cq_qrs_newsletter

2025 29 CQ QRS RagChew

Below is a reconstruction of the 2025 29 CQ QRS RagChew newsletter designed to support full text searching. This reconstruction was built using OCR, and will contain errors.

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Contents

CQ QRS RagChew

Weren’t conditions interesting again on Tuesday? Some people heard nothing, for others it was like Bourke Street! I was excited again to see 80m abuzz (is that a word? It is now!) this week.

Thank you to our great QRS family for making this such a great net for so many people. And thank you if you sent in a report on what you heard on Tuesday – that’s the spirit! In this week’s newsletter, there’s just so much of interest to read.

The search for a pair of landing frequencies for our net on 160M continues and Peter VK3WOW has done some pros and cons research into Stan ZL3TK’s suggestion of moving to a groups.io platform instead of the MailChimp newsletter; thank you Peter.

Ross MONNK reports on the testing that he and Mike DL3YZ had done on directional portable antennas, and we also have this week’s head-copy practice from John VK2RU – the Kanga Chapter… and there’s so much more to read and enjoy.

Well so much for getting the newsletter out in one day! Despite the help of three sub-editors, here I am on Friday night still pecking away! Oh well! ll try harder next week!

Masthead Image

Lan VK5CZ doing what we encourage…. relaxing and enjoying some nice QRS rag chews on our Tuesday net.

This Week’s Net Schedule

Rob VK6LD pointed out to me last week that our preliminary 160M sked frequency of 1855KHZ was in fact used for a week-night SSB net in WA, along with 1870KHZ! In all the places in all the world, we picked one that was in use!

We’ll leave it as 1855KHZ this week; our signals should be zero beat on an SSB receiver on 1855KHZ, but still we don’t want to make life any more difficult for the native and settler users, so we’ll come up with another frequency soon.

I’ve asked a few 160M operators for advice, but I’m keen to hear your thoughts for a suitable primary and secondary pair of frequencies – please let me know cqarsnet@gmail.com

So for those who haven’t listened-in or had a go on our net – you might be wondering how it works? Most nets have a net controller and some sort of operating protocol. Well our net is different!

It’s a bit like a symposium (dictionary definition of symposium…. a drinking party mainly of ancient Greeks) – except without many ancient Greeks that I know of.

People come to our segments of 40m or 80m and either call CQQRS or listen around for other QRS stations – either to respond to, or relax and enjoy copying. The aim is to create a safe environment for newer CW operators to have a go…

And for less new operators to just enjoy the camaraderie. And there’s usually shed-loads of both – people and camaraderie – see the reports below – last week we had 65 stations on! – and most of them just had a ball.

If you haven’t had a go, or perhaps you’ve got out of the habit – next Tuesday might be calling you? Even if you decide not to transmit – please send in a report to say g’day.

Reports

So after eachTuesday’s Group, please send me a list of who you worked and / or who you heard using our web form here:

Help attract new and old team members to have a go by submitting your report each week. Submissions close 1300 (Eastern Australian time) on Thursday.

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 Cheers, mb Mark Bosma VK2KI / VK6QI Beautiful South Bowning NSW mark.bosma@icloud.com non impsditi ratione cogitationis

This week’s comments have come from our webform reports and have been compiled for us by Patrick VK2IOW; thanks Patrick.

It was fun to listen in to the 40m band via the Ironstone Range web-SDR and much more comfortable to do so in my dressing gown from my home rather than ona distant beach or park.

I’ll soon miss the outdoor adventures though, so I’ll definitely be out there on a Tuesday in the autumn.

[80m] was just listening on the wonderful Ironstone SDR ind did some SWL on 40m today. heard Sava – VK4PN calling up here in Germany, but was not able to reach him. Greetings from Germany – ave a great week 73 Mike

[80m] Sorry folks bit tired was zzz a bit on last QSO so pulled pin.

From Max VK6FN at Manjimup 6258 Western Australia

[40m] I found conditions very good tonight coming in from all over the east coast in particular.

From George Comninos VK2AOE at Sydney/Kogarah

[40m] QSB was DEEP!!!! One minute people booming….then radio silence!

[80m] I really enjoyed getting back into it tonight. Family reasons kept me away the last two weeks and I could already feel the brain rust settling in.

