AmateurRadio.com

Firefox auto updated sometime over the weekend.  Everything seems to be OK except that my revolvermap globe, down and to the right, appears to me to be a “white hole”.  No more globe, although everything is still fine when browsing using either Chrome or IE.

My friend who was racing me between his house closing and me getting the KX3 has moved into his new house.  No hitches except for the fact that it’s been a week and he still doesn’t have an antenna up yet!  Am I a pathetic Ham or what? Shows where MY priorities are – although I have to admit that if I were in the same situation, I’m sure an antenna would not be utmost on my schedule (practically speaking), either.

I placed an order for a 9 cell battery for my Acer Aspire One from eBay.  This is the netbook that I use in the shack and  for when I go portable.  The old 6 cell battery gave me about an 1 & 1/2 to 2 hours computer time.  This new battery should add about an hour to that. Turns out that it was shipped from the next town over, so I had to pay NJ sales tax. It still came under $25, though.

30 Meters was in fine shape tonight – I had a good couple of rag chews with some of our VE brethren.  Love it when there’s hardly any background noise. The incoming signals seem to jump right out at you.

BTW, the new header photo isn’t new.  That’s “Lake George Sunrise” that I took back in 2007.  It was taken on the day we came home that year.  I was up at 5:00 AM, packing up the car as the sun was rising.  I knew I had a decent photo in the offing, so I dug out the camera and got a few like that before we left. Hard to believe it was that long ago.  When we go up there for our annual vacation this summer, it will be our 9th year there.  Both Marianne and I love it up there and wouldn’t mind moving up there when it’s retirement time (like THAT’S going to ever happen!).  I don’t know if I could handle the winters up in NY State, though.

Back to the shack for a bit …..

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Sometimes, the most satisfying QSOs don’t seem to relate to distance.  I had a really nice rag chew tonight with John N3WT on 40 Meters.  The band was in real good shape, with hardly any background QRN.  John is only two states away, in Maryland; but yet he gifted me with one of the nicest chats I’ve had since the one with Terry W9UX last week. He was using his K1, and I was on (of course) my KX3.  We were both pumping 599 five Watt signals into the aether.

The discussion ranged from things Elecraft to things Flex Radio, antennas and radio problems. Our conversation lasted but a half hour; but it will be one that I will remember for a while to come.  When the CW just flows from your fingers and the copy is armchair, a QSO can be a thing of beauty.

I’ve also migrated back from Ham Radio Deluxe to N3FJP’s AC log.  Since Simon Brown sold the rights, and HRD will no longer be a free offering, it’s probably just a matter of time until the free version will no longer be supported.  I paid for AC Log years back, so I may as well use what I have already paid for.  And seriously, with HRD, I was only using the logging portion anyhow, so it’s not like I’m losing a lot of features that I never used anyway.  AC Log loads faster, since it’s a much simpler program – so it’s almost ready to go as soon as I am. Good thing I never threw away the e-mail with my registration number!

I was contemplating looking at the DX Lab suite of programs for a second time, but again, I think we’re looking at more than I need for my purposes.  All those bells and whistles are extremely nice; but if I don’t plan on using them, what’s the sense?  I don’t want to say that I would never be, but right now I’m just a dial twiddlin’ kind of guy.  I don’t envision being the kind of contesting guy who truly needs the ability to click a mouse and have the radio instantly jump to a frequency that’s on a computer screen.  To borrow a line from Seinfeld – “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”.  But it’s just not my speed.

This coming Saturday is the Raritan Valley Radio Club’s annual hamfest.  Like last year, I will probably be on parking lot duty.  It will be a long day, with arrival time set at about 5:00 AM.  Watching the 10:00 PM news for the long range forecast is so far calling for a partly cloudy, but dry Saturday with highs in the mid to upper 70s.

Oh well, time to hit the sack. I have to go downstairs and pop a couple Advil first.  I am feeling some minor aches and pains from all the yard work that I did this weekend.  Don’t want to be up all night with a twitchy back.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

has been very good the past few days.  I have worked a lot of European stations the past couple of days, and I have taken to listening for Special Event stations for the European Football Championships.

These stations are on the air from June 1st to July 5th.  So far, the few that I have contacted, from the Ukraine and Poland have been superb ops with great ears!  If you want to find out more about this program, you can visit:

http://sq2rh.idsl.pl/efc/index_en.php

The KX3 continues to impress.  Except for not being able to connect two antennas, like I can on my K2, it has all the features my K2 has (plus many more) in a much smaller footprint.  And the smaller footprint is not annoying, and I am a fudge fingered kind of guy.  The buttons have multi-functions, but not so many levels that it is frustrating.

