Welcome to Handiham World.

Troubleshooting 101

Last week’s problem showed up when I was using my shack’s two meter rig, which is powered by a switching power supply.  Let’s just recap: It’s the one that’s typically used for the Handiham net each day. I’m located some distance from the N0BVE repeater system. (It’s in the western part of the Twin Cities Metro while I am in the east.)  That means my reception of the N0BVE signal is not exactly perfect.  I can hear an annoying hiss in the background when the repeater is active, but that’s easily eliminated with a flip of the switch on my external ClearSpeech speaker. This handy device has almost magical properties – really a very smart algorithm – that digitally cleans up the signal, virtually eliminating the noise. I don’t like to leave it turned on all the time because I also enjoy listening to Minnesota Public Radio with the extended receive feature of the transceiver, and MPR has enough signal to be rock-solid perfect. It sounds best with the external ClearSpeech speaker’s processing turned off.
One day I encountered an interesting problem. I had been listening to MPR when I last used the radio, and when I turned it on, that’s the station I heard. Since I wanted to monitor the repeater instead, I flipped the memory to the stored two meter channel. Then, noticing that the ClearSpeech speaker was turned off, I slid its power switch to “on”. At that very moment, the radio went dead – no power. I pushed the power button on the radio and everything was back to normal. I put up with this for weeks before finally getting the gumption to track it down.
The challenge was to guess what was going on.  Rick, W0IS, was right on the money when he wrote:
My educated guess is that the negative power lead for the speaker had gotten disconnected, but it still got power because it was grounded through the radio, either through the speaker connection, or just from the two chassis touching somewhere. But my guess is that the radio’s negative power lead does not go directly to the chassis of the radio. There is some electronics between the black power wire and the chassis, and this electronics did not like the current running through it. I don’t remember the details, but I had something similar happen with my FT-817 (or maybe it was a different rig). The black wire came loose, but it was still connected to the negative side of the power supply through the chassis. It worked, but there were some flukes, since the black wire did not go directly to the rig’s chassis. Did I guess right? 73, Rick W0IS
Yes, and it turned out that the fault was in the ground side of one of those popular snap-together connectors in common use today. The connector was probably not properly installed in the first place, or else the spring tension inside was just so weak as to allow the ground side to lose contact if the connector was bumped or the power supply cable got moved in just the wrong way. It’s worth noting that had the powered speaker had a grounded metal cabinet with a common grounding lug and had both the radio and the speaker been grounded to a common station ground, this problem would likely not have even shown up. As it was, the ground had been completed through the speaker’s 3.5 mm audio plug’s grounded side to the radio.  Obviously this is not the ideal way to power things!  In any case, the fix was as simple as it could be – just repairing the power supply DC cabling fixed the problem.
Station grounding is important, though. Grounding equipment to a common station ground can help eliminate RF circulating in places where it shouldn’t be as well as protecting equipment from static discharges and keeping the gear at the same potential to avoid electrical shock hazards.
Email me at [email protected] with your questions & comments.   
Patrick Tice, WA0TDA
Handiham Manager

Another month in the logbook and a QSO each day in 2012 has been successfully worked and logged.   This goal has truly been a lot of fun and while I still have a ways to go, I can honestly say that I’m focused to make sure I successfully complete it. 

July started out a bit slow.  The first week of July my wife and I were on a staycation (stay at home vacation) and I spent much of that week working on the new basement ham shack.  I did take one day and completed a SOTA activation of Mt. Evans.  During my staycation, I managed to install the tile flooring and complete the baseboard trim work in the shack. 

Around the middle point of the month I had not worked any new DX and I was concerned that July would come and go and be the first month in 2012 where I didn’t work at least one new DX entity.  But, I shouldn’t have worried…on 15 July I was active in the shack and I heard and worked Poland and before I knew it I had also worked and logged Ecuador, Costa Rica and Chile all within about an hour.  Then later in July, 20 July…I worked Honduras for the first time.  So July earned me five new DX and a grand total of 19 new DX entities logged for 2012.  My total DXCC count is 66.  With about 60 confirmed.

My QSO breakdown for July produced a higher ratio of  SSB QSO’s compared to JT65.  I’ve actively worked more contest QSO’s and more special event stations in July.  While I didn’t work any PSK or RTTY in July, I did manage one 2m FM QSO.  I don’t usually log 2m QSO’s, but the one 2m FM QSO I logged was a station I chased on a local Colorado SOTA summit.  Since I logged that QSO for SOTA Chaser points, I also logged it in my main logbook.

The QSO breakdown for July is as follows:

Mode
Number QSO’s

JT65
35

SSB    
62

PSK31 
0

2m FM
1

Additional notes of interest:

DX Stations Worked in July – 16

New DX Entities in July – 5

Total QSO’s for 2012 – 856

Total consecutive QSO days – 213

Days left in 2012 – 153

Until next time…

73 de KD0BIK

Sony ICF-2010

I’ve owned many of the classic shortwave receivers throughout the roughly 40 years that I have been a SWL.  Most of these I passed on to friends and relatives, while others were sold at hamfests, and on eBay.  I know that my beloved Panasonic RF-2200, is still used by my sister-in-law Alice.  My late brother Paul kept it prominently displayed on the counter for years.  My Sony ICF-6500 lives in Wisconsin, in the hands of a good friend that wanted to get in to shortwave listening.  Others, I’m not so sure as to the whereabouts, but hopefully they are still in use (with exception given to my National HRO-60 which I know was lost in a flood).

