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The latest episode of LHS is upon you! Prepare to be astounded, mesmerized, blown away and flabbergasted. If none of that happens, perhaps you’ll be entertained and informed. In a music-less episode, we somehow manage to get through without stumbling–more or less. Our foray begins in the world of Linux and computing with some tips on how to make your desktop and your blog look better, at only the cost of your immortal soul. In the middle we touch on Hurricane Sandy and emcomm and follow that up with some Echolink: native on Linux Echolink, yeah! Feedback winds up the episode and then we go back to our respective holes in the wall. Send us feedback, if you get a chance. We’d like to hear from you.

73 de The LHS Guys

A lot has taken place since I first began thinking W3EDP back in October – family events, weather events, work events. In fact, so much has happened throughout this past year, that I am really looking forward to New Year’s Eve and waving 2012 a hearty “Sayonara”. This is one year that I will not miss.

But I digress.

After mulching the leaves yesterday and then raking and bagging the remainder that the mower couldn’t reach, I took the time to grab a spool of 14 gauge wire that I had sitting in the basement.  I had intended to measure out 67 feet and cut it for the construction of said W3EDP.

Guess what – there was EXACTLY 67 feet of wire left on the spool!  Exactly what I need to solder onto the  end of the window line – no need to cut.  How’s that for coincidence?

The extended forecast for this coming weekend is a nice Saturday and a crummy Sunday.  I hope to spend a portion of Saturday getting this wire airborne. The added bonus (if you will) is that since most of the leaves are down, it should be a tad easier to see exactly what I need to do.

The HF9V and the 88′ EDZ are both working well; but I figure it never Hertz (sorry, I couldn’t resist!) to get more wire up in the air.

It seems whenever I want to get something like this done, something always comes up to deter me from completing the project.  I am hoping that I will luck out this weekend, and finally finish!

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

Today was a surprise… 65F. I hiked to the ledges and worked Russia, the Netherlands, Czech Rep and Tennessee.

The woods were gorgeous… but wait ’til you see the view from the top! Judy and I drove up Wadleigh Road until it turned into Class 6… basically an unmaintained logging road. From there we drove into the boonies until we couldn’t go any farther. Then we started hiking.

I haven’t been here for a few years… and was even uncertain about the trail. Several times I thought we were lost only to find a trace of the trail once again. We hiked about a mile and a half up some steep slopes and soon we were at the top. The view is perfect.

We had lunch in the glorious sunshine. It’s been in the 40s for the last couple of weeks, so this was a real treat. The quiet was stunning. Except for the sound of a lone crow soaring over the valley, there was only the sound of the wind in the evergreens.

After lunch I heaved my water bottle into a dead pine tree at the edge of a rock cliff. I missed the first time, and the water bottle came crashing down onto the ledge and cracked. Darn! I made the second throw before all the water leaked out… and it was right on target. I pulled up about 25 feet of wire and used the Elecraft T-1 tuner and the ATS-4 on 20 meters.

There wasn’t a lot of activity on 20 meters, but the signals that were there, were strong. I called PD1DX, Erik in the Netherlands, after he finished a QSO. We exchanged 599 reports and signed. Next, I called Dan OK1DIG in the Czech Republic. Dan gave me a 589 and he was a good 599. I’ve
worked Dan several times before.

Then I had a 10 minute QSO with Bunky, K4EJQ in Tennessee. He was using an Icom 706 with a tri-band beam and was just booming in. “UR GUD CPY 599 PLUS,” he sent. When I told him I was hiking and had a beautiful mountain view, he sent, ” I envy you being able to take your rig with you. I used to mountain top with VHF/UHF, but old age caught up with me X Enjoy your hike.” With that we signed and I made one more quick QSO…. this time with Russia. RU1ZC was calling CQ on 14.017. Wally was a 569 and he gave me a 559. He lives near the Barents Sea not far from Finland.

We were careful on the hike back. It was a bit slippery under foot  with the heavy covering  of leaves on the hillside. We found our way easily this time and returned just as the woods were growing dark.

This may be the last good outing before the snow flies.

I ran the 1W WSPR system on 7MHz for a few hours this evening after 28MHz had dried up. Conditions not quite as good as Friday, but nice to see VK7DIK coming through and also to get some nice reports from the US pretty early in the evening.

Pretty good day. Nice to have a couple of spots from VK2KRR around 1200z. I can’t help but notice that Julian has beaten me on the west coast again 🙂

Power level 1W as usual.

The FT790R that I picked up from eBay arrived today. It’s always a bit of a lottery buying old kit like that. But happily, it’s essentially in good condition. It receives and transmits fine.

I’ve found two problems so far. The first is that the battery tray looks like it may have suffered some misfortune and I guess that the springs have failed as when I took the NiCad batteries out and put 8 C cells in, the batteries slide about without making contact. I’ve emailed Yaesu to see if they have a battery tray. Failing that, it may be a case of ‘packing’ the batteries with some metal spacers.

The second issue is that the mode switch was a bit loose. I’ve cleaned it up and tightened it up a bit now and it seems more reliable on USB/LSB now. When it first arrived, it was a bit intermittent on those modes.

The rig sounds great! I fired it up on SSB and listened on the FT847 and it sounds good. Same on FM – so the really important bits are sound. It has a nice feel to it. Solid, just like I remember.

Of course, for the repeaters, it has no CTCSS which has precluded too much testing on the local boxes! It does have a 1750hz tone though.

Once I sort out the battery tray, I’m looking forward to taking it out portable.