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Last week, I had the chance to visit the EA Sports Studios in Orlando, Florida and experience the making of NBA Live 2014 — literally. Much like the up-and-coming NBA Live Franchise, I felt as if I were an NBA player on the rise as I prepared to put on my motion capture suit that would catch my signature moves and tendencies on camera.
Now, as the former captain of my college basketball team, of course I had dreams of playing in the NBA, however, the chances are slim to none for a 5-8 Division III point guard. But there I was putting up shots with the reigning Rookie of the Year, Damian Lillard. He recorded his signature moves and then I helped him out with his in-game celebration. The next thing I know, Damian Lillard and I are going one-on-one.
[RELATED: Dime Q&A – Damian Lillard Talks NBA LIVE 14 & Shows Off His Rap Skills]
Surprisingly, the mo-cap suits that we were wearing weren't that uncomfortable. Imagine playing basketball in scuba diving gear with a head cap on and all of your gear has balls on it that are attached by velcro. You even have those same motion detecting balls stuck to your shoes with duct tape. Eventually, I started to sweat; as Lillard noted to me during an insane ballhanding workout that would make Ganon Baker look like an amateur, the headgear was pretty hot. Still, I wasn't paying attention to that. I was like a kid in a candy store.
Before we went to check out a sneak peak of what Damian actually looks like in real gameplay, I sat down with the Portland point guard for a while to talk NBA Live, this upcoming season and his skills on the mic. I also got the chance to be involved in an EA roundtable interview with three of the masterminds that are behind this game.Subscribe to UPROXX
Scott O'Gallagher is a gameplay designer on NBA Live 14 and has been loyal to the franchise for years. As a former pro baller in Europe, Scott says he remembers paying close to $300 in shipping before he could finally land NBA Live 2010 while he was playing across the pond. Scott was the go-to guy on set when explaining to Lillard what specific moves they wanted to see out of him.
Ryan Santos is a Senior Designer on NBA Live 14 and has previously worked on NBA Live between 2000 and 2005. In addition, he worked on NBA Street Volume 3, NBA Street Homecourt and NBA Live 2010 while most recently working on digital Jordan Campaigns before rejoining the team at EA for this project.
Ryan Ferwerda is another EA veteran who is on the NBA Live 14 project as a producer after working on Madden football since 2000.
While they realize their competition has owned the market share for the past three years in basketball video games — likening them to the 96′ Bulls — the guys behind this game know that there are Live players out there and players that prefer games by EA Sports.
I caught up with the crew over at EA to talk about what goes into making the game, how it's changed, their new game technology, and about their unique marketing strategy.
Game-Making Process
On The Different Disciplines That Went Into Making Live 14
Ryan Ferwerda: I think one of the things you see with today specifically and really what's kind of been a driving mantra for the entirety of the game is authenticity. First thing we get out of here is having Damian here and other guys we've had in to do mo-cap and work on all of the signature dribble stuff. Everything you see about our game is all about being the most authentic, real basketball video game brand and game that there is out there. Every single thing we do kind of backs that up from animation, music, shoes- everything in our game. The goal is to make it exactly like the real NBA everyday and keep that updated and refreshed throughout the season. So everyday you turn the game on, you're going to get the most authentic, up-to-date experience.
Taking The Game To The Next Level and How It Has Changed Over The Years
Ryan Santos: I think we're at a really unique position here with the launch of the next-gen consoles. The sort of advantage we have is that we've been able to just focus on NBA Live for next-gen. What that gives us is the ability to take advantage of next-gen hardware. So with that hardware, with each cycle, each transition year that we move up in hardware we're able to really harness the things that we've always wanted to recreate in a basketball game. So it gets more authentic. The AI (artificial intelligence) behaves a little bit more smartly. The players look just that much more realistic. We're able to get performance from these guys that really show off the emotion of the sport and give you that next-gen detail that you're looking for. I think we're able to use technology like the ignite engine to really push our sports games forward.
Looking back at previous-gen titles, I've worked on a lot of the basketball games then and we were always bound by certain things in the hardware. We had all of these great ideas but we were being held back by the technology and I think moving forward, we're going to be able to see a greater sense of authenticity in the game with the next-gen consoles.
RF: To add to that, a key element that you're going to see that's unique to Live, especially being on next-generation platforms is that every single day you play, you're always going to have a heartbeat connection back to NBA Live. Every time that you turn it on, if there's new shoes that drop, there's new player updates that drop or AI with Synergy Sports, you're going to get that stuff within the hour in some cases. That's really unique moving forward and something that's never been done as far as we've handled stuff. You're always connected to the service.
Scott O'Gallagher: Obviously these new consoles have so much more space. So like today- you saw that we captured six of Damian Lillard's signature moves and we can do that for damn near every player in the league if we want to. It's just the time of getting in and now we have the [memory] space to do it where before, you didn't have enough room to do so.
RS: You buy the game at launch- it's going to be a different game every single day. We're giving you that enhanced experience throughout the season. You can keep up with your teams, what's going on in the league from tattoos and sneakers to actual stats and how that effects the AI and how the game plays.
Keep reading to get an in-depth look at the game's technology…
Game Technology
EA and Synergy Sports Partner Up To Put Current Basketball Analytics Into Game
SO: Synergy Sports is the No. 1 data driven and analytic tool that all 30 NBA teams are using. So basically, in this case for like Damian Lillard, we know how many isos he's been in all year. We can watch videos on every single iso he's had. We know for example, how many times he goes right, how many times does he like to finish right, how many times does he like to pull-up going right, guarded or unguarded. The amount of power that is in there is unbelievable. We're pumping that into the background so our defenses are dynamically changing to that. So they know whether we can pressure a guy like Rondo. Well, he's not a very good shooter so we know in the system to close out short to him, make him shoot the jumper. There's so many things [that are in this game] that I don't know if the consumer is going to pick up. It's almost an overload of information.
RF: I mean, it's a shift from just going through and saying, "I think this guy has a 74 2-point shooting [rating]," to true data that drives every single thing that happens that the player does from when you play to how the AI drives it as well.
RS: There's no longer one of us saying, "this guy's a 74 [in] shooting." It's [now] how he shoots every day and that goes up and down throughout the season, so that changes in the game.
RF: It's the evolution from you sending a guy into the season with how he plays to how someone's game molds in real life. And it's different than a box score. We're basically tracking every player's tendencies and how they think on the court and what they do in certain situations. You have guys that will drive and guys that will just pull-up. We track it and make it and it's updated within an hour after a game is played. So, you see guys that go on crazy streaks or you see a rookie that evolves his game and that will evolve in our game as well.
SO: Even in those particular areas too, we have this in the post. How many times does he (a post player) shoot over his right shoulder? His left shoulder? Does he like to go middle? Does he like to spin baseline? We're constantly driving it every millisecond.
RF: A guy gets hurt and he doesn't want to drive as much anymore. That stuff all gets updated into the game.
Live 14 Includes New BounceTek Feature
SO: BounceTek is releasing the ball to physics for the first time ever in a video game. So basically in prior video games, the ball is always tied to animation. So if I try to turn in older basketball games, the ball would magically find its way there (to the next movement) where now, it's sending it to physics and were going to find an anim that will find it for you. It's going to help (player) balance and the true feel of momentum. It's going to be different but it's going to be something that the consumer really enjoys.
The Motion Capture Experience
SO: So for example, when you (Matt) were guarding Damian when he was doing all of the signature stuff, we'll take that exact anim with all of the balls (from mo-cap suit) that are picked up with our software, transfer that right on into our rig, and then we'll animate it and get it all done from there and that's what you'll play in game. And there's that saying that, "every player is somebody's favorite player," so we wanted you to feel the difference between Derrick Rose and Kirk Hinrich. Steve Blake and Steve Nash. Nash's hesi[tation] between Kyrie's. And there's just a difference and with this Ignite [technology] stuff we can get different types of mannerisms. All different types of signa[ture] play calling: chins, nose.
Process of Bringing Player Characteristics And Data To Life In Game
RS: Well, all of the data needs to be processed, and then cleaned up. Then when they send it to our animators in the formats that they use, our animators will take that in-game and make sure the clips are the right length or the type of move that we're trying to re-create. Then, that's built into the game and could be in the game easily in like a day or so once we get the data back.
RF: The key is to keep the data so that it's as lost-less as possible. Going through the data you go through it, edit it, translate it for our game. It's literally going through each frame because you don't want to lose any of the mannerisms or the nuances- that's where the special stuff is. Then we hand it off to our animators, who then go through it and start hooking it (the data) up in the right situations.
SO: And we have some amazing people in the studio so say if Damian likes to go right and develops this leg kick [on his jump shot], we can add that and start manipulating things to how he's doing it.
RF: And many of the guys (players) that we have can look at footage here and if they do something in the mo-cap that it can't pick up, they can go through and actually add that stuff.
Hit page 3 to hear why Kyrie Irving was chosen for the game's cover…
How The Finished Product Is Determined
RS: It's based on sort of the design that we come up with at the start of the year, the features that we really want to blow out- BounceTek and then our dribble system. We plan really far ahead before these shoots even happen to figure out what type of data we need and once we get it, it's just [a matter of] plugging stuff in to reach our goals.
