The Radio Ham

Ah well, maybe it was too cheeky, ive never asked for anything before and ive activated ZC4 multiple times, so I thought I would maybe ask Icom UK if theres any chance of purchasing an IC-7300MKII at cost price for my next ZC4 trip

Now if you know anything or have seen any of my shack pics you will know im an Icom man, I have been for 40 years, dont get me wrong I have other makes in the shack but by far its Icom its always been Icom for me, I guess most of us are fanboys of some make or other, for me it just happens to be Icom, back from my IC-726 I first bought in Cyprus in 1989 and made me many many happy HF and 6m Qs during my first stint as ZC4MK.

Anyway I digress, im always amazed at the sponsorship of DXpeditions  even the small ones so based on that, my thinking that ZC4 is still quite a rare prefix I would ask Icom UK, not for a free  radio, im not that brazen but I asked if possible to save some pennies on the quite a substantial sum of money my ZC4 trips cost me maybe I could purchase a 7300 at cost price, my email sent I duly awaited my reply, and it was a resounding NO

Ah well, not gonna lie I was disappointed but maybe not surprised, im not exactly a big gun in DXpedition terms but rare enough I would have thought for consideration, maybe ZC4 just isnt as rare as i initially thought.

This will be the 4th time ive activated ZC4 in the last 3 years, all my own expense, maybe I need to decide whether its actually worth it or not anymore

Its my fault for selling my original 7300 I used in ZC4 to upgrade to an IC-7610, so its back to looking for an IC-7300 or an Elecraft K3/K3S, anyone got one for sale, please do pop me an email.

By the way the picture isnt supposed to be aimed at anyone, its a pic of me in 1993 when I was VP8COI in the Falkland Islands, we were on a shooting competition in Port Stanley and I cut my finger loading an SLR with 7.62mm rounds LOL

Ive been licensed since 1988 for over 38 years,  in my entire time on the air i have never owned an amplifer, ive been tempted many times but just never took the plunge, ive been frustrated in pileups and sometimes its taken  hours or days  to work rare Dxpeditions, I normally get there in the end but after hitting the big 60 this year I thought I would finally bit the bullet and purchase one.

I had looked at new ones but the price these days is astronomical so decided to look into the second hand market, it was either going to be an Acom 1000 or an Expert 1K-FA, both have been on my radar for many years, just as luck would have it I was chatting to Andy G4KNO a few weeks back, we were both on the same team on one of the  WRTC station build  days, he happened to mention he had a 1K-FA that he was considering selling as he had upgraded to the 1.5K so forward on a few weeks and I dropped Andy a message to see if he was still thinking of selling and as luck would have it he was so we agreed a price and I took a nice drive up to Suffolk to Andys to pick the Amplifier up

So thats where I am, its not in line yet, its been sat in its case for the last couple of weeks as when I got home I realised I had no room on my shack desk for it, so over the next couple of weeks Im going to build a new slightly larger shack deskt and this beauty will finally be in place.

Was a bit concerned that my license hadnt come through but all is now resolved and ZC4MK issued for another 12 months, very much looking forward to my trip in November for 8 days as per my post below this, what did astound me was looking on Clublog Most wanted, for North America overall ZC4 was number 50 but even more astounding was for North America West Coast ZC4 was number 19, it would be nice to get some west coast openings during my trip, more info on my previous post.

Im still looking for a radio to take with me, so if you have preferably a K3 or a K3S failing that an IC-7300 for sale pop me a message.

Lastly I am already looking at dates for next year,  but I have already booked dates for the end of march next year, I will be operating from my usual Melanda Beach at Avdimou location and will be there over CQ WW WPX.

If your a Radio Ham you will know about WRTC the World Radio Teamsport Championships that are held every 4 years, the Olympics you may  say of Amateur Radio, the UK hosted WRTC 2026 which was headed up by Mark M0DXR who did an absolutley fabulous job of running the whole show with a huge team of Volunteers from all over the UK and indeed from all over the world, 50 Teams took park in the 24Hr contest, all using identical setups, 7 Element 3 Band Yagis with Dipoles for 80m and 40m, spread out over a 30 mile radius in Norfolk and Suffolk, anyway I digress, I applied to help as a volunteer station builder, orignally I was going to offer my services for 4 days but due to a last minute shift change at work was only able to offer 2 days, I just so happened to pick the two hottest days so far, 30c+ heat, it was very hard work but myself and the teams I was in worked really well together and it was very enjoyable, hard but enjoyable, anyway a few pics of some of the stations I helped to build. 

I have confirmed my next trip to ZC4, I depart 23rd November and return 1st December, I have decided to take part in the CQWW CW contest whilst im there, originally I had planned the trip for October and take in the CQWW SSB contest but I was unable to get leave so November it is, im kind of throwing myself in at the deep end as much as I love CW im no speed demon, i can happily potter along at around 25wpm but I have never entered a CW contest before so its definatley going to be a baptism of fire. 

Things are slowly coming together, I have a DX Commander Multiband vertical and also have purchased a portable Hexbeam, I have managed to secure the loan of a 2kw generator for the duration of my trip, the location will be the usual Melanda Beach QTH, the only thing I need to sort now is a radio, I have settled on either an Elecraft K3/K3S or an Icom IC-7300, im leaning towards the Elecraft but again depends if I can find a K3S at the right price, not entirely sure yet, it might come down to budget, all of my trips to ZC4 in the last 3 years have been self funded and its not cheap.

