cq_qrs_newsletter

2025 44 CQ QRS RagChew

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Contents

CQ QRS RagChew

Spring time in our part of the world means thunderstorms in the build-up to the monsoon season up North… and this week Easterners and Northerners were certainly treated to lots of the resulting static crashes.

And when the 40m grey-line turned on the DX, boy was the band chockas – wall-to-wall DX and wall-to-wall QRN! However, our valiant team of QRS fans stil had lots of fun, as evidenced by the tertific reports you’ll find below.

Thank you to everyone who had a go, and an especial hat-tipping to those who were able to send in a report. The 20m long-path was working well as well – Mike DL3YZ was pouring in, and I was really pleased to have a QSO again from my 5 Watt portable gear, this time 40KM South of Wangaratta VIC.

Mike reduced power to 5 Watts as well – and he was still RSN 571! Unfortunately, our other DXperimenter, Ross MONNK who had got up before a cold dawn to get out portable didn’t hear a sausage from this side of the globe. Thanks for trying mate.

And despite the QRN, our mate Sava VK4PN up near Brisbane managed to get on air and work Mike and a bunch of others, despite having lost half his offset-fed doublet and part of his transmission line.

It worked just fine on 20m in inverted-L configuration, and even on 40m with just 3 Watts from his home-brewed transmitter.

So I hope you can make time to enjoy the read of our newsletter, and the contributions by so many of our mates – 31 contributors this week – thank you one and all.

And finally, an opening thought from Yuval Noah Harari’s new book Nexus – A Brief History of information Networks from the Stone Age to Al, that Elizabeth and I are reading at the moment:

It is always tricky to define fundamental concepts. Since they are the basis for everything that follows, they themselves seem to lack any basis of their own.

Physicists have a hard time defining matter and energy, biologists have a hard time defining life, and philosophers have a hard time defining reality.

If you’re interested in understanding the meaning of life, or just learning an awful lot about humanity, I can recommend Harari’s books – starting with his best-seller, Sapiens.

Masthead Image

Thanks this week to Jordan VK3ACU for the update on progress after his self-confessed embarrassing motorbike accident. I guess QLF will be out for a while too?

Reports

Please don’t forget, after next Tuesday’s Group, send me a list of who you worked and / or who you heard using our web form here:

To make your report more interesting, please consider sending a photo to be attached by Patrick VK2IOW. If you have a photo that you’d be happy to include, please email it to: cqarsnet@gmail.com To make it even easier for Patrick and me, see if you can compress or reduce the size of the image (preferably to less than 100KB file size).

No problems if your computer or phone can’t do that – just send it through anyway please. So, please help attract new and old team members to have a go by submitting your report each week. Submissions close 1300 (Eastern Australian Summer time) on Thursdays.

Website

If you’d like to find out a bit about our net, or would like to pass information to others about our Tuesday get-togethers, here’s the link to our website.

Bit.ly/CQQRSWebsite Dit-dit, mb Mark Bosma VK2KI / VK6QI Beautiful South Bowning NSW cqqrsnet@gmail.com non impsditi ratione cogitationis

PICO WU .} Tilo Wao AHUUICT YIOal Ue oa near Stuttgart. Conditions in DL were fine, so I even managed to reach OM Stan – ZL3TK in New Zealand for the first time (13,310 miles / 21.419 km ).

And I had a real QRP QSO (using 5W on both sides) with Mark VK2KI at his camping site. All other stations I worked with did S6 or better. The only grain of salt was some ground radar QRM while chatting with David, VK3DBD. A big thanks to all DX st

[40m] I scouted around 40m but didn’t hear too many stations. I was lucky to catch Max VK6FN between QSOs with a bit of QSB. I logged into a couple of SDR receivers to check my signal was getting out as my calling CQ on 7034KHZ had no takers.

I saw a msg that VK2KI was heading to 80m so I tuned up 80m and started searching for CQ calls.

[80m] Mark, VK2KI was very low down on my Rx so I logged into the SDR in Hammond SA to complete the QSO. Mark was running portable out at King Valley (VK3 land). SDR in SA was picking up a lot of crackling QRN so suspect storms in the area.

Background noise floor at my home QTH was L7 but reduced to L3 with the QRM noise eliminator.

[80m] Mark, VK2KI was very low down on my Rx so I logged into the SDR in Hammond SA to complete the QSO. Mark was running portable out at King Valley (VK3 land). SDR in SA was picking up a lot of crackling QRN so suspect storms in the area.

Background noise floor at my home QTH was L7 but reduced to L3 with the QRM noise eliminator. Pompe ee eS og Fee eh Pe eee) oe en

Aclean band with low noise floor but propagation seemed quite geographically limited, no VK5S or VK6S heard. Was unable to work Kevin VK3KEV due to super strong signals close to the channel, meanwhile I was seeing only light snow and a black waterfall 3 kHz either side so was unaware of the problem he was experiencing.

[40m] Great to work Peter on 160M tonight. The band was in poo shape, 20 and 40m very FB.

[20m] OM Mike was 331 QSB but we managed to copy each other OK. Nothing was heard from this side about OM Ross.

[40m] It started with too much QRM, then slowly was getting clear an not many station left on our band. My last QSO was with the BOSS, the OM Mark VK2KI/P who keeps exploring our vast an beautiful land. ENJOY it dear OM Mark.

[40m] It’s a slow start, each week for the 1st few hours, there is not much activity and then the folks seem to arrive on deck.

From your editor Mark VK2KI/P at Edi Cutting campground, King Valley Victoria.

[20m] The CQQRS net actually started for me on Tuesday morning – attempting to throw my arborists’ throw-line up as high as I could in the trees near our AVan.

We were at the Edi Cutting campground in the King Valley; that’s about 40KM South of Wangaratta, Victoria on the last week of our three-week ramble.

Really nice free campground that we’d found on previous journeys without our AVan – so it was nice to finally give it a try. We even saw a platypus in the river. Anyway, back to the story…

As usual, I picked some nice easy over-hanging branches up about 10m… ha! Ok – I couldn’t quite make 10m…. so let’s go for that other one at about 8m? Hmmm….

Anyway, after creating much amusement among the other campers, finally the weight and its special low-friction rope cleared the intended fork. The other ends of my home-brew ZS6BKW doublet were less difficult – being only about 6m up.

So by early afternoon, I was ready to couple to the ether, and we go for a nice 8km bush walk she’d found on a walking App decided it’d be a good test of the off-line Avenza Maps on my iPhone, so off we set.

Well, turns out that the tracks I’d found were different to the ones Ms E had found on her bushwalking App…. and beyond my better judgement, I was navigating. 16KM, two echidnas and one twisted ankle later….. we made it back to our AVan

At 0700Z…. an hour late; oh well, we had a really nice walk, even if it was twice as long as expected. And joy! While we were gone, another pair of old mate campers had set up their site with vehicles, inverters, fridges, cigarettes and who knows what else, right next to where we were – right under my antenna.

Acres and acres of nice spots around… why next to us? I know a number of other camping members of the CQQRS family have experienced the same problem. I know it’s not our very unattractive AVan, and certainly not our personalities…

Oh well – they were very well-behaved and quiet (voice and RF noise-wise), so I guess we can share! When I unpacked my trusty Yaesu FT-817 and hooked it up, 20m was hopping – Mike DLSYZ was thundering in at RSN 581 with the narrow CW filter in; without it he was RSN 699 with static crashes.

Mike was chatting to Sava VK4PN at Mount Ommaney and David VK3DBD at nearby Yackandandah (who we visited in last week’s RagChew). I was surprised that Mike could hear my 5 Watt signal among the QRM and reported RST 539.

Mike switched down to 5 Watts and was still RSN 571 – and with the AGC, he sounded not much different. He may have had trouble burning a hole in the EU QRM with QRP but boy his antenna must have been working a treat.

Once again, Mike had planned to get away at 0700Z for work…. but once again, we’d kept him busy on 20m until well after 07302. Mike and I both went up a few kHz to Ross MONNK’s frequency and gave him a call – nothing at all heard this week.

Ross confirmed by email that he was in fact on from his portable location and had worked some Europeans, but no luck for Mike, and us antipodeans this time, 140M)

After the fun of 20m, I came down to 40m to a barrage of static crashes from thunderstorms that extended from Northern NSW, up through coastal Queensland all the way to Darwin.

I had a chat to Gerard VK2IO/P, one of Australia’s most prolific SOTA and VKFF Parks activators, who we’d met up with on a previous camping expedition. Gerard was VK1; there had been a VKFF National Get Together in 2nd.

And he was takina advantace of the manv SOTA and

After Gerard I heard a huge S9+ signal from Grant ZL2GD near Christchurch; I said g’day but Grant was in the middle of hosting a ZL net.

Instead I came across Lance VK7TO with another huge signal from his classic TS-530S and end-fed half-wave antenna; what fun! Lance advised that dinner was simmering on the stove – which I completely ignored, and rag-chewed on and on far too long.

Sorry mate, I trust the home-made soup wasn’t too badly over-cooked. Dinner break here was Caesar salad, actually made without egg, anchovies, almonds, bacon or croutons….

Ms E came up with a remarkable imitation – mayonnaise, oil, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, soy sauce, home-made onion mush, dry bread, ham and supermarket cos lettuce topped with parmesan cheese; beautiful!

5 on 40m were wall-to-wall, as was the strong piles of DX stations below 7030KHZ; my CW filter helped readability, but things were pretty hairy none-the- less…. I probably should have tried the RF gain.

However, I came across John VK5ET chatting to Manny VK3DRQ, and jagged a QSO with John; at times John’s signal was pushing my FT-817’s S-meter to full scale deflection.

After John, I had an interesting QRP-to-QRP QSO with Sava VK4PN using his 3W home-brewed transmitter – would have been perfect if not for the thunderstorms.

Next up was Manny VK3DRQ – and we enjoyed a nice natter about our various aches and pains – I had to ask Manny to re-spell rheumatologist! Would have been riveting for listeners I’m sure!

I tried unsuccesstully to catch David VK6KD at Ballajura who was a nice RSN 589 with me despite the S-9 crashes – I wondered if perhaps it was the CW waveform- shaping of David’s IC-7610 at work?

However I had more success with Max VK6FN at Manjimup who was RSN 598 from his 10 Watt IC-905; great to catch Max again, and compared to David’s signal, I wouldn’t have guessed that Max was QRP.

Can’t believe how many DxX stations were on 40m this time; despite the S8 QRN, the band was chockablock.

[80m] Of course, 80m was no better QRN-wise, but I did have another chat to Gerard VK2I0/P in a different VKFF Park, then Sava VK4PN who was back on high power, and struggling to read my QRP.

I rounded out the evening with a better attempt with David VK6KD, who was RSN 588. David wasn’t able to copy enough of my miliWatts in Perth, so managed to fill-ir the gaps using a KiwiSDR at Hammond Range in South Australia.

Summary So all in all – another terrific CQQRS net – with great propagation conditions and lots of QRP operators this week… but not so great QRN. I did notice that once again, my sending speed was creeping up during the evening…

Which I attempted to keep under control with Farnsworth spacing – so apologies to listeners who were hoping for some decent QRS practice from me; |’l try to do better next week from home wit my normal keys. Thank you to everyone on air – di-dit.

[40m] Nice to be back in the radio shack here at Echuca after traveling outback Western QLD by 4X4 & camper trailer for a month or so and then sailing the Whitsunday Islands on the Yacht for the past 6 weeks.

So with all the goings-on I really haven’t done muct CW practice, which I’m in desperate need of. Tuesday’s QRS was also hectic as after dining out with friends for the evening, it was race home to catch some contacts on the net before too late.

Thanks go to Kevin VK3KEV and to Mait VK5AO fo performance.

~ Great conditions here last night. All worked with only 10 watts QRP.

Great conditions here last night. All worked with only B 10 watts QRP.

[40m] Joe VK2KJJ had me stumped when he sent his QTH as ‘Wagga X 2′ (Slow, Tone!) I really appreciated his careful sending and was ‘head copying’ for most of our short QSO.

[80m] As the weather has now warmed I operated from our semi – enclosed back veranda with my HB1B QRP rig. Peter, VK3WOW needed several repeats on my rig and power due t QSB, but he was thumping in to Bendigo with his 100 Watts.

We had quite a good discussion with some rather ‘tortuous’ compressions of language on my part.

[40m] had my TS-530s back on air after a full alignment, so was keen to stretch its legs.

Short of time however, I had to fit my single QSO in the brief space affordec by a pot of soup warming on the stove. (Un)fortunately Mark, VK2KI, found my CQ call and I promptly forgot about the soup.

Fortunately, it was a thin soup, and so rather than boiling dry, it instead reduced to a hearty, and very tasty meal.

Ning some nights that I am sending or receiving Morse code, but a rather more unusual “waking dream” phenomenon happened to me after Tuesday night’s session.

Working Tony VKSCTM, who was QRP on 4 watts, I was really struggling to catch his rig, which I constantly mis-copied as an “SB1B” kit (was actually, an “HB1B”, I realise now, though why blame faulty ears when I can always blame QSB?).

Anyway, Tony must have been really on my mind, for next morning, as I was practising call sign recognition with the RufzXP program, what call sign should RufzXP throw at me demanding recognition but

[20m] On Sunday a huge storm hit Mt Ommaney and brot prospect for rag chew on Tuesday looked grim. Anyway I used what was left of the OCF (shorter section and the feeder still hanging on halfway down).

I was tempted to use leftovers as a true ZEPP but tuning was difficult. End-fed using just on leg of the feeder tuned nicely by tapping autotransformer correctly. So I managed 3 contacts on 20 but all QRO. DL3YZ was coming through ver G5RV.

Spent too much time chasing PZ5DX from €

Steele cca aa oh ees, rn CS at an neal cat ccd et aca oe GS5RV. Spent too much time chasing PZ5DX from Surinam. This is a rare on-air country so it was worth it. Again the pile-up was huge but I got lucky.

[40m] Again not enough time for 40m due to too much time spent on 20m. Worked QRP only again but with a BFO offset set correctly for LSB and narrow filter. Checked all against my main rig and both way exchange was fine.

Made a number of calls to stations with big signals and missed every time to stations running QRO. VK2KI/3 made my evening again after my call to VKSTE failed I was called by Mark and we had a nice QSO under very noisy conditions.

To my surprise I got RSN of 588 despite my makeshift antenna.

[80m] Moved to 80m after QSO with Mark as he indicated to me he would be moving to 80 as well but later. Ironside SDR was full of static not a single trace in sight.

Switched to QRO and called few CQs, I could see my cartier at Ironside and it was pretty strong (red most of the time ). Did not expect much under the circumstances but Jordan VK3ACU called me back with a very nice signal.

We had a brief exchange and I continued calling CQ. A faint trace popped up at 530 out of QRS segment so I tuned in and managed a difficult QSO with VK2IO/P he was very faint fading in and out and QRN was vicious.

I managed to copy only the RST but did not copy the name. Could have tried harder but I spotted a faint trace at 3555, Mark of course. Moved up and listened and I was right, Mark working QRP from a caravan park.