RF: I think when you saw these guys working they had their shot sheet. They go through to make sure that Damian feels the right way [in the game]. So they take that shot sheet and basically fill the holes for each specific guy. You kind of start with your control like a science experiment and say, "here's my one guy that I have and here's how I make him feel right [to the audience]" and we design that stuff up front and it happens months in advance. Then that really opens it up for us to add variety and all of the signature stuff because we spend so much time using Ignite tech to get the players to feel right generically, then we can add all of the signature stuff to make each guy individually feel the right way. We're really fortunate that we can mess around with stuff and check it two hours later. We can now look at stuff within hours as opposed to waiting two weeks.
SO: Even on the gameplay side, we have an ANT tool that basically allows us to go in and change stuff by the second and by the minute. If I don't like a certain crossover, I can change something up immediately, and go back to it and change it again. I can have one of our guys go in and try the new Damian Lillard package I just put in. They can go in [and provide feedback] so that we can change it immediately.
RS: That ANT tool is our propriety animation software EA Sports uses across the board and the main component to the Ignite package so we're able to do a lot of these things because of our great tools and the support we have across the sports label.
RF: In effect, everybody uses the same stuff and it cannot be understated because when there's an improvement in one group or one team (at EA), that stuff all cross pollinates to everyone here. If Madden, Fifa or NHL has an innovation, we can all share it and it allows us to run a sport in its entirety and make it feel unique and feel right. Very few people would realize a football game, soccer game and a basketball game are [running] on the same engine, but that's because of the scale and how much stuff we can add into each.
Decision To Release On Only Next-Gen Consoles
RF: I think going to next-gen Consoles, specifically for us, made the most sense. It's very rare that you get these transitions and for us, a brand back on the rise, we want to plant our flag with the newest, latest and greatest and there's a lot of advantages with that. We're singularly focused and in a vacuum looking at XBox One and PS4 in this case and we don't have to worry about other platforms and that allows us to provide the best possible experience on those platforms and be straight ahead. So to us, it really was the only decision. It's a very rare, great opportunity to perfectly align with the transition of the new stuff. We haven't had one of these in about eight years so it's a really good opportunity.
Targeting Youth With Kyrie Irving and Damian Lillard
RS: I think we made that decision because sort of the ethos for the franchise this year is all about what's next, being next and all about next. We wanted to align ourselves with athletes who are the future of the league and are going to be the next superstars on the rise and we feel like with BounceTek there's a nice synergy there between the guys that we're picking, their handles and their game. We thought this year it would make a lot of sense to pick up a guy like Kyrie who's- I mean the guy's next up. When Kobe's gone and LeBron and Durant get older, he's going to be one of those guys coming up I think as one of the legit superstars in the league and so all of the guys we've gotten, I think we've got a great cast to represent what the franchise really represents this year.
RF: Every single thing you see us do is going to be about what's next, who's next, what's the next hot thing and I think that aligns right with our game as well. We're next and we're coming up on the new hot machines, we got all of the new stuff. We are next.
What do you think?
Follow Matt on Twitter at @DimeMatt.
Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.
Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.


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400 Smith Lane,Palmyra PA, 17078
Sold Price
2 beds , 1 Full baths
Status: Sold
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty
(800) 383-3535
Last Updated: 2/20/2017 2:09 AM
Description for 400 Smith Lane Palmyra, PA 17078
Very nice private setting w/ approx. 2.5 acres fenced in pasture w/ 20x20 run-in shed. Located next to a large horse farm.
Listing Information
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Electric Water Heater, Well
Sewer service on-site
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First Floor Laundry
Interior Features
Central Air
Electric Heating, Forced Air
No Basement
Exterior / Lot Features
2 Garage Spaces, Driveway
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Current market conditions for 400 Smith Lane
Active Market Trends
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Median list price$249,890
Days on market150
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Sold Market Trends
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Median sold price$200,000
Sales to list price9,781.0%
Properties sold76
Median sq ft price$119
Arrows indicate 90 day trend
Listing Price History for 400 Smith Lane
Palmyra Real Estate
Palmyra is located in Pennsylvania. Palmyra, Pennsylvania 17078 has a population of 7,352.
The median household income in Palmyra, Pennsylvania 17078 is $51,227. The median household income for the surrounding county is $54,259 compared to the national median of $53,046. The median age of people living in Palmyra 17078 is 40.9 years.
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It's been a long time since my last post here. It's been a long time that I actually made a contact. ARRL DX is a fun contest and it's always nice to work USA regardless the band and mode so I decided to play. Nothing serious, just for fun.
I was a bit disappointed by the poor conditions on 160. Caribbean stations were quite loud but of no use in this contest. Late December and early January were pretty good from here to the East Coast and even deeper into the country. But this time signals were weak. Also on 40. The big guns didn't rock the S-meter as they normally do. I was quite pleased with how 80 played. Fifteen was not good but I thought it would have been worse so I was glad to work a few states beyond the 6000 km range there. There was nothing to be heard on ten meters. Down and out with 28 MHz I guess. That leaves twenty meters as the 'money band'. But openings are not that strong anymore and the path between the West Coast and here is definitely shorter that a few years ago. C'est la vie.
I was glad to work John K3WWP again. I have been following his QRP adventures for a loooooong time. More than fifteen years, possible more. At first I heard someone calling but it was a weak signal. The K3 prefix, the QRP-feel of the signal and the persistence to keep calling lead me to believe it had to be K3WWP. Bingo. Sure enough John mentioned our contest contact.
I took a break on Sunday evening when twenty faded. My plan was to return for the last hour of the contest to run 40. But I fell asleep and didn't bother to return to the shack. I ended up with just over 1200 contacts. I didn't operate much because I wasn't in a competitive mode. But it was fun when I was around.
Not much more to say. Just quoting myself from last year's write-up:
It has now become clear that no spot means no rate. Period. People just hop from spot to spot. Many times I called CQ for a few minutes without answer. At last someone finally worked and spotted me, and then you work a few dozen stations in a few minutes until the effect wears out. Then it's slow again until the next spot.
The new year continues to bring some low band fun. On several occasions I heard nice signals from the US of A on Top Band and I worked quite a few. Two new states on 160: Utah and Missouri. Maybe more but I didn't keep track. I'll find out when I upload to LotW.
The direct QSL cards are coming in already and I received a few emails too for QSL cards and LotW uploads. Strange, because each morning there are at least two other Belgians on 80/160. Let's hope that the conditions like I experienced a few times over the past two weeks will return in the upcoming contests. ARRL DX CW could give 160 WAS as serious boost.
Again I worked a few dozen JA on 30 which might soon initiate a steady flow of direct QSL request from Japan. I could have tried 30m for USA but that is late at night, before their bedtime. I chose to go to bed in time myself and get up early. I shouldn't end the holidays more tired than I was when they started.
One morning the amp showed much reflected power on 80. How could that be? SWR had risen to 1.9:1 where it was 1.2:1. Although Top Band shares the feed point, it was not affected. As it turned out the 2.5mm² copper wire and the radials turned into a pencil sized popsicle. The ice had detuned the antenna. When the sun was up I lowered the wire and pulled it back up. The ice cracked and some pieces fell on my head. I took a broom and walked along the elevated radials to remove the ice. Antenna back to normal. Later that day bigger chunks of ice fell off the yagi and 40m dipole. Those pieces were bigger and made more noise as they hit the frozen lawn.
There was another technical issue. I put up a 30m vertical dipole that is rather close to the shack. Usually I use a horizontal dipole farther away. Whenever I keyed the rig, the WAN connection dropped. This is not a biggie. During for the short while I'm running 30m I can do without internet and all its applications. But there are other people in the house who like to read their mails and surf the web after breakfast. I have used this antenna in the past but I have replaced the router / Wi-Fi access point a few months ago. At first I didn't blame this device. Since the LAN part of the network was working fine and the router told me that 'WAN cable was not attached', I suspected a problem with the TV coax cable or the cable modem. I tried google to find a link between cable access and 10 MHz but I didn't find any.
One dit and the WAN link dropped, and a LED on the modem went out. It took half a minute to recover. One morning I took the effort to actually check the purpose of the LED on the modem that went out as soon as I touched the paddles. It was in fact the LED that indicates whether the modem is connected to an Ethernet device. Or if the UTP cable was plugged in or not. Hmm. I took a few clamp-on ferrites and choked the DC power lead and the UTP cable coming from the modem. I placed the ferrites as close to the router as possible. That cured it. I could now crank up the power to a full kilowatt and still the WAN link wouldn't drop. Before even 100W broke the connection. This box with two dozen ferrite clamps has served me well over the years. Another legacy from my days as a broadcast tech. I can tell you that the box doesn't contain two dozen clamps anymore. Many are in use in the shack to cure RFI problems. With success!
Three things I remember from almost four weeks of having fun on the low bands:
- I'm addicted to the RX loops. They really help. Maybe two or three QSO could not have been made without it, but it sure made the other contacts much easier.
- Top Band propagation has been more than OK lately. To my standard that translates to: working into USA almost daily. Everything better is a treat. Like the HP1 and P4 as new countries. I hope these conditions stay during the coming contests. Especially CQ 160 and ARRL DX CW. Asking for improved propagation might jinx it.
- On many occasions the RBN shows that the bands are open for DX. Yet there is no one active. Or at least nobody capable of and willing to transmit. This is especially true on weekdays. Weekends are better.
Since the holidays are over, I took down the antennas and lowered the tower. I feel that I was becoming too hooked on the bands again. So I might overdo it. Cold turkey for three weeks until the UBA SSB and CQ 160 CW contests.
