The setup at the park

Last weekend on Saturday the weather here was great lots of sunshine and very few clouds. So it was off the the park with the radio to give the ARCI welcome to QRP contest a go. Its a 3 hour contest from late morning to early afternoon. I setup my Elecraft K2 along with my mono band mobile whip antennas. The key I used was the Mini Palm paddle which works great and has a super feel to it. I found the bands to be in good shape but was not able to find many who were participating in the contest. In total I made 3 contacts contacts in 2.5 hours of operation. While operating I did hear W6/DL6AP/P who was operating in the SOTA at location CT-086....translation Strawberry peak in California. I was not able to contact W6/DL6AP/P but I did hear him in there. There was some other very attended State QSO party contests going on at the same time and were very well attended. So over all I did not strike it rich in the contest by any means...BUT.......I did pickup some bonus points for just being portable on battery power with a portable antenna.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Dr. Bob Heil, K9EID, is the founder of Heil Sound and host of TWiT.tv's Ham Nation which streams live each Tuesday at 6:00pm PT (9:00pm ET) at http://live.twit.tv. Contact him at [email protected].

Ever since I received the Elecraft KX3 it has suffered from poor loudspeaker audio. It buzzed and distorted at any but the lowest volume level. Various suggestions were made and considered but the culprit seemed to be the loudspeaker itself. Elecraft spotted my description of the problem on the KX3 Yahoo group and offered to send a new speaker. After confirming to my satisfaction that the speaker was indeed the culprit I accepted the offer. The replacement came in the post this morning.

The culprit(s) revealed

It didn’t take long to plug the new speaker into the KX3. To my dismay, that buzzed and distorted too. It didn’t seem to be quite as bad as the original, though, so I decided to install it. That was when I hit a snag: the holes in the speaker chassis had not been tapped to take the mounting screws. I was stymied.

Thinking I would have to put the old speaker back, I had a good look at it. That’s when I noticed a split ring lock washer stuck to the magnet where it joined the speaker cone. Aha! I thought. The culprit! As I was soldering the speaker leads back on I noticed something else that should not have been there. A second lock washer! I fished it out with the end of a jeweller’s screwdriver and put it with the other one.

I hoped that would be the solution and prepared to reinstall the original speaker. While I was thinking about that I was examining the replacement I had been sent and I noticed what looked like the edge of another split ring lock washer. After a bit of fiddling with the jeweller’s screwdriver I managed to fish it out. Yes. it was a split ring lock washer, stuck to the magnet of the replacement speaker!

I’m sure some of you are thinking that my shack must be a tip with bits of hardware strewn all over the place, but I assure you that isn’t. I can easily see how a small part could get dropped inside the KX3 during assembly and migrate to the speaker’s powerful magnet. But how one came to be stuck to the inside of the replacement in a sealed envelope straight from Elecraft will probably forever be a mystery.

I’m happy to report that the audio from the KX3 is now perfect at any reasonable volume, with the original speaker reinstalled in it. If any UK KX3 owner needs a replacement speaker then it’s yours for the asking. But you’ll have to tap threads for the mounting screws into it.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

I am so happy to see that Jim W1PID’s outdoor QRP adventure stories have now been picked up over at AmateurRadio.com, which is a great site, by the way.

Since Jim’s posts will be picked up there, I would ask you to keep an eye out for them and will no longer mention them here, in order to avoid a duplication of effort.

If you’re into QRP and the outdoors, or would like to be, or find yourself forced to live vicariously, please treat yourself to Jim’s sagas.  If you’d like to re-read an old story or catch up on a few you might have missed – here’s Jim’s Website:  http://www.w1pid.com/

Happy reading!  And Jim, thanks so much for sharing.

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

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

This afternoon my family and I hiked up to the cabin at Knox Mountain. I worked Jamaica, a container ship in the Atlantic Ocean, the Czech Republic and England. It was a perfect, crisp late summer day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunlight filtered through a canopy of green. The air was filled with the sound of crickets mingled with the song of the brook that flows alongside the trail. Mushrooms of every variety and color lined the trail.

The cabin and the pond are about a mile and a half from the trail-head. The place is dazzling at first sight.

While my wife and daughter lay down on the grass to sun and read, I set up a rig under the cherry tree alongside the pond. I used the Chinese HB-1B on 20 meters with a half-wave vertical wire over a branch. The band was active with lots of strong stations.

Right away I called Josh 6Y5WJ in Jamaica after he finished a QSO. We have worked many times before and exchanged greetings and quick 599 reports. Then I went up the band to the QRP frequency and heard Oleg UR5FA/MM calling CQ. He works on a huge container ship and gave his current position in the Atlantic Ocean. He was a 569 and I was only 449. Oleg was running 5 watts to a small loop. He was clearly happy to have made a 2-way QRP contact. So was I!

The little HB-1B is a fine rig. I think it runs about 4 watts with the lithium pack. Dropping down below 14.025 again, I worked two Czech stations in a row. First, Vasek OK1DN gave me a 559 and sent, “UR QRP 4W doing a nice job.” Then I worked OK3AA just a few kHz away. Milan also gave me a 559. I’d been sweeping past 14.021 for quite a while trying to catch Tom G3HGE in England. He was working lots of DX and I was hoping for the chance to call him. Finally, the opportunity came and we chatted for more than 10 minutes. Tom and I have had many QSOs in the past and recognize each other’s call without any logbook lookups. Tom gave me a 579 before signing off.

