AmateurRadio.com

I’m on 6m with my Elecraft K3 and I’ve noticed that VFO B is following VFO A. Whatever frequency I dial using VFO A and the main tuning knob, VFO B changes with it. On other bands the VFOs are not linked like this but turning the VFO B knob does nothing.

Obviously I accidentally pressed something I shouldn’t have, so I don’t know what to do to undo the action. Does anyone know what I should do to get VFO B working normally again? Switching off and switching on again didn’t solve the problem.

UPDATE: VFO B was not changing because LOCK was on. Having turned LOCK off I can change VFO B independently using the knob. VFO B and VFO A now show different frequencies, but if I turn the VFO A knob, VFO B now changes by the same amount! I don’t seem to have SPLIT on, in fact when I press SPLIT the message SPL N/A is shown.

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

Or so it would seem.

I didn’t revisit the mountain top today, just stayed near the cabin and slapped the Buddistick atop the Jeep.  I garnered a QSO with Sam K9GHD on 20 Meters this afternoon.  There was a lot of QSB, but we were still able to manage a QSO.

Sam was using his IC-746 at 5 Watts to a dipole and he was a good 549.  We chatted for a bit and then I went QRT to enjoy the lake for our last day here at Lake George.

This week went buy way too fast. I love it up here and am going to miss it until we come back up here next summer.

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].

Who knew the ARRL radiogram could be so easy to send and receive — and so enjoyable? All those old-time NTS operators, of course! The National Traffic System — the “Relay” in the American Radio Relay League — has been around since 1915, yet never have I had the courage to take part until now. I wish I’d done it sooner. My son, a ham for only a month, has already passed two radiograms of his own! How about you? Would you like to give it a try?

The first step is to find a net that is part of the NTS. I found one by searching the ARRL database (click here) for a “Section Net” in Minnesota. Unfortunately the database is a bit cluttered, so it may require a bit of patience as you sift through the listings and tune around listening for a listed net. But that’s not a bad way to start, really. Patient listening will get you far in this hobby, especially when you’re trying to learn something new.

Once I found the MN Section Phone Net on 3860 kHz I listened to a few sessions before checking in. My biggest fear was that I might be asked to receive a radiogram without understanding the procedure. But I didn’t have anything to worry about — surprisingly, very little traffic is actually passed these days. The same is true of the SD NEO Net which immediately follows the MN Section net on that frequency.

We need more radiograms in the system. It doesn’t matter how trivial your message is, honestly. Know somebody who has a birthday coming up? Send him a radiogram! It is a novel way to send a greeting, and it helps keep the NTS running the way it’s supposed to. As the ARES EC for my county I have a vested interest in the proficiency of the NTS, which works closely with ARES during a disaster. But I digress.

To learn how to send and receive a radiogram I turned to The ARRL Operating Manual For Radio Amateurs. The chapter on traffic handling is very well written; read through it a couple of times and you’ll be ready to handle radiograms by a voice-mode. CW is a little tougher because it involves unique prosigns and Q-signals — the book is indispensable as a starting-point, but I’m still not ready to check into a CW traffic net quite yet. I’m listening when I can, though, and learning.

Before passing a radiogram in the NTS, I practiced sending and receiving a test-radiogram with my son on 2 meter simplex. Then I practiced sending a test-radiogram to the Yellow Medicine County ARES Training Net on our local 2 meter repeater. We were ready to do it for real. On the next Training Net my son sent me a bona fide radiogram bound for his friend in Virginia. No turning back now — I couldn’t let my son down! The next chance I had to put it into the NTS was with the SD NEO Phone Net, so I tuned in, gulped, and took the plunge. Pretty soon the radiogram was on its way and I was grinning. This is easy!

In my next post I’ll describe how to compose a radiogram. Obviously I’m new at this, but that also means some of these things are fresh in my mind. I hope it will help one of you get on the air and send a radiogram!

Todd Mitchell, NØIP, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Minnesota, USA. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Hendricks attenuator in service

It's Friday and the IARU contest is tomorrow, I had been checking out the propagation throughout the week and things seem to be calming down. Well until yesterday afternoon and the sun released an X1.4 solar flare and if that was not enough a CME as well..... Oh did I mention the CME is headed in our direction as well. So far the solar-terrestrial data seems to be ok. What's not to bad about a proportional hiccup is that it affects all of us, not saying that is a good thing but in the contest  the playing field stays level. This past week my Hendricks 41dB attenuator came in. The assembly was straight forward and was done in no time it

Final testing

tested out ok and I was ready to start using it. The attenuator has to go in series with my antenna  I placed it in series with my antenna B port on the K3. Both feeds from the K3 (antenna A port and B port) go to a LDG DTS-4 switch. Here I am able to place the dipole antenna in series with either antenna Port A or B. I did this as I can set up the K3 to have different settings (power output, filter selections, ATU on or off... etc) for each antenna port. So I select either antenna A or B on the K3 and then on the DTS-4 I select either attenuator in or out.

Now when I want to use the attenuator it's a matter of selecting antenna B on the K3 and Ant B selected on the DTS-4 and I am ready to go with all the setting on the K3 done.

1. Have fun and enjoy!!
2. Look for DXCC's I do not have so I can add to my  ARRL Diamond  count.
3. See if I can beat my miles per watt record of 45,868 miles.
4. Have fun and enjoy!!

Some of the extra parts

Back to the Hendricks attenuator for a moment..........the kit did come with some extra resistors and switch also the hookup wire was missing.  I also noticed that the color code for one of the resistors had a misprint in the manual. I emailed all this information to Hendricks last week and up to this point I have heard nothing. Also I did have what I thought to be a problem I emailed Hendricks about it. Their reply was "I don't know" and that was it!! Well I figured out the problem on my own but this being my first kit from Hendricks I was not impressed. Maybe this is just a one off many of you out there have had kits from this company what has been your experience?





Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Martin Harrison, G3USF has sent me the June short form report from the 6 and 10 club. It is available at the usual place, here. I trust you find it useful.

Personally I have barely touched the rig over the last couple of weeks. What with a broken PSU and a phenomenally expensive replacement switch that cost me more to put it in the post than the switch itself. The cheeky monkeys also sent it second class post so they made a tidy profit on sending it as well as on the switch. Hmmmmm.

Once I’ve got the PSU fixed, hopefully this weekend then I’ll be back up and running fully, just in time for the poor band conditions I’m reading about.

On another note I’ve had a wrestle with the Raspberry Pi as have a few other hams and its been tough going. Being a computer half wit I can’t really programme so I’m attempting to convert the little knowledge I have into making applications like Xastir run on the RPi. I’ve managed that but can I get the maps to work. Well simply, no I can’t. Still as a digipeater it has the potential but it needs a bit of extra hardware to accept audio in. Currently the board does audio out but not in. I expect that as time does on the platform will get developed further and bits and pieces will be produced in a similar fashion to the Arduino. At the moment its a bit like the wild west.

I should really spend the time fixing the PSU rather than playing with the RPi. That reminds me I need to fix the bike as well.

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].

The Raspberry Pi may well be in the public domain and a few of us who have got the boards are busily scratching our heads trying it to get it to do ‘stuff’. There are far brighter people than me who’ve managed to get ‘stuff’ done on this low cost machines and they’re shouting about it in a digital magazine called MagPi, which is available here.

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. 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].