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…and another….and another.

My first ever serious outdoor QRP operation yielded two additional firsts, namely first Trans Pacific QRP QSO and first US CW QSO on 12 meters. KZ5OM a.k.a. K6III was the one who made it possible, and my “thank you” QSL card was mailed to him directly. I didn’t know that Jerry is very active within the SKCC or the Straight Key Century Club. So in his e-mail back he suggested me to join the SKCC, get on the sked page and have another QSO with him. Also because I would be very welcome there.

Always being obedient I filled out the form on the SKCC web site and a couple of hours later K9JP mailed me my life long SKCC number: 12107.
Only after logging on to the sked page did I understand what Jerry meant by being welcomed. Immediately some ops wanted a QSO with me and I got mail asking for skeds. I hadn’t even hooked up my J37 yet, so on Saturday I did and my first every SKCC QSO was with VK4TJ, another very active SKCC member. On Sunday Jerry was also on line and we had our second QSO, although this time not QRP.

Chatting with others on the sked page is lots of fun and the atmosphere is very relaxed there. For now I am only one of three SKCC members in Taiwan and I know the others aren’t very active, so it’s no surprise I am so popular. The SKCC is also very popular, something I did not know. I became member on March 27, with number 12107. As I write this it is March 31 and already 23 other hams have joined after me, brining the total to 12130 members (minus a handful of SKs). Adding almost 5 members a day is quite impressive for a club dealing with such an old communication system.

The SKCC is about straight keys. I have two: my trusted J37 and a Junker NATO issue key. Never liked the latter because of the clicking sound it makes when you release the handle. It is German quality though, and if I don’t start using it I will probably never start liking it. So off came the banana connectors and on went a 5.25 mm jack. Four years of postponing, but done in 15 minutes. But I do like my various paddles and switching between paddles and a straight key meant switching jacks on the back of my IC-7200. Not convenient at all. So on Sunday afternoon took out the materials I had already prepared a long while back and finally made the switching box I had in mind. A year late, but an hour of drilling, fitting and soldering later I had the job done.

So thank you Jerry, it’s all your fault. Because of our QSO I am now member of the SKCC, had a lot of fun on air, started using my Junker key and finished a project.

Most of the embarrassment has faded away, so I can write about it now. Having my Cubieboard up and running I went for the next step, connecting my TNC for APRS operation. The Cubieboard has a UART port, but the supplied cable was for a USB connection. I still had my serial converter from my Raspberry Pi and tried to hook it up to the Cubieboard. Either I made a short or some Volts went where they shouldn’t have gone, but all of a sudden there was smoke and that is usually not a good sign.

So now I have two empty cases on my shelf: one for the Raspberry Pi, one for the Cubieboard. Ah well, that’s life. Luckily these mini-PCs are not expensive, but to me also not cheap, so I will wait a while before ordering another.

Hooked up the 137 MHz receiver to the Cubieboard on Friday night. Wxtoimg installed without a hitch, Cubian already put itself into the dialup group (necessary for serial access for ordinary users) and I was ready to go. NOAA-19‘s next pass was after midnight local time, so I went to bed. The next morning I was greeted by a rather garbled image of east Asia. Hmmm….thinking cap on. I checked the recorded audio file on another computer and it was messed up, so either Cubie can’t handle the input well or the input is not good. Back to basics and after feeding a very clean and stable 12 Volts to the receiver I had perfectly synced images. Because of recent storms I lowered the double cross dipole, so reception is not perfect. But with high passes I now can get some nice images, like this one….

I am not a QSO monster and usually only add around 400 QSOs to my log each year. But with two new rigs and the sun helping out I already have 170 QSOs in the log for this year. And it is not even the end of March!

But I do notice that my desire to operate has diminished a bit and so it is time for some DIY again. The lightning sensor is progressing and once that is up and running it is time to tackle another problem: weather satellite reception. I have a dedicated NOAA 137 MHz receiver, which is controlled via serial port and feeds its audio to the excellent Wxtoimg program for decoding of the APT signals. Unfortunately my current server doesn’t like either Wxtoimg or the 137 MHz receiver, so the latter has been sitting idle in a corner for a while now.

Time for a new server. Even though I didn’t like the Raspberry Pi very much, I do like the concept of a small, low cost, low power consuming computer. Apart from the Raspberry Pi there are plenty of alternatives now that use an ARM CPU, e.g. the BeagleBone Black or the PandaBoard. They are more expensive, but also offer better performance and features. For us radio amateurs they usually lack an essential feature: analogue audio in. So when I read about the Cubieboard and discovered that their version 2 board has both audio-in and out I had to try it out. I ordered one from our Taiwanese version of Ebay and for US$ 71.50 it was delivered home. Twice as expensive as a Raspberry Pi, but the package was very complete, with all the cables necessary and a power supply too. Nice detail on the package: Made in China, Designed in China.

The very complete Cubiboard Package

Getting it running was a bit of a struggle, though. Finding an suitable image was difficult because I only had a 2 GB microSD card. Once I had found one it wouldn’t boot and apparently it also killed the Android OS that was installed on the NAND memory. The Cubieboard has 1 GB of RAM and 2 GB of internal storage (NAND), much better than the Raspberry Pi.

The Cubieboard. Twice as large as the Raspberry Pi. The audio input-output is on the left.

So I flashed the NAND with a new version of Android and now it was running fine. After buying a new 8GB microSD card and flashing it I was able to boot into a fresh Cubian LXDE install. It looks great on our Panasonic HD TV. So far, so good. I hope this is a winner, because I already have lots of ideas for it: remote rig, APRS digipeater, second weather station, web cam server. Let’s just wait and see.

Android running from the build in 2G NAND memory.

I had a slow radio weekend. After spending most of the week trying to get my weather station back up I finally succeeded and decided to spend time on an unfinished project instead of time behind the radio. We had our first thunderstorm of the year last week so the 1-wire lightning detector has be be done before the season really kicks off. The “radio” part was already done, but the 1-wire counter/memory part not. Maxim put everything in one IC, the DS2423P, which has a 6 pin TSOC package. I haven’t worked with SMD components a lot and never build a one-off circuit. Traditionally I would use the Manhattan style of building, but after a lot of thinking I decided to do the following: draw a lay-out of the circuit, put some copper tape on the back side of a PCB and cut out the lay-out. With solder paste the components can then be put into place and soldered on. The first step you can see on the photo below.
Now the only thing I am still not sure of is if it is wise to put the 100 nF capacitor across one of the tracks (after I coat it with conformal coating, of course). It would save me a bridge if I do it this way. I only have one DS2423P and they are US$10 a piece, so I can’t mess it up.

On Sunday night I still got my dose of radio fun. Just before heading for bed I tuned to 6 meters and heard AH2G/B with a lot of chirp, but coming in quite well. So far I have not heard anything on six this year, apart from some local hams, so this was a welcome change. I tuned around and 9M2TO came in very strong, so working him was easy. I also heard and worked 9M6ZAE. Some traces of VK8 stations and FK8CP, but he was calling SEA/ME and didn’t answer any calls from me or other Taiwanese hams. A pity, but at least I did work my good friend BX2AB, who was also calling CQ on six in CW. It made for a funny exchange: “BX2AB de BX2ABT BT GE OM Lee, 599 in Longtan BK”

http://youtu.be/uBlxRFszKRA

It’s always easy to point a finger at others when you encounter noise while scanning the bands. More than often it is yourself who has to take the blame. In my case the switching power supply from my shack laptop is producing a lot of noise and artifacts, especially below 7 MHz. For a long time I had the plan to operate the laptop from my linear power supply and recently I got serious about it. A DC-DC step-up converter was bought for a mere US$7 and the following video shows initial results are very encouraging. The unit runs very cool so I am going to box it up and see if it can handle long operating periods.

Next up: isolating the USB connection. Stay tuned.

Last night I had another encounter with Antarctica, namely a QSO with RI1ANC, stationed at the Russian Vostok base. Previous contacts with the land way down under were on 20 meters, but Alex had a nice signal on 12 meters in CW. He didn’t have many takers, so an QSO was easy. Unfortunately it was only a quick exchange, just like the ones with 8J1RL and RI1ANT.

VK0JJJ – Craig, in the Australian Antarctic base of Mawson – doesn’t want any of that and I had the great fortune to have a couple of very lenghty QSOs with him. Olivia was the mode we used, which is especially suited for rag chew QSOs. If you want to catch him try Olivia 32/1000 on one of the 20 meter Olivia channels (14106.5 kHz, then 1 kHz up for the next channel). Even if he is in QSO with another radio amateur it is still fun to read along. When not behind the radio I follow his blog, where you can read interesting things like how they grow vegetables on Antarctica and how they get their supply of water. Fascinating stuff and heartily recommended to visit. He is going back home early May this year, so catch him while you can.