I struggled with ‘F’ and ‘J’ tonight which is a bit silly given one of them is in my call sign (hope you all get a giggle), however by the end of the night I had myself sorted.

Operating from my home QTH so no use of the nice 40M/80M antenna I cut at the local sports field last weekend, however I am traveling again next week so will be operating from somewhere with a bit less

Noise and a bit of space to string the new antenna up, and won’t be caught out again being mobile and lacking an 80m antenna.

Thank you to those stations who were patient at the start of the night when I had to ask for some details twice, by the end of the night I was getting it on the first listen. I am really enjoying the CQ QRS community and look forward to it each week.

[40m] Bit of QRM, QSB. Not many stations heard from previous weeks.

[80m] Band less noisy than 40m. Good QSOs with stations

[40m] I used my straight key tonight. I adjusted the HK-707, and it’s a lot easier on the arm now. I don’t tend to rest my elbow or anything, so I’m trying to get the ergonomics right. I think I’ve got the springs set just right.

I probably need to give the key a good clean too. Any ideas what to use?

[40m] No luck on 20m, enjoyable contacts on 40m

[40m] Too busy on 80m tonight. I did run across 40m during the an A night but heard no stations.

[80m] Quite a lot of QRS CW operators on 80m. QSB was playing : up a bit but repeated information got messages through. oe eliotn w mem ol) Chal the ote RASCOE neindup sentonete sencateniar pars CLAD arabes rer sarees

[40m] A brief listen but nothing heard on 40.

[80m] All QRP using the QMX+ which was more successful this week. OM Manny gave an S8 report from Blackburn. It is working properly on 160, 80 and 40 but I have yet to coax much power out of it on 20 and above.

[40m] The noise level does arrive after 1800 WST, and it’s tricky to pick out any CW stations.

[40m] 40 had several CW stations then went quiet.

[40m] Was listening on 40m 7.033 and TX on 160M 1812 kHz. Was quite fun looking for cross band QSO. VK3KLE made the first good QSO, had a few signal reports as well. Many thanks guys for trying something different.

[80m] I did enjoy the short time I had available and the _ greatest enjoyment was to work a young lad of only 18. It was James, VK3JFR from Ararat. Well done young man. We certainly need many more ive errma 1 tAlanen awe tied mle

[80m] It was a blast to brush up on my Spanish with Manny. Although mine absolutely trashed the grammar but I am sure he enjoyed sending code in Spanish. It is great to be back on the net after about 2 weeks of absence. Until next time guys!

[40m] I was able to operate only for short periods as other activities were intruding but conditions here (Bendigo) were very good on the 40 meter band.

[40m] 40m was percolating along happily here when I came down from 20m. Nice to chat to James VK7JZ – my fist must be improving because James reported that he copied a fair amount of whatever I was trying to send.

I came across Paul VK3KLE at Stawell calling CQ and advising that he was celebrating our introduction of 160M for the CQQRS net by running cross-band QSOs from 160M to 40m; Paul’s intention was to allow our CQQRS family members without 160M antennas to have a listen, but respond on 40m.

Sh tN tit icra pote MN I el BAI eA BIS I IAD fo crema DT yt tts photo) so I used the nearest KiwiSDR – K1CM down in Farrer in the ACT.

Although ie SDR had a Cushcraft R8 antenna which »vered 6m to 40m, Paul’s 160M signal was a scent RSN 562 with 50 Watts from his classic 350S Johnson Valiant transmitter and 160M pole.

Great initiative Paul, and I hope others ok advantage of the opportunity this week – Ad that you’ll do it again in future when you an.

After a pleasant dinner with Ms Elizabeth, I scurried into the shack to have a CWops Morse Mania Winter 2025 Contest QSO with John VK2RU/4 up at Charters Towers near Townsville.

[80m] John VK2RU/4 was a nice RSN 541 over the 1600KM path on 40m, so we also slipped down to 80m to have a try – John’s signal was stronger RSN 562 off the null ends of my double-extended Zepp but his noise level was up to $6 – so he struggled with my 50 Watts – but thanks for trying mate.