We had a nice QSO again but copy at my QTH was difficult. So there you have it, flimsy antenna, bad QRN, but still enjoyable.

From Ross MONNK The alarm goes off at 5:15am. Urgh. Dress, wash face, scoff toast and orange juice. Then out into the inky black of an October morning.

Driving out to my Portable location, I see Venus low in the western sky, surrounded by the faintest glimmer of dawn – the “Grey Line” is approaching – how exciting! Whoever invented head-torches deserves a medal.

But my gear is familiar and I’m soon set up and settled in the passenger seat of the car, surrounded by the paraphernalia of my hobby.

It looked like Mike’s signal was getting to New Zealand and the Caribbean – yippee! We all know that the RBN only plots Short Path routes, regardless of how the signal is actually getting there (in this case, by the Long Path).

And my signals were making at least the first 1000 km hop. So things were looking promising and I started calling “CQ VK de MONNK”.

I heard a Russian (RSBBU) in Moscow (too weak to work) but then I kicked off with a call to a British op (MOMHy) calling “CQ SOTA’ who deserved a reply for working a park at that time in the morning.

A little while after that, I had a pleasant QSO with Hans OE7AWJI in Austria, only 250 kms from Mike as the crow flies. And then a typical call with a strong Italian station (IN3XIV), who gave my reply to his CQ a quick “559 78” and then he was gone.

As you can probably tell, there was plenty of European activity on the 20m band close to my operating frequency. But no DX stations for me this week, despite Mike being busy on the QRS Net 1000 kms to the east. That’s how the DX cookie crumbles sometimes.

Post Morsum 29th October

From Richard VK6HRC. Eight on the South West repeater and AllStar / Echolink hub this morning.

John worked three on 40m and two on 80m a highlight was working Mark on his trusty Yaesu FT817 QRP rig. Looking forward to next week already ! Wayne was kept busy programming a new rig for a while, but got on 40m later to have some fun.

Mark still Glamping in VK3 had a good evening despite the QRN, managed to work Mike DL3YZ on 20m, nothing heard of Ross MONNK unfortunately. Worked six on 40m missed two, was busy on WhatsApp spotting for us as well !

Mike stayed up late to call in to let us know he had a good morning on 20m and is looking forward to the next DX session. David worked two on 40m having to listen out on a Kiwi sdr in VK5 to complete a contact with Mark at one stage.

Max worked six on 40m with his lcom 705 heard VK4PN on 80m and then headed off to a well deserved evening meal with his son on a visit from the UK. I had a contact with Peter VK6NQL on 40m with the HB-1B on loan from a friend

I had a contact with Peter VAGNQL on 40m witn the then called for a while before going into SWL mode for the rest of the session. Thank you to all on last night and this morning / evening 73 Richard.

On My Workbench

Lan VK1HF Gilchrist in other news – VK2JAP and I have been working on our KiwiSDR. It’s up and running in a Mk1 config. Mk2 is to improve the antenna and SNR – that will happen over the next few weeks. It’s a great location for radio up there.

I also got jack of using the kiwi/public page to look for the same old RX’s – so made up a handy links page – the URL’s change automatically to 40/80 depending on the time of day 5:44pm http://snowlinesdr.vkihf.com:8073/ 5:44pm

Another Passive CW Filter

From Adrian VK2WF Following on from the RagChew articles from Phil VK6GZ and Jordan VK3ACU on passive CW filters, I thought the following would be of interest to your readers.

The article is too long for the RagChew newsletter, so instead, here’s a DropBox link that will allow the article to be downloaded.

Https:/Avww.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rbbora2x2bhy0rftaww6v/AAjvpol6gR7T5c6lsHhiR o?rikey=ptijcOvtog6b2u92av2bxfv5g&dl=0 When you click on the link, if you don’t have a DropBox account, DropBox will ask you to sign-in; ignore that request and select the Open in Web Browser option.

Best 73 Adrian Adrian Van Der Byl VK2WF vk2wf@bigpond.com

What’s going on on your workbench? If you have an article or two that you think might be of interest to our readers, please let Mark VK2KI know; email to cqqrsnet@gmail.com For guidance on writing for RagChew, see Articles below.

Head Copy Practice

Anyone who is just starting out with head copy should look at edition 23 – 2025 where we first started with Winnie the Pooh recorded at 12 wpm.

In edition 23, and for a few following Newsletters, there are instructions on how to use these files, and edition 25 – 2025 has information on the Ditto CW : Morse Player app. This week we have the second half of Chapter 6 Wind in the Willows – Mr Toad.

Itis suggested that you read the text file before listening to the audio file. That will make it easier to follow the audio file, and will prepare you for words such as wonted, panoply, portcullis, halberds, murrain, and a few others in Chapter 6 that could lead to some confusion.

The MP3 files have been recorded at 16 wpm and 650 Hz tone. If you prefer a slower speed or different tone, you can create your own MP3 files from the text file at any speed as noted below. Because of MailChimp’s size limits, I’ve split Chapter 6 into 4 parts.

