Awards

Back in December I applied for some awards from the European PSK Club (EPC) as I am a member and had been quite active on PSK last year. I sat back and waited, expecting perhaps to receive an email notification about my award apllication, but nothing came. Today I remembered Adam M6RDP telling me I needed to check the member site of EPC as notifications aren't always emailed.
But each time I went onto the EPC website I couldn't find the members area! Eventually I established the reason why. I use Google Chrome as my web browser. Its quite fast, simple to use and I can't get on with Internet Explorer 8. As far as I can see in the current explorer Microsoft have hidden the most useful icons and functions. It seems the webmaster of the EPC site has issues with Google Chrome and therefore the site is designed not to work properly with that browser. However I opened up IE8 and sure enough was able to log in and obtain my first EPC award.
My CW learning continues, slowly and I think it will take many months! I have been able to copy some bits and pieces of HF cw Qso's though and that has lifted my CW spirits a little! UU1CC has suggested that I should listen to CW wherever possible, as if it were background music. I am taking this advice and listening to a CW QSO on 40 metres as I type this!

The picture at the foot of this post is entirely non radio related. On a  work related trip to London on Wednesday, this is the view that greeted me opposite the Temple underground station- the first time I have seen snow in Central London. Needless to say the snow I had left at home in South Wales was much deeper but it did seem strange to see London with its white covering!

Making a start

Further to my last blog I have been starting to re-learn CW or Morse if you prefer.Paul PC4T  mentioned a free piece of software called CW-freak however I found that this software dodn't seem to want to work on the Windows 7 based PC that I am using. I have found another piece of software called"Just Learn Morse Code" by LB3KB and am trying to devote a little time each evening to my morse studies!!


I had a little more time for radio today than I expected. Due to the heavy snowfall here in South Wales I was unable to get to work. The picture today shows my street as it appeared this morning-covered in snow! Snow like this is not that common in this part of the UK and as I write this most of it is still around and we are likely to have sub-zero temperatures overnight so the journey to work tomorrow should be interesting.
Anyway I ventured onto 40 metres SSB this afternoon and made a couple of contacts before moving onto the PSK31 mode.