80m seemed to be jumping on Tuesday – a decent number of QSOs were visible on the KiwiSDRs in VK1, VK5 and VK6 that I used. I celebrated our net’s new lower frequency by setting up on 3535KHZ, and was kept busy all night with chats.

I hooked up with Joe VK2KJJ at Wagga who was using a temporary (sure Joe!) 18m long wire up only 3m; despite that, Joe was $5 into the VK6SEG KiwiSDR near Northam WA.

It was great to hook up again with David VK6KD at Ballajura; this week his crystal clear CW had returned, after he tracked down a chattering relay in his new noise canceller during the week; like most CW operators, David enjoys the improved CW readability that headphones provide, so last week he couldn’t hear that the relay was playing up when he keyed the transmitter – well done mate.

After David I finally hooked up with Peter VKSKDO at Encounter Bay; it’s funny with so much of our use of email and WhatsApp to chat, I didn’t realise that it had been 8 months since our last CW QSO – back when he was still VK7KPC.

Peter VK6NQL then caused me confusion (hmmm, actually that’s not such a hard thing!); he chatted away and knew my name, but searches of my membership list, emails and QRZ.com didn’t enlighten me at all.

Peter was enjoying the havoc, but finally admitted, that he was also VK6IS – ah ha! Anyway, it was nice to have good conditions across Australia on 80 again.

I rounded out my evening with a nice chat to Manny VK3DRQ who was chasing an odd SWR problem; funny how lately, our ionospheric and other conditions have caused a number of our family members to have to head outside during the night to check their antennas.

Anyway, I hope all was well there Manny. [160M] As I discussed above, I had a nice cross-band QSO with Paul VK3KLE at Stawell using the VK1CM KiwiSDR as my receiver.

Later when the founder of our 160M initiative, Jordan VK3ACU was calling CQ on our interim net frequency of 1855KHZ, he was a solid strength 9 into the SDR, using only its 6m to 40m vertical.

Also from your editor Mark VK6QI via the VK5PH KiwiSDR network at Ironstone Range, the VK6SEG KiwiSDR at Hoddys Well and the SDR at the University of Twente in Enschede Holland.

[20m] The Reverse Beacon network told me that both Chris G7BED and Geoff PA/VK6HD were transmitting, when I came into the shack a little late.

Chris was up and down into the VK6SEG Hoddys Well KiwiSDR; his signal was better at RSN 221 into the VK5PH Ironstone Range SDR network though.

The Italian station what came up to say g’day was slightly stronger and signals actually started improving a tad around 0745Z.

I thought I’d try cranking up the Southern Electronics Group’s VK6CRO Remote at the Space and Technology Museum at Carnarvon (knowing it still had the shut-down problem at higher power settings); however, I didn’t even get that far; the internet connection seemed to keep dropping out, then my internet router decided to re-boot itself…

I took the hint after about 10 minutes of attempts, knowing Chris would be keen to be off to work, after his three- week family holiday in Thailand. I was also listening out for Captain Geoff, PA/VK6HD/MM on the Dutch canals near Rotterdam.

I saw an occasional trace on the VKSPH Ironstone Range SDR waterfall, but nothing to write home about – or in-fact, to confirm that it was his QCX-mini’s massive 5 Watts.

I then dialled up a KiwiSDR near Rotterdam – and ended up listening to one at the University of Twente at Enschede, 120KM from Geoff; surprisingly for what would have to have been near-vertical incidence refraction, Geoff was QS – the ionosphere must have been particularly strong in Holland at the time.

[80m] Propagation from the East and North East into the VK6SEG KiwiSDR near Northam and the VK5PH network at Ironstone Range was good – decent signals, including from John VK2RU/4 up at Charters Towers, Joe VK2KJJ at Wagga with his short long-wire up only 3m and Peter VKSKDO with his on-going new location antenna tests.

[160M] At 1120Z, Jordan VK3ACU was calling CQ on our interim net frequency of 1855KHZ; he was $9 into the VKSPH KiwiSDR at Ironstone Range, and $5 into the SDR near Northam WA; amazing!

