cq_qrs_newsletter

2024 37 CQ QRS RagChew

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Contents

CQ QRS RagChew

Another bloody outstanding week, and nearly another world record with at least 67 stations on our CQQRS Slow CW Practice QSO net on Tuesday. Well done one and all! This week the gremlins have gone to bother someone else… and so far…

With fingers at the cross…. looks like we might be back on track to get a RagChew out on time…. woo hoo!

New Team Members

Welcome this week to three new team members; Chris VK3KIH at Forest Hill referred by Nic VK7WW, Paul VK4PMW at Harlin referred by Jordan VK3ACU and Bob VK6POP at Gidgegannup who has supported the group many times in the past when he produced the VK6 Amateur Radio News weekly broadcast.

Welcome guys and thank you to Nic and Jordan.

What’s in a Name?

As you probably know, I call our Tuesday get-togethers an uncontrolled practice QSO net. Yet as you also probably know, amateur radio nets are usually semi-formal affairs coordinated by a central net controller.

I have purposefully avoided that format – and I believe that’s one reason why our Tuesday evenings: * are so popular + have continued every single Tuesday for over three years * are attractive to both new and experienced operators * are so much fun.

However, I recognise that many operators who come across our activity wouldn’t be interested… because nets as such just don’t appeal… and quickly become boring. I think that’s why our net is so popular… as you no-doubt know, it’s not like that at all.

So because of the negative implications of the word net to some, I would consider changing the name to something more attractive to both new operators and old timers if there was interest out there.

So I’ve started tossing ideas around in my head (there’s plenty of room in there, but it causes a bit of a din): get-together (bit ho-hum); corroboree (we’ve used that term for our QRS contests in the past); QSO party (the Americans use the term already for a wolf in sheeps’ clothing…

Ie contests); thrash (bit yobbo-like perhaps); mingle (bit ponsy perhaps); beer-o’clock (now we’re talking!); muster (potential); session (sounds a bit parliamentary); rally (what what); drop-in; hang-out; laugh-in; tap- out; Morski; ramble (potential); heard; natter; jenesaisquois; flat-earth society; or perhaps keep it as a net (people don’t like change).

There’ll be a terrific name out there that will represent what we’re trying to do (provide an opportunity for new CW operators to have a go where it’s safe… not to mention allowing everyone to have a bloody good timel), but it hasn’t come to me yet.

So I’d really like to hear your thoughts; chat about it on the net, among your friends, WhatsApp or by email, and please send me some ideas to cgarsnet@gmail.com

And thanks this week to another of our founding members, Max VK6FN for the image of his beautiful Begalli key. Our thoughts are with you mate.

Reports

After next Tuesday’s net, please send me a list of who you worked and / or who you heard usina our web form here:

After next Tuesday’s net, please send me a list of who you worked and / or who you heard using our web form here:

Getting reports from stations and listeners is important to me – even if you listened and didn’t hear anyone or weren’t able to copy anything – I’d like to record the fact that you had a go so we know that the net is working and attracting new and old team members.

Editor Opportunity

You can probably tell that I’m having a balll as the RagChew editor… except for the last two weeks when things went wrong and I either lost my nearly entire newsletter to gremlins, or our 1000 emails per month Mailchimp limit was exceeded (which, come to think about it, is actually quite a satisfying problem to havel).

However, I’m starting to run out of heartbeats – and it’s time to hand-over to a new and enthusiastic editor or editors; I’d hate our team and our activities to go the way of nearly every other CW net, through a lack of motivation on my part.

So – a request – how about having a go at editing the newsletter – either on your patma, or as part of a team? I’m very happy to train, help out etc. And by the way, because we have such a great team of readers, there’s no shortage of articles to publish…

And I’ve got a backlog waiting to go! Nearly all the other Clubs and groups I’ve been involved with have struggled to get enough written material for their newsletters or magazines… yet, every week I receive contributions from our terrific team.

Please let me know if you’d consider becoming an / the editor of the weekly RagChew. Email to: cagrsnet@gmail.com Cheers, catch you on Tuesday mb Mark Bosma VK2KI/ VK6QI Beautiful South Bowning NSW mark,bosma@icloud.com ‘on impact rations cogiationis

Reports & Comments

The spreadsheets above show the known stations on last Tuesday’s net. Comment distilled from the reports I’ve received are below:

Comments:

[40m] + I’ve listened to some really fine code today, easy to copy 🙂 Think all stations improve from week to week. « Great work and great event. 73 Mike.

From Ross VK/MONNK at Exeter UK via Perth WA

[40m] + Strong signals from other stations – I guess that shouldn’t be surprising as the geography of WA concentrates most operators close to Perth. Phil + VK6GX was very patient with me and I finally managed to copy his location “Gidgegannup”!

[80m] + Another fun session on the QRS Net. I don’t have the stamina for more than an hour of CW but my four QSOs today were all good chatty ones so I’m happy with my morning’s work.

[80m] + Just a few contacts tonight. Early start tomorrow. Thanks again every one for coming up and thanks Mark for putting together the newsletter. [My pleasure mate. And while we’re PIEOP. thank you for your support of what we’re trvina to achieve.]

[40m] * OM Michael VK4CCW gave me arguably the longest CW QSO in terms of durati I’ve ever had. Both ops labored under the delusion the other couldn’t go any faster – really funny when we found out otherwise!.

+ Another excellent traffic exchange with OM Manny VK3DRQ, then to round the night out, a 100 % perfect TDIH with the ‘Bad Tempered Victorian’, who in real life revealed a ‘Brilliant Tenacious Vindication’ to all those who knew all along he could do it!.

[80m] * Very quiet. Probably didn’t stick around long enough, to be fair..

[80m] * Suggestion: Centre 80m activity around 3528 KHz. Further up there are other modes of operation to contend with. + At first condx was noisy with OTHR but then it it soon opened up good to VK6.

[40m] * Once more great to hear everyone busy chatting away!

[40m] * Nice to be back on the QRS net after working away for 3 weeks! * Got on 40m with my QMX @ 5 Watts and had FB QSO’s with Maitland, VKSAO and Manny VK3DRQ. * Great signals, condx seemed very good.

+ Didn’t bother with 80m as antenna is down, will get it up and running this weekend.

[40m] * Bagged my first VK7!! Nic is only ‘down the road’ but I had not heard him before. + It seems unlikely that the two US stations were intentionally part of the net, but they were at the same time and place!

It is topical to note that this was above 7025, so in the part of the band under threat.. [Heh heh – the rest of us have no problems catching VK7S lan – perhaps it’s just yc HI]

[40m] * Great signals on 40m. + Early one then QSB started arou 1830 WA time.

[40m] + It was almost three hours of non-stop activity but it was well lived. lThara vari nnal WUfall Anne ol] 7]

From the editor VK2KI at Beautiful South Bowning and via the Tecsun KiwiSDR at Araluen NSW.

[40m] + I was late to the party on Tuesday, arriving around 1030Z. There were a number of stations heard at home and visible on the Tecsun KiwiSDR at Araluen NSW.

Was good to catch up with Richard VK6PZT at Dalyellup again; Richard was one of our founding members, having received the second of our coveted First CW QSO Award three years ago on September 8th, 2021.

Work pressures have restricted Richard’s activities of late, so it was good to have a chat with him again. Signals weren’t outstanding – I reported RSN 432 in QSB and QRM, but he was a nice copy for most of the chat.

[80m] +1 slipped down to 80m at around 1115Z and had a nice chat with Jordan VK3ACU at Meredith. Jordan had set himself a target to get on CW every day in September – and had had success so far – although one day he called for an hour and raised exactly zero other stations.

We talked about some sort of charity or club fund-raising marathon – heh heh, you never know!. + After Jordan I caught up with Adrian VK2WF about 120KM up the road at Tallong before a chat with Phil VK6GX with a big signal from his single element delta-loop.

This week I also noticed Doctor Donald VK6JDM at Dalyup near Esperance calling CQ just below the CQQRS segment on around 3039KHZ – and like Richard VK6HRC was about to hit the key just as Phil called him.

+ Time for bed, but it was a nice night for me once again, with everyone having a great time practicing the art. Also from the editor VK6QI at via the VK6QS KiwiSDR near Brookton

[80m] + On the VK6QS KiwiSDR near Brookton, by around 1115Z there was a number of strong stations on 80m, including signals from the East around S7 to S9; no ZLs heard this time though.