Each part is over 1 hour playing time @ 16 wpm. Parts 3 and 4 are attached below. If you’d like the full chapter in a single file, you can use the complete text of Chapter 6 included in last week’s Newsletter, and convert it yourself with the Ebook2CW app ~ https://fkurz.net/ham/ebook2ew.

Html. I’ve made a few small adjustments to the text to keep it “Morse friendly”. Uncommon punctuation has been removed (the Ditto CW app doesn’t recognise some of it), and contractions have been simplified (for example, we’ll becomes we will).

This week’s attachments include: + Two MP3 files (second half of Chapter 6) * Two text files matching the MP3 segments

You can either play the MP3 files in any media player, or load the text files into the Ditto CW: Morse Player app — https://dittocw.andro.io/.

Both options work well, however Ditto CW gives you complete control over all Mors settings, while a normal media player only allows changes to playback speed, and does that in steps (e.g. +1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x).

Other News

Parks On The Air

From Mark VK2DI G’day Mark. Thanks for the call the other day. It was good to catch up, albeit fleetingly.

The photo is the activation spot from where I worked, you— the old cemetery of Prince Henry Hospital. It was originally used to bury victims of smallpox, as the rule then was that people who died of that disease had to be buried on hospital grounds!

It’s now part of Kamay BB NP. The antenna here is a half size G5RV, 7.75m per side and 5.3m of high impedance balanced feed line to a balun and the AH-705 ATU. It seemed to work pretty well. Were you using a full size version?

Anote for the group: Whenever possible I try to get to a park on mid to late Tuesday afternoons with a view to catching the early starters for the QRS group. To date I haven’t had a lot of success.

If anyone does hear me (usually on 7032 or 7044) please give me a shout. If I’m calling CQ a bit quickly, just answer at the speed you are comfortable with and I’l adjust accordingly. POTA exchanges are a great way to practice since they’re short and sweet.

Becoming a POTA hunter is very easy – just monitor the spotting sites (esp. parksnpeaks.org) and give activators a call and report – they’ll do all the work with logs, you just need to make contact with them.

If you do want to collect awards, sign 73, Mark [Thanks Mark; I’m usually on 20m chasing the DXperimenters in Europe and the UK at the start of the net – so I often miss you.

Perhaps an occasional Alert on our CQQRS WhatsApp Alerts group might bring some callers from the group as well?

And to answer your question about my antenna – it’s a home- spun ZS6BKW variant of the G5RV doublet – the dimensions of the radiator and the

Asee rasdaaet = 25» 106 Liew pasar = 3 Gem Li+l2-24.35m U+2-7sm seme Bene Una T= Maem dw ates 400 Ghee UrQ=2.em r= 2BSEM r= 2M urbesam

Feed- line are different to the original GSRV design to allow use on 80m, as well as the WARC bands. I look forward to catching up again on Tuesdays from either Mozzie- land or your yacht mate.]

Interesting QRZ.com Page

From Phil VK6GX Hi Mark. Over breakfast, I was tuning around on 20m this morning and came across Eric NI4E, on the long path, having a great chat with another W. This prompted me to look him up on QRZ.com.

Do yourself a favour and do likewise, when you have a bit of spare time. ‘Some great advice there, for ALL CW operators and videos too. Checkout the “Duelling Bugs” video.

My apologies for being absent from the net in recent weeks, too much going on here this time of year, getting the place ready for summer. I will make every effort to be there tomorrow. 73, Phil VK6GX.

The Phonetic Alphabet

The ZS6BKW Doublet

From Andrew VK1DA Hi Mark. I’ve seen you refer to the ZS6BKW doublet as a GSRV variant. I think the ZS6BKW is now known in its own right as a recognised antenna design. It’s actually between the double extended zepp (88FT) and the G5SRV (102 ft).

BTW cutting the feedline shorter by 2m makes the impedance more driveable by a good ATU on ALL HF bands other than 60m which we don’t have. That’s how I’ve been using mine ever since the ribbon feed-line got too old and cracked to be usable. Andrew VK1DA

From Anarew VATDA Hi Mark. I’ve seen you refer to the ZS6BKW doublet as a GSRV variant. I think the ZS6BKW is now known in its own right as a recognised antenna design. It’s actually between the double extended zepp (88FT) and the GSRV (102 ft).

BTW cutting the feedline shorter by 2m makes the impedance more driveable by a good ATU on ALL HF bands other than 60m which we don’t have. That’s how I’ve been using mine ever since the ribbon feed-line got too old and cracked to be usable.

Andrew VK1DA [Thanks Andrew. The fact that both you and VK2’s most prolific SOTA-CW activator Gerard VK2IO both have had so much success wuth the ZS6BKW (usually in inverted-Vee form for ease of establishment) led me to give it a try.

Usually take/waste much more time to get it up high and as horizontal as possible than you both (to get the take-off angle down), but I reckon that apart from the time taken, it’s the ducks-guts as an all-round performance antenna for both portable use and for home]

Light Bulb?

CW Ops Update

From Chris VK3QB, CWops Oceania Ambassador Hello everyone, and thanks to those who attended the Zoom session on the 27TH.

Feedback has been positive which is great – again I apologise that our guest was unable to attend, but I hope I was able to make the session reasonably interesting and informative.

I’m chasing down a guest for the November session – so stay tuned – if I can book someone it will be Monday 17% November at 0830UTC.

Also, for those interested in learning or improving their Morse Code I am investigating the possibility of running classes at VK/ZL friendly times early in 2026. It you’re at all interested, drop me an email and/or complete this survey.

73, Chris VK3QB CW Ops # 2949 Wwww.cwops.org

Morse Training Net

Our team member Nic VK7WW runs an on-air 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; you’ll hear lots of the CQQRS team on that net. Jordan VK3ACU has recorded the complete set of lessons which you can now find here:

Https://www. youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHsQmZz6fBXO7swAfbT mutrbbEL17fUQL Contact Nic VK7WW for more info nicholaschantler@hotmail.com including how to join the NTARC DISCORD group to follow the action, or just come along and join in on Wednesdays.

CW Settle to Carlisle Railway Challenge, Week 7 Report

From Stan ZL3TK Last week Appleby-in-Westmoreland’s station revealed it has a special feature, useful and worth keeping but not used very often these days.

Plus, we got to see a 12TH century estate complete with a tall, square, stone keep built for the family of Ranulf Le Meschin, the 3rd Earl of Chester. This week, just north of Selkeld there’s something really worth the stop at Langwathby.

As neolithic stone circles go, Long Meg and her 68 daughters should not be missed, they await your inspection.

CW Settle to Carlisle Railway Challenge, Week 7 Report

Very pleasing to hear participants week-by-week proving the value of participating in the STC challenge. Admittedly, improvements in skill are personal and subjective, however, if we equate sending quality as inversely proportional to the number of repeat requests, then there’s no mistaking that challenges such as STC work really well as a training tool.

Repeat requests, except any resulting from QRM and now possible after every answer, are simply not happening. 73 ES77 deStan ZL3TK

CW Ops News for 31 October 2025

From Chris VK3QB, CWops OC Ambassador Not much from me this week — my XYL and I are off to ZL for 2 weeks on Saturday, so we’ve been busy packing and getting organised.

Registration for CW Academy classes has been positive — if you’re interested check the news below.

CW Ops

CW Academy is a great learning environment, and CW Ops runs these classes three times per year. If you’te at all interested, the next intake is in January 2026.

I’m running a survey until the middle of November to see if there is sufficient interest for classes at VK/ZL friendly times. If you are at all interested in a class in January/ February 2026, please complete the survey.

/Horms.gle/6Y¢ iDARDExn: lf you have any questions, please drop me an email, Courses are eight weeks long and no matter your level, you’ll come out the other side with better skills and more enjoyment from the code. CW Academy is immersive, engaging and fun.

Https://ewops.org/ew-academy/ As always, if you have any questions or feedback, please drop me an email 78, Chris VK3QB & VKiCWO. CW Ops OC Ambassador wk2Anh@hatmail cam ar vit ewn@nitlank cam,

The WIA’s Technical Advisory Committee has advised of a review of the Australian amateur radio band plans. Click on the link below for more information and to get to the link to the TAC’s consultation document, as well as information on how to respond to the proposals.

The WIA has opened the consultation from now until December 12TH. As we saw with last year’s IARU consultation about proposed changes to the 40m band, the Technical Advisory Committee is keen to receive input from interested individuals and groups.

We’ll need to let the TAC know how popular CW has again become to try to maintain a reasonable balance between our interests, and that of the more popular / less challenging modes.

Would one of our team like or be available to review the consultation document and let us know what’s needed please? cqgrsnet@gmail.com

Mind Bending Puzzle Solved

From John VK2RU Stan’s Mind Bending Puzzle in Newletter 42 took a while to solve. I originally copied this from the sound file- UNEH REH LLO WAIPPOH.-.- QV MEFVORP WAIFIE…- GOF SREHTOM RDOQ EBFOS OT UEIRT DOQ TEWROL TOA SD TEF Stan is an excellent operator, and there’s no way he would send a mistake like ‘.–‘.

So he must have sent it on purpose. I looked through the letters in the message, and found that C, J, K, X, Y and Z hadn’t been used. Presumably ‘.-.-‘ represented one of those unused letters. SREHTOM had my attention from the start and seemed to be a key.

Then I noticed that the Morse elements for all the letters in the word ‘mothers’ can be reversed and still represent the same letter. Then it clicked. ‘.-.~‘is C in reverse. From there it was downhill all the way.

Working backwards from the end, and reversing all the Morse, FET becomes LET, DS becomes US all the way through to HENU which becomes HEAD. So, we end up with a famous quote from Blackadder who was replying to Baldricks “I have a cunning plan”

Have a& CUTIE Viel “LET US NOT FORGET YOU TRIED TO SOLVE YOUR MOTHERS LOW CEILING PROBLEM BY CHOPPING OFF HER HEAD” With a bit of luck that little exercise has reactivated a couple of brain cells, or at worst, slowed the decay in the few still remaining.

PICAVNS CA WMALIETIE ING PICATE “LET US NOT FORGET YOU TRIED TO SOLVE YOUR MOTHERS LOW CEILING PROBLEM BY CHOPPING OFF HER HEAD” With a bit of luck that little exercise has reactivated a couple of brain cells, or at worst, slowed the decay in the few still remaining.

