AmateurRadio.com

The Dayton Hamvention® has been around for a long time. Hard as it may be to believe, the event has been around longer than most of the radio hams who now attend it year after year. It hasn’t always been conducted at Hara Arena though it has been there since 1964. In earlier days the event took place at a time of the year when the weather is not stable in this part of the country and attendees had to prepare for any contingency.

Moving the event into May certainly has helped.

And that was evident this year – the weather was spectacular. Some might complain that it was a little on the “warm” side as the weekend wore on, but I suspect those would also complain about finding a four-leaf clover!

By now the cat’s out of the bag and you’ve no doubt heard all the big announcements – the new Flex-Radio, the Yaesu FTdx3000, the Kenwood TS990S. Of course many other new items were shown and discussed and all of these will undoubtedly be dissected in painstaking detail in ham radio blogs and magazines over the coming weeks and months.

But the most important story is that another Hamvention® has come and gone and it provided us with yet another opportunity to meet new friends and reconnect with a few old one’s. Most of all, it imprinted a few new memories on the gray matter – memories conjured over one magical weekend.

A stroll through the flea-market is like a trip back in time…

On a more practical level, Hamvention® always provides opportunity. Local news outlets reported that this year’s event was expected to generate $6 million dollars in revenue for local businesses. It’s where enterprising hams share their ideas and new wares and as a result many will go on to market success. Having a great product debut at Dayton often guarantees financial success for these entrepreneurs while a big flop can mean disaster.

But Dayton is about so much more than just the bottom line.

Much of the talk about Dayton over the coming months will focus on the new product offerings, the attendance, speculation on the number of inside exhibits and outside booths, and the inevitable endless debates about why the event should be moved to a more modern facility in an entirely different location.

It would be nice if during these conversations that we not forget that Hamvention® has been around since 1952 and has become yet another in a long line of traditions in our century-old hobby. Like the Wouff-Hong and the Rettysnitch, Morse code, the ARRL and DXing.

Dayton is a permanent marker in the sands of ham radio time and its place in radio history is forever secure.

We did end up making that trip down to the Camden waterfront yesterday.  There was so much to see at the aquarium, that we didn’t make it to the USS New Jersey.

But after seeing it from the outside, all of us decided that we really want to go back to take the tour. That we didn’t make it there yesterday may have been serendipitous, anyway.  As yesterday was Armed Forces Day, the New Jersey might have been a busier place than normal.  We WILL get back there this summer – somehow, someway.

Congratulations are in order to the two newest members of the QRP Hall of Fame, Terry Fletcher WA0ITP and Jay Bromley W5JAY. They both richly deserve the honor and it’s good to see them inducted.

Not much news on the e-mail reflectors about new QRP items at Dayton.  With the proliferation of e-mail capability via cell phones, iPads and other tablets, I was expecting more.  Either there wasn’t much in the way of news, or perhaps we’ll start hearing more once folks get home and settled in.

I am hoping that with the Dayton dust settling that there will be good news headed my way from Aptos, CA this week,  My buddy sent me an e-mail letting me know that he’s closing on his house on May 31st.  Looks like this horse race is going to be a photo finish.

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

I’ve often wondered if I were to go on a long distance Appalachian Trail hike, where would I get the power to charge some lightweight batteries so I could operate a QRP rig and a cell phone each night.  Of course, I’ve wondered more where I would get the vacation time or money to do such a long trip, but that’s another story.  A company called BioLite is offering CampStove, a lightweight hiking stove that burns twigs and anything else you can gather and turns them into heat and electrical energy.  The stove has a USB port for plugging in devices. 

BioLite manufactures a larger model called the HomeStove that is intended for third world countries and purchases of the smaller CampStove help fund providing HomeStove to needy families.  The stove is more efficient at burning wood due to a built in fan which feeds more oxygen to the fire, and the stove produces less pollution than convention wood fires.

The USB port on the CampStove delivers 5 volts at a nominal 2 watts of power, with up to 4 watts power peak.  That’s not a whole lot of power especially when talking about 12 volt powered QRP rigs, but it’s definitely up to the task of topping off your phone battery each meal.  Undoubtedly for a long hike one would want a small solar panel to charge rig batteries.  Perhaps a high efficiency 5 volt to 12 volt converter would allow charging of rig batteries with CampStove during meals or long periods of overcast, solar panel unfriendly skies.

