AmateurRadio.com

Martin, G3USF, has been busy collating the outstanding short form 6 and 10 reports and they are available in the usual place. Just a quick reminder that these short form reports are a way for Martin to give more current information based on the reports from Costas, SV1DH, which come in first. The ‘final’ edition of the report will be uploaded once all the remaining data has been collated and formed into the report.

I hope you enjoy them and find them useful. Let me know if you have any problems or comments.

Please join us for a special episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In Episode #085, the hosts interview a vibrant and brilliant engineer from Adelaide, South Australia, named David Rowe. He is the mastermind behind the codec2 open voice codec among several other worthy and equally brilliant open source projects. He dabbles in VoIP, hardware, Open Source advocacy, engineering, voice compression, amateur radio and other endeavors far too numerous to name. David Rowe is definitely one of the more special people occupying our planet and our interview with him is nothing short of amazing. Please tune in and have your mind blown. We look forward to the overspray.

73 de The LHS Guys

To program my Kenwood TM-V71A dual-band mobile I needed a cable to connect the radio to my computer. Kenwood sells such a cable (the PG-5G) as do other vendors, but they are all a bit expensive. Looking for a less expensive alternative, I searched Amazon.com for a cable with the right connectors. (I really like Amazon.com because of the free two-day shipping that comes with my Amazon Prime membership!) Immediately I found a cable for $10.20 — the 3′ Hosa DBK-103 — and was pleasantly surprised to find this helpful review posted by William Bowen, K8WHB:

I bought this HOSA cable to connect my Kenwood TM-D710A 2M/70CM ham radio transceiver to my shack computer. Hosa advertises this cable for use in connecting a computer to various electronic musical instruments. They need to widen this recommendation – the cable will work on any device that uses a 8-pin mini-DIN connector for an RS-232 port that is wired in the standard Apple layout (crossover of data & control signals from the DB-9 end to the mini-DIN end).

I’ve seen cable from other vendors for this purpose, and some of the prices are just nuts (Kenwood wants $38 for an equiv. cable!!) and the construction quality of some of the other cables I’ve looked at is a bit suspect. The Hosa cable is well built with good strain reliefs on both ends & uses good quality shielded cable. That last item is very important when the cable is to be used in a radio shack, since one does NOT want to get RF feedback back into the radio’s control ports, especially when you are doing packet radio.

I’d HIGHLY recommend this cable to any ham that has a radio or other equipment that requires such a cable – it is a HIGH quality cable at a very attractive price.

Since the Kenwood TM-D710A takes the same cable as the TM-V71A, I figured this was the solution for me. I went with the longer version, though: the $12.75 Hosa DBK-110 10 Foot Synthesizer Controller Cable, 8-pin Mini-DIN to DE9.

To make serial cables work with my laptop I need a serial-to-USB adapter. These adapters have a chipset in them that require a driver on your computer. The two most common chipsets are the FTDI and the Prolific. I’ve had mixed success with Prolific before (if you’re using Ham Radio Deluxe, stay away from it or you’ll get the blue screen of death!) so I went with the excellent FTDI chipset and purchased this adapter.

After the UPS truck arrived this morning I went out to my pickup, plugged these cables together and connected my laptop to the Kenwood. They work great!

I received a QSL card in the mail the other day for a contact I made with N1ME though a high altitude balloon repeater launched during the Pine State Amateur Radio hamfest near Bangor, Maine. I made the contact while camping with my family in a state park on the Maine coast with a Wouxun HT (stock antenna). The repeater signal was amazingly quiet from my operating position atop a picnic table.

The picture above, taken by the balloon, is at approximately 95,000 ft.  I heard contacts being made from as far away as Long Island, New York which is about 450 miles away.  For quite a few minutes, the repeater was covering an area well over 600,000 square miles. Very cool stuff!