Of all of these, the one I frequently regret selling was my Sony ICF-2010.  The 2010 is still considered to be one of the best portable shortwave receivers around, and rivals many tabletops.  I sold mine on eBay during what we’ll call a dark time  in my life a number of years back.  I purchased the 2010 new at Gilfer Shortwave in NJ, in-person.  Now, as I see working examples sell for upwards of $350 on eBay, I have relegated the replacement of this radio to a status of someday, along with several other things that I want but do not need at the moment.  It would be a nice addition to my collection though, considering it is a great receiver.  It has a synchronous detector, separate USB/LSB modes, and 100Hz resolution, and portability.

Last week while watching new postings on eBay I saw one come up.  This example was listed as for parts or not working.  Upon reading the description, I noticed that the seller indicated the radio to be completely dead.  Now, in the world of radio repair, completely dead is usually better than many other states of being.  Especially in the case of the 2010, which is known to have battery compartment issues.  Anyway, I grabbed the radio immediately for a VERY reasonable price.  It arrived last night, and as I suspected, the problem was battery compartment related.  The 2010 runs on 3 D-cells, and 2 AA-cells.  The AA cells are listed as the computer batteries.  One thing about the 2010:  If you want to run it on AC power alone, you still HAVE TO have the AA-cells in place.  One of the plastic supports for the AA battery contacts had broken from the housing.  It is still held in place with a ribbon-

sized piece of plastic though, causing it to tilt at an angle back and forth like a loose tooth.  I temporarily fixed it with a piece of compressed foam and some plastic tubing.  The radio works great!  Better I think than my early example from years ago.  I have a couple of questions for the radio community though.First of all, what should I glue the AA-cell support back in place with?  I would try crazy-glue (or any generic cyanoacrylate), but I know that it will sometimes react with some commercial plastics, making the problem even worse.  I was thinking of using Gorilla Glue, but I would need to devise a clamping method.  I know some of you out there have dealt with such things before.  What do you use?

Second, the radio arrived with a loop antenna of some kind.  I have put pictures below.  It is approximately 21 inches long, made from PVC pipe with two endcaps.  On one end is an F connector and on the other end, an eye-hook.  I scrounged in my adapters and was able to hook it up.  It definitely improved reception on a few bands.  Has anyone seen one of these before?  Is it a commercial product, or homebrew?  What is the bandwidth?  And, if no one knows, what is the best method for determining its properties?  Feel free to answer in the comments.

Steve WGØAT posted this to the KX3 reflector this afternoon – as usual, Steve’s videos are super cool!

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

As of tonight, we are up to 93 brave souls who have volunteered to be Skeeters for the inaugural NJQRP Skeeter Hunt this August 12th.

You don’t have to have a Skeeter number to participate – but it’s way more fun to have one!  Get yours by e-mailing yours truly at [email protected].

Two places to view the rules:

http://w2lj.blogspot.com/p/njqrp-skeeter-hunt.html

and

http://www.qsl.net/w2lj/

Still plenty of time to get a number, so don’t be shy!  Was there something that you did during FOBB that you would like to try and improve upon for next year?  New antenna?  Different location?  Different key?  Use the Skeeter Hunt as a “proving ground” – we certainly don’t mind!

The goal is to get up, get out and have some fun with that gear that you’ve built (although the use of commercial gear is certainly not discouraged). Come out and play!

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

Do LCD displays wear out or fade with age?

The picture above shows the displays of my Elecraft K3 transceiver and my Kenwood TM-D710 VHF rig. The Elecraft display is sharp with good contrast and characters look almost black against the orange background. The Kenwood display is much less contrasty. The backlight is not as bright as the K3’s but the characters look more murky brown than black no matter how I set the brightness and contrast. It’s quite noticeable when the two radios are side by side.

I don’t think the Kenwood’s display was ever as bright as the K3’s but I don’t recall it being as murky as it is now. Whenever I look at it I keep wanting to turn the contrast up. I’ve taken to turning the backlight off altogether so it doesn’t bug me but there is no option to have it turn on automatically when a button is pressed. (AUTO BRIGHTNESS: ON appears to do nothing.)

My D710 has been running 24/7 for more than a year (with a brief hiatus when I went into hospital until I felt like running the APRS gateway again.) Could the display have faded (for want of a better way to describe it) over time? Or is my recollection that the text used to look more black than brown faulty?

I had two nice DX QSOs tonight on 20 Meters and you could have knocked me over with a feather.  Both ops actually carried on somewhat “normal” QSOs with me!  Ivan EA2NN and Jean F6HFX (who was also QRP, BTW).

Now mind you, due mainly to QSB, these weren’t long rag chews by any means; but we did exchange (besides RST), rig, antenna, weather information – that kind of thing. Wow! DX QSOs that were heckuva lot longer than “TU 599 QRZ?” !!!

Man, that takes me back to my Novice days when QSOs with DX stations were like any other.  In fact, I still have QSLs where in addition to the card, I got letters and photos!

I really, really miss that; and it was nice to get just a teeny taste of that again, tonight.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP