AmateurRadio.com

I’m just about old enough to remember to tie up my shoelaces in the morning (Although its taken me 2 days to remember that I broke my shoelace and as yet haven’t remembered to open the drawer and replace it with the one I knew I bought a while ago). So I can remember that its quite easy to ‘Just upload your photo’s’ to this site or ‘just back up every 10 minutes’ or other mundane tasks that your computer should do for you without even questioning it. In fact it should almost be law that stuff is backed up as soon as you put it on your PC without having to ‘Just set this or that up’.

Where am I going with this?

The answer is recently I found If this then that (ifttt) and have used it to do simple tasks like cross posting and other little tasks on web based systems that it current supports.

Another one I found is Dropbox automator which like the name suggests does stuff to folders and files in you Dropbox folder as soon as you put them in. A pretty handy tool for when, like me you need to re-size photos for putting in this blog, uploading documents to Google Docs and other little boring jobs.

Hope you get some use out of these services like me, now where’s that shoelace before I forget

So I missed a day – so what!

I got right back up on the horse and in the saddle via another great QSO with Jim W1PID on 80 Meters.  Jim was telling me that if the weather stays warm in New Hampshire tomorrow, that he just might experiment with  a kite antenna.  I told him to make sure to grab lots of pictures to post!

Jim has asked me how my KX3 “fever” was going.  I told him it was starting to climb and the only cure would be a package from Drs. Wayne and Eric.  I will patiently wait and endure, but the recently released eHam review isn’t making things easier.

I got the new QST “Antenna Issue” today and with interest I read the little blurb about QST going digital some time mid year 2012.  While all ARRL members will continue to get a paper version, the digital version looks to have a lot of potential. Links to videos and the like will be embedded and the plan is that the digital version will be compatible/readable from not only PCs, but tablets, phones and all sorts of mobile devices.

I guess it’s only a matter of time before paper periodicals become the exception rather than the norm.  I have downloaded and have read many books on my Kindle.  That was one of the best Christmas gifts my wife ever gave me.

Interestingly, I read an article on the InterWeb today where Apple might release the iPad3 on Leap Day. Supposedly the screen is so good, that it is being compared to the quality of a  printed page.  As much as I would like one, I can only afford one major purchase a year and the KX3 was it!

On a totally different note, because of how well it works on this laptop and on my Acer netbook, I have pretty much made Google Chrome my default Web browser.  It seems to be a lot quicker and responsive than Firefox.  I guess it doesn’t enjoy a lot of popularity, however.  When I look at my blog stats and I go to the “Browser War” section, Chrome places a distant third after Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Has anyone else noticed that the sunspot number has taken a dive lately?  Today it was 33 and it’s been a while since it was “up there”.  Hopefully this will be the quiet before a storm of good band conditions for the Spring and Summer.

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

And so my everyday streak comes to an end.

Yesterday was one of those days at work where you just want to dig a hole, jump in and pull the hole in after yourself.  And unfortunately, due to the wonderful world of cell phones and Blackberrys, it didn’t end once I got home.

Needless to say, when all finally calmed down around 10:30 or so, I didn’t feel like getting on the radio.  All I wanted to do was go to bed. And I did.

I tried raising V31JZ on 30 Meters tonight, after coming home from a slightly better day at work;  but I could not bust through the pileup before the witching hour came and 0000 UTC occurred.  So February 9th, 2012 goes QSOless.

So, what do I do?  Pick myself up, dust myself off and start anew.  This is one of those years, where if I still make a QSO for every day for the rest of the year, I can still honestly claim that I made a QSO for 365 days of 2012.

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

Are you planning to attend HamCation 2012 this weekend in Orlando, Florida?

Before you go, download this handy printable guide provided by the HamCation folks (shown below). Looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun. Cross your fingers that the weather holds out, but it’s bound to be better than our weather here in New England this time of year!

Don’t forget to visit our friend Ed Griffin from Wouxun.us.  He called this morning and said he’s going to be set up by the RV entrance and tells me that he’s got some great new versions of the popular Wouxun HT, the KG-UV6D-IC1 ($140) and KG-UV6D-IC2 ($150).

Ed said that as a bonus, if you stop by his booth and mention you saw this post on AmateurRadio.com, he’ll give you $5.00 off the purchase of a Wouxun radio. Save yourself the cost of shipping and get an extra $5.00 off a great radio at HamCation this weekend.

Everyone who commented to my last post about the lack of output from the Kits and Parts RF amp felt that the problem had to be the QRPer’s curse – the toroid inductor. Normally I don’t have a problem with toroids, but when they are so small that your thumb obscures the whole core while you are holding it, never mind winding it, they are not the easiest of components to work with.

So I gritted my teeth, tried to forget the hour I’d spent yesterday wrestling the thing into position, and yanked it out. One of the wires broke off in the hole leaving nothing to grab on to. I was unable to clear the small plated-through holes in any case. What I was able to do was melt the solder enough to push some bare wire through, creating “pins” that I could solder to. I twisted together the two wires that are connected so I had three ends to solder to the three pins I created. The toroid now stands up on the board a bit but it was easier soldering to the pins than trying to get four thin wires to go through four holes simultaneously. To my joy, on applying power and RF the power meter showed output.

I’m getting about 150mW if the amp is supplied with the recommended 8V, and just about 200mW from a 9V supply. That’s only about 10dB of gain, a bit less than expected but probably enough given that the Propeller does not generate the purest of signals. The WSPR beacon has already been spotted a few times in Germany. But the 2N5109 runs a bit hot to the touch so I’ll have to QRT until the heatsink I ordered arrives. In the meantime I still have the LCD UI board to assemble and play with.

There’s lots of information spewing forth from the interwebznet. Here are a few items of interest.

Dan KB6NU has started doing an Extra Class Question of the Day on his blog. I think this is a great idea. I may need to borrow  steal reuse this idea on my blog.

The Fi-Ni Report did their usual outstanding job of educating the ham community, this time via A Short History of QSLing. Just because something is fictional,doesn’t mean that it’s not real.

The ARRL announced that the Logbook of the World is going to support the CQ Awards. This is great news for the ham community. The more awards that are supported, the more usage LoTW will get, making it more useful for additional awards.

Buried in the minutes of the July 2011 ARRL Board of Directors Meeting, the Board “authorizes staff to proceed with planning and negotiating a vendor agreement for a Digital QST edition, to be approved by the CEO, General Counsel and the Administration & Finance Committee.”  So QST will be available in digital format soon.

You know, I think this internetz thing is starting to catch on!

73, Bob K0NR