A new year is just an arbitrary transition. So I picked up my 2017 HF activities where I left them in 2016. That is: on 160, 80 and 30m. I hang out on the other bands more than enough already in the contests. And for the low bands, I need the antenna tower cranked up. Which is the case now. I'm having holidays and there is no wind. I'm not active during the day though. Mostly too early in the morning when I wake up and my housemates are still asleep. I don't set an alarm but my biological maybe-there-is-DX-on-the-low-bands-bell rings. Sometimes I try the bands late at night before going to bed. I like this pattern this time of the year. And in this stage of the solar cycle. I did set my alarm once this week. For a sked with my long time pen-pal (mail-pal) W1EBI. He recently renewed his 160 antenna and Top Band turns out to be a slot that we haven't worked each other. He's in my log 152 times already and this QSO on one sixty is #153. I got up early and he stayed up late.
I'm not particularly keen on 160. It's a tough band. Propagation is spotty and when the RF is able to travel to some DX place you need good antennas to effectively get it there. And even then signals are not strong and the other side also needs good stuff to get the job done. I know that some low band literature calls operating the higher bands 'like shooting fish in a barrel'. But I like to be sure I will eat and not bait the line in vain to catch nothing in the end.
But I also like to do something I don't do too often. So I hang out on 160 for a while. And I worked quite some DX there. The year started good with a new one Top Band: HP1XT as QSO number two for 2017. I kept thinking: why does that Polish guy send a dit too much? But it was indeed HP for a new DXCC. Later on I worked P49X. I thought I had a P4 from working all these contests but LotW says no. So that makes two new countries on 160. W00t!
I worked some more Americans too. The problem is that most sane people are in bed so I don't work too many. Shooting fish in a barrel during the day on 10m with SFI = 150 is more productive. Ain't gonna happen soon. So I worked an new state on 160. AA7A brought me AZ. I didn't keep track so maybe there are more new states for 160 WAS. I'm at 34/50 now. But I'm not chasing the WAS 160 award. Just like on 80, KH6 and KL7 will be virtually impossible. I heard a KH6 on 80 once. In an ARRL DX CW contest. Just my luck. WAS 80m is now at 45/50. This week I worked K7CF on 3.5 MHz. He's in Idaho. Yet another new state. And it's getting better. Five minutes ago I discovered that I recently worked Kansas for another new one on 160m: KU1CW in the Stew Perry contest. So it's safe to say that the low band propagation is seriously picking up. And that my modest stuff works for modest DX.
That also leads to some frustration. Every day my signals are picked up by RBN skimmer receivers in remote places. Yet no one comes back to my CQ. I have mentioned it in a previous post: it seems to me that activity during the week is declining in favor of the contest weekends. Two days ago the propagation on Top Band was really good to the USA. Yet it were the same four Americans who were spotting the same dozen Europeans for two hours on end. If that kind of conditions had been present in a major contest, we would all feast on the low bands multipliers. I admit that I'm guilty too. I don't have to work for two weeks and I'm on the bands. But as of next week, my activities will yet again be limited to the contests.
Below is an RBN map of this week. Time is just after my sunrise which is 7.40 utc or so. Normally a PJ2 and KP3 skimmer pick me up too but not at the time of grabbing the image. At my sunset, VK4CT copies me too. But not while he's in daylight. Anyway it doesn't happen too often that I'm heard in ZL on 3.5 MHz.
But then this passes on the spotting network:
I heard that someone was calling me. Presumably this one. But I couldn't even make up a single letter or number. This has been a problem from the beginning with this antenna. I'm better heard than I can hear myself. Alligator. I could pinch off 3dB of the transmit power. Maybe the other side was QRP? I put up the RX antennas. It didn't help for this one. Miracle antennas – do they exist?
Yet another year has passed. A year that started bad for the hobby and the OM. Storms, lightning, a general lack of interest and energy for the hobby. A 'been there, done that' feeling. All this made for little activity the first half of 2016. Luckily the tide turned and I found a renewed interest in the hobby by not setting goals except for having fun. And from July on, there has not been any interference from the weather either.
The QSO count for 2016 is on the low side. Even lower that I estimated. The reason is that I didn't do much before July. I also didn't do all band efforts CQ WW (more than 8000 QSO in 2014), and I skipped WPX and ARRL. These contests usually provide a few thousand contacts too.
The breakdown by band clearly shows the decline of the solar cycle. Look at the 10/12m numbers. But then again: almost 600 QSO more on 30m than in 2015. That is a clear sign of ON5ZO having fun as a casual DXer. This is also reflected by the huge number of contacts on 50 MHz. A 600% increase compared to 2015.
The breakdown by mode is not worthy of its own image. Telegraphy still the way to go: 74.33% of my activity is CW. I made 215 RTTY contacts in 2016. That's a lot if you know that I only made 270 RTTY contacts between 2010 and 2015, with two years of zero RY QSO. Again a sign of me just hanging out making some noise on the bands.
I made at least one QSO on 52 different days.
The last QSO of 2016 was ZL3NB on 30m. Nice DX on my favorite band. What will 2017 be like? It started out great with a new one on Top Band…
The weekend of December 10th I finally put up a second loop to compare to the short beverage. For this I made a third 9:1 transformer and provided a 450Ω termination. The loop hangs on the 'auxiliary tower' and favors USA just like the beverage. Once again one of my boys lent me a hand. It was the impatient one. "Here son, hold these ends up for me." While I was marking the middle of the wire to serve as the loop's apex, he decided that it took too long and that the wire could be used for rope skipping.
To do a real time A/B comparison I needed a switching system. My first thought was to use my old A/B switching relay. The one I used before 2011 to switch the sloping dipoles for 40m. The problem was I needed to make a new interface to do the switching and provide DC power from the shack to the relay. But then I got another idea. Why not simply use the stackmatch? That one has A/A+B/B switching capability and I had a button box with the necessary cabling. Yes I have a stackmatch. Only used once though. Back when I was still ambitious.
That weekend I did some 160m SWLing. I heard three Belgians call CQ on Top Band and get answered by many Americans. It was soon clear that in all cases except one, the loop had a better S/N than the beverage. Only one station was louder on the beverage but still too weak to copy. On a few occasions I could copy the W station right away when the ON I was SWLing upon had troubles hearing him. Or maybe I'm just better at taking calls in CW. Anyway the loop is a keeper. Furthermore it doesn't need a coax running over the front lawn and the driveway.
I did some more SWLing the day after. Again two of the same Belgians were working USA. I was limited to SWLing because the TX antennas were down. Since the WX forecast didn't show any significant wind speeds, I decided to crank the tower up to the max and pull up the 80/160m vertical wires. I have a calm period at work with some free time so why not do some low band DXing? Standing by as an SWL is not for me. I want action.
Of course I didn't work many Americans. Not because of bad propagation: a few east coast skimmers picked me up. Simply because the bands are virtually empty on weekdays. I admit that most if not all of my operating is done in the weekend contests. It seems that more and more people limit their radio activity to the weekends. By this time I had connected the JA/ZL loop to the stackmatch. So I can now listen to both loops at once and select A or B alone. This helps on all bands from 160 to 30m. I haven't tried the other bands since my yagi is OK and I'm not interested in the regular bands outside the contests.
On a few occasions the morning path to JA provided a bunch of contacts from the land of the rising sun. My sunrise and their sunset more or less match and it's a path that works best from 07.30 to 08.15 utc. Because the pulleys and support masts were in use for the 80m and 160m wires, I had to take down the WARC wire dipole. I put up a monoband 30m dipole as a vertical dipole. Top about 18m high and the bottom about 3m above the ground. It helps to have a whole range of antennas coiled up in a box.
Then came the next weekend. My initial plan was to participate in the 9ACW contest. But even though I had marked this on the calendar, the XYL managed to schedule a social event on Sunday. The good thing was that this weekend also had the Stew Perry contest. With the tower and the low band antennas up, I decided to play in Stew Perry and do some SB80 in the Croatian CW contest. Nothing serious. The goas was to fill the log with as much DX as possible.
Stew Perry rules stipulate that cluster assistance is a no-no so I decided to submit a checklog. While a noble effort to keep this an old skool contest, I find it a bit naïve. Over here everyone uses the cluster and people just submit the log. Maybe just a few people deliberately cheat by using spotting assistance and claiming unassisted. But the vast majority doesn't read rules, doesn't care, and just submits unassisted anyway. Mainly because the default setting in the logging soft says 'unassisted'. As I'm typing this, the preliminary results are out and I managed to be the best DX for AA1K. My best DX is K0RF who is 7851 kilometer away from here.
Saturday afternoon only brought me EU on 160m. There were one or two spots for JA stations but I didn't hear them. A44A was loud, and possibly a new DXCC for me on 160 but kept CQing in everyone's face. Late in the evening P4/DL6RAI was loud. But he kept calling CQ and he didn't reply to any of the callers from around here. Strange and most of all too bad for the DXer in me. I also worked a few Americans. Those closest to EU of course while their sun was setting. But it wasn't much and the signals were not what I heard while SWLing the week before. I made a quick 80m run in the 9A CW test and then went to bed. The plan was to get up early and try 160 again.
The morning offered much more Americans and they were much louder. Groovy! I could not log stations deep into the continent. The usual W1-2-3-4. The odd Texan. I worked K0RF at 06.54 and at 08.02 I logged NP2X for my last DX. I quit a few minutes later because the band died. That Sunday morning didn't provide any new contacts on 80 in the 9ACW contest. I made a dozen QSO on the other bands just to hand out points to the signals I heard on the 21 and 28 MHz bands. UR3GU asked for a QSY to 160 which I was glad to do.
