogging project a success. We hope to continue to provide you with interesting and useful information about station building and operations as well as other material of interest to HAMs around the world.
– Fred (AB1OC)
Our Readers Around The World After 1 Year
This month marks the one year anniversary of our Blog. We have been very pleased with the worldwide interest in the information and articles that we have posted during our first year. To date, we have enjoyed readers from 145 countries around the world with over 38,000 views of the 90+ articles that he have written during our first year.
Our top three most widely read posts are:
Some of our most popular videos include (these videos take a few seconds to load and begin to play):
Our busiest day every was on Saturday, June 1st 2013 when he had over 1,000 views of our Blog in a single day. This occurred shortly after Anita (AB1QB) published her article on the 2013 Contest University At The Dayton Hamvention.
We’d like to thank everyone for your interest in our Blog and we plan to continue publishing articles that we hope will interest our readers and help the Amateur Radio Community in general.
– Fred (AB1OC)
We have created quite a few posts (over 85) on our Blog to date. I think its important to make all of this information easier to locate and use so I’ve categorized each post and included these categories on the left side of our Blog pages (see the CATEGORIES section of the left of this page). You can click on a category such as “Antennas and Feedlines” and view all of our posts related to this topic. I also plan to create set of master posts which points to all of the information here on topics of broad interest to our readers. The first of these posts covers Amateur Radio Station Design and Construction. Other index posts are planned on Antennas and Contesting. We would appreciate your comments and suggestions as to the usefulness of the categories and master index posts.
– Fred (AB1OC)
March 2013 Reader Countries
Our Blog reached another milestone today – we have had over 20,000 visits from readers in 125 countries around the world. We’d like to thank all of our readers for your interest in our Blog. It is your interest and participation in this project that motivates Anita and I to continue to post new articles and information.
We are considering a number of new articles for this Blog and I’d like to again ask for our reader’s input as to what articles that you might find most interesting. Please take a minute and participate in the following poll to give us some input (vote for your top two choices).
Thanks again to all of our readers for participating in our Blog. I hope that each of you is able to find something interesting here.
Fred (AB1OC)
Our Blog Readers Around The World
As I write this, our Blog has crossed a milestone – we have readers in 100 countries around the world and our Blog has been viewed a little over 10,250 times. I just want to take a moment and thank all of our readers for your interest and tremendous response to our Blog. I also very much appreciate the encouragement and expressions of interest from many of our readers. Again, thanks very much to everyone.
We are planning to continue to provide new content here that we hope will interest and help our readers. Some of the posts in the works include more on setting up a station for the digital modes including JT65, WSPR and more, a second post on the completion of our APRS repeater, and posts covering a major expansion of our station as we automate much of its operation via a system from microHAM.
– Fred (AB1OC)
100 Pound DXpedition
I want to share a Blog that we have relied heavily upon to plan our portable operations in Bora Bora, French Polynesia as well as many aspects of our portable station and antennas. This Blog, the 100 Pound DXpedition, is authored by B. Scott Andersen (NE1RD) and contains a wealth of information on HF portable operating based upon Scott’s extensive experience in this area. If you have an interest in portable HF, I am sure that you will enjoy the 100 Pound DXpedition.
– Fred (AB1OC)