AmateurRadio.com

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].

The initial results on the SDR are good – I’ve used the setup on an internal antenna and it’s received Band II FM stations, my own transmissions on 70, 144 and 432MHz as well as aircraft and various ‘utility’ transmissions around 433MHz.

I’m just awaiting some hardware to arrive so that I can connect the receiver up to the external antennas such as the triband vertical for 50/144/432MHz and see what I can hear.

You may have seen a post indicating that Dave, G4ASR had some problems with his dongle showing up as a different device. Happily that has been resolved – Dave took the IT professional’s approach, deleted all the files, started again and it worked fine. And no, I’m not being sarcastic! Glad it worked – I was feeling guilty that it hadn’t been straightforward.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Great to hear from John, G4BAO today regarding the new beacon which is planned for installation in Northern Ireland to facilitate research into the transatlantic path on 144MHz.

John says, ‘Over in the US, Brian, WA1ZMS, is making the final preparations to ship the beacon transmitter over to Northern Ireland. 

Thanks to the kind donation of antenna parts and clamps from G4CQM at Powabeam Antennas, beacon keeper, Gordon GI6ATZ, is in the process of building the antenna system for the beacon, and installing the emergency shutdown system. 

We are aiming to have the beacon up and running before the year end.’

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Band conditions may have been in the toilet; but at least the scenery was good!

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].