From Patrick VK2IOW at Between Bathurst and Orange

[20m] I missed the QRS net last week, so I thought I would see whether I could make contact with Chris, G7BED, on 20 metres. I was ready and waiting at 0700Z when he

Post Morsum — July 16th

From Richard VK6HRC Five on the VK6RLM RPTR and South West Echolink / AllStar hub. + VK6KD David + V5ET John + VK6QI Mark + VK6FN Max + VK6HRC + VK6MRB Mulligan swl and others.

Well the net got off to a very disorganised start as I silenced the alarm at 05:00 and hung onto the bed covers too long and nodded off !

Woke up just before 06:00 and stumbled into the shack still half asleep and got the net going causing some merri- ment to more organised folk waiting to join.

David called in from his mobile shack to let us know he had two contacts on 80m and one on 20m into the US. Still working on the noise canceller which has a faulty relay now, but the new rig is fine tuned now.

In spite of the heavy rain and early morning darkness got to work without any missed turns / detours not like last week where got distracted or as some suggest forgot where to go after a year off!

John had two contacts on 40m and two on 80m where Peter VK6IS with his new call VK6NQL caused some contusion for a while! Mark monitored 20m traffic on mulitple KiwiSDR nodes heard some faint dits and dahs from Geoff VK6HD in the Netherlands but no contacts.

On 40m worked three heard six, worked two on 80m. There was even some cross-band testing on 40/160M with Paul VK3KLE as well, more in the Ragchew.

Max worked six on 40m, when he was just about to sign off for the evening after speaking with John VK5ET, Patrick VK2IOW gave Max a call and they had a great ragchew. Max was a very happy chappy! fies erratic ita. eden fees He period

This Week’s Topic of Interest

A Future RagChew Option? Would a groups.io account work? by Peter Dann VAKSWOW

| would like to second the suggestion from Stan ZL3TK that we transition from publishing CQQRS Net updates and what is currently a Mailchimp newletter to a series of at least partially-curated posts on a dedicated Groups.io mail list.

I have two main difficulties with the current made of disseminating information. First, it is well-nigh impossible to search past issues to find out what, if anything, might have been said previously about a certain topic.

Second, it is not a viable medium of interaction. My experience of Groups.io derives almost wholly from my membership of a Morserino group to which I subscribe to receive a “daily digest’, rather than to get every message forwarded to me as soon as it is posted.

Here is an example of what a “daily digest” looks like at the top. There is a nice hyperlinked “table of contents” that shows what topics have been discussed in the past 24 hours, and how many posts have been received for each post.

If I click on the third item (say) in this table of contents, my mail reader takes me immediately down the page to the relevant posts, which are grouped together.

| can search the whole history of all posts ever made to the group very easily, as seen in this example where, in the search box at top right, I have elected to search for all past posts including the term “serial port”.

It seems to me it should be possible to “publish” what is, today, an announcement of an upcoming event and a newsletter, as a series of discrete postings to a group, each of which has a heading just like it has now in the current format.

Users COULD in theory subscribe to get all copies of all these posts as separate emails, but a more sensible option would be to subscribe to a “daily digest” as I have described above.

Users would then get a nicely formatted email with a table of contents, and each week’s contents would remain forever searchable.

The main downside is that Groups.io emails, at least in digest form, do not handle pictures as nicely as the current mode of publication. Here is an example of a post which had two accompanying pictures:

The user (at least in my email client, Mac Mail) gets to see a preview of the two pictures sent with a post, but to see them properly, would have to click on the attachments.

I would happily trade this “downside” for the vastly better search ability provided by Groups.io — but others, of course, may have very different opinions about that.

Update from Peter

[Thank you Peter for this excellent analysis, and to Stan ZL3TK for the original suggestion in last week’s RagChew edition 28/2025.

I’ve also been in groups that used groups.io but found the format to be somewhat uninspiring; however, your suggestion of members receiving a searchable weekly digest peaks my interest.

I’m keen to hear others’ experience with groups.io in other special interest organisations. We now have three sub-editors helping me with production every week, which has made a big difference, but I’m still keen to find several people who are willing to run complete weeks’ editing on 2 rotational basis.

~~ can’t get to that, a partly self-generated groups.io system (with our sub-editors providing the key material) might be the answer. Readers thoughts please?] cqqrsnet@gmail.com

If you have an article or two that you think might be of interest to our readers, please let me know so we can share more thoughts and ideas; email to cqqrsnet@gmail.com

On My Workbench

Directional Antenna Testing

From Ross MONNK In last week’s RagChew newsletter (RagChew 28/2025) Simon MOKBJ has documented his recent DX successes and failures, which made for very interesting reading.

It confirms what we all suspect – unless you have a big directional antenna and lots of power, DX Portable is always going to be dependent on a number of factors (propagation, operating location, time of day, position in the solar cycle, antenna, etc) all coming together.

When that happens, it’s a great feeling. But mainly it’s a great feeling because it happens so rarely. Mike DL3YZ and I have been experimenting with directional antennas for DX Portable operations (more reports to follow!).

In fact, we were beeping at each other on 20m this morning, with me trying out my Half Square antenna, and a Vertical with elevated radials both with and without a Reflector (the Reflector was just a cheap 5.6m telescopic whip positioned about 5m behind the Driven Element).

Both antennas had a low SWR so a tuner was not required. Power was 20 Watts and 5 Watts out of my Xiegu G90 radio, and the coax was 10m of RG174 (so negligible feedline losses).

My operating site was half a kilometre back from the cliffs between Exmouth and Sidmouth on the south coast of England, so it has a good view over the sea towards southern Germany.

After six test transmissions, the results are in!

Mike reports: The general average noise level at his receiver was S6, with QSB +/- about half an S reading.

Mike reports:

1. Half Square 20 W => S9 + 20 dB 2. Half Square 5 W => S8 3. Vertical + two elevated radials + 5.6m Reflector 20 W => S9 + 10 dB 4.

Vertical + two elevated radials + 4m Reflector 20 W => S9 + 20 dB (I didn’t measure the Reflector length – just shortened it visually to less than the Driven Element) 5. Vertical + two elevated radials + 4m Reflector 5 W =>S9+5dB 6.

Vertical + two elevated radials (no Reflector) 5 W => S9+10dB

Summary

The Executive Summary from these tests is: « the Half Square is more hassle to set up and probably not worth the effort even though it’s clearly a good antenna.

– the Vertical + two elevated radials in a V-shape is an excellent directional antenna and is not improved by having a Reflector element.

Having said that, if you’re prepared to fine tune the Reflector using a VNA or antenna analyser (which I’m not), it might be possible to get a performance improvement. Very many thanks to Mike for being at the other end and taking the readings.

He makes this sort of thing more fun than it has any right to be!

And Simon – I look forward to more of your splendid reports when you resume VK DX in the European autumn. Ross MONNK

[Fantastic to see some nice antenna experimentation Ross and Mike – thank you for taking the time to share the results with our QRS family.]

Satellite Ground station

From Chris G7BED at Northamptonshire The start of the G7BED satellite ground station… my project bench for the next few months <&

Julia’s Antenna Farm

From Geoff PA/VK6HD/MM Whilst wire antennas are more problematic in the wind than the JPC12, they offer more flexibility on board.

With just the one small squid pole I have a number of options including EFRW (12m wire) coupled with a small ATU, 20m (14 mhz) EFHW

And 1/4 wave vertical. Noting Warren’s (VK3BYD) recent comments in Rag Chew, and his reliance on EFHWs and and ATU, I suspect I might be best served going that way as it gives me the flexibility to band hop. Cheers, Geoff VK6HD on the Canals of Holland

What’s going on on your wrokbench? If you have an article or two that you think might be of interest to our readers, please let me know; email to cqqrsnet@gmail.com

Other News

RagChew Theme Song?

From Mike DL3YZ Just found this on DLARC ( a project that tries to gather Ham radio content as cultural heritage ) https://archive.org/details/hamradioandmore Maybe you like it 🙂

[This is terrific – what a great find Mike – thank you!]

From Roy VK6RR The Romanian Boy who at 13 year’s old receives Morse code at the speed of 1160 characters/minute!

From Roy VK6RR

Https://www.veron.nl/nieuws/ianis- scutaru-yo8yns-vestigt-nieuw- record-in-snelle-telegrafie/ 73 Roy VK6RR

From Geoff PA/VK6HD

From Paul VK3KLE at Stawell. Hey Mark Ive been a bit less active lately, concentrating on domestic life. I can see our membership is spreading its wings to other bands. I was quiet excited to read we will progress our groups net to TOP BAND 160M.

