AmateurRadio.com

Anyone looking at my blog could be forgiven for thinking that I had dropped off the face of the earth for a while, has nothing been happening in my world?

Well, the answer is that a LOT has been happening and all at once. My daytime job has become busier and there have been several non-radio projects at home that needed to be completed. All this has kept me away from Amateur Radio blogging even though I have spent more time on the computer than usual.

In between projects I did manage to stumble across this video of Rear Admiral Grace Hopper explaining just how “long” a nano-second is and what it looks like. This has relevance to radio as we’re usually well aware of frequency and wavelength but don’t usually spend too long thinking about speed.

I’ve been using WordPress for my weblog for years now and just turned on a mobile version of the blog. The WordPress plugin WPtouch makes this very easy to do. It took about 5 minutes to get it up and running.

The WPtouch plugin automatically detects when the user is browsing  with a smartphone and implements the mobile interface. The user has the option of turning the mobile presentation off.

Highly recommended!

73, Bob K0NR

For those who are following the progress of the ultra cheap pc proposed by Raspeberry Pi, I received this email this morning.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation will be making a big (and very positive) announcement that just might interest you at 0600h GMT on Wednesday 29 February 2012. Come to www.raspberrypi.org to find out what’s going on.

Eben Upton
Executive Director, Raspberry Pi Foundation

Perhaps they’ll be announcing pricing and delivery of what should be very useful lightweight PC’s (is that even the right way to describe them?)

When we lost Sadie, many of you out there suggested adopting another cat.  We hesitated with that decision as there will never be another Sadie, but we did see the value of saving another kitty from a bad fate.

That Saturday, Joey and I stopped by the local PetCo to pick up some dog biscuits for Jesse.  That was where we met Spongy.

Spongy was born last June and got separated from her Mom as a consequence of Hurricane Irene.  Spongy was found as a kitten, wandering around Long Beach Island, NJ by a man selling ice cream – Sponge Bob ice cream bars, hence her name.

The man who told us about Spongy was affiliated with Cattitude, NJ, a pet adoption organization that rescues cats and dogs. He said that Spongy was in a foster home longer than most kittens, as people seemed to be hesitant about giving a black cat a home. I guess there are a lot of superstitious folks out there.  Well, that sealed the deal for me!  Spongy, who is now seven months old, officially became a member of the W2LJ household this past Thursday.  After a day of being scared and hiding behind furniture or down in the basement, Spongy found her courage and now walks around the house like she owns it.  She’s not even scared of Jesse anymore. She is a sweetheart and is quite the purr machine who loves to be petted and scratched behind her ears. And does she love chasing the red dot from a laser pointer!

Thanks to all of you out there who sent notes and comments during a bad time – they are appreciated more than you will ever know.  Our home feels just a little bit more “whole” now, and although it will never be the same without Sadie, I think she would have approved of us saving one of her feline sisters from being homeless or worse.

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

is available in a new, free online e-book by Adrian Weiss, W0RSP.

It is entitled, The Five-Watt QRP Movement in the US, 1968-1981, and is available by clicking on the title. The hyperlink will take you right where you need to go.

I have already downloaded it and will send it to my Kindle, so that I can read it without being tied to the computer.  The history of QRP and how 5 Watts came to be the “definition” of QRP is intriguing to me.  My very first membership certificate explained that QRP was considered to be 100 Watts or less.  As a Novice, pushing out 75 Watts max with my Drake 2-NT was a natural fit, so I joined QRP-ARCI way back when in 1979.

I never got involved in the 100 Watt vs. 5 Watt debate; but had no problem with the final decision.  Operating with low power always fascinated me and I had lots of fun and good times with it, throughout my earlier Ham career.  Going strictly QRP back in 2003 is something I have seldom regretted.  I’d be lying if I told you there weren’t times that I wished I had 100 Watts in order to help bust through a pileup in order to snag a new DX entity. But limiting your self to lower power helps to reinforce discipline and knowing your limits and capabilities.  Good life lessons.

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

Last week I blogged about the progress made on the multi-year basement ham shack, podcast studio, home office and just general man-cave project.  If you recall the sheetrock material was scheduled to be delivered and I had planned to start hanging the material just as soon as I was able to get the 4 foot by 8 foot sheets into the house (from the garage) and down into basement. 

Just like clockwork, the truck from the big box store pulled up on Friday afternoon and unloaded 46 sheets of 4×8 (1/2 inch think) sheetrock in the garage.  By the way, each 4×8 sheet weighs in at approx. 57 lbs.  These are bundled two per so total weight for two sheets is approx. 114 lbs.  Friday evening the task of moving this material into the basement was completed. 

I eased into my Saturday morning much like any other Saturday.  I’ll admit….I’m an addict and have been since my college days.  I can’t function with out my coffee and you don’t want to be around me when I don’t have my morning fix.  Anyway, I also applied a couple of Advil and a hot shower to get my joints moving again after the hard labor on Friday evening.  While giving all this time to work, I managed to work some DX.  I worked ON4CHD in Belgium on 15m JT65. 

