Recovering from a heavy cold and cough yesterday and because there was apparently nothing doing on 50MHz, I thought it was about time I got the HF JT65A gear going again, which I did and made some
enjoyable QSOs on 14MHz.

I’d wondered from time to time about making remote control QSOs. I use the Logmein client to control my PC if I’m out and about and just recently, I’d noticed that their iPad/iPhone client was free for the basic service. Since for datamodes, I didn’t need anything more than screen control – no need to ‘pipe’ audio, this should work just fine.

So last night, I sat on the sofa downstairs, with my iPad and tried to control the PC running JT65-HF. It seemed to work just fine. It felt odd calling someone without being in front of the radio and being able to tweak the power/alc settings and of course to be able to hear signals! However, I made the leap of faith and R2DX was my first ever remote control QSO. I followed on with AB1J and a German station.

I also have the Logmein client on my iPhone, so this lunchtime, I tried the same type of experiments across the Internet from the office. Although broadly successful, there was too much latency, and though I could see signals being decoded and press the appropriate buttons – the timing didn’t always work out correctly. Apologies to Harald DL8ZBA who must have wondered what was happening when I calleed him!

Nevertheless, this looks quite promising, particularly around the house and perhaps further afield when there is a good network connection.

Welcome to Handiham World.

New Tech Net Offers a Chance to Get Questions Answered

We all run into technical problems with our amateur radio equipment, antennas, computers – you name it. Ham radio is a highly technical activity, so we all need resources to help us answer questions and figure out how to track down solutions. Of course there are on line forums for such things, but having an on the air “tech net” gives us a much more spontaneous and interactive way to participate in a group discussion that may well help us learn new things.  The idea is for the Tech Net to facilitate discussions about technical topics.  It is not a lecture series, nor is it a “check in for the count” kind of net.  We welcome participants whether they simply want to tune in and listen or whether they want to transmit to ask or answer a technical question. 
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. To be sure we are clear about this, the net will meet at 7:00 PM Minnesota time summer and winter, regardless of the change between Standard Time and Daylight Time.  This means that there will be a one hour shift relative to GMT each Autumn and again in the Spring. It is just easier to stick to the same indicated local time than to use a static GMT hour.
In the summertime, when the Tech Net is on the air at 7:00 PM (19:00 hours), the GMT hour will be 19:00 + 5, making the net time 24:00 (or 00:00) GMT.  In the winter, when Minnesota goes to Standard Time, the difference between Minnesota time and GMT becomes + 6 hours.  In that case, the net is heard at 0:100 hours GMT.
Please feel free to get on the HANDIHAM conference the next couple of Thursdays at what will be our official net time for pre-Tech Net anticipation discussions!
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

I finally have an official fixed amateur radio station! Isn’t it great! I’m tickled pink. (Calm down Hans, don’t get too excited here).

Yesterday two people from the NCC (our local version of the FCC) came to inspect my station for the official fixed station licence. An hour late, but we’re in Taiwan, so get used to it. There were two guys and one started off with a strange question: if I had any questions about the radio regulations? Ehh…no! I passed the exam, so I know what they are. And then again, I ignore them when I feel like it, because that is what we do in Taiwan, right? But the guy asking the question was Mr. Liu and he wasn’t so bad at all. In fact, he was interested in the examination procedure in the Netherlands and he wanted my e-mail address so he could consult me on changes in the examination question pool, which is going to be changed in November. He is also the man who put together the statistics I mentioned in my last post here on AmateurRadio.com.

In the mean time the other guy tested my TS-440S. He hooked it up to a Bird clone and a spectrum analyser, fed into a dummy load. On 80 and 40 meters my harmonics suppression was only just 40 dB, but on the other bands around 50 dB: good enough. The power output was measured at around 80 Watts, but I saw that the SWR of the whole set up was 1:1.5, so then it’s no surprise that the rig didn’t show its full potential. They looked at my antenna, which is on the balcony, but other than that they weren’t interested in anything. After an hour they left and the licence will be coming in the mail.

You would have thought that inspecting a radio station would be more thorough: electrical safety, structural safety of antenna’s, equipment that can only transmit on designated frequencies, etc. My TS-440S can transmit on any HF frequency, but they didn’t even check or notice. So what is this farce about? Unfortunately us hams in Taiwan know more about amateur radio than anyone working for the NCC. But there need to be rules and regulations, thought up by people high up in the chain of command, who want to be listened to (just like the Emperor, a hundred years ago. Really, little has changed). It doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong, propose something realistic or not, you just have to obey them. But once you have shown that you have played by the rules then there is a solution: ignore them. You know that you will never be bothered by them again, so you make your own rules.

Example: the Ministry of Transportation and Communication devises a national frequency allocation table. The NCC (which is a subdivision of the MOTC) extracts the amateur radio frequencies, allocates them according to type of licence and puts it in the official rules and regulations which we are to obey. Now the MOTC frequency allocation table is already inaccurate due to contradictions within the MOTC. The NCC uses an old version of the FOT and the MOTC doesn’t bother to let the NCC know of the updates. The result: most hams in Taiwan use the IARU region 3 frequency allocation table for HF. The NCC knows that Class 2 and 1 amateurs are serious people and we are never checked apart from the time you set up a station, so live and let live. On VHF and UHF there is a little tighter control because of the great number of sausages and inexperienced Class 3 amateurs. So, do what you want on HF and be a bit careful on V/UHF. That’s the way we do it in Taiwan.

