CQ Amateur Radio May 2022

MAY SANDWICH, ILLINOIS — The Kishwaukee Amateur Radio Club will hold The Dekalb Hamfest from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Sunday, May 1 at the Sandwich Fairgrounds, 1401 Suydam Road. Contact” Bob Yurs, W9ICU, (815) 757-3219. Email: <w9icu@arrl.net>. Website: <www.karc-club.org>. Talk-in 146.730 (PL 100). TOLEDO, OHIO — The Lucas County Amateur Radio Emergency Services will hold its Trunk Sale & Swap Meet from 9 a.m. to noon, Sunday, May 1 at the Toledo Speedway, 5639 Benore Road. Phone: (567) 318-2291. Email: <lucascountyares@gmail.com>. Website: <http://tinyurl.com/lcaresswap>. Talk-in 146.610-(PL 103.5). CADILLAC, MICHIGAN — The Wexaukee Amateur Radio Club will hold the Cadillac Amateur Radio and Computer Swap from 8 a.m. to noon, Saturday, May at the Mackinaw Trail Middle School, 8405 Mackinaw Trail. Website: <www.wexaukeearc.org>. Talk-in 146.98. VE exams, card checking PERU, INDIANA — The Cass County,…

Icom, DX Engineering, Team Up for Dayton Megaprize Icom America and DX Engineering have joined forces to assemble the largest-ever grand prize in the history of the Dayton Hamvention.® The prize package, which will be given away on the closing day of the 2022 Hamvention, has been dubbed the “Icom America Dream Station Package” and is valued at close to $20,000. According to DX Engineering, the package includes four transceivers, covering 1.8 MHz to 1.2 GHz and designed for home, mobile, and portable use, along with a variety of station accessories. The transceivers include the IC-7851 home station for HF/50 MHz; the portable IC-705 for QRP on HF through 450 MHz, the IC-9700 multimode VHF/UHF/1.2 GHz rig and the ID-52A VHF/UHF/D-STAR handheld. A complete list of the equipment and accessories included in…

Dah-di-dah-dit dah-dah-di-dah. For the yet unschooled, that’s our name (CQ) in Morse code. For over 100 years, Morse code has been an essential part of the fabric of amateur radio, starting in the earliest days of radio communication, when it was the only available option, and continuing today, when knowledge of the code is optional but still very popular. Today, in fact, hams are pretty much the sole protectors of this cultural heritage of communications technology. I bring this up because this issue turned itself into a Morse code mini-special, with three code-focused articles that span the history of its use as a communication tool. Our lead feature, “Who REALLY Invented Morse Code?” (p. 8), goes back to its earliest days, before the days of radio, when the telegraph produced the…

Be Prepared: Another Active Hurricane Season Predicted Researchers at Colorado State University1 are predicting an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season for 2022. Hurricane season runs from June 1st to November 30th each year, although the storms don’t always respect those dates. CSU’s center for Tropical Weather and Climate Research issued its annual forecast in early April, predicting 19 named storms, 9 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes this year, versus the 30-year average from 1991-2020 of 14.4, 7.2, and 3.2 respectively. The forecasters noted that “Current weak La Niña conditions look fairly likely to transition to neutral ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) by this summer/fall, but the odds of a significant El Niño seem unlikely. Sea surface temperatures averaged across the eastern and central tropical Atlantic are currently near average, while Caribbean and subtropical Atlantic…

Who really invented Morse code? This is almost like asking, “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?” Many publications, including encyclopedias and reference books, credit the invention of Morse code to Samuel F.B. Morse. Many people know that Morse sent the message “What hath God wrought?” from Washington, DC to Baltimore, but few know that Alfred Vail (Morse’s collaborator) received that message. When I was learning CW for my Novice license in 1960, I found a library book that said how upset Vail was because he wasn’t credited for inventing Morse code. Many years later, I found some Internet sources1,2 and YouTube videos3,4 that say Alfred Vail invented Morse code. These fit into my preconception, and I was convinced that Alfred Vail invented Morse code. My belief was also reinforced when I found that…

If there is any doubt that you’ve seen the last of the CW glory days, don’t give up hope just yet. All one needs to do is to listen to the bands during a CQWW CW contest and you’ll discover that our cherished mode is still alive and well. It was no different in the running of the 73rd CQWW. The bands were jam-packed from end-toend with contest activity; 20 and 15 meters experiencing activity well above 14/21.100 MHz. Of course, another measure of activity is the number of logs we receive. On CW, 8,613 logs were received, bringing the “both modes” total for 2021 to 17,720 entries — a new record for the CQWW. These logs represent over 9.6M (million) total QSOs or an average of 522 contacts per log.…