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I had the opportunity to go down to the SEMARA club this afternoon as it was open for Kids Day. I was much older then the target demographic, but I wanted to head down and learn how to operate the club station.  I met Bob, K1KVV, who opens the stations just in case someone wants to pop by and he showed me how to set them up, operate, and break them down. Since kids were nowhere to be found (The club doesn’t actually promote this beyond the mailing list), I was able to get behind the wheel and take the station for a spin.

In a word: Wow.

The station consists of a TS-570 and a recently-donated TS-940S and a 40 through 6 yagi on top of an 80 foot tower. I operated almost exclusively on the 570, as that was controled by Ham Radio Deluxe. I must say, I’ve heard the praise for HRD and I’ve been wondering what the hub-bub was all about. The interface and the integration is an incredible blend of the radio and the various tools on the Internet. The integration between the DX cluster is amazing. It really is point, click, QSO.

It was rather quiet for me as most of the activity on the band was focused on the RTTY contest that was this weekend, but soon after I sat down I saw ZR2CR spotted on the cluster and jumped in. I never knew how much a Yagi and tower helps, as I was able to work her on my 2nd try, something I would likely not be able to do at home. I then saw ZD8UW and decided to try my luck. I tuned over there and was curious when he was announcing that he was working split (Listening on one frequency and transmitting on another for you non-Hams) a quick Google showed that it was a DXpedition on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. It took some time to figure out how to set the 570 into split, and I had a couple of false starts when I was transmitting in LSB but listening in USB, but after that was sorted out, I worked him after about 5-10 tries. I then popped over to 17 Meters and worked PJ2/N9JZ in the Netherlands Antillies.

I had been on the radio for a bit at this point, and Bob was curious about Ham Radio Deluxe so I handed the mic over to him. I showed him what I had learned and he was impressed, working 4A1DXXE, HK1NK, and a couple other stations in short order. He then tried to work an Australian station, but the band was closing up and we both had to leave.

Bob informed me that I can get a key to the station as I was a club member. Bob is fairly active trying to get interest going in operating the club station so I think he was happy that I was excited to use it. I must say, after using that tower and HRD, I’m am very interested, as its a bit of a step up from my TS-120 and my tree-strung dipole. Plus, with winter here, trudging out into the snow to set up my antenna isn’t the most alluring thought in the world.