If you’ve read something that you think might be of interest to our readers, please let me know. For guidance on writing for RagChew, see Articles below. Please email material to Mark VK2KI: cqqrsnet@gmail.com

Readable Five

What have you been reading lately? ompiled on the track somewhere by John VK2RL

Practice or Talent?

From Roy VK6RR Hi Mark. Sorry for not being very active in QRS – but Marine Rescue volunteer work has become more or less full time.

Hopefully soon it will ease and a few of the hats I wear will be moved on – at the moment I am having to cover IT, Coms, Roster manager and new Radio op trainer. besides doing up to 40HRS of radio watch ina week due to lack of volunteers!!!

This is taking a lot of time!! Fingers crossed that it will ease soon. Thanks for all your efforts Mark. 73 Roy

Margaret Atwood on CW7

OCTOBER 15, 2025 BY DAN KB6NU 2 COMMENTS: Ilike to read nonfiction by great writers. So, when I found the book, Burning Questions and Occasional Pieces by Margaret Atwood on the shelf at the Ann Arbor District Library, I picked it up.

Margaret Atwood — for those of you who don’t know her – is a renowned Canadian author, perhaps most well-known for her book, The Handmaid’s Tale, which has been adapted for both film and TV. Burning Questions and Occasional Pieces is a collection of essays.

In the essay, Five Visits to the Word-Hoard, Atwood talks about how she writes and what makes a successful writer. She says, You can work at a thing, and you can learn it. But, only up to a point. Beyond that comes the talent, which is a given.

It’s there or it isn’t there, in varying quantities, and it can’t be predicted or demanded, and it is not reasonable and predictable, and it can be with you at one point in your life and then vanish. Practising a craft can awaken a dormant talent.

Conversely, too much practising can kill it. Such matters are incalculable, and much depends on coincidence and luck. I think that operating Morse Code is kind of like this.

Most everyone can learn how to send and receive the code, but not everyone is going to be able to operate at 50+ words per minute. To do that, it takes some talent. But, even if you have a talent for the code, you need to practice to realize that talent.

As for awakening a dormant talent, you may never know that you have a talent for Morse Code unless you try it. Back in the 1970S, we didn’t have a choice as to whether we wanted to try it or not.

That’s not the case today, so if you’re a licensed radio amateur, I’d encourage you to give it a try. It might wake up that CW operator inside you.

As far as too much practice killing your desire to operate Morse Code, I’d say that there’s some truth in that, too. If you think that you’re overdoing it, back off a little. Knowing Morse Code is not a matter of life and death, after all.

It’s just another part of our hobby, and hobbies are supposed to be fun. Related Posts: 1. Things I found while twittering 2. Amateur radio videos: Ham radio in Lego World, making satellite contacts, learning difficult CW characters 3.

Operating Notes: WOW!, 1×4 callsigns 4, How to help kids learn CW?

If you’ve read something that you think might be of interest to our readers, please let me know so John and I can share more thoughts and ideas. For guidance on writing for RagChew, see Articles below. Please email material to Mark VK2KI: cqqrsnet@gmail.com

Prosign/Character/Signal of the Month

[Suggestion – put it on a sticky note near your key as a reminder for Tuesday. Tell us how you went!]

I Hear Tell…

Ok, I’ll tell you a story about my stupidity! Here we were, setting up camp at the beautiful Edi Cutting free campsite in Victoria’s King Valley.

Pouring rain on the way down from Bright on the Great Alpine Road, which finally let up by the time we got here. Found a nice spot on the river and positioned our little ‘AVan and jacked it level enough – all good.

Then for whatever reason, I decided to uncouple Elizabeth’s Forester – can’t recall exactly why, but there must have been a reason which had something to do with the Moyhu Pub, about 12KM back up the road – too far to walk.

‘d jacked up the front of the van to level it, but because of the angle of the dangle, the tow hitch wouldn’t uncouple. So while Ms E wound-up the rear stabiliser jacks on the van, I jacked up the front of the van until the weight of the car was enough to release the tow hitch.

All good so far. I had been facing the AVan to wind up the jockey wheel, and soon enough the tow ball came out of the hitch.

Luckily I turned around in time to see that Ms E’s Forester had decided to obey the laws of gravity – it was on a slope and was rolling off quietly and happily toward a steep 2m bank down to the King River.

I scampered off after it; luckily, the driver’s side door was unlocked, and I could turn the steering wheel until the ignition lock engaged, then hoik on the hand-brake!

This time the forces of friction beat the forces of gravity, and the car stopped with the off- side front wheel on the edge of the river embankment.

Phew! But what a laugh! Did I tell you that my last career role was as the risk-management advisor to the head of a very large Government organisation? Ha! Lesson to me…. never, never uncouple the van without checking both the van and the car’s hand-brakes!

[If you have some intel about other team members… or even yourself… that’s worth sharing, please let me know cqqrsnet@gmail.com J

Di-dah-di-dah-dit

So back to the CQQRS Slow CW QSO practice net

Next Tuesday’s Net

Our CQQRS Group will be on as always on Tuesday from around 0600Z until about 12002; see https://bit.ly/CQQRSWebsite and navigate to the Net Details page 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. We’ll have fun.