I like having 6 Meter capability, which I have never had before.  I like the feature where the KX3 will auto zero beat the desired CW signal that you want to work.  The APF feature – Audio Peak Frequency really helps dig out the weak signals.  I can easily hear stations that cannot hear me, so I really, really have to get used to the fact that just because I can hear them, they might not be able to hear me, with me at only 5 Watts.

There’s more to be discovered, I am sure. I still have to come into the 21st century and hook up the radio to my computer and at least give computer control a try.  Up till now, I have been a “twirl the dial” kind if guy.  I don’t anticipate that changing really; but I’d like to give it a try, anyway.

One thing I am not too thrilled with is the weighting of the CW.  To my ear, the dits and dahs sound a little truncated, even with the weighting turned to the max.  Several folks have also mentioned this on the KX3 reflector and Wayne from Elecraft has agreed.  Once he gets back from a well deserved vacation later this month, he is going to incorporate a fix in an upcoming firmware update.

After watching W0EA’s video about the Lowepro Traveler 150, I went out to Wal-Mart and picked one up at a great price.  I am going to see how everything fits in, later this week, to start getting ready for our Lake George summer sojourn.  Maybe I’ll do my own video and post it here.

That’s it for now – going to head on down the shack and see who I might be able to work.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Want to see a KX3 build from start to finish?  TJ, W0EA treated us to live video on USTREAM while he built his:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/23127348

If you have a kit on order and have the time, I would really advise watching this (Hint: Start viewing at about the 8:00 minute mark).  Looking at stills (like I’ve posted) is one thing.  Watching the build being done before your very eyes (in real time) is just priceless.

Even though mine is built, I also learned a thing or two.  TJ mentioned that there was a Builder Advisory note that I hadn’t seen anywhere. It concerns the speaker grill and the distortion that can occur if it is installed.  I was experiencing that distortion; so as a result of listening to TJ, I took it out. The unit sounds much better now.

I still haven’t done the roofing filter alignment. maybe tomorrow night as I have been way busy.  But I have found some time to get in a QSO every day for the past few days.  I worked EM2012UA tonight, which is a special event station for the 2012 European Football Championships. Five watts to the Butternut vertical is still getting my signal heard worldwide.

By the way, conditions on 20 Meters were superb tonight.  The noise floor was about S1 and I heard so many European and Caribbean stations up and down the band – it was amazing (especially the fact that it was around 02:30 UTC – recently the band has been dead by then).  The fact that the sun spot number is 154 is a good thing.  Maybe Venus imparted some magic as she crossed the face of the sun yesterday?  Who knows?  If conditions like these keep up for a while, I think we’ll all be happy.

I am becoming more and more familiar with the radio and quite honestly, it isn’t as complicated as I initially thought it would be.  The controls are well labeled and are pretty intuitive and easy to get the hang of.

The bait’s been taken; but the hook hasn’t quite set yet, but this fishy really wants a K3 now.

I’ve been getting a lot of spam comments over the past week or so.  Been averaging about 20 a day since I took the Captcha code thingy off.  I apologize for keeping the comments on moderation; but if I didn’t I’d be overrun by spam.  So if you make a comment and don’t see it for a while, it’s nothing personal – just haven’t gotten to allowing them through.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Today I received the following e-mail from Bill W4ZV:

“Hi Larry, FYI on the WRO live blog Richard KI6SN just confirmed that he will be doing FOBB this year and promises results within 2 weeks. Said he would be making an announcement on QRP-L next week. Great news! 73, Bill W4ZV”

End

OK – that’s all  the news I have.  I have not received any answers to my inquiries about FOBB, so I would suggest you keep your eyes peeled on QRP-L for the next couple of weeks.  I do not know if FOBB numbers will be issued; or who will be doing the issuing.

This is a great event, and I’m glad to see that it’s not going the way of the Dodo.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

It rained and thunder stormed here today, on and off, in fits and starts. That prevented me from doing the yard work that I was planning to accomplish – boo hoo!  🙂

So I spent some time on the air, getting used to the new radio.  Fate would have it that band conditions would be on the less than optimal (read that as: crappy) side today.  But I did manage some QSOs both foreign and domestic.  Hungary, Italy, and England were successfully worked.  The domestic QSOs were brief QSO Party contacts for the most part.  They let me know that I was getting out and being heard; but not very satisfying.