The CampStove is $129 US and can be purchased on the website, though new orders currently aren’t shipping until July.  I may get one just to try it out and have another hiking stove option and support BioLite’s efforts in poor countries.

Series Five Episode Eleven of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• New frequencies for AMSAT-UK FUNcube-1
• 2E0BTR Mountain Goat
• New regulations for the Olympic Games
• Special UK callsigns for Queen's Diamond Jubilee
• D-Star for London 2012 Olympics
• GB3LV repeater back on the air
• UK Propagation charts for May 2012
• US Emergency Services move to Digital
• Glasgow school wins 70cm CanSat launch competition
• RAYNET Isle of Man
• 60 metres 'Gazetted' in Canada
• European Football Championship 2012 on the Air

Martin M1MRB discusses Homebrew D-STAR.

A while back, Yaesu published a white paper/brochure on VHF/UHF digital technology that slammed D-STAR for using GMSK modulation and stated that C4FM (4-Level FSK) is the way to go. See my previous posting on that topic. The paper also talked about DMR and APCO 25 as standards that use C4FM.

At this point in time Vertex Standard believes the C4FM (4-level FSK) FDMA or TDMA are the most suitable selections for Amateur radio applications. In early 2012, we will release a C4FM (4-level FSK) FDMA Handy-Talky and a Mobile transceiver into the Amateur radio market. After our initial introduction, we plan to introduce a C4FM (4-level FSK) TDMA (2 slots) or TDMA Handy and Mobile transceiver into the Amateur market.

This morning we headed over to the village of Coleshill, where Julie wanted to take a look at a clothes sale. Having had a look around, I left Julie to it and popped back to the car.

Being the middle of the day, I thought I would check 28MHz SSB. First I heard a ZS6 who wasn’t too loud. Although he could just hear me, my 10W to the whip wasn’t enough for a contact. ZS3Y was a bit louder but he couldn’t hear me. HZ1HN was contesting but I couldn’t get him to hear me.

I was starting to think it was a receive only day, when I heard a loud station just finishing a CQ. I called and was pleased and surprised to get a report of 5/5. Even more pleased when I discovered the station was in Israel, 4X4FR. We had a really nice QSO. Just as I signed with Rafi and we were preparing to drive off, with Julie back from the sale, Phil G7GVV from Oxford called in – so we quickly exchanged reports.

Slightly oddly, I noticed that on two channels only, there is a small difference between the Anytone’s TX and RX frequencies. And the clarifier seems to be set correctly. Odd! Happily it doesn’t seem to matter. Maybe a reset will help!

Fun contacts from the mobile!

A couple of weeks ago I received an email to inform me that a 5lb package was on its way to me by UPS from Elecraft. As I had not ordered a KX3 or indeed anything else from Elecraft recently I wondered if I was the winner of a competition I had forgotten about or whether it was just my lucky day. I accepted the explanation from Elecraft Sales that it was just finger trouble at their end – those drop-down auto-complete lists can sometimes be a bit too helpful – and thought no more about it.

This morning the postman knocked on the door and handed over a package that looked as if it weighed about 5 pounds…

KX3 S/N 110

Actually it was not a complete surprise as by then I had been let into the secret. A fellow Elecraft reflector subscriber, blog follower and someone with whom I have often corresponded about Elecraft and other matters (who wishes to remain anonymous) suggested to Elecraft that, in his words, “in appreciation for all of your constructive criticisms and suggestions over the years of how to improve Elecraft (and other) ham radio products that a fully accessorized KX-3 arriving on your doorstep would be a pleasant surprise.” It was, you better believe it!

Wayne and Eric were in on the conspiracy, as was a friend of my benefactor who was passing through the UK on his way home from the US and carried the radio across the Atlantic in his hand luggage before consigning it to the Royal Mail for the final leg of its journey.

I can hardly find the words to describe how delighted I am at this wonderful surprise. As I have written before, I didn’t want to even think about ordering a KX3 until orders were being fulfilled off-the-shelf because my health situation makes it impossible to plan very far ahead. My wish is to “beat the bugger” and survive as long as possible, but having a brain tumour is like having a time-bomb in your head with no idea what the fuse is set to.

A trio of Elecrafts

For the time being, Elecraft KX3 serial number 110 joins its two older siblings: K3 s/n 222 and K2 s/n 392 in my shack. But it will be a constant reminder and incentive to get fit and well enough for some QRPTTF operation. Thanks to everyone involved in sending me this wonderful little radio.