There’s usually people around until after 1200Z – so keep calling in the segment of the band designated in the table below until you catch someone.

I should be on as usual from home in NSW or via the Remote at Bedfordale WA, and I’ll also be watching the proceedings using the VK6QS and Tecsun SDRs in WA and NSW respectively. Hope to hear you there.

Reports & Photos

Please let us know via our Reports form bit.Jy/GQQRSNET who you work or hear on Tuesday’s Group. The report form closes at lunchtime (Eastern Australian time) on Thursday. ‘And how about helping to make the reports even more interesting by sending a photo?

If you have a photo that you’d be happy to include, please email it to: cgqrsnet@gmail.com To make it even easier for our Reports editor Patrick VK2IOW, see if you can reduce the size of the image (to less than 100KB file size by preference).

No problems if your computer or phone can’t do that – just send it through anyway please. And of course, I’m always on the lookout for more photos for the newsletter, so if you have something that might be of interest aside from the reports, please send it through as well – I always enjoy the photos that our readers send – and I’m sure our readers do too.

Email them to cqqrsnet@gmail.com please (reduced size if possible – but whatever you send will be great). Oh and by the way, I recommend that you don’t keep the Reports Form website open between submission of reports from one week to the next.

If you’re unlucky, there’s an undocumented feature in the software that could cause your current week’s report to be combined with your previous report – it’s happened to your editor several times – much to the chagrin of our Reports editor 🙂

Post Morsum

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).

See https://bit.ly/CQQRSWebsite and navigate to the Net Details page for details of how you can connect via Echolink or even possibly via your local FM repeater.

Articles

The newsletter is interesting to readers because of the material contributed by so many people – be it the reports each week or the various articles. Could you write a short article or articles for RagChew? You bet! Writing not your strong point?

Don’t worry, I’m very happy to help as much or as little as needed. Here’s a thought – although our readers will much prefer your own writing, perhaps have a go at using a Large Language Model Artificial Intelligence tool such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini to check your writing or even to actually draft the whole article in a relaxed easy-to-read manner!

You can find out more about how to do that on the Newsletter page on our website bit.ly/CQQRSWebsite. Our website also includes a suitable prompt (the command you feed to the Al to make it do what you want).

Please remember though – you must fact-check anything that an Al tool drafts for you because Als ‘hallucinate’ – ie if an Al can’t find what you’re looking for, it will make up an answer and present it as a fact!

This is one of the dangers of using Als – it’s quite probable that the tool will create a very readable and convincing draft that is 100% wrong! You as the submitter are responsible for fact-checking.

But it’s a learning experience – please let us know how you went if you had a go with this new generation of tool. And by the way – lam very concerned about our future in a world of Al – but I’m pleased to see that school and university curriculums now focus on understanding the risks – for instance, kids are now learning critical thinking something that used to be taught mostly at post-graduate level.

When the typewriter was invented, people predicted the downfall of handwriting; when the word processor was invented, the art of writing was thought to be on the way out – ditto for the spreadsheet and arithmetic, AM, SSB and FT-8 for amateur radio etc.

We can ignore Al and hope that it just goes away… or we can learn to handle it through experimentation and use. For more guidance on writing for the RagChew newsletter (including help with using an Al), head to our website bit.ly/CQQRSWebsite then click the menu on the top right and then click RagChew Newsletter.

Material

Areminder; if you send me any information by email, our report form or WhatsApp – unless you specifically state that material is not to be published, I’ll assume that you’re happy to see your thoughts in the RagChew newsletter.

Thank you so much to our team of 31 contributors: DL8YZ, MONNK, VK1DA, VK1HE, VK2DI, VK2IOW, VK2NNW, VK2RU, VK2WF, VK3ACU, VK3BWN, VK3CTM, VK3DRQ, VK3ECH, VK3QB, VK3WOW, VK4PN, VK5AO, VKSET, VK5FD, VK5KFG, VK6FN, VK6GX, VK6HRC, VK6KD, VK6KHZ, VK6NQL, VK6RR, VK7TA, VK7TO and ZL3TK.

And a special thank you to our editorial team, Nigel G4RWI (head of software development), Patrick VK2IOW (reports coordinator), John VK2RU (researcher), Richard VK6HRC (Post Morsition) and Lance VK7TO (technical editor). Great work all!

UY CW on Tuesday, mb Mark Bosna VK2KI/ VKEQI Beautiful South Bowning NSW ‘eqarsnet@gmail.com non impedit ratione cogitationis

About the CQ QRS Net

For the current schedule and more information about the CQQRS net, please go the the Net Details page on our website:

The opinions expressed in the RagChew newsletter are those of the individual contributors. The opinions do not necessarily reflect that of the editor or of the CQ QRS Group members.

Any material and images received from members by the editor or published on the CQQRS WhatsApp groups may be published in this newsletter unless specifically requested otherwise.

The values, doctrine and guidelines for the Group and for the newsletter are published on the Principles page of the group’s website https://bit.ly/CQQRSWebsite

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