The EI2KM contest team - CQWW CW 2015

CQ TEST . . . EI2KM team and supporters during the CQWW CW contest.

This is a photo taken during the CQWW CW contest with the EI2KM team at the QTH of Doug EI2CN in County Louth. From left to right are Brian EI8EJB, Declan EI6FR (with headphones, operating the radio), Stephane F5UOW, Anthony EI2KC, Adrian EI2KJ (seated with beard in foreground), Alain EI2KM/F8FUA and Doug EI2CN.

Below you can see some more videos from the contest. The first one shows me operating on 80 metres, using (for the first time) a four-square receive antenna. What a joy that was!

And in this video shot by Alain EI2KM (F8FUA) you can see a better view of the station.

Some improvements made to hacksaw blade key

I have now mounted my home-brew hacksaw blade Morse paddle on a steel base, added a nice red handle (made of insulating tape of course!) and fixed the spacing a bit so that it better meets my satisfaction. It's working well, although the spacing gave me some interesting problems during a QSO with PW0F on 40m CW, when it seemed to send random extra dits and dahs seemingly without input from me!! I would ideally like to tidy up the wiring a bit but it's largely complete and I've made a number of QSOs with it. Here's a QSO I had with a German operator in Dominican Republic using the newly-mounted key: