Amateur Radio Station VA2NW

Amateur Radio Autobiography

I was first licensed in the United States in November 1999 as a Technician Plus with the callsign KB1EPR. In December 2008 I upgraded to General. In February 2009 I upgraded to Amateur Extra. In May 2023 I was issued the 2x2 callsign AC1PH.

In February 2010 I passed the Canadian Basic exam with Honours and was issued the callsign VA2EPR. In September 2015 I passed the Canadian 5WPM Morse exam. In December 2022 I was issued the 2x2 callsign VA2NW.

QSL Policy

Electronic QSL cards
I upload logs to the following services once every month or two: Logbook of the World (LoTW), QRZ

Paper QSL Cards
Direct mail only:

• Had a contact with me and want a card? Just send me yours and I'll send you mine. No SASE required.
• Don't have a card or can't afford to send it? Just e-mail me (linuxgeek@gmail.com) and I'll send you mine.
• Got a card from me and don't have one to send back or can't afford to send one back? No worries.

Youtube Channel

I post video clips to my amateur radio channel @va2nw. The video I'm most proud of is VE2/OU-014 SOTA Activation 8/6/2011.

Calendar

Special Events

• Operating as VC3K/VE2 - September 16, 2023 00:00 - 00:59 UTC
• Operating as VC3K/VE2 - September 23, 2023 00:00 - 00:59 UTC
• Operating as VC3K/VE2 - September 27, 2023 00:00 - 00:59 UTC
• Operating as VC3K/VE2 - September 30, 2023 18:00 - 19:59 UTC
• Operating as CF2NW and CF2EPR - October 2023

Weekly

• K1USN Slow Speed Test - Fridays 20:00 to 21:00 UTC
• K1USN Slow Speed Test - Mondays 00:00 to 01:00 UTC

Moonthly

• PBMME/PBSPE - 1st Saturday after the full moon

Monthly

• SKCC Slow Speed Saunter - 1st of the month 00:00 UTC to 23:59 UTC
• LICW Slow Speed Challenge - 1st Thursday of the month 00:00 UTC to 23:59 UTC
• SKCC Weekend Sprintathon - 2nd Saturday of the Month 12:00 UTC Saturday to 23:59 UTC Sunday
• SKCC Straight Key Sprint - 4th Wednesday of each month

Quarterly

• Support Your Parks Weekend (POTA) - 3rd full weekend of January/April/July/October - 00:00 UTC Saturday to 23:59 UTC Sunday

Yearly

• ARRL Straight Key Night - January 1
• SKCC Straight Key Month - January
• Quebec QSO Party - mid-April
• ARRL Field Day - 4th full weekend of June
• RAC Canada Day Contest - July
• SKCC Canadian Straight Key Month - September
• ARRL November Sweepstakes - 3rd full weekend in November
• RAC Winter Contest - mid-December

Ham Stats - ADIF Log File Analyzer

Checkout hamstats.com for a browser based amateur radio log file analysis, or watch a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_-6rdAP7pI.

tcadif - Read and write data in Amateur Data Interchange Format (ADIF) with node.js

See tcadif on NPM or checkout the project on github.com/tcort/tcadif.

CW Practice

Checkout the CW Practice page for some public domain poems and speeches in morse code. They were generated with some software I developed called cw2wav which accepts TXT files and outputs the equivalent morse code audio in WAV files. The cw2wav utility is part of tcutils.

Ham Shack

Checkout the Ham Shack page for details about my rigs, keys, and antennas.

Microsoft Mouse to CW Key Conversion

For fun, I turned an ordinary computer mouse into a CW key. I've written an article titled Transforming a Computer Mouse into a CW Key where you can read more about it and see pictures of the process. There is also a youtube video demo: Demo: Microsoft Mouse converted into a CW Key.

VA2EPR-TNC - 1200 Baud AFSK NZRI Modem (Bell 202)

My capstone project while persuing my Electronics diploma was the design and fabrication of a hardware modem along with firmware and software. All project files and source code are posted on Github: https://github.com/tcort/va2epr-tnc

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

40 metres

30 metres

20 metres

17 metres

12 metres

10 metres