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HFpack
News
New HFpack Gear Store Grand
Opening
Have you ever wanted one of those T-shirts, hats or
buttons you've seen HFpackers wearing in the field, at
hamfests, and club meetings? Well, now it's as easy to get them as a
click of your mouse. HFpack just opened the Official HFpack Gear Store,
and it has over 100 cool items, including shirts, hats, clocks, mugs,
field notebooks, camo/green stuff, accessory bags, buttons, stickers,
mousepads, frequency lists, and many other things for your shack or
portable operation. Now you can support HFpack and get the kind of
stuff you like at the same time. Great for gifts... Immediate
delivery... Check
it out...
HFpackers
Converged on
Pacificon
HFpack
group meets every year at Pacificon for
technical forums, operating events, equipment demos, eyeball QSO
gatherings, dinners,
and other activities.
Pacificon is USA's premier West
Coast Ham
Convention in San Ramon, CA USA, and this year it was held on 13-15
October. HFpack Event Director, Ken WB6MLC put on a great forum this
year, and lined up plenty of interesting things for all the HFpackers
to do. Read more...
ALE
On The Air Week, First Event of its Kind
Just when you thought we were
at the dead bottom of the solar cycle... ALE ham operators everywhere
are making many
successful Automatic Link Establishment QSOs on HF. Sponsored by HFLINK, ALE On The Air
Week was 13-23 October 2006, and it was the first ham event ever based
entirely on ALE QSOs.
The
reports are coming in from all around the world, with ALE operators in
Argentina, USA,
Australia, Switzerland,Spain,
Sweden, Canada, Mexico, France, UK, and others on the air... many
operators starting to use ALE
for the first time. Read more...
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The Door Prize
Drawings at the HFpack Forum included many generous donations of
HF Portable Equipment from LDG, SuperAntennas, HF Projects, Elecraft, HRO, Pacific Antennas,
and Hendricks
QRP Kits. Needless to say, we had many very happy HFpackers
and QRP operators in the audience who won these great prizes!
Annual HFpack Zombie Walk at Pacificon
Those crazy HFpack HF pedestrian mobile "Zombies" were out stirring in
the night air again on Saturday before the Wouff Hong had a chance to
strike!
This is a traditional event where strange backpack HF operators come
alive outside among the trees. A real highlight this year was Dale
WA7IXK running a VX-1210 backpack and 20ft whip with luminous spiral
blue lightwire antenna. Most of the
action was on 40m and 60m, and a good time was had by all, even though
propagation was dismal.
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Ken
WB6MLC
HFpack Events Director
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Ken puts out one of the biggest Pedestrian Mobile
signals on the West Coast USA. What's his secret?
Why not ask him what's in his pack sometime?
You can catch him on the air or on the HFpack Group.
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ALE
On The Air Week
Just when you thought we were
at the dead bottom of the solar cycle... ALE ham operators everywhere
are making many
successful ALE QSOs on HF. The
reports are coming in from all around the world,with ALE operators in
Argentina, USA,
Australia, Switzerland,Spain,
Sweden, Canada, Mexico, France, UK, and others on the air... with many
operators starting to use ALE
for the first time.
In North
America, ALE signals were happening every few minutes. The event ran
from 13 to 23 October 2006. Even some 14MHz ALE DX
pileups were
seen! 7MHz produced some
very impressive ALE DX, as well as solid regional and NVIS contacts.
ALE
operators also reported the160m,
80m, 30m, 17m, and 15m bands were producing usable signalsat various
times of the day. If you have
ever thought about getting started in amateur radio ALE, whether for
Emergency Communications,
or just fun, this is the
perfect time to try it. There are some unusually good QSOs happening...
Experience the power of
ALE :)
AOTAW2006
the Automatic Link Establishment QSO Party
HFLINK
sponsored this new International Amateur Radio event called ALE
On The Air Week (AOTAW). All ham radio operators worldwide were
invited to participate in 10
days of amateur radio HF-ALE Automatic
Link Establishment and HF Selcall activity. It was open
operating
event for all hams to explore ALE communications and
equipment. The experience
gained is also useful
for HF emergency and
disaster relief communications.There are now hundreds of
amateur radio
operators worldwide with ALE stations. The AOTAW gave
operators a chance to exercise ALE transceivers,
antennas, software, systems, and operating procedures.