I feel this is a fairly monumental and fantastic milestone. As I have my 160M dipole still up, I have setup the Johnson Valiant on a separate bench for top band again.

The RX is my Drake R4A with a Crystal locked VFO (yes I actually had a crystal for receiving on 1855KC). I have opted for a foot switch to mute the RX, very old school.

From Paul VK3KLE at Stawell

I’ll might later go with my Tentec omni as the front end has U310 FETs that can tolerate a little RF from an adjacent near- field transmitter on another nearby antenna.

This might be worth reminding our members about, especially to those with receivers with surface-mount PCBs; this

Is the majority of current crop of rigs that most people have. My Kenwood TS-590 will become toast if I don’t unplug it’s 40m antenna when the 160M station goes tx. I can give ita degree of protection with a Dunestar Bandpass filter for 40m band only.

I can fire up the vintage TR-3 drake easily on 40m. It’s tubes and RX coil won’t mind a couple of Watts input from the wrong direction. All the best on top band boys, Paul VK3KLE

[Thanks Paul. Here’s what can happen to the front- end attenuator on an FT-911 with too much FF from another transmitter!

The VK6CRO Remote at Carnarvon apparently has the same fault – turn on the attenuator or the so-called Intercept Point Optimisation (also known as bypassing the front-end preamp) and all but the very strongest of signals completely disappear.

Gets rid of switch mode power supply hash too! Thanks to Rob VK6LD for the image]

Meanwhile, the cloggies never fail to amaze me. You may be aware of the long distance ice skating event held up here ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfstedentocht ).

Whilst it has not been cold enough for many years to hold the event, the resourceful cloggies have found alternatives, including using tractors, ride on mowers and bicycles to complete the event.

Well on the weekend we were passed by a group of enthusiastic youths towing, yes towing, a 100- ton sailing ship around the skating canal course. They are a different breed up here!

CWops Oceania Monthly Zoom Meeting

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.

Progress report on the QRS International Flight Contest

Lge ILA SCI UO pe Ef fs es It’s not too late to join this interesting Morse Code exercise. Flight NR 05 took off on Wednesday as scheduled, this entire flight is north of the Arctic Circle.

Ithas been a very busy week addressing an ongoing and bemusing competitor- initiated problem. An accusation of laying traps for the unwary has even been flying around, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite numerous hints from several different angles all pointing to the same thing, no one has yet discovered the problem, one entrant has even bailed out of the contest without a parachute!

Although very reluctant to short-circuit anyone’s journey of learning and self- discovery, an even more pointed hint than those gone before might put to rest the egregious notion that trickery is to blame.

Regardless of what’s been wishtully written in your flight log, in order to arrive at the intended destination compare each flight’s two sound files, else expect to stay firmly on the ground.

Contest information is available at bit.ly/qrsifc 73 de Stan ZL3TK

CWops Morse Mania – Winter 2025

Fives: This eight-week event has the following objectives: © To promote regular on-air QSOs primarily between VK and ZL operators. Other DX operators and contacts are welcome.

© For CW operators to have as many QSOs as possible whilst meeting the minimu criteria for a QSO. © To provide an event that meets the needs of different types of CW operators. © Touse these sessions to build on existing skills and satisfy your own goals.

© For aperson who normally operates POTA/SOTA, this might mean extendin their QSO vocabulary to include a few new words or phrases. © For an operator comfortable at 12WPM and basic QSOs, this might mean aiming to increase speeds by 2-3 WPM once a week.

© For acontester this might mean exchanging station details they don’t normal exchange. Participants are encouraged to notify the Event Administrator of their personal goals prior the event.

When: Start date: Tuesday 17 June 2025 End date: Sunday 10 August 2025 This is an eight-week event aimed at our CQQRS family, with one-hour sessions commencing 17 June 2025 and taking place on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays at 0930-1030z.

And there’s a bonus for QRS operators as well. How about having a go? Read more and review the rules here: https://morsecodesessions. wordpress.com/morse-mania-winter-2025/

Adrian VK2WF

Best wishes to our key low band DxXer, Adrian VK2WF from Tallong. Adrian has just spent 14 days in Intensive care in Canberra, spent some time recovering in Goublurn Hospital and is now on his way home.