I am careful by nature and I want to enjoy the hobby for as long as I can, so no worries about me. Besides, amateur radio is more about listening than transmitting, not? So after the NCC folk were gone the TS-440S was still on 10 meters and I tuned that band for a bit. Heard beacons from DU1EV/B on @28195 (very weak) and HS0BBD/B on 28205.9 (in OK03, strong at times). The DU1EV beacon is in testing phase, running 1 Watt into a Yagi pointed to Japan. Eddie hopes to relocate it to a better spot, with a GP antenna instead of a Yagi. Stay tuned.

I visited Riga, Latvia with a youth group which we as a family were involved with in 1992, and there I stumbled upon a Soviet oscilloscope in a department store. It was from the neighboring country, Lithuania, and was manufactured in Vilnius, the capital. The markings say what I guess means “Made in the Soviet Union”. At least it says CCCP in the upper right-hand corner. I remember these letters very well as all Soviet athletes used to have them on their backs.

The oscilloscope came with full documentation, even with a bilingual manual. I had grown fond of this oscilloscope as it was lightweight and simple to use once I had learned what the Russian markings meant. It is a typical instrument for TV-repair with a 7 MHz bandwidth.

Now after 20 years, I was therefore very sad when it malfunctioned. This was the time to test if the manual was helpful or not. The symptom was that the beam no longer could span the whole screen in the X-direction. Even with the Horizontal positioning all the way to the left one could barely see the beam.

I opened the bilingual manual only to discover that the two languages were Russian and Lithuanian!

But lucky for me, the schematic was similar to what I am used to and quite readable. It even contained PCB-layouts.

It showed two high-voltage transistors, KT940A, in the last stage of the horizontal amplifier. One of them turned out to have an open emitter-base junction. Specs that I could decipher from Russian data sheets on the web showed that KT940A is NPN, 300 V, 90 MHz. I found that I had a 2SC2611 lying around with similar specs. It even fitted the same footprint.  So now the oscilloscope is back in business again.

The oscilloscope is called Saga – осциллоскоп “Сага” – osciloskopas “Saga”. It would be interesting to learn if this factory is still in business. Were they able to diversify into other areas in these very interesting last 20 years of independence for Lithuania, and indeed all three Baltic states, or have they vanished?

KX3 #110 has had a problem ever since I received it. The audio through the speaker has always sounded badly distorted and buzzed at anything above a very low volume. Judging by comments in the KX3 Yahoo group this was not an uncommon problem. A couple of solutions were proposed, including removing the cloth between the speaker and its grille. As I could get perfect audio on headphones I decided to wait until the definitive solution was published and until I plucked up sufficient courage to take a screwdriver to the radio.

KX3 #110 awaits a replacement speaker

I opened the case and poked around with a finger to see if I could find what was vibrating. The buzzing was definitely coming from the speaker area so I concluded that the problem was the speaker cone vibrating against the grille cloth. I posted a message on the KX3 Yahoo group to see if I could determine the chances of a successful cure if I removed it. The replies suggested that the prospects were good. I also received an email from KX3 Support offering me a replacement speaker. Excellent customer service!

This morning I was feeling brave so I opened up the case and tried to remove the speaker. I took out the 4 screws but the clearances around the speaker are so tight it looked as if I might have to take the KX3 to pieces to remove it. With a bit more jiggling it came free (phew!) so I partially reassembled the two halves with the speaker poking out the front of the radio. I applied power and attached an antenna and various howling and squawking noises emerged from the speaker.

So the culprit really was the speaker! Perhaps it had been damaged during assembly (not by me, as this was an assembled radio.) I told KX3 Support that I would have to take up their offer of a replacement speaker. The KX3 will remain in two halves until I receive and install it.

Hello, esteemed listeners. Welcome to the latest installment of Linux in the Ham Shack. Tonight, Richard and Russ take the first third of the podcast to get a few topics off their minds that they’ve been thinking about over the past several weeks, whether or not those topics have anything to do with amateur radio or Linux. Wedged in the middle, discussion of wireless networking comes up, using HSMM and inexpensive Linksys hardware to provide Part 15 and Part 97 based communications for local, regional and EMCOMM use. Then our cagey hosts finish up with a mad dash through feedback, giving useful advice to those listeners with enough mettle to write in. Thanks as always to our loyal followers. We appreciate each and every one of you, each and every fortnight.

73 de The LHS Guys

After speaking with Ian G4WUH on his new Wouxun mobile 144/433MHz dual bander at the weekend, some more reports are starting to come in.

A very useful resource is VA3ISP’s blog which details some of the findings so far.

A friend in Hungary has also received a rig and I am looking forward to hearing how it works out on the air.

Reading through some posts today, I realised that the reason for the long period of time between my original blog post about this rig and the eventual release date was that some redesign work had to be done. Wouxun have made a good impression with their handhelds, let’s keep our fingers crossed this continues with the mobile.