On that note if you wish to help towards the trip you can donate here, im not relying on donations but its always nice to get some help towards putting on a relatively rare location, I think ZC4 will be a very popular Multiplier in the CQWW, I also plan to be active for the week before the contest, the aim is to be mostly QRV on CW and SSB, I may do a bit of FT8 but its low down on my priorities

I also want to try and be a bit more active on the WARC bands during this trip specifically 12m but other bands as well, I had a couple of excellent runs on 30m into the US on my last trip,  if you require a sked im open to help out as well so just pop me an email with your requirements, I will try and fulfill any bands/slots needed, so thats it for now, trip is booked and confirmed.

also I maybe able to leave my equipment in Cyprus this time around which will make future trips much easier and will also mean I may travel multiple times a year, hopefully I can confirm that soon but if thats the case it will be a great help going forward. 

If you have an Elecraft K3/K3S gathering dust or an IC-7300 and your happy to sell, let me know.

I love my glass desk ive had in the shack for many years, its a very expensive designer desk that was £1500 new, I paid £35 on Ebay for it, struck lucky, but ive recently reverted back to a wooden desk, why  you might ask, simply because there is quite a bit of kit on the desk these days and im paranoid if something happened and the glass broke everything would end up on the floor, I think if I didnt have the IC-7800 I would have stayed with the glass desk as its rated for quite a bit of weight but the 7800 is a beast and weighs a ton, so for now its back to an old second hand Ikea desk, im contemplating making my own desk with used scaffold boards sanded down with iron metal legs, think that would look quite nice, but for now this will do.

Yes you  read it right, I pimped my K3, or in simple terms added a set of the weighted Knobs by RGO, my first ever K3 had the  weighted VFO knobs by 73cnc, I wish I had taken them off when I sold it, always liked the feel of them so I posted in a K3 group asking if anyone had any weighted knobs for sale and was offered a set of RGO ones, Initially  i was a bit hesitant as my previous ones were all black and these ones were chrome and black but after a few days thinking I took the plunge, its a  bit blingy (as we say in the UK) but I  love em 🙂

Bands have been really poor last couple of weeks especially my favourite 10m band, we are approaching the summer doldrums unfortunatley, need to get my arse in gear and get something sorted for lower bands

Im slowly cleaning up the  Optibeam OBW 10-5 but its a slow process, not because its difficult more because i just cant get into the frame of mind to do it, I have also emailed Wimo twice now asking about spares for the Optibeam, as I need to replace one of the strut mounts but they have so far not bothered to reply, my radio Mojo is severely struggling right now, it will be  back, it always is, hopefully sooner rather than later.

I dont seem to be having much luck lately, Ive always wanted a Microham Microkeyer so when one came up a week or so ago for sale I took the plunge, all arrived and hooked up only to find out that Microkeyer isnt supported in MacOS, ive been a Mac user for donkeys years, I only really  use a windows machine at work so  im pretty much dead in the water before I start, to be honest I hadnt even considered the fact it wouldnt be supported in MacOS, the manual says there is some router software that has been written for Mac but it turns out this was many years ago and only applicable to older Intel Macs, so  im finished before I even got started, ah well, guess I will sell it on and go back to the drawing board

On another note conditions have been pretty poor recently, 10m has been pretty devoid of signals  however I did manage 3B9G  from Rodriguez Island yesterday. 

No new updates on this, just havent had the time with work but im concerned I have a fair bit of work to do on this, I had hoped it would just be a clean up and put together but not quite the case, this was to replace my Jaybeam MM3 three element tribander which is still up on the tower due to the issues with the optibeam, hoping to get some more work done on this soon as Ive pretty much sold the Jaybeam but as it stands im not sure how much work is involved, ive looked on the Wimo site and this antenna by the looks of it isnt produced anymore so  the chances of getting spares is looking slim

Watch this space. 

Optibeam OBW 10-5

So I took the plunge and picked up an Optibeam OBW 10-5 to replace my Jaybeam MM3 tribander, the Optibeam is a 5 Band Wire Beam for 10 thru 20m, when I picked it up it was just rolled up into one big bundle, that should have been a red flag right there, its taken me a whole day to unravel the wires and bits and bobs, unfortunately one of the plastic blocks that holds the fibreglass spreaders is split in half, hopefully I can work around it, the silicon rope and main  support ropes have been cut, normally that wouldnt be an issue but the support ropes in this antenna are pre cut and have fittings done at the factory, another headache which im going to have to sort out, the last issue is the fibreglass spreaders have a lot of mould/mildew growth on them so I need to find a safe way to clean that off without splintering the fibreglass so scrubbing is out of the question, the joys

The reasoning behind this antenna is simple, its less of an eyesore for a 5 band beam antenna (unlike a Hexbeam which ive previously had up a few years back)  it gives me basically a 2 element for 10/12/15/17/20m and although im sacrificing an element on 10/15/20m as im currrently running a 3 El tribander,  its a sacrifice that gets me access to the warc  bands, with some of the nice DXpeditons coming up in the next 12 months i need to look at other bands so this is the start, a bit of work to do before this will finally get on the air but I would rather take my time and get it done right.