We’re sending positive vibes in your direction Adrian – and hope you’ll be bouncing back to the longer wavelengths really soon.

Big Fish, Very Light Tackle

SKCC Oceania QRS Saunter – Saturday

All the details for the Oceania QRS Saunter (OQS) can be viewed on the SKCC website at: https://www.skcecgroup.com/operating_activities/oqs/ Please make use of the SKCC Sked Page and the CW Club RBN Spotter.

Https://sked.skccgroup.com/ https://rbn.telegraphy.de/ I look forward to contacting you during the event. Best regards,

Garry VK2GAZ/VK2ZP #5460C Manager – SKCC Oceania QRS Saunter

Head Copy Practice

Compiled on the track somewhere by John VK2RU

Over the last two months, each newsletter has contained a chapter from A.A. Milnes classic, Winnie the Pooh. This book was chosen for head copy practise because it contains simple, familiar, and sometimes predictable words that makes learning to head copy a bit easier.

Previous ‘Winnie the Pooh’ chapters and suggestions on how you might use them can be found at the CQ QRS website – https://bit.ly/CQQRSWebsite . Here are this week’s files for Chapter 7.

There is one .txt file with the whole chapter, three .mp3 files with about a third of the chapter each, and three text files containing the text for each .mp3 file. We have to split the .mp3 files because of size limitations in Mail Chimp.

The original text contains some punctuation that is not normally used in morse today. This punctuation is not recognised by the Ditto CW app, and it also causes the ebook2cw app some headaches, so I’ve removed it.

Where a word contains an apostrophe such as ‘ won’t‘ I have removed the apostrophe. Some word such as ‘ we’ll‘ , have been changed to ‘ we will ‘to avoid confusion.

Last week, I removed a lot of commas from the text, but I believe that turned out to be a mistake. Without them, much of the context was lost and it was harder to listen to and understand.

I’ve found that sometimes when the text file is added to Ditto CW, some spacing between words is missed, and some sentences are repeated. I’ve checked the text files and they are correct so I don’t know what’s going on there. It’s not a big problem.

Most of it plays perfectly. [Thanks John – an amazing amount of work to put this together! Last week, Ms Elizabeth and I went to a café in Yass for lunch on Friday, and I read your Chapter 6 (the Heffalump) aloud to her while waiting for our lunch to arrive.

Wonder if we do the same today if we’ll get an audience? Just limbering up for my program on YassFM on Friday afternoons I guess?

If you’ve read something that you think might be of interest to our readers, please let me know so John and! can share more thoughts and ideas; email to 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!]

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 0700Z until about 1300Z; 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 1300Z – 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.

Please let us know via our Reports form bit.ly/CQQRSNET who you work or hear on Tuesday’s Group. The report form closes at lunchtime (Eastern Australian time) on Thursday.

And by the way, a reminder; 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.

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 hittps://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.

Teamwork

Thank you so much to our team of 39 contributors: DL3YZ, G7BED, MOKBJ, MONNK, VK2A0E, VK2GAS, VK2GAZ, VK2IOW, VK2KJJ, VK2RU/4, VK3ACU, VK3BSE, VK3BWN, VK3CLD, VK3CTM, VK3DL, VK3DRQ, VK3ECH, VK3JFR, VKS3KLE, VK3QB, VK3WOW, VK4DRK, VKSAO, VK5CZ, VKSET, VK5KDO, VK5KFG, VK6FN, VK6HD, VK6HRC, VK6JDM, VK6KD, VK6KHZ, VK6NQL, VK6RR, VK6WE, VK7UZ, ZL3TK.

And a special thank you to our editorial team, Nigel G4RWI (head of software development), Patrick VK2IOW (reports coordinator), John VK2RU (researcher and WhatsApp spy) and Richard VK6HRC (Post Morsition and ear-to-the-ground expert).

Great work alll €U CW on Tuesday, mb. Mark Bosra VK2KI/ VK6QI Beautiful South Bowning NSW mark,bosma@icloud.com non impediti 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 by the editor or published on the CQQRS WhatsApp groups may be published in this newsletter unless specifically requested otherwise.

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