Excellent reading

There is a lot of rumble out in the CW community regarding a new book on the market. The CW way of life written by Chris Rutkowski NW6V. I am only a quarter of the way into it but this book is for anyone who is anywhere in their CW journey. In the few pages, I have learned about Samual Morse what he did and did not do for morse code and others named Alfred Vail and Friedrich Gerke who moved code along its journey. 

Once past a short history lesson you read and learn about how code is linked to harmonics, and rhythm and step back and see the method. Other topics are moving from counting dits and Dahs, code speed blocks, habits for code learning and so on.
This book is worth a look and can be done here for your kindle the book is also available as a good old page-turning book on Amazon as well.

Hard work reaps rewards.........

 I was always told from a young age "something worthwhile ALWAYS requires hard work" That has stuck with me and at times when I was about to throw in the towel a voice inside said, "it requires hard work". I am so thankful that I had an amazing job that gave me benefits and a pension for life BUT I worked my ass off for it.

Improving the Hustler 4BTV antenna

 My Hustler 4BTV antenna has been working great for me and I have no complaints about it at all. With being close to the ocean we often get windy days. The wind gusts can reach 80km per hour and during that time I would take the 4 BTV down and store it in the shed. A company called DX Engineering sells some custom-made add-on kits for the Hustler vertical antennas. DX Engineering offers a reinforced lower section for the antenna. I have noticed even during 60 km winds the antenna sure does sway a lot. I bit the bullet and ordered the heavy-duty lower section. It was shipped the next day and the order status was sent from start to finish. To replace the lower section is very straight forward and the only step that needs to be done is a measurement from the 10m trap section down to where the lower section starts. If you match this distance up then there should be no need to return the antenna. 

The measure distance was 2 inches and I marked it with a sharpie pen. I then loosened the screw clamp and removed the lower section. I then cleaned the 10m trap tubing and reapplied some anti-seize, I then move the new lower section up to the mark and secured the screw clamp. Once the antenna was placed back on the lower base section it was time to check out the SWR. It was a pleasure to see the antenna's SWR characteristics had not changed.

We have had some windy days since then and the new lower section sure has made a difference with stability of the antenna. I am very pleased with the purchase. Unless we have winds over 80Km will I take the antenna down. 

Measure and mark

Old lower section removed

Anti-seize applied

All back together and ready to go.

A pleasant surprise....

 

 From time to time over the past week, I have seen 3B7M dxpedition spotted on the DX Heat Cluster and most of the time I either did not hear them or they were at or below the noise floor. I knew they were there as the pile-up was alive and well and responding with their call signs hoping to make it into 3B7M log. Yesterday they were spotted on 15m at their usual CW watering hole of 21.005 and as with all dxpedition they were operating split.