We headed back down the trail after a bit more than an hour. It’s hard to find a nicer way to spend an afternoon than a hike to Knox Mountain.

Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Welcome to Handiham World.

New Tech Net Begins Next Week!

It isn’t every day that we launch a new net. The official start date is on Thursday, 6 September 2012. The net will meet at 7:00 PM each Thursday United States Central Time and will remain true to local time throughout the year.
Here are some key things to remember about the new Tech Net:

• It is perfectly okay to simply listen to learn. You are participating just by listening. 
• You should check in if you have a comment or question related to a technical topic. (Checking in to get on a net roster is not part of this net.)
• When it is clear that a particular topic is under discussion and the discussion is not finished, please do feel free to add to the discussion if you have additional information on that topic. If you have some other technical question not related to the topic at hand, please wait until the current topic has been discussed and it is time to move on. 
• The net will be moderated and the discussion facilitated by the Net Control Station (NCS). 
• The Handiham Tech Net will meet each Thursday evening at 7:00 PM USA Central Time and last around an hour. 
• The net is heard on the following nodes and links:

HANDIHAM conference server Node 494492 (Our preferred high-capacity node.)
KA0PQW-R, node 267582
KA0PQW-L, node 538131
N0BVE-R, node 89680
IRLP node 9008 (Vancouver BC reflector)
WIRES system number 1427

Email me at [email protected] with your questions & comments.   
Patrick Tice, WA0TDA
Handiham Manager

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Handiham remote base station report

Thanks to Jose, KK4JZX, we are making some great progress on some of the software issues that our users have been experiencing. One such issue is some pretty noticeable lag in the response of the software to user input. For example, I can press the space bar to toggle the transmit/receive and I have counted delays up to six seconds!  Other times the response will be nearly instant, as it should be. This was found to be caused by the code in the software telling it to reference a website that was no longer available. While the software waited for a response from a website that was never going to answer, the delay appeared. Echolink users who regularly use public proxies are familiar with how the application is unresponsive when it is querying a proxy that either does not exist or is already in use. This is a similar deal, so we are working on a way to fix it.

HOSTS file Phone Home fix

Remote Base Update: After a couple of weeks of code analysis, a workaround was found by KK4JZX. It has been found that the W4MQ client wants to “Phone Home” for some reason and, thus, the workaround requires that Handiham remote base users implement the HOSTS file Phone Home fix. Once the Phone Home fix is implemented, the W4MQ client will function much faster for both sighted and non-sighted users. Reports are coming in and we are getting feedback indicating that the experience is a much more rewarding one. The delays encountered with the PTT function are gone and it is now much more responsive. Stay tuned for additional fixes that we plan to release as part of the Handiham remote Base client software bundle!

You may visit the remote base website to download the current installation files, which do not yet contain this fix.

W0EQO at Courage North is in service. W0ZSW is in service. 
Solar Activity Forecast: Solar activity is expected to be very low to low with a slight chance for moderate activity for the next three days (29-31 August).
Geophysical Activity Forecast: The geomagnetic field is expected to be predominately quiet for days 1-3 (29-31 August).
Credit: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
Please contact me directly at [email protected] if you have a remote base comment.

Pat Tice, WA0TDA, is the manager of HANDI-HAM and a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

The following article appeared on eHam – may be of interest to those of you who like CW contests:

CW Open Contest Sept. 1 and 2:

Ed Tobias (KR3E) posted on August 27, 2012
Second Annual CW Open THIS WEEKEND!

Are you ready for one of the most unique and fun contests on the air? If so, jump into the CW Open, organized by the CWops club…it’s three-contests-in-one!

Like most contests, the goal is to work as many stations as possible (in this case CW stations only). Each station may be worked once per band.

Unlike other contests, however, in the CW Open there are three separate competitions at three separate times — each is called a “session”. You can enter one, two or all three of these sessions. Each session is scored separately. For those who enter more than one session, there is also a multiple-session category that combines all your session scores into one grand total score. So, if you enter 2 or 3 sessions you will be competing in each individual session plus the multiple-session category. More chances to win!

Join us for as many sessions as you can make.

Session 1 September 1 1200-1559Z

Session 2 September 1 2000-2359Z

Session 3 September 2 0400-0759Z

The exchange is easy: just a serial number and your name.

Awards: (Sponsored by ICOM America)

•Trophy for 1st place in each time period.

•Plaque for 1st place in each power level in each time period

•Trophy for over all combined score of all three time periods.

•Plaque for 1st place for each power level in the combined score group

Note: if the same entrant wins multiple awards, they may be combined).

•Certificates for achieving more than 100 QSOs in any or all time periods.

Is it fun? Here’s what some of last year’s contestants said:

“A fun, new way to contest. Many thanks to the organizers!” – AE6Y

“Running QRP 5W from IC-7400 to a trap vertical. First time in this contest. Very enjoyable pace. Look forward to next year. – G6CSY

“Good traffic and very quick ops. Hats off….See all you next year. Ciao.” – IK0HBN

“Enjoyed every minute and looking forward to next year! 73.” – KA3DRR

For more information and full rules go to: http://www.cwops.org/cwopen.html

73 de Ed, KR3E – CWops #133

72 de Larry W2LJ – CWops #1005
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].