I did have another short QSO with Terry W9UX last night on 30 Meters.  I was calling CQ and he answered me and asked, “Larry, is that your new KX3?”.  Obviously, Terry is a regular reader of this blog.  I answered him that yes, it was and he was my first “real” QSO – something other than “UR 599 TNX QRZ?”

I’ll have to send him my QSL card – the funny thing is that my QSL cards have the image of my K1 on them.  I still have a bunch, so I am not going to discard these just because of that. It’s still QRP, which is what the idea behind the card is supposed to be about.

The KX3 is really cool and I’m getting used to it rather quickly. It has really great features like the APF or Audio Peaking Filter that will really help to dig a weak CW signal buried in the noise. I like being able to decode RTTY and watch it scroll at the bottom of the LCD display.  I also like the CW Tuning Aid, where you tap a button and the KX3 automatically zero beats the person you’re trying to work.

As the radio is configured now, as a strictly QRP radio, I cannot hook up two antennas like I can on the K2,  and I use that feature a lot to switch back and forth between the Butternut and the wire. I suppose I could always go back to using a mechanical manual coax switch; but by going that route, I would be incurring some signal loss, and I would rather not do that.

There is a button on the KX3 that will allow you to switch between two antennas, but that is enabled only when  the 100 Watt autotuner is used.  As of right now, I have no plans to make this a QRO radio, so the main shack radio will be the K2, unless a K3 should come waltzing into my life for some unforeseen reason.

The other thing that I am looking forward to in the near future is making some contacts on 6 Meters, which I have never done in the 34 years that I have been a Ham.  This is the first radio that I have ever owned that is 6 Meter capable.  The other thing I want to do is hook this netbook up the the KX3, just to see how Ham Radio Deluxe interfaces with it.  I never installed the RS232 option in the K2, so I was never able to have rig control until now, either.

Lots to look forward to!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

As anticipated, the remainder of the KX3 build did not take long at all.  If truth be told, I am technically not finished – I still have to calibrate the roofing filter. But I am done to the point where I have a working radio.

I left off at the point where I had to install the battery holders and the KXAT3 auto tuner.

That is them installed.  I am not sure if I am going to bother with internal batteries.  The option is available to me if I ever decide to; but that li-on battery I bought is so small and light!  And if I don’t have to open the case – that makes me happy, also.  You can see the auto tuner to the right.  Here’s a close up:

It’s quite a piece of work!  Once I turned the KX3 on, I had to go through the menu and select it so that the radio “knew” it was there.  The tricky thing was that once you turn it “on”, for the first time, you have to turn the radio off and then back on, so that it initializes with it there.  A bit different than selecting options with the K2.

Next came the roofing filter board:

There it is, right behind one of the battery holders. When you install the KXFL3 you have to take out one of the chassis screws.  It is replaced with a much longer one that actually extends through a hole in the KXFL3 circuit board.   This is to prevent the roofing filter circuit board from becoming jostled loose accidentally if the going gets rough on the trail.

Then came connecting the two halves with the ribbon cable, which was a snap.  Connecting the battery holders to their connector and then mating the two halves together and buttoning the radio up.

The first thing to be done was to hook up the battery, cross my fingers and say a small “No smoke, please!” prayer.  When the moment of truth arrived, the display came up and static came out the speaker. No smoke, no disasters, no disappointment.  From there, it was off of the workbench and onto the shack table we go!

I hooked up the DCP paddles and antenna and made a contact on 20 Meters in whatever 4 land QSO party is going on this weekend.  I have it written downstairs; but I think it was K4SAV. Second QSO was on 40 Meters – G5LO in Great Britain.

There’s going to be a learning curve here because this is definitely more complex and sophisticated than my K2.  For now, I just want to make a few QSOs and play around a bit.  I will intensely study the Owner’s Manual and will probably try to calibrate the roofing filter tomorrow.  Right now, it’s back down to the shack to play!

Thanks to all of you who went for this ride with me, beginning last year, when I started saving and selling things to raise the needed funds.  Thanks for sticking with me as I ordered and began the, what seemed to be, interminable waiting period.

Now that the radio is built and seems to be working, I can truly say it was worth the wait and am looking forward to many hours of fun filled QRPing.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to say the very least!