About ALE
On The Air Week
AOTAW provided
a way for more operators to
gain valuable practical knowledge and expertise in the operation of an
Amateur Radio ALE station. Amateur operators who use
ALE for government and non-governmental organisations are especially
interested, for it provided more chances
to work with ALE linking and a greater understanding of the system.
The
10 days of AOTAW enabled operators to participate as
they could, for any amount of time in the event, and experience
ALE operation under various ionospheric propagation conditions.
Another AOTAW is being planned for early next year.
More
information: HFLINK WEBSITE
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HFpack Antenna Shootouts
The HFpack HF Portable Antenna
Shootouts compare a variety of HF antennas for maximum gain and
performance in the typical HF Portable Antenna environment, applicable
to QRP and QRO power levels. The HFpack Antenna Shootouts have become a
standard benchmark for HF portable and QRP operators. HFpack is
dedicated to
furthering the state of the art for portable HF antennas and
communications. For the QRP antenna ham operator, it is important to
get the maximum signal radiated. Also, for QRO emergency portable
operations, the antenna efficiency for a small antenna that can be set
up on site is crucial to dependable HF and NVIS (Near Vertical
Incidence Skywave) regional communications. A pedestrian antenna is an
antenna that may be carried easily and set up quickly by the operator.
The HFpack Pedestrian
Shootouts measured pedestrian HF antenna systems to a fraction of a
decibel,
and the reports are presented as a service to radio operators around
the
world. Read more...
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Meet the
Moderators of HFpack Group
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HFpack
has become one of the largest fully-moderated groups of
this kind in the world. It remains a high quality group because a team
of skilled moderators makes it run smoothly and efficiently. Every day,
the volunteer moderators read every message posted by members. They
approve it, reject it, or clean it up before it goes out to the 6000+
members via email or the web. Moderators process new membership
applications, and help members who are having problems with their
messages or membership. Such a spammer-free and flame-free group would
not be possible on the internet without the watchful eyes of these
talented people. All of the moderators on the HFpack team possess a
unique combination of technical expertise, HF portable radio knowledge,
talent for writing/editing, and even-handed patience for interacting
with people. Every
moderator is also an active HF portable operator and radio enthusiast. We
hope the new Meet
the Moderators
section of the HFpack website gives you a little insight behind the
scenes, into the human beings that make HFpack Group an enjoyable
experience.
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Bonnie KQ6XA
Founder/Webmaster/Moderator
"I founded HFpack wondering if 25
operators in
the world might be interested in lightweight HF Portable. 65 joined the
first day and..." read more |
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Virgil
K5OOR -Moderator
“I am
happy to donate my time to help lift the quality of the HFpack forum
high. My passion is the
creation of home construction projects for the radio...” read more |
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Ken
N0VZ -Moderator
"I
first became
interested in amateur radio as a means of emergency
communications while hiking and four
wheeling in the back country of..." read
more |
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Bob
AB7ST
-Moderator
"I became a DXer
as KA7RF while stationed in Fukuoka, Japan. Now in
Utah, USA, my portable activity even includes HF
Snowshoe Mobile and..." read
more
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Sasi
VK5SN -Moderator
“Starting out as VU3SNM in India, my work as a
marine biologist has since taken me all over the world for remote HF
portable on islands and..."read
more |
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John
K6ERO-Moderator
“My
first DX was Venezuela on 6 meters Pedestrian Mobile with an old
FT-690RII at 2 Watts!
From that point, I was hooked. I got into HF military packsets as...” read more
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Budd
W3FF
-Backup
Moderator
"My main interest is modular portable
antennas. I've been operating HF
walking portable for many years, and joined HFpack when..." read
more |

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Oliver KB6BA
-Hall
of Fame
Curator
“As
an avid trail hiker, I began taking radio gear to hilltops, my Portable
HF activity increased when I had HFpack friends to talk with while...” read more |
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