I went on the air one year ago as KK4MJA; last weekend I celebrated my ham anniversary by participating in IARU Word Championship, now as K4MJA. As always, with my antennas and time available (not much of either), I had no intention to compete but rather to support the real competitors by my effort. I made some contacts and enjoyed it very much. I think it will be even more exiting as I will be able to do the CW...still in the process of leaning it. Here is the map of my contacts during the contest: K4MJA->>IARU HF Championship contact map 73!

I started using my shack remotely over Internet from time to time, listening only for now though technically I can transmit. I am using TeamViewer v13; good piece of software, free for personal use. On the shack's side I have Icom 7300 for a radio, Palstar AT-Auto tuner, and antenna I choose while at home (still working on the PC-controlled remote antenna switch). The radio is connected to PC with (one and only) USB cable. The sound from the radio is enabled on the PC so I can hear everything in remote session. The PC is Windows 7 x64 and I had no big issues configuring it with available Icom driver. To be able to drive the rig remotely, I use Win4Icom program by Tom VA2FSQ; I like the result better than Icom's own RS-BA1 which I also tested. Win4Icom can by interfaced with number of logging programs, it can reproduce Icom's waterfall on bigger screen or replace it with SDRPlay's much nicer waterfall -- I have SDRPlay and RX/TX switch and will test it in the nearest future. It also features clublog spots window. As you see in the screenshot below, taken at the remote side, some old webcam is also there, used to look at my rig's and tuner's screens; there is also CW decode program as I am still learning morse code. All in all, it is very nice, robust setup; if anybody interested in details, I can explain here, just let me know in comments.

73!

CQ-M is Russian HAM contest (by Russian Radio-Amateur Union AKA SRR AKA Союз Радиолюбителей России); its going to be the 53rd's CQ-M this weekend. The contest is both CW and SSB. Here are the rules: http://cqm.srr.ru/en-rules/
We will be participating with my friend Sergey K4/RU4W who is CW guru and yet to build his shack here in Miami, so he will be working from mine under my callsign. I'll be doing the SSB part. With the antennas available, we will be doing search and pounce mostly. Wish us luck.

73!

PS I will be handling the station's QSL traffic for the event. All QSLs go to my callsign. I will not be uploading CW portion of the contest to any of my online logs (QRZ, LOTW, EQSL), unless asked. SSB will be online promptly, as usual.

I have been issued a new call sign; I decided to drop one of two "K "letters I had in my call, sent a request and became K4MJA instead of KK4MJA -- today by FCC's decree. The former callsign KK4MJA will gradually disappear.

Out of all antennas I installed and used at my (antenna-restricted) OTH the one I liked instantly was MFJ "hamstick" dipole(s): the size, the ease of installation, the way it could be rotated manually -- fiberglass mast I use allows it -- and how the signal/noise changes with the rotation. There were problems with the hamstick dipoles though: they turned out not very good radiators, the one for 20m is better than for 40m, but generally all poor and lossy. The little modeling I've done confirmed it. Also, hamstick dipoles I have are low power (125W max).

So...I went on the quest for finding a rotatable dipole which
(1) would fit in my small patio,
(2) could be installed on the fiberglass mast I have and
(3) could handle at least five hundred watts of (recently installed in the shack) Elecraft KPA500.

I came back last week with MFJ-1775 multiband (10-15-20-40m) rotatable dipole, assembled it, tuned and tested during the 2018 ARRL DX SSB Contest this weekend. Here are my impressions:

Elecraft KPA500 in operating position (center left)

I live in a condo unit; permanent ham antennas prohibited by the HOA's rules. All of my HF antennas (and I have many) are hidden or temporary. That's what I've done so far:

After 6 Month of leisure hammimg I received my first badge at QRZ.com:

The Grid Squared Award:

"This award is available to any QRZ member whose Logbook on QRZ.com contains at least one confirmed contact from each of 100 unique Maidenhead grid squares."

USA, Canada, Caribbean, South America and some contacts across the pond...not much actually. I will be trying my new amp, hopefully it will help to get out of the noise on the other side. At least, that's the hope.

73!

At my present QTH, the antennas are prohibited by the rules of my HOA. That is, "no permanent visible antennas allowed"On top of this grim issue, I also have very limited space for any HF antenna. I have 2 small patios and the attic, which is also very small, about 21ft/7 m wide and 18ft/6m deep, and the height is on low side, crawl space for the most part. Nevertheless, I managed to install several wire antennas in the attic (40-10m multiband doublet, 17m monoband moxon), and strung the similar doublet along the outer roof edge. I also installed a 35ft/10m Max-Gain fiberglass push-up pole in one of the patios and used it to bring up different light antennas, like "hamstick" dipoles or MFJ-17754 2 band (20/40m) dipole. It all worked somewhat, some better then the others, all depending on the propagation and the location of the distant station. DX-wise, I had most success with MFJ-2220 "hamstick" dipole at 35ft on the fiberglass pole.

Until recently, I had no vertical antennas and was determined to try them one day. Vertical antenna is a good idea if the space for the installation is very limited and it has to go up and down promptly and with little effort. At the same time, not all vertical antennas are very good radiators: first, they usually radiate equally in all directions, having no directivity without additional measures, like setting up a system of vertical antennas with special feeding arrangements, meaning the signal in the far field will be lower when compared to a beam antenna or even to a dipole; second, a good ground system or, for elevated installation, a system of radials required for better radiation efficiency (and I have little space for that). Nevertheless, in Dec 2017 I acquired and installed 2 vertical antennas:

• (1) MFJ-2286 "The Big Stick" portable 17ft/5m telecscopic, base-loaded whip for 10-20m;
• (2) Hy-Gain AV-12AVQ 3-band 10-15-20m vertical.

Here are my impressions after a short test, starting Dec 24th and until the last weekend: