[OKDXA] OKDXA

[SGTOKIE at aol.com]

Hi everybody, david here YI9QWO (k5qwo),

just want to let everybody know life is good in iraq, lots of DX.  i got back 
"home" (iraq) on the 23rd of JAN.  

while my family and i were in london, i visited the HMS BELFAST, GB2RN and 
met the radio room operator Terry, G0TBD.  i didnt get a chance to go to 
Greenich Observatory in london or the Faraday museum-go figgure, must be a HAM thing 
since the family wasnt too interested.

we had a good opening for about 2 hours on 12m yesterday and i got to work 
some new countries from here.  nothing on 10m for quite some time but i did try 
to moniter it pretty close yesterday.  15m has been pretty steady as well as 
17m but i havent worked much on 17m yet.  20m is the same as usual and ive been 
enjoying 40m more and more.  which leads me to the 40m broadcast band-I HATE 
IT..........way too much QRM and it creeps into the amateur portion in the wee 
hours.  i still try to wake at 0100UTC (0400 local) and try some split ops 
but kinda hard.  

i have a LOOOONG wire (650') that tunes 160 and 80 very nicely but it it too 
close to the ground to do any good low angle radiation so tomorrow i will make 
it a 160m dipole and get some vertical assistance.  im gonna make a 
semi-circle with the dipole and see what happens.

digital........looks like psk is out of the question with my laptop.  my 
soundcard seems to have a snaffu in it somewhere and the serial port issue with 
the rigblaster is too complicated for me so i guess i will order a cheap desktop 
to have some digital modes.

Gene, w5le.........there is a company here that does comm work for us called 
WWNS, if your interested they may need some comms people here.   im working on 
putting a stacked array of 70cm yagis to our outer fobs to reach reapeters 
around the country.  kinda doing it on my spare time.  

73 and gud dx,

de YI9QWO

DAVID HOWARD
OCPA(MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR/DYNCORP)
FOB DANGER
APO AE 09392