There had been a problem when I was using the K3's second receiver with the JA/ZL loop on 80m. The internal relay started rattling. That is a problem I discovered and solved a few years back. But it returned. To make a long story short: the DMM showed the relay wasn't activated when it should have been. One of the solder connections had come loose, presumably because of insufficient strain relief on the PTT cable. A touch with the soldering iron and all was fine again.
That's typically me: I make something conceptual, as a quick prototype, to see if it works and whether it solves my problem. Then I get ecstatic when it does but the temporary 'proof of concept' prototype is never replaced by a decent thing. I now added a few wraps of electrical tape as strain relief. That should keep it going for another few years.
While I was troubleshooting the device, I started philosophizing. The first thought was: why didn't I draw a schematic of this when I made it? I'm pretty sure I drew one, but it got lost or thrown away. It's not a complex thing but I route the 13.8V in an unconventional way from the PSU to the PTT back to the relay in order to save a plug and not having to drill an extra hole in the little box. And now I forgot which wire went where so it took me five minutes to reverse engineer my own device. I was looking for a small LM7805 regulator TO-92 style on the small perf board PCB. The reed relay is 5V and the PSU gives 13.8 V. As it turns out, I didn't use the regulator but a combination of resistors to make a voltage divider with the relay. A schematic would have shown this right away. Then my mind took a leap to the next thought. An ode to the joy of basic electronics. Twenty years ago I was studying electronics. Time sure flies. It were the only three years between kindergarten and a higher education degree that I actually liked going to school. The fun of learning things, understanding them and putting them to use. Ohms law. Basic analog circuits. Once again I used these skills to solve a problem. And I probably would never have become a ham radio nutcase with another degree.
While screwing the lid back on, my thoughts landed. How can you enjoy ham radio to the max without basic knowledge of electronics? I'm not talking complex RF design or crazy VHDL stuff. Just the basics. I would never have understood the Elecraft note about the rattling relay in the subreceiver. I would never have been able to come up with a simple solution, order the right parts and do the basic engineering. Which is a far too expensive word for this relay gizmo. How much current will the relay draw? Is that within PTT specs? What resistors do I need to put in parallel and series to get the voltage down from 13.8V to 5V? Won't these resistors become too hot? How to use the DMM to track down problems? You don't need to know it all per se, certainly if your social network (the real one, not the fake cyber one) counts some tinkerers. But I can't detach electronics from ham radio. With the lid back on the aluminum die cast box and all cables connected, it was time to spray some RF in the ether.
Apart from trying to work DX on 160 I mainly hung out on 10.1 MHz. I like the predictable paths. JA in the morning with some ZL/VK in the mix. I haven't tried the long path W6/W7 long path opening in the evening this year. With a single element fixed antenna, I cannot focus on any path but it is a long path opening. Too early for the east coast as it's still broad daylight there. But it is sunrise on the west coast. But 30m is a crazy band that redicules the laws of propagation. I worked a ZL and two JA at 11 utc last week. That is my local noon! With a few hundred watts and a simple vertical dipole. And an RX loop, it helps. I've said it before and I'll say it again: 10.1 MHz is the best and easiest band to work DX. If you care to learn CW.
I'm typing this on Christmas day. Earlier this week, the forecast predicted a storm for the north sea and heavy gusts for the inland. I decided to be safe and lowered the tower on Thursday. It was all the way up and loaded with wires for 80/160/30. I didn't have the time to be in the shack – closing the schoolyear's first trimester and family obligations of the season. That means I didn't do the RAEM contest this year. Too bad for me as it's one of my favorite events. The WX forecast is set to calm again and my holidays have yet to start so I might as well crank up the tower again and work some DX. I hope the holidays will draw some more hams into their shacks. I already said that many times far away skimmers pick up my signals yet no one answers my CQ. I am part of the problem: I'm not active on weekdays either. But it's a shame that my 80m signal is audible in VK, ZL, JA, USA and Central America but I only get called by a few Europeans. Though it's hard to be part of the solution. On weekdays I too am kept hostage by agendas, time tables and schedules. And to survive this, I need to be in bed when the other side of the globe is calling CQ…
Dolly Parton may be working nine to five, I work from nine down to almost one.
It's time to give the short beverage another try. Two years ago I put up a copper wire along the fence. Lucky for a change: the fence runs from SE to NW. So the beverage antenna is pointing straight to the USA and upper Caribbean. I used that as an unterminated beverage antenna with an improvised 9:1 transformer. The wire comes from a broken current transformer that I partially unwound. Total length is about ninety meter. Too short for a textbook beverage but anything could be better than nothing.
Last year I didn't use this RX antenna. I used the commercial active RX loop instead. This past summer I had success with my mono-directional terminated single K9AY style loop. I cannot put up a real K9AY RX array since it's position would be far from optimal with respect to various obstacles and (not) being in the clear. I need to stay in a 2D plane. So two separate loops could be an option: one for USA and another for the Far East. Or point the loop to the north-east and put the USA beverage back into service. But then I need another 9:1 transformer.
More than four years ago I ordered a batch of parts for a project I haven't even started. But I ordered a bunch of binocular cores along. We call 'm pigs snout or pig's nose core in Dutch. I wound a classic 9 turns – 3 turns transformer to obtain the 9:1 ratio. Actually it may have been ten turns on the hi-Z side. Winding toroids… I have a love-hate relationship with small coils since I was studying RF electronics and doing measurements on self-made Hartley oscillators. Don't ask.
Finally time to install the software that came with the AA-54 analyzer. I like this device but I have yet to learn how to use all it's possibilities. I have never used the software before and skipped the RTFM part.
Below is the SWR graph when loaded with a 470 ohm carbon resistor. Looks OK to me. I didn't cut the resistor's leads and this isn't really a low inductance resistor type so it might actually be better. But for a simple RX antenna transformer, it should do just fine. Assuming the beverage impedance is in the 470 ohm range. I actually should measure first then wind accordingly but this transformer might end up in a K9AY loop anyway.
First I will put up the loop and the beverage at the same time towards the USA and do a real time A/B comparison. If the beverage does as well, it's a keeper. Because it doesn't consume any real estate. I don't dare to hope it will outperform the loop. In that case, I simply will have to put up another improvised beverage to Japan. It never ends, it never ends…
Actually, I have used the beverage in the CQ WW CW SB80 category. I didn't do an A/B test (yet) because many things interfered with my free time before the contest. And I relocated the loop when setting up for this contest.
I'm under the impression that the loop performs better than the beverage. I have no data and numbers to prove this. It's a feeling. The beverage wire is not in the clear but above plasticized fence wire or rusted barb wire. It seems that it offers less signal and more noise. Maybe it would help to terminate it, but then it would favor the long path because the coax is attached on the western end of the wire.
I always get a kick when theory matches experimental evidence. There certainly is noticeable directivity between the beverage running East-West (USA) and the loop that's NE-SW (JA/ZL). DL is at 83° from here. When going from the loop to the beverage, the German signals becomes stronger but the noise too.
In the contest I noticed that signals from Africa (z33 and deeper) were strong. Later I discovered that I had the loop reversed with respect to the terminating resistor. So in fact it was favoring Africa and not Japan. My bad. I fixed that after the contest.
I'm typing this ten days after the contest. In the mean time I have made about hundred fifty contacts on 30m (10.1 MHz). In a few cases the loop was the difference between making and not making a QSO. On moderate signals from moderate DX, there is a difference between the loop and the short beverage. Both are perpendicular to each other. Still the beverage is noisier than the loop. So sometimes even if it's not in the right direction, the loop offers better S/N.
I also did some Top Band SWLing last weekend in the ARRL 160m contest. I actually could hear a handful of Americans on the beverage and the loop. No comparison with the TX antenna since it's currently not up. I am making another 9:1 transformer and have put up another loop wire. So the plan is to do a decisive A/B real time comparison soon in order to determine if a loop is better than the short beverage if both are 'pointing' to the same direction. I'm discovering unexplored territory here.
SB80(A) again for the same reasons.
I repeat: the high bands not interesting and the operator not in shape for 40+ hours of SOAB. You want to stay clear from 160 so it's between 80 and 40. I do well to very well on 40 but 80 is a challenge. If it goes bad, you can pull the 'tough band' card. If it's a success the reward is so much bigger. I just wanted to know what could be done on 80 and it would be nice to compare the CW part to the SSB part. If any comparison is needed.
The sun seemed quiet in the week leading to the contest weekend. Tuesday or so ON3DI told me that the solar forecast predicted troubles for the end of the week. The forecast and ON3DI's fear became a reality. Not much we can do. Fortunately the WX was supposed to be dead calm after last week's storm.
A few rough days
I must admit that the days before the contest were all but beneficial for the mental and physical condition of the contest operator. I don't talk about my personal and family life here but I'll break that rule for once. The week before the contest some apprentice driver bumped into the family's only car. No human damage except some bruises to the driver (XYL) but the car was declared total loss. Dealing with tow company, insurance, rental car firm, car dealer and the likes was stressful. As if an accident of this magnitude isn't bad enough. So it comes as no surprise that this situation had been nibbling on my energy levels. Heck, it bit off huge chunks during these past days.