Nice to see a growing number of folks giving 80m a try later in the evening again…. get in before daylight saving starts again in the East!

[40m] * Four contacts in the log before listening in on the formal exchange between ZL3TK Stan and VK3DRQ Manny, thank you.

[80m] * Enjoyed the QRS get together, a lot of longer QSO’s going on and some good natured stirring as well ! A big thank you to the experienced operators helping out.

From Donald VK6JDM at 20 km west of Esperance WA

[80m] * Had an hour of taking down peoples signals then a break came in the traffic and worked VK6GX. By then, the Morse decoder in my head stopped working and demanded a power cycle so switched off radio and switched off brain (sleep) and hopefully the brain’s Morse decoder will reboot by next week.

* The poor old radio got thrown around on way back from Kalgoorlie. The Land Rover which is related to the one in the film the Gods Must be Crazy, had decided on an interesting route to come home from Kal and did not see the crab hole.

Was OK for the L/R but not so for the radio which now receives again but needs some love and care before it will transmit. + 73 Donald. [You’da thought that an old Landy would have known better than to take its eyes off the road mate!

Know any good GPs who could do a sensory check?]

[40m] + First attempt to send traffic to VK3DRQ. Sorry for confusion OM Manny. [We live for confusion John – I’m sure he didn’t mind whatever confusion happened… try again next week mate.]

[40m] + Only ZL contacts for me this time, lots of fading though which made for a challenge! Great QSO with Stephen ZL3ABX. New OCF antenna up, will have to see if that helps with QSOs 🙂

[40m] + Using my QRP Labs just finished QCX+ 5 watts and had an enjoyable evening. [One of the things I really enjoy with this net is the QRP and home-brewing / home assembly activities of so many of the team – go the soldering iron]

[40m] * Glad I got on early for once to enjoy the fun on 40m. Far more stations heard on 40m than on 80m, but no ZLs. Always good to have a good chat, which I had with a few. I could have worked a few more, but got called away for a sundowner by my XYL.

[80m] + I was a bit late getting on 80m, due to the extended sundowner with my XYL, she buys good wine! Good signals from the Eastern States, but as with 40m, Iheard no ZLs. Last station worked was Dr. Donald VK6JDM at 1223Z.

After that, I called CQ at various speeds from 5 to 15 WPM (approx) for a further 1/4 hour, but no replies and nothing seen on the bandscope.

I’m finding the QRS Net very rewarding and I’m happy to QSO at any speed and I try to match the callers speed, but I’m sorry, I tend to speed up during a long QSO, so please tell me to QRS if you’re struggling. I hope to catch many more of you next week.

73, Phil VK6GX, Gidgegannup. [Great report Phil, thank you. Glad you could give 40m a try earlier in the arvo – seeing our little segment full of signals on a waterfall display is a thing of beauty. Hey…

I though you had a shack already set-up out on the patio? Good place to enjoy a nice glass of wine… what was it by the way?]

PIUill INCI GHEE WIND EW ct LilyUdaie, Viv

[40m] * Stan, ZL3TK propositioned me with “How about a TDIH?” After I had composed myself, it suddenly dawned on me that TDIH is a perfectly acceptable activity between consenting adults in the southern hemisphere. It was a lot of fun 🙂 ._-r

• VK6HRC * our shortwave listeners including VK6KRC Bob, VK6MRB Mulligan and others. Max VK6FN was unable to check in due to his house full of visitors, and Ron VK6KHZ was not feeling the best so was not on either.

We were hoping to hear from John VKSET who with Stan’s help as getting going on Echolink, and would have been able to access the WA AllStar network via one of the WA gateways; John was another of the active founding members of the CQQRS net.

Stan ZL8TK worked several stations on Forty and commented on the longer high quality QSO traffic and no luck on Eighty. Stan also mentioned that we should all be reading the RagChew newsletter – a lot of very useful information to be gained from doing so, plus great photographs from our contributors which helps us get to know our team.

David VK6KD/4 checked in from Mission Beach apparently having some issues with his rig but enjoyed the net, no salties spotted but swimming not on the to-do list.