While my kids found it quite entertaining, sometimes I worry that growing up in the “Skype” generation — where everyone in the world is a mere free video phone call away — has raised the bar when it comes to impressing them. I feel that it’s my responsibility to make this stuff fun and show them that they can be creators of technology and not just consumers. I suppose every “nerd” dad shares this frustration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzAspyuQYWI

Kudos to University of Maine Associate Professor Dr. Rick Eason, AA1PJ, and his team of students at UMaine’s High Altitude Ballooning project. This is truly great stuff! It’s fantastic to see folks in higher education reaching down to the high school level to show them how exciting — and relevant — this kind of thing can be.

This past weekend was terribly busy, busier than even I thought it would be.  As a result, I didn’t make it to ANY Field Day activities. Friday (I took the day off), Saturday and Sunday were all spent clearing out my Mom’s apartment, which has to be vacated by this coming Friday.  Thanks to our efforts (my sister, her husband, and myself) we are at the point where only relatively minor things have to be done.  We will make the deadline with no sweat. Well, actually we sweat a lot this past weekend!

My sister and I got into a discussion about the small amount of money that my Mom was able to leave each of us.  My sister suggested that my Mom really wanted her and I to use a small portion of that on ourselves.

With that in mind, I took a deep breath, and placed an order for a K3 last night.  The K3/10, the ATU (have to be able to hook up both antennas), the 400 Hz roofing filter, and (get this!) the hand microphone.

I am excited by this; but have mixed emotions.  I am not used to splurging on myself like this.  Usually, when I get a new piece of gear like my PFR3A or the KX3, I have to sell something or somehow otherwise earn or save up the money (birthday and Christmas money gifts, etc). This is truly bittersweet as it is the last temporal gift  that I will ever get from my Mom.

 But she always approved of my hobby and was glad for the enjoyment it gave and continues to give me. 

Thanks, Mom – for everything!

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

Following a tip on the Elecraft reflector from Wayne N6KR I ordered a Think Tank Strobe Stuff Belt Pouch to use as a case for the KX3. As Wayne suggested, this could be the ultimate compact KX3 carrying case.

The ultimate KX3 carrying case?

The KX3 fits easily into the main compartment (after removing the KXPD3) while the secondary compartment has room for several accessories including the removed KXPD.)

Wayne managed to squeeze the KX3, the MH3 mic, a backup mini-mic, the KXPD3 paddle, ear buds, a spare set of 8 AA cells or a 4-cell, 14-V Li-Ion pack, two 25ft. lengths of Wireman #26 “silky” for antenna and ground wire, two 1in. stainless-steel hex nuts (for tossing wire into a tree) a 20-m two-piece telescoping whip (in case there isn’t a tree) a BNC elbow and a BNC-to-binding post adapter (to attach the two wires) into the case. I’m not quite sure how he managed it, but there’s no doubt that with a bit of practice you could get a fully functional portable station in there. CW diehards could dispense with the MH3 mic which takes up the most space next to the KX3 itself. If you use the AlexLoop WalkHam then you could omit the wire and a few other bits and pieces. The belt pouch looks smart alongside the AlexLoop carrying case.

Search for the Think Tank Strobe Stuff Belt Pouch by name and Google will find you the best local supplier.

This past weekend I spent Field Day with two long time friends.  It wasn’t the biggest, best, most-attended, highest-scoring Field Day I’ve participated in, but it was good to do this annual ritual.  I’ve always loved Field Day, and it’s perhaps my favorite event.  I think my initial attraction to it was combining camping and the outdoors with my love of radio.  Today I see it more as something that brings everyone in our diverse hobby together.  Field Day captures nearly all of the components or

facets of our hobby into one event: casual operating, contesting, learning, construction, emergency operations, construction, socializing, and of course, eating good food.  No matter what each of us does in amateur radio or what modes we like, there is a place for everyone at Field Day.

Setting up for Field Day is stressful, no doubt about it.  For those of us involved in organizing these events at one time or another, you question whether it’s worth it.  Then there’s the weather, often rainy, sweltering, or a combination of both.  There’s never enough time to setup and you never seem to have enough hands to help out.  But when everything gets underway, it’s all worth it.

Field Day recharges me for another year of operating.  Now that I’m back in the home QTH and off today, I’m thinking about the next Field Day… what can we do better and easier, and make more fun.