My usual Wednesday off was spent putting the RX loop back up and hooking up the new 9:1 transformer and a coax to the short beverage. This little project gets a dedicated post soon. The loop is for JA/ZL and the beverage runs along the USA short-long path axis. The weather was really nice. That always makes me happy. And being outside in lovely weather doing various jobs charges my batteries. At dusk my youngest son decided to help me with the beverage while the oldest joined my wife to pick up the new (second hand) car we bought. We were /M again.
The car issue combined with a tough week at the office, made me feel tired and I even felt slightly ill. I still had to put the tower and 80m wire up for the contest. I planned to do that on Friday. It was Black Friday indeed. By 8.30 AM I had brought the XYL to the train station and the kids to school and upon my return I found the kitchen floor flooded. I don't want to turn this into a plumber's blog so long story cut short: problem with the water boiler on the first floor. Water downstairs, boiler upstairs. Get it? I'm sure I have never run up the stairs so fast in the fourteen years that we own the house. The recovery, the cleaning and the fix took about two hours, including a quick rush to the local DYI for replacement parts. This too really took a lot of my energy and added to the already elevated stress level.
I decided to crank up the tower now and pull up the 80m wire. That went without a problem, as usual. A quick test in the shack showed that everything was working, including the RX loop and the beverage. That restored my confidence. I had a biscuit for lunch and took a shower. Technically it was all systems go for CQ WW CW. I had a couple of hours to spare and the plan was to rest and hopefully get some pre-contest sleep.
I landed into the couch and then the 'you cannot have too many antennas' adage started spinning through my head. I had two switched RX antennas on the K3's AUX RF input. I use these for diversity reception with the 2nd RX. But I still had the plain RX input free. And a freed up coax from garage to shack. Input free + coax available = extra antenna possibility. Instead of resting the adrenaline kicked in and I went into the garden to deploy the DoG. The Dipole on Ground. Don't ask why but I decided not to throw the antenna on the ground. The dipole leg connected to the 'hot side' was guided through the low fruit trees about 120 to 150 centimeters high. The wire connected to the coax shield was put on the ground running underneath this wire. I didn't actually expect miracles from this. It was more a way to use really every input and option on the transceiver.
The rest of Friday was spent running errands, dining with the family and watching TV while counting down. I even tried some sleeping. I was up and early in the shack and I even made a few contacts.
The contest
The K-index was way too high, just like in the SSB part. I was having second thoughts about SB80. Wouldn't SB40 be better? It has been my best band in CQ WW CW. High rates and plenty multipliers. And 40 CW is fun as opposed to SSB. I was still weighting pros and cons five minutes before the contest. But I stuck to the original plan. I wanted to see what I could squeeze out of my limited 80m setup. So SB80 it is. My 2014 record hour was low in the band on 3505 so I settled there. Soon the rate exploded and I hoped to break the record of 210/hr. That of course was with SO2R and a bunch of interlaced 40m contests. I was SB80 now. In the end I logged 198 QSO after one hour and made over 600 contacts in the first four hours. I was pretty pleased despite not setting a new rate record. I was deeply disappointed about the number of American stations in the log. And those who did call, were weak. If W3LPL or K3LR is only S5 here on any band except 160, I know that propagation is worthless. Still I was thrilled to work ZM4T way past my sunrise on Saturday. I worked another ZL at my sunset and another two at Sunday's sunrise. Despite the propagation. Saturday's sunset brought another nice surprise: VK6LW. How cool is that? I missed a PY in SSB but quite soon logged one in CW. I was hoping for a LU and a JA for a double mult. I did work a few JA Sunday evening but never heard a LU or saw one spotted on 80. Bummer.
At one point Sunday morning things became all too slow. Combined with the lack of sleep I decided to get two hours of bed time. I was active again early before my sunrise but truth be told it wasn't spectacular. Even though the K value dropped to three or even two, the band didn't recover this fast. I tried and tried to score multipliers but it wasn't easy. My guess was that many people found 80m to be poor and went up to 40 or even 20. After sunrise I quit.
I gave some points to the DXpeditions on 40-20-15. Gosh 15 was poor. And ten was empty apart from one or two signals. Just two years ago these two bands were jam-packed until well after my sunset. For fun I tried 40 long path to z3 around my sunset. Long path propagation because I can't select a direction with my dipole. I only worked two but it was fun to hear their signals come up as the greyline terminator closed in. I then tired 80 again in the hope to reach 100 country multipliers. After all the Far East still had plenty potential. But it wasn't to be. There were spots for two Chinese stations but they were weak, didn't seem to hear well and the EU zoo was open again.
Later on I got called by a JA for a double mult. You finally work one, then more follow. I normally don't do this but I watched the 80m RBN in search of a few mults. It's allowed when being in the assisted class, but I don't see the point most of the time. It helped now: BV1EL appeared and was not yet spotted. Once again the proof what I have been saying: once a rare on is spotted on the cluster, it's game over if you're not willing to spend a long time in the EU mess. But he wasn't spotted so it didn't take long to have him in the log. I worked a few other multis (JT, 8Q and 6Y) and then the contest was over.
I'm quite happy with the result given the state of the ionosphere and my simple antenna. Of course when the scores on 3830 come in… How can I compete with yagis on a tower that is over a half wavelength high and 4SQ arrays? And possibly 3 to 5dB more RF power. So I'm just in it for the fun. Next year: SB40?
First storm of the season
" When the barometer indicates a storm, lamenting becomes the norm " – ON5ZO
Last weekend my plan was to raise the tower and participate in the LZ DX contest. For the second year in a row I had to cancel this plan. A few days before the weekend, the forecast indicated a nasty storm on Sunday morning. Not cranking up the tower then. And there is no fun in playing while being crippled antenna-wise. It was indeed a storm. One of my neighbors is missing a big chunk of Styrofoam. I don't know who but feel free to come and get it. Monday we saw a big trampoline upside down in the middle of a field! Someone must be missing one trampoline.
One particular gust around noon on Sunday blew away the covers of my compost bins. Including the weights I had put on top. This gust probably is to blame for the yagi to have moved again. Just like last year. The boom-to-mast clamp needs a makeover. I really should address that. I tilted the tower over earlier this week and yanked the boom to align the antenna with the rotator controller and to have the driven element parallel again to the 40m dipole. So obviously the clamp isn't too tight anymore. I know why and how to fix it, but I need a scaffold to reach it.
The good thing is that my homebrew tilt over mast didn't move an inch. Not even a millimeter. I designed the thing to put it horizontal in case of storms like the one announced but I didn't even bother. I admit I wasn't too comfortable and regularly checked how it held up. But it seems I did a good engineering job and my welding skills passed the 'medium storm' test.
The wireless hobby is a lie!
Wireless hobby? Yeah right! You should see my garage, the hub of all things cable here at ON5ZO. And behind and below the operating desk. When I got my VHF-only license I persuaded my dad to drill a hole from my bedroom to the attic to route one simple coax through it. My co-worker at the time (ON4BCB) chuckled: 'Only one hole? You'll soon find it to be insufficient'. How right he was. As soon as I got my HF-license, more holes had to be drilled for more antennas. One extra hole to bring the antenna count to two actually.
The same happened here in my own QTH. One of the first things we did while renovating, months before we moved in, was to make a hole in the wall with a big PVC pipe through it. One simple coax went out the shack through the pipe and into the garden. No wait, as I type this I remember: there was no pipe yet at that time. Just a hole. The coax bungled against the wall and ran over the ground. I put up a 10m fishing pole with a vertical wire and a bunch of radials. I used a SG-230 SmartTuner and ran an extension cord through an open window to feed it. It was the EU Sprint Spring SSB 2003. I was so glad to finally have my own QTH and had big plans and big dreams. The plans got executed, even more than I dared to think of back then. The dreams are gone because simply not feasible. I just looked up this contest on 3830. Zeppos passed away last June. Just like the EU Sprint contest itself: nothing is forever…
Back to the cables. Over the last fourteen years I probably spent the most time on cable and wires. In the air, underground, in trees, on the wall, in a conduit: EVERYWHERE. By now the plastic pipe from the shack to the garage is half full. Four coax runs, three general purpose 12-wire cables and the big rotator cable. For years I used one of the coaxes to bring the dedicated RF earth into the shack. Don't ask. But now I wanted to put this one to use for more RX antenna options. So I added two big green-yellow earthing wires and a stretch of RG-58 coax. More cables. And a few days ago I found myself making cable jumpers to match a variety of plugs (PL, N, BNC). I find my own jumpers more reliable and often cheaper than off the shelf adapters. And I hooked up a new control cable for an antenna switching job. Lots of cable and wire. Wireless hobby? Think not.
QRM from LED lights
A few weeks ago I installed a motion detector to switch my homebrew light cart. I want to illuminate the garden and the terrace when going outside in the dark. I bought a set of cheap no brand LED floodlights. Yesterday I was SWL'ing to test a new low band RX setup and I discovered that these lamps completely wipe out the bands. The QRM is gone from the second the lights turn off. Quite shocking. It sounds EXACTLY like the QRM that bothered me two years ago. Only then it wasn't my stuff. The good thing is that I can just pull the plug of these LED lights whenever I'm in the shack. The VERY BAD news is that if everyone starts putting up this shit, I'm knee deep into Shit Creek. New item on the to do list: buy a more expensive LED light from a known manufacturer and see if that makes any difference. Question is: what brand should / could be trusted not to pollute the bands? I wonder if there are any test reports on the matter. This one is worth noting: Eliminating radio interference (QRM) from LED (flood) lights by ON7EQ.