Mark VK6QI reported joining proceedings as soon as he could on Forty and was pleased to catch up with Richard VK6PZT , plus a good number on Eighty later. Ross MONNK had a good evening once the VK6SR remote started behaving!

Ross also let us know that Mike DL3YZ. was listening-in so we might get a report from him in the newsletter. David VK6NRA was on his way to work way up North at Port Headland and checked in.

He had not heard of the Post Morsum net before so he was given some information before he arrived at work. Wen pressed, I reported that I had four contacts on Forty and a lot of copy practise in between.

I then had one contact on Eighty with Phil VK6GX before heading down the band looking for Donald VK6JDM… but I was not the only one. Phil beat both me and Mark to the punch there and had a good session with Donald.

Unfortunately we did not get to work Donald as he was suffering from CW-overload and went into listening mode! Atopic of interest brought up by both Ross and Stan was the apparent skill levels of people joining in, longer QSOs and a marked improvement sending as well.

No doubt more comprehensive reports will be the next RagChew. Thanks to all Richard VKeHRC [lerrific report again mate – well done!]

Other News

From Bob VK6POP. Readers of RagChew may be aware of the IARU 40m Harmonisation project, and the proposal to reduce the CW-Only segment (which if nothing else would see the digital modes move down into the segment used by low-power, portable, fixed frequency and other non-DX CW – and would also push us out of the 40m segment that we use for our QRS net; it’s tough enough to find a quiet frequency as is, without the digital modes that don’t listen before transmitting.

Some of our readers have responded to the Wireless Institute of Australia’s Technical Advisory Committee’s public consultation which has now closed, thank you to those who made the effort.

Bob VK6POP has circulated the following about the International Morse Preservation Society FISTS efforts to address the IARU proposals. Hi The International Amateur Radio Union (Region 3) is undertaking a review of the 40 Metre Band Plan.

This is being done under the banner of Harmonisation, and seeks to address many of the inconsistencies in the 40 metre band plans across different countries and regions.

What’s been seen of it so far is leaving little room for CW operations – a group of people are getting “organised” to strongly oppose limiting CW to the bottom 25 KHz of the band. Read what they have to say HERE , and take further action as you feel inclined.

40m Band Harmonisation

From Bob VK6POP Readers of RagChew may be aware of the IARU 40m Harmonisation project, and the proposal to reduce the CW-Only segment (which if nothing else would see the digital modes move down into the segment used by low-power, portable, fixed frequency and other non-DX CW – and would also push us out of the 40m segment that we use for our QRS net; it’s tough enough to find a quiet frequency as is, without the digital modes that don’t listen before transmitting.

Some of our readers have responded to the Wireless Institute of Australia’s Technical Advisory Committee’s public consultation which has now closed; thank you to those who made the effort.

Bob VK6POP has circulated the following about the International Morse Preservation Society FISTS efforts to address the IARU proposals.

The International Amateur Radio Union (Region 3) is undertaking a review of the 40 Metre Band Plan. This is being done under the banner of Harmonisation, and seeks to address many of the inconsistencies in the 40 metre band plans across different countries and regions.

What’s been seen of it so far is leaving little room for CW operations – a group of people are getting “organised” to strongly oppose limiting CW to the bottom 25 KHz of the band. Read what they have to say HERE , and take further action as you feel inclined.

Home Brew Transmitter Update

From Donald VK6JDM. A couple of weeks ago we saw the photo of Donald VK6JDM’s home brew gear, set up on the side of a dusty track, 20KM out of Kalgoorlie.

At first blush, it looked to me like Donald’s lady wife had put her foot down and evicted all the goodies… but no, this was how real men go portable – none of this bought plastic radio, lithium battery, bit of wire and Morse key business!

We heard later that the transmitter wouldn’t produce the goods when Donald got it home… here’s an update: The power amplifier stage is on the bench – insulation failure in the output side of the final transformer.

Put to rights and seems to fire up OK but being a fiddler I will change some circuits I have been thinking about for a while. 73 Donald Howarth

Speed Reading

From David VK3DBD: It is good to see the increase of folk who are able to join in the QRS net. I read with interest the comments from (I think) Stan ZL2TK, Ross MONNK and others.