Anyway, one other thing to note.  My house is a multi-family design. Meaning I share one interior wall with one neighbor.  It just so happens the portion of the basement I’m working in is that joining wall.  So while some would want to get an early start on a project like this, I want happy neighbors (I need happy neighbors) and never start anything before 9 AM. 

Now what possibly can an IT Guy know about home remodeling?  This is a good question and I wanted to spend a little time sharing my background.  While none of this work is rocket science, at some point in my life I’ve either been trained how to do most of the needed tasks or have previously done them. 

Most of the experience started by having a Dad who taught me how to do these sort of things as a teen.  Also, while I never intended to be a farmer, I did take 4 years of FFA in high school.  This taught me many skills which I’ve needed for this project including electrical, plumbing and general construction.  Finally, while I’ve been working in the IT field for almost 20 years, this didn’t start until late in my working life.  I spent about 4 years working for the State of Texas in a local public school system doing building maintenance.  It just so happened during this time both my Dad and I worked for the same school.  While we spent many hot Texas summers mowing and running a weed eater, we also did a lot of building maintenance  tasks.  It’s the experience of these tasks which has allowed me to do all of my own work. 

So with all that experience, we began the process of hanging the drywall.  My wife is a real trooper as well in all this.  Not only is she supportive in my amateur radio hobby, but she is instrumental in the help and guidance in the project from this point forward.  While I did all the framing, electrical and plumbing…she’s signed on to help me the rest of the way.  This help is making the drywall installation go much easier and will speed the painting process and all the other bits and pieces required before I move into this new space.

How about some photographs. 

As Norm Abram’s would say “Measure Twice, Cut Once”.  I’m measuring and marking the sheetrock material.

Carefully cutting a sheet for length.  No straight edge cut required for this piece.  Just free handing. 

Now as I’ve mentioned a few times in my blog updates.  I’ve tried to think of everything I could/would need not only today but in the future.  I’ve pulled extra coax for CATV as well as plenty of data cable.  In addition, I added many electrical outlets to this space.  All these added outlets require extra attention when hanging drywall. 

Back in my younger years, we would have to carefully measure where each electrical box was located and then mark the drywall sheets, then cut the openings before hanging the material.  You kept fingers crossed your measurements were accurate.  Today we have simple technology that speeds all this up.  I’m using a kit from Blind Mark.   Blind Mark uses strong magnets in a two piece device to easily locate your outlet boxes after you hang your drywall or plywood material.

Just place a Blind Mark target in each electrical box.  In the above picture one 4 foot piece of drywall was going to cover all three boxes.

A close-up of a single box.

Once you’ve secured the sheet of drywall to the wall, take the Blind Mark locator and slide it in the vicinity of where the outlet should be and it will find it.  Just trace with a pencil around the Blind Mark locator.

Then with your knife start cutting.  I also used a small cordless Dremel tool with a cutting bit to speed this process up.  Just be careful as the Dremel tool can easily cut into things you don’t want to be cut.  Once cut, just remove the Blind Mark locator and finishing securing the drywall to the studs.

How about a before and after shot?  Unfortunately, I can’t find the photos I took 5 years ago showing just the concrete walls (before framing) so you’ll just need to use your imagination.  These photos were in the blog posting from last week.

Before Sheetrock.  This is the corner where my main operating position will be located.  This room is roughly 16×16.

Before Sheetrock. 

After Sheetrock.  The corner unfinished portion is framing I had to do around a support post.  On the other side is a utility closet and where I’ll run antenna feed line, grounding etc. for the amateur radio station.   The wall on the right and left of the corner will be fitted with cabinets above and some below with an “L” shaped counter surface.

Another after sheetrock. 

All-in-all, the weekend was very much a successful weekend.  Together, my wife and I hung 17 sheets of drywall.  We are a little over half way getting the walls done.  Pending all goes as planned, we should be able to finish the walls next weekend.  Of course, once the walls are finished all that will be left is the ceiling.  While I can say I’m not looking forward to this part of the project, we will rent a sheetrock lift which will aid in the installation. 

Tentatively we are planning to do the ceiling on the weekend of 10 March if we can keep up the pace.  This would be three weekends in a row, but it would also be the completion of the sheetrock installation.  This would bring us to the dirty phase of taping, mudding, sanding and texturing.  But of course this phase must be done to bring us to the paint phase. 

In the mean time, I will begin wiring in the electrical outlets, network jacks, telephone jacks and CATV outlets in the areas where we’ve installed drywall.  I will work on a few every other evening or so as I have time.  While we’ve made significant progress on the first weekend, this is not a race to the finish.  However, I believe the progress we made did open our eyes to the fact that YES we can do this and we can complete the work in the next few months.

Until next time…

73 de KDØBIK (Jerry)

The amount of 6 and 10 reports that I was hosting was begining to cause me a headache with space so I’ve shifted them onto a Dropbox public folder which can be accessed here. There is limited demand for these older reports but I hope they are useful to someone. Let me know if there are any problems.