And OQ5M is too!
After more than a decade I have collected about twenty contest plaques from the UBA DX contest. CW, SSB, low power, high power, twelve hours, twenty four: I've done it all. I also cherish my 'special achievement plaque' for most QSO made with the OO-prefix in 2005 as OO5ZO. About 18500 CW only contacts or so. The engraved text should have read: 'no one else was crazy enough to spend so much time on the air'. I ran barefoot then too. And had no kids yet.
Back to the plaques. A field day victory was still missing on the wall. OT1A and I made second place twice, but our June 2015 effort paid off. Finally.
Hardly beginner's luck but third time's a charm indeed (2006-2011-2015).
A few weeks ago the mail man stopped and had two parcels. I immediately recognized the plastic envelope covered with Russian stamps. But TWO plaques at once?
Thank you RAEM contest! I'd love to be back this year but it seems to run on December 25. I'm not sure I can sell this to the Board of Directors. It seems to be a special day, apart from this very enjoyable contest.
SB80 just like last year. Reasons why? Just like last year: Propagation above 20m sucks. Twenty and forty are a splatter infested limbo of hell. So that leaves only 80 since I avoid Top Band whenever I can. Last year was fun and I was amazed by the result so why not again this year? Yes, afterwards we're always smarter… Little did I know that there would not be any propagation to suck!
My new work schedule since two years doesn't get me my Friday afternoon off. I had a few daylight hours to spare on Tuesday so I cranked up the tower then and adjusted the 80m ground plane from CW to SSB. With all the work done this summer I also used another stretch of coax (better cable = lower loss) from the coax cabinet outside to the 6×2 relay box. I hooked up the antenna analyzer right at the antenna which was seemingly fine. But on the transceiver's end it had SWR > 10:1. Darn! It turned out to be a bad N-plug on the new coax. Not badly soldered, it was just a type of plug that doesn't really fit the exotic RG-217 cable. The center pin was too far back to mate with the socket. That RG-217 cable has been discussed here before, mostly with topics as 'hard to find suitable plugs' and 'got into trouble with a nonconventional plug'. It's a good cable and I nailed a real bargain for a 100m drum, however it turned out to be a pain to find suitable plugs. I put the old coax back into action and the problem got solved.
On Wednesday I put up the terminated RX loop. As usual pointed to the US of A. That has helped me the past summer and proved a winner in this contest too. Thursday evening I prepared the shack. Updated all software and took out the headset. SSB voice keying and VOX were working fine. Super! Technically I was prepared. Mentally too: low expectations and only looking for amusement. The WX had been fine and was said to be calm and dry over the weekend. What could go wrong? The sun, for instance. K-values of 6 the days before the contest. I didn't know how bad that affects low band propagation. I do know now! We all do.
Friday night I went to bed and set the alarm a little late. On purpose since I was only in it for the fun and the first hour usually is very hectic. As soon as I launched my first CQ with the PC voice keyer, I was in for a nasty surprise. The audio from the PC sounded distorted on the monitor. I didn't test the voice keying with the amp on the other day… The fact that it sounds distorted on my side is not a problem. As long as it isn't distorted when it leaves the transmitter. But no one answered when I sent my call. Bad sign. One of the stations I sent my call to, complained about bad modulation. There you have it. Live voice into the microphone was OK. Now what? A round of troubleshooting, that's what.
- It's exactly the same setup as last year when the problem didn't occur. Did something change without me remembering or noticing it?
- The problem only went away when I transmitted at 50W or less. I'm not a QRP guy!
- The problem only occurred on 80m. Not on any other band. Just my luck with a planned SB80 effort.
- The problem persisted when I unhooked the RX antenna from the rig. You never know, right?
- The problem went away when I unplugged the MIC from the MK2R+. The WAV files played back clean just as long as there is no connection between the headset's mic and the radio.
So it was the headset's mic lead that fed the problem into the MK2R+. I twisted the lead around a clip-on ferrite core but that didn't help. At this point, it was almost one hour later. My bed was calling and the morale was far gone. I was about to quit even before I started.
I overlooked my options and noticed a 3.5mm jack-to-jack audio cable lingering on the 'electronics work bench' a/k/a the desk a/k/a messy heap of various stuff. I don't know why but I plugged it in the MIC socket and tried. That loose end didn't pick up the RF. As a last resort I took this lead, twisted it around three ferrites and looked in my audio-adapter box for combinations to get this between headset and MK2R+. I had a set of male/female professional audio XLR-type adapters that accept 6.4mm jacks. I had 3.5-to-6.4mm jack adapters. Eureka! This kept the RF away from the audio. This amazing piece of audio-gizmo's position on the desk was crucial. Sliding it to the left or right made things worse. And touching the metal case of the XLR-adapters with my finger, distorted the audio again.
However I was back in business and I felt ecstatic. Not only could I do the contest but I also was satisfied with my problem solving capabilities. And glad I have a dozen boxes and containers full of extension cables, exotic parts, RF and audio adapters, plugs and what not. Once again my point was proven: you can NEVER EVER have too many of these around!
Soon I found that the sun's recent spasms didn't do any good for the bands. Signals were weak, if any. It was hard to get USA in the log. And those who made it were weak. Even the beacons like K3LR, W3LPL, KC1XX… who should peg the S-meter even on eighty meters. Over the whole period the best hour was between 2z and 3z. About 120 contacts logged. And one of only two hours of +100. The other being 18z on Saturday.
Around 4.45z on Saturday morning I had my fifteen minutes of fame. But no more than fifteen. During that short time span it seemed that central America and the Caribbean were doing S&P low in the band. They all called me and I was amazed every time. It's what I always say: keep running with a decent signal and the mults will come. I kept going for a while after sunrise but then quit.
I was home alone but I wasn't really tired. I spent the morning outside putting up a BoG. Yes, another RX antenna. After all I badly needed multipliers from the east. In retrospect this turned out to be a total useless effort. There was nothing from the east! See the map generated by Adventure Radio Log Analyzer and thanks to ON3DI for the link (new gimmick!).
I can't remember much more from the rest. It was boring. It was slow. I was a matter of bridging the ten minute gap between two contacts. Of course I encountered the usual German bulldogs from the German round tables. You know, the lot that owns a certain frequency to chitchat about the color of their socks. Like a dynasty, the QRG goes over from generation to generation. One of them even introduced the term 'Funkterroriste'. For my English audience: it has nothing to do with a booty shaking style of music! My frequency (the one I lease, not own) got invaded three times. Two times a simple and polite request to move on was politely answered, with apologies to boot. The third was IR3Z. His antennas and location obviously outgunned mine, despite the much lower power limit in Italy. Oops: spewing out irony again! Like the saying goes: don't wrestle with a pig. Both of you get dirty but the pig loves it (George Bernard Shaw). So I decided to be the bigger man and abandon my run. It had run dry anyway. Still I hate it when this happens.
At a given point I decided to catch some sleep. It wasn't really needed but the boredom got unbearable. One hour later I woke up very suddenly and got a bit mentally disoriented. I felt sick and my stomach was upset. I hadn't eaten in a while so it could not be food poisonging?I took a bucket with me to the shack just in case. Better safe than sorry. But I really didn't feel well. Then it dawned on me: I needed energy. I ate two bananas while leaving the dog out to answer the call of nature and ten minutes later I was just fine. In time for Sunday's sunrise. That one was even less productive than the day before. It bothered me that I didn't even work a single PY for a double mult. A LU had called me, and a CE. Then PW8T was spotted but the packet pile up was just too intense.
I slept some more on Sunday during the day. And I decided to play around on the higher bands. What higher bands? Ten was silent apart from a few Italians and Eastern EU stations. Fifteen was a bit better. A bit, but not much. I tried my luck on twenty. As soon as I got spotted I had a mini-pile up to the USA. That's the only thing I like about SSB: fast USA runs. The propagation treated me well between late 2011 and late 2014. Since then it hasn't been the same. But this time it was pure horror… The KC1XX operator lured me into a QSY to 28 MHz. I told him the band was dead. He said it was open. I wrote down their run frequency on ten meters. A few minutes later I went to listen there. Nothing of course.
I don't even remember what I did the rest of the day. Around sunset I moved into the shack again. Against common sense. Once in a while someone spotted me and I worked a dozen stations. Then it was slow… 'Slower than molasses in January' is what Redneck Rampage taught me.
Late in the contest MU0GSY and 7R7W called me for my two last multipliers. GJ2A was spotted but the pile up was just too thick and it kept being messy for quite a while so I never worked that multiplier. Not that it matters. The S5 guys who also did SB80(A) on 3830 seemed to have been in a different contest anyway.
My wife always asks 'how's it going upstairs?' It's hard to explain to my XYL why we do this. Obviously this wasn't for fun this time. Slow rates, hardly any DX, poor propagation. But a true blue contester just can't NOT be on the air. I've been forced to abandon my participation by storms too much over the last three years. So even this was better than not being on the air at all. I just don't dare to say that it can't get any worse than this. Suppose it can?
I don't know about CQ WW CW yet. SBxx for sure. But what band?


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- 1[countable] words or phrases that a group of people shout or sing again and again The crowd broke into chants of 'Out! Out!' football chants
- 2[countable, uncountable] a religious song or prayer or a way of singing, using only a few notes that are repeated many times a Buddhist chant In a nearby temple, our guide chanted a prayer and lit a stick of incense. see also Gregorian chant See related entries: Pieces of music Word Origin late Middle English (in the sense
BrE BrE//tʃɑːnt//; NAmE NAmE//tʃænt//Pieces of music
Check pronunciation: chant


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Flash Website
This project received 9 bids from talented freelancers with an average bid price of €415 EUR.Get free quotes for a project like this
Project Budget€30 - €250 EUR
Total Bids9
Project Description
1. Short full screen flash intro.
Scene: Something like the intro from [url removed, login to view] after you choose the country, but not as complex.
It will be a 4 stage "movie":
1'st: the logo will appear large
2'nd: the logo will get small very fast becoming a point from which a lot of points will appear forming the world map out of points (Europe will be marked with red points) – something like this: [url removed, login to view]
3'rd: The points from the map will break away forming a crude shape of a Volvo fh16 2013 out of points
4'th: The points will transform into a true picture of a Volvo fh16 2013 which will appear and "move" on a road like the plane in this site: [url removed, login to view] (at this point the intro will have been downsized to the size of the picture of the example above becoming the header of the website)- of course the road will continue in the background picture – the background picture has to show that the company transports Freight/Cargo all over Europe.
2. The website – I very much like this template: [url removed, login to view] - I want you to create something that will duplicate the feeling and button animation presented in this template, but, of course, in direct connection with the logo, colors of the logo and the idea that this is a website for an international freight transport company.
You can also provide your own ideas, but no matter what you will do IT HAS TO BE VISUALLY AMAZING and EASY TO NAVIGATE/USER FRIENDLY.
3. The pages at this time are the ones presented here: [url removed, login to view] – special attention to each page, as it will have to be in tone with the website, but at the same time have visual differences, expressing the character of the information presented: Gallery (here there has to be something special that will show all the picture thumbnails and the large pictures in the back without encumbering each other – maybe in this style [url removed, login to view] ), Contact, Company…..
4. It has to have an administration panel so that the client be able to add pages, pictures, information as often as he wants, which will have to be VERY user friendly.
The KEY is AMAZING VISUALS and LOW PRICE.
I am very demanding, but also a good collaborator. I will help you in any way I can so that the project turns out AMZING, but if you don't deliver what I've asked we will have a problem.
I can't stress out enough the fact that I only work with serious, very good, dedicated professionals – if you think you can't cut it, DON'T APPLY – I'm not trying to be rude, but it will save both a lot of wasted time, work, resources, nerves……
I need SAMPLES OF YOUR WORK that are in tone with what I've asked above. No relevant portfolio or examples – no collaboration.
You will have a maximum of 2 weeks for this project.
For any additional information please contact me,
Thank You,
Stefan A. Mazilu
Skills Required
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|[Incubator Wiki] Update of "OpenmeetingsProposal" by SebastianWagner
|Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:46:22 GMT
Dear Wiki user, You have subscribed to a wiki page or wiki category on "Incubator Wiki" for change notification. The "OpenmeetingsProposal" page has been changed by SebastianWagner: http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/OpenmeetingsProposal?action=diff&rev1=20&rev2=21 Red5 has some API that we implement that are needed at compile time. Those compile time dependencies could be replaced by Mock-Objects. However for running the software at this point, you need the Red5 server. + Dependcies to Red5 API as graphs: + + {{http://openmeetings.googlecode.com/svn%2Dhistory/r%34%31%36%32/docs/Red%35.webstart.png}} + There is an alternative implemenation that we've done using an Java Applet that uses SIP acting like a softphone and that does not need Red5 for Streaming. This implementation is not in production yet and you need additionally a SIP Server that does the necessary conference calls. But we have done conference calls in cooperation with a Finish VoIP Provider. === Cryptography === @@ -98, +102 @@ If any other existing Apache or Openmeetings committers would like to be grandfathered into the list then feel free to ask. = Sponsors = - === Champion === - * Andrus Adamchik <aadamchik at apache dot org> === Mentors === --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com For additional commands, e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
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STARmeterSEE RANK
Down 2,152,967 this week
Sonu Dham
Sonu Dham was born on July 31, 1982 in Queens, New York, USA. He is known for his work on The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Friends with Benefits (2011) and The Adjustment Bureau (2011). See full bio »
Born:in Queens, New York, USA


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Hostellerie Saint-Antoine
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Travel Blogs from Albi
Walking and bussing it
Caught a bus from Bouisset to Castre because I had hurt my foot so I met up with Peter and Sam in the afternoon. Wandered around Castre, sampling the patisseries. It was a cold, windy day a taste of the weather to come. I lit a candle at the church which surprisingly. was heated so quite inviting. Went to see a Goya exhibition and the gardens designed by Louis the fourteenth's gardener. Was good to be a tourist for the ...
The first week
We took our time this year meeting Emma and family at Cherry Hinton (October 4th) and then on the next day to Chartwell to look around Churchill's home and what a splendid day that was. Eventually on the ferry at Dover on October 4th enjoying the usual crossing, with champagne, shopping at Auchan in Calais and overnighting at Wissant. Next day was rain so we headed South and enjoyed a fine day ...
Alone again "naturally"
... taking the big ones. We are going to keep these in paper bags and try and keep them cool. We will let you know how long they last!!!' If there are any veggies out there, this place would save you £100's in food bills, just think how many recipes you could create, we think we will stick to mixing them with meat or make soup. The sun is over the yard arm, so ------ yes, G&T time, happy ...
Picnic, French style
... nées in the distance. They are the longest mountain range I have ever seen and span from coast to coast. It's incredible. I saw sheep for the first time in a month today. Was pretty excited and even ended up saying 'les moutons, les moutons'. I guess being a kiwi, sheep are kinda like a sense of home. The meeting place was Lac de Saint ferréol which is a man mad reservoir. It was too windy to eat there so we drove an extra 8 km ...
Smashing good time!
... was very interesting to see all the fresh produce on sale from all types of meat, cheese, bread, wine, fruit and vegetables. We stocked up on local grapes and cheese!
Thierry then took us to his home in the countryside for aperitifs and a nice home cooked lunch with his son Valentine.
After lunch, Thierry took us on another excursion, and this time we visited the 'pink' town of Albi. On the way we stopped off at Gaillac for wine tasting at ...


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Here's the bottom line - ABCF's 2013 Form 990 filing to IRS states that of $1 million in donations they gave out less than $20,000 in grants for mammograms and other services - a mere 2%. ABCF's board should be ashamed since most of what they claim are program services are actually salaries and mailing expenses for solicitations. While ABCF may have shown some signs of improvement under new management, they are still no where close to being an efficient public charity with their primary beneficiaries still being the telemarketers they employ who keep over 80% of donations raised. In many respects, ABCF is not unlike the Breast Cancer Prevention Fund (BCPF) which the IRS recently shut down according to this news report: http://www.komonews.com/news/problemsolvers/Bankrupt-Charity-259139541.html.
Don't be fooled by ABCF's glitzy website and marketing! If you truly want to help women fight breast cancer then donate directly to your state's public health department since 100% will fund the local clinics that provide these services free to woman who can't afford them.
Review from Guidestar
Thanks to ABCF I was able to get my yearly mammogram. I'm a breast cancer survivor without insurance at the time of my mammogram. Without them I would not have been able to get my mammogram done. You should support them because they really do care.
Review from Guidestar
Do not support this group,they are a scam and give less than 2 % to the actual clients that need help and they pocket the rest. They should be exposed for what they are! http://www.tampabay.com/americas-worst-charities/charities/american-breast-cancer-foundation-inc
abcf1 11/05/2013
As CEO of ABCF, I do not recognize your name as a past or current member of our Board of Directors . However, assuming you do exist, I state unconditionally that the accusations and assertions, in your attached article, (the source of which is based on out dated information,) is intended solely to vilify and denigrate this foundation, and is not at all a reflection of our current practice. I am proud to say that ABCF has served thousands of women and men without insurance who needed routine and diagnostic mammograms throughout the United States. Further, our Client Satisfaction Surveys are consistently positive. Such services are currently available by calling our 877 number. Today, after many years of hard work, we have moved our program services to almost 40% of our budget, with a goal of moving even higher. I urge you to contact us directly if you have concerns about our work. Jacky Loube email@example.com
Review from Guidestar
My sister got help from the American Breast cancer Foundation. They paid for her mammogram because she was 28 and with no insurance. She had a lump and was really scared. Our mom died from breast cancer at 58. We asked Komen and the American Cancer Society for help and they said no. I got some labels in the mail and told my sister to call them and ask for help. They paid for her mammogram, then her ultrasound, biopsy and when she found out it was cancer they gave her a grant to help her with her surgery costs. They kept checking on her the whole time to see how she was. If this group did not help my sister when no one else would she would be dead today. These people really do save lifes.


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This review is from: SanDisk X210 2.5" 256GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SD6SB2M-256G-1022i
Pros: Great Drive...I've owned a Samsung 840 Pro and in real world tests this drive is a great alternative. I will be ordering 20 more like it when our budget renews later in March. They have made a MASSIVE difference to some old in tooth 2008 Mac Mini's. They went from almost 4.5 min just to start up with Mavericks to under a minute to not only startup but also launch Safari, PowerPoint, KeyNote, and ProPresenter. You will not be sorry that you bought it...no question about it!!!
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text: Copying and distributing are prohibited without the permission of the publisher. If you wish to distribute this content please contact Christopher Hunt (firstname.lastname@example.com) for a quote. Subscribe today: Order Euromoney by contacting us on +44 (0)20 7779 8999 (UK) or +1 212 224 3570. China's balancing act on exchange rate By: Solomon Teague Published on: Thursday, October 29, 2015 China's quarter-point rate cut last Friday is the latest attempt to revive a flagging economy. But although currency liberalization is on the agenda in the longer term, the People's Bank of China is unlikely to be ready to cede control of the renminbi's de facto dollar peg just yet as depreciation pressures grow. Print Order Share Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on linkedin Share on googleplus Ten years after China scrapped the renminbi's formal peg to the dollar, it's no secret that the central bank's continued, albeit more implicit, anchoring of the exchange rate to the greenback remains key to policymakers' growth calculations. Accordingly, the conflict between China's near-term bid to add juice to its economy, amid deflationary pressures, which implies a weaker but fairly stable currency, and its medium-term ambition to rebalance its economy with a more flexible FX regime has taken centre stage. China's August renminbi devaluation and changes to the way it calculates its daily FX appeared to have dodged this trade-off by boosting the competitiveness of exports while the latter, in theory, makes the value of the exchange rate more sensitive to market-implied fundamentals. What's more, signs that the IMF will include the renminbi in the SDR currency basket irrespective of whether or not Beijing further liberalizes its FX regime also gives China breathing room to continue the status quo of gradually reforming the exchange rate regime. But given elevated risks of deflationary pressure, and expectations of a rising dollar amid a tighter Federal Reserve policy, some market analysts reckon the People's Bank of China (PBoC) should explicitly remove the dollar peg, although most reckon a policy of reform gradualism is to be expected. In sum, downward pressure on the renminbi is growing, raising questions about the sustainability of the exchange-rate regime, in general. On Friday, October 23, after the market had closed, the PBoC reduced the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points, with the one-year lending rate falling to 4.35% and the one-year deposit rate to 1.5%. The reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for commercial banks was also cut by 50bp to 17.5%, with larger cuts for selected banks. The renminbi has not participated in the rally in Asian currencies in October, and is the worst-performing currency in the region for the month to date. Andy Wu, senior economist at MNI Indicators, says: "The anticipated interest rate differential between the two countries has been narrowing. This inevitably leads to additional capital flight. Undoubtedly, the risk of a downward spiral in the value of the yuan will continue to grow." This trend could become self perpetuating as it undermines sentiment, he notes, with capital outflows likely to lead to greater devaluations of China's currency. Observers doubt the rate cut is going to be a game changer in this respect. Khoon Goh, senior FX strategist at ANZ, says: "While some in the market sees an interest rate cut by the PBoC as positive for risk, the offshore CNH spot weakened after the rate cut was announced. CNH was trading at 6.3884 against the USD when the news came out, and closed at 6.3964 for a loss of 0.13%." CNH has historically weakened by an average of 0.1% in the immediate aftermath of a rate cut, he notes. Goh says: "The release of financial institutions' net FX purchase data and banks' FX purchases and sales on behalf of clients data indicate that there were large outflows in September. After adjusting the net FX purchase data for the trade balance and net FDI flows, our proxy estimate for capital outflows in September was $179 billion, a record amount and slightly larger than the $169 billion outflow estimated in August." Although outflow pressures appear to have eased in October, "genuine demand for dollars remains," says Goh. "The widening of the spread between CNY and CNH to over 460 pips last Friday is another indication of this. With last Friday's rate cut, outflow pressures could pick up, and renewed depreciation pressure emerge." Yet this will not be enough to force the PBoC to release the reins on its exchange rate, says Wu. "We believe China will continue to weaken its dollar peg at a gradual pace," he says. But "if China wants to keep the yuan relatively stable, the PBOC must manage it more proactively." Nicholas Ebisch, analyst at Caxton FX, is even more cautious. "China has made clear that weakening the dollar peg is an option they will consider in the future, but it has a much larger and more destabilizing effect than cutting interest rates or cutting the reserve requirement as they have many times throughout the last year." He therefore expects China to bide its time. "It is unlikely that China will weaken its dollar peg as it did earlier this year in August, as that had a drastic effect on the global economy and sparked worldwide concern that the Chinese economy was slowing down rapidly," he says. Such a move would also fan the flames of volatility, given the difficulty the international markets would have determining the value of the renminbi, he adds. Ebisch says: "For a currency to be de-pegged from the dollar, there needs to be some of the currency available to trade on the open market. The CNY is a protected currency, which is very difficult to obtain on the open market. Therefore, if more of the Chinese currency becomes available and the currency peg is removed, then investors would be able to judge for themselves and an equilibrium value would be established between the CNY and other currencies." But when it happens, a floating renminbi will eventually stabilize the Chinese economy, predicts Ebisch. It might encourage greater investment by giving investors confidence they will be able to recoup their losses if they have a renminbi-denominated investment in the country, he says. 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Publication Name: Cedar Rapids Gazette
Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Pages Available: 2,926,551
Years Available: 1932 - 2016Learn More About This Publication
Cedar Rapids Gazette (Newspaper) - November 27, 1974, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (the (f ceint RnpitU ©njrt+cAll Dressed Up Gazette Photos bv Tom Merryma* They had a dress-up contest at Wilson junior high school Tuesday and these pictures show some of the results. Here. Mary Smith, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William .I Smith. 206 Seventeenth avenin' SU, poses with one of the teachers. Mrs .1. W. Smith, ninth grade language arts And here are I .cs Dvorak. 15. son of Mr and Mrs. George Dvorak. H2 Allview drive SYY, and Sue Hinton, 14, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Byron Hinton, 182 Fifteenth avenue SYV, as they clowned it up with their outfits. Bes had 2,133 items, some of which wen* hobby pins, Christmas lights, hair curlers, fruit jar lids, beads, etc Sue had I.HIT items such as pot holders, nine shirts, two coats, some of her dad s jewelry from the navy, scarves, ties and key rings. Happy lies not a turkey, this Polish rooster struts around the Hunianc shelter in Santa Barbara, Calif., with no worries about Ins fate as Thanksgivii approaches Society dayBut He Is The day before Thanksgi\ • mg, a plump turkey contemplates his demise at a turkey farm iii Livonia. Mich. At this late date he may be safe for another year at that, if he hang** in there tough. / Go/»a»e Photo by DoorUP to Snuff AP Wirephoto .James Young, bb. must Ik* up to snuff as a teacher His pupils and former students gave -him a surprise party Tuesday night and presented him with a snuff box to add to his collection. Young has taught night adult classes for 22 years, both creative writing and French. His current creative writing class planned the surprise at Washington high school. Young started teaching night classes under the Cedar Rapids Ixia rd of education aud currently teaches in the Kirkwood Community college adult education program BUCHWALD A Book on Stassen May Put Rockefeller Back in Book Business Bv Art Buchwald WASHINGTON — "Gov. Rockefeller, there s a man out side and he says he has a book he'd like you to publish." "I can't see anyone right now." "He's been here three days and says he won t leave." "All right, send him in." "Mr. Rockefeller, my names Casky, and I'd like to do a biography of Harold Stassen I thought you might publish it." "I'm not in publishing any more. I lost a bundle on the Arthur Goldberg book " "But Mr. Rockefeller, this is better than a Goldberg biography. Harold Stassen is one of the greatest men in the country. Everyone wants to read about him. You could sell a hundred thousand copies with your eyes closed." "That's what they told me about the Goldberg book. They promised me that the Book-of-the-Month club would take anything about a former justice of the supreme court So I called up my brother, Laurence, and told him we were onto a good thing and asked him to go in on it with me. Now I^aurance is sore. He hates to lose money in a business deal."In The Black "But Mr. Rockefeller, you can't just quit publishing because you had one flop. My book could put your company in the black." "I don't know. Ifs not easy for a Rockefeller to have an investment that goes sour. We thought we had a sure thing with Goldberg. After all, he was a labor lawyer, a supreme court justice and an ambassador to the United Nations. You would have thought people would break down the bookstore doors to buy the book." "But my book has more excitement than Goldberg's. Harold Stassen is a legend in America He was governor of Minnesota, president of a university and a presidential candidate four times." "Well. FII ask my brother . ance . . . Laurence, Nelson here my office that wants to write a Don't hang up on me, Laurence! . . Miss Jones, get me Laur-. . . Listen. I have a fellow in IxMik on Harold Stassen . . .Sex Appeal "I know you lost your shirt on the Goldberg book, but this seems to have more potential . . . Stassen has a lot more sex appeal than Goldberg . . . Please Laurence, this could be our big break We could become rich You will do it? Thanks a lot, I .aura nee . . . Believe me, you won t bi* sorry Goodbye. "Okay, Mr. I^asky, you tan go ahead with the project How much of an advance do you want'>" "Ten thousand dollars." "All right, now this is what I want you to do. Go to a telephone binith on Third avenue and Fifty-ninth at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon A man will pick you up and take you to Grand Central station and give you a key to a locker In the locker you will find the name of a lawyer in Los Angeles You re to fly out to L.A., and this lawyer will give you a cheek on a bank in St Louis. You can fly to St Urns aud cash the check." "Why can't you just give me a check now?" "What? And have the public know the Rockefellers are back in the publishing business?" » Copyright 19/4, Lo* An«ei«t Tim#*He's Not in Peril ;