I have been thinking along the same lines for some time and did not like to Say so for fear of the flak……. ! Ihave noticed the same folk doing the same slow drawn out QSOs and what makes it worse – the learning station sends his report and signs off with 73.

Not even a decent chat reply often… just the basics. Ihave said it before several times – the only way to increase speed of RX is to practice copying something faster than comfortable.

‘Sending hardly needs much practice if you are used to a more normal speed, say 18 wpm plus, and can copy a well sent transmission – and preferably write it down however ‘bitty’ it might be. Listening to good Morse will teach you to send good Morse.

You cannot learn to speak another language from a book… you need to listen to a native speaker. Just forget the missing letters, they will be obvious in most written words.

Not everyone can and needs to head-copy; agreed it is useful, but the old time commercial ops needed to get spelling and words correct as a message could be very important and errors might be disastrous.

Storing in the brain is not reliable even for short periods. Only a ten minute Morse receiving session twice a day, a bit faster than you feel comfortable with will increase your speed noticeably in a couple of weeks.

• The problem I’m hearing in the CQ QRS Group’s FFA is the ongoing super- slow, over-Farnsworth-ed transmissions, allegedly for the sake of listeners. What?

If a listener wants to become proficient let him train himself using freely-availble LCWO, that’s not your job. This widespread super-slowness-policy is not only holding back other stations by perpetuating a no-personal responsibility paradigm, but is stifling your own progress as well.

Each participant needs to take responsibility for his own training BETWEEN Tuesdays, then once a week demonstrate his improved skills, whether subtle or pronounced. ive FUN on the key – it gets better the more you listen!! David VK3DBD/ G3SCD

Let the Other Chap know your Speed Capability

From Stan ZL3TK It’s all very well sending PSE QRS, but how slow do you want the other chap to send? Then you may encounter an operator you know is capable of cruising at 25 wpm, but who will be unhappy trying to head-copy 8 wpm.

We need a way to reveal succinctly our optimum speed, then to optimise the QSO, decide on the slower speed of the two to continue.

It’s never going to be an exact science, rather subjective to be fair, however the utility of QRS and QRQ can be significantly increased by simply appending the speed at which you want the other chap to send e.g.

QRS 8 plainly states your comfortable ball-park receiving speed. The other side of the coin is where you know your contact is experienced and you want to oblige with a faster speed.

Let’s say you’re happy conversing at 18 wpm but are currently sending at 10 wpm only because that’s what everyone else is doing. How about sending QRQ 18?

You’re negotiating a ‘speed contract’ with that one question, by both telling him you’re okay with 18 wpm, and asking if it’s okay for him to go there too; see what he says.

Maybe it’s not a silly idea to presage ‘meat and three veg’ with: ‘MY QRS IS N’, where N = your optimum speed, then proceed as usual.

The other chap’s personal QRS may be slower, that way both operators will know right from the start how to play the game to get the best result from the QSO. Stan ZL3TK

Abstract from the 2024 Remembrance Day Memorial Contest Report Congratulations to VK7 for winning this year’s Remembrance Day contest. 42 percent of VK7participants submitted a log followed by VK6 with 37 percent. Excellent support by the state’s operators.

Only one record was broken by VK7TW in the SOMX category with 1298 points. Other winners were VK7ZBX SOPH, VK2GR SOCW, VK3KK QRP PH, VK3ACU QRP CW, VK2R QRP MX,VK7CMS MS, and VL4R MM.

Best team result was from TOTWOO, VK7TO VK7TW and VK700 with combined points equalling 2625. Best rookie was Dan VK4DNO with 140 points for the SOPH category. Log submission overall was 19 percent, down from 23 percent last year.

Approximately 1033participated with 195 logs submitted, including four paper logs. A total of 28,660 QSOs filled the logs submitted with an average score of 222.

To ‘summarise there were less logs, more log content and more total operators compared to last year. A total of 16 club stations submitted logs. Email responses to

Extract from the 2024 Remembrance Day Memorial Contest Report

Users submitting logs via vklogchecker has ceased due to costs involved. Submitters are notified onscreen of successful submission or mistakes needing fixing during the process.

In the spirit of the Remembrance Day activities, Nic VK7WW made use of old equipment. An impressive score of 172 using CW was achieved. Thank you Nic.

[Well done to Jordan, Nic and to all CQQRS Team members who participated. An opportunity to do some sort of Group activity next year perhaps?]

Morse Training Net

And speaking of Nic… VK7WW runs a Slow Morse training net every Wednesday at 7pm EDST on 3580 for 30 mins. He uses the callsign of the Northern Tasmania Amateur Radio Club VK7TAZ on that net.

Many of our team learned Morse code with the support of Nic, and the weekly training session comes highly recommended for anyone who wants to learn the Code, or simply brush up. Everyone’s welcome – 3580KHZ at 7pm Eastern time every Wednesday.

The NTARC also feeds the CW live via the Discord phone / computer audio stream, and previous weeks’ recordings are available. Contact Nic VK7WW for more info nicholaschantler@hotmail.com – or just join in on Wednesdays.

This Week’s Topic of Interest

Help Me Copy You

Ficip Vie VOpy Trou from Ross MONNK When you’re learning or improving, it’s tempting to become preoccupied with your own troubles. But what about the poor guy on the other end – are you making life difficult for me?

Dits versus Dahs

Thanks Ross. If others have thoughts or ideas you’d like to share, please let me know; email to cqqrsnet@gmail.com

Brain Teaser

Jules Perrin JP VK3JFP has created a terrific resource to help guide learning for all levels of amateur radio licenses: https://Awww.julesworkshop.net/Amateur%20Radio.html With thanks to Baz VK6MU for he idea, and Jules for the good learning website, here’s this week’s quiz questions from Jules’ Workshop example test questions:

Exam Questions:

What does SWR stand for and what does it measure? The active conductor in a 3-core AC power cords is coloured * brown * yellow/green * ted * blue The approximate wavelength of the second harmonic of a 144 MHz transmission is + 1 metre * 2METRES * 3 metres + 4METRES Answers next week.

Di-dah-di-dah-dit

So back to the Slow CW QSO practice net.

Next Tuesday’s Net

Our CQ QRS Net will be on as always on Tuesday from around 0700Z until about 1300Z; see below for details. Doesn’t matter whether you’re brand new and want to try just exchanging callsigns and RST reports, or you’re ready for a good old rag chew.

Please let me know via our Reports form bit.ly/CQQRSNET who you work or hear on Tuesday’s net. For stations on other bands, please just use the 80m report area (separate out your 80m report from the other bands), and when you enter the list of callsigns worked, heard or missed, please append an ‘@band’ to each callsign without a space (eg VK2KI@20 VK6QI@15 etc).

Post Mortem

Richard VK6HRC will run our phone Post Morsum on the South West AllStar net (via repeaters and hotspots all over WA) from 0600 WA time, then from 0700 WA time on 80m (8605 LSB).

For the 0600 (22002) net, if you’re in WA all you need is an FM 2m or 70CM transceiver and an AllStar node nearby. If you’re elsewhere in the world, you may be able to connect your local AllStar-enabled repeater to the net, or you can connect via Echolink.

Let me know (cqqrsnet@gmail.com) if I can help with that. and if you can’t connect that way, give 3605KHZ SSB a try from 0700 (23002).

Teamwork

Thank you so much to our team of 31 contributors: DL3YZ, VK/MONNK, VK2ASB, VK2DLF, VK2GAS, VK2TIG, VK2WF, VK3ACU, VK3BTV, VK3BWN, VK3DRQ, VK3JFP, VK3KEV, VK5AO, VK5ET, VK5KFG, VK5LA, VK6BEK, VK6GX, VK6HRC, VK6JDM, VK6MK, VK6NW, VK6PZT, VK6RR, VK6WE, VK7TA, VK7WW, ZL1PB, ZL3TK, ZL4BDG GU CW on Tuesday, mb Mark Bosma VK2KI / VK6QI Beautiful South Bowning NSW mark.bosma@icloud.com non impediti ratione cogitationis

An Ode to CW – thanks to David VK3RU: In days of old, when ops were bold, And sideband was not invented, Words were passed by pounding brass, And all were quite contented. – Unknown author

Frequencies and Times

Speed

Matching

PSE QRS

Landing Zone

The opinions expressed in the RagChew newsletter are those of the individual contributors. The opinions do nat necessarily reflect that of the editor or of the C@ QAS Group members.

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