Mastodawn

I participated in the CQ WW DX CW contest this weekend. 129 contacts across 32 countries with a dipole antenna on 20m. Lots of fun. All search and pounce. I’m hoping to try running for a bit next year. Need to build my confidence running in smaller contests / qso parties.

Tom Nov 9

Some portable CW operating this afternoon. Mostly worked SKCC WES stations and hunted a couple of POTA activators. Temps were around 1C/34F. Saw a few snowflakes earlier in the morning.

Tom Nov 1

Today I took part in the Summits on the Air Transatlantic S2S Event. I activated Mont Morissette (#SOTA VE2/OU-014) with my IC-705 and AlexLoop. I worked stations in 7 countries in just over 1/2 an hour (France, USA, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia, England) on 20m, 17m, & 15m. Before going QRT due to snow, I managed to bag a Transatlantic S2S with G4TGJ/P at G/NP-028. A great day, and the calm and peacefulness at the summit was priceless.

Tom Sep 8, 2025

I'm participating in #SKCC Canadian Straight Key Month again this year. I dusted off my J-38 and put it on the air today. I recorded a video of the tail end of a #QRP QSO I had with W5ZR. It was my first time getting a reply in French in #CW ! Lots of fun and many days left in the month. See the SKCC website for more info and watch for me on the sked page.

https://youtube.com/shorts/GCjqP8nrE4w

Before you continue to YouTube

Tom Sep 1, 2025

Inspired by KI7QCF's Brass Knuckle Gang (2m CW club), I had ChatGPT design some silly outlaw QRP(p) gang t-shirts for me, and I had a couple of them made by a seller on Amazon. ChatGPT certainly took some liberties with the Morse keys, but I decided to go with it anyway. Printing one-off single t-shirts like this has come down in price a lot. I paid about $21.49 CAD each.

Tom Aug 30, 2025

I released Quick Log Entry (qle) version 2.4.0 this morning, adding support for logging the contacted station's email and web URL.

qle is a free / open source command line tool for UNIX-like systems (Linux, macOS, etc) that transforms its own shorthand for QSO details into ADIF format. I use it for entering paper logs from my portable activities. It's similar to Fast Log Entry (fle) which is a graphical Microsoft Windows only tool.

https://www.va2nw.ca/qle.html

QLE | Amateur Radio Station VA2NW

Tom Aug 26, 2025

There are lots of interesting books on telegraphy on Project Gutenberg (a crowd source project to digitize public domain books).

One I found before work this morning was "A Story of the Telegraph" by John Murray of Montreal. There are some great anecdotes about being reprimanded for "reading by sound" and "cheeky operators". There is also a fair bit of history in the book about the telegraph in the US and Canada.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/50864/pg50864-images.html#Page_130

A Story of the Telegraph

Tom Aug 22, 2025

It's always fun hearing how my Morse signal sounds on the other guy's radio. Jim (WB0RLJ), who I've contacted over 100 times, records his #POTA / #WWFF contacts and uploads them to YouTube. Here's our QSO from yesterday where I'm working on my bug skills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWCqpsHPsj8&t=1337s

FT-710 on 20m: WB0RLJ @ US-4010 2025-08-21 (UTC) - Heron Haven State Park

YouTube

Tom Aug 17, 2025

I got a new antenna book yesterday and read it cover-to-cover this morning. I've written up a review of "Salty Walt’s Portable Antenna Sketchbook"

Verdict: A practical, hands-on guide that makes building portable antennas as easy—and rewarding—as following a recipe.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Full review here: https://www.va2nw.ca/review-book-salty-walts-portable-antenna-sketchbook.html

Review: Salty Walt’s Portable Antenna Sketchbook | Amateur Radio Station VA2NW

Tom Aug 13, 2025

My wife spotted this plaque about the "Rogers Batteryless Radio" at the Chestnut Residence at University of Toronto. Across the street from the residence, a Toronto Engineer, Ted Rogers, developed an effective AC tube and designed a radio